Fay's favorite five.

Hi Friends!

Here is your weekly dose of Fay's favorite five ~ a 5-minute or five-second thought from me, based on something I’m loving, learning, or exploring.

Feel free to forward it along if the spirit moves you.

On what really matters on your way up

What about lessons you learned in college?

A business strategy course in my senior year stands out.

I had maintained a 4.0 average all the way through, and I wanted to graduate with a perfect average. It came down to the final exam, and I had spent many hours studying and memorizing formulas to do calculations for the case studies.

The teacher handed out the final exam, and it was on one piece of paper, which really surprised me because I figured it would be longer than that.

Once everyone had their paper, he said, “Go ahead and turn it over.”

Both sides were blank.

And the professor said, “I’ve taught you everything I can teach you about business in the last 10 weeks, but the most important message, the most important question, is this: What’s the name of the lady who cleans this building?”

And that had a powerful impact.

It was the only test I ever failed, and I got the B I deserved.

Her name was Dottie, and I didn’t know Dottie.

I’d seen her, but I’d never taken the time to ask her name.

I've tried to know every Dottie I’ve worked with ever since.

It was just a great reminder of what really matters in life, and that you should never lose sight of people who do the real work.

If you have a NYT account, you can catch the story here.

Fay's addendum:

As someone who always had a soft spot for the underdogs, you can only imagine how much I fell in love with this story the moment I read it.

It reminded me of one of my favorite messages:

Be careful how you treat people on your way up because you will meet them on your way down.

On the IG break

Leah Foster posted that she was taking her annual Chodesh Ellul Instagram break, and the second I saw it, something in me went: this time, I'm in.

The last time she did it, I caught it too late, and I remember being envious. This year, I saw it coming and decided on the spot. It just felt like perfect timing with everything I have going on anyway.

One minute I had the app, the next I didn't. No big plan. I just deleted it.

I still log on via my desktop whenever I actually need to.

I didn't give up access. I gave up the automatic mindless reach-and-scroll.

Since removing the app from my phone, I keep noticing these little pockets of downtime, and my hand drifting toward where the app used to live. But it's not there anymore. So instead I've been reading newsletters waiting for me in my personal inbox. It feels good to use the few minutes of in-between to fill my mind with useful non-dopamine content.

It's been such a beautiful refresher that I honestly don't know how I'd ever put it back on my phone.

One thing I want to call out, because I never want this to read like a flex: I have someone on my team who posts for OKclarity.com. Without that, I couldn't do this. But concerning my personal account, that's all on me, and stepping back means fully disappearing for a bit.

So if you're posting for your own business, and doing it from a desktop feels impossible right now, please forgive yourself for keeping the app. Truly.

But if you're not in that predicament and the app is something you can let go of, even for a little while, I highly recommend it.

On Chrome vertical view

My brother told me months ago that his Chrome tabs went vertical, and that it was a total game changer.

For weeks I kept checking for mine to give me the option, but it wasn't, so eventually, I dedicated a full hour to taming my 20+ open tabs with bookmarks.

And then, on that very same day, my computer decided that was the day to hand me the vertical view option. At first I was too annoyed to even try it.

Then, last week I finally surrendered, and it really is a game changer.

The first day was hard. I could feel my brain stretching to find where everything lived. I kept reaching for the old spots and felt disoriented. I could feel the neuroplasticity in real time, like I was building mental malleability I didn't have the day before. It was challenging, but also super cool to witness.

Fast forward a week and I'm so used to it there's no going back.

If you're someone whose tabs get way out of control, this one's for you.

Here's how to make the switch:

Click the three dots in the top right corner, near your profile icon.

Hover over Tools, and you'll see the option to switch your tabs to vertical.

To go back, just return to the same place and switch to horizontal.

If that doesn't quite match your setup, ask your local AI to walk you through it.

Before you go...

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Wishing you all a beautiful Shabbos and sending so much love to you and yours!

Until soon,

Fay Brezel

Founder & Author

​OKclarity.com​

​Grow with the Flow​

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