Put it all in order

There’s always lots of things to do.  Too many for the time we have here.  But you have to carve a definition of who YOU choose to be in it all.  We do that by giving the most important, meaningful, and consequential tasks (relative to our most important goals) precedence in our schedule, time, focus and attention.  

The rest that we don’t have time for can be delegated, delayed, or not done at all.

If someone watched what you do each day, could they tell what was REALLY most important to you and your goals?

Don't split your attention

You can do anything, but you can’t do everything at the same time.

Focus on one thing and do it well. The more you split your attention, focus and resources, the more diluted your results.

Sell your way to the top

Is your company good at sales? Are you? If you were out there yourself, you’d see what needed to be done to help salespeople get better. You’d see what tools and products they needed and what roadblocks need to be removed. 

Create the best sales team in the industry in your area. It’s a sure way to the top.

How good are your organization’s sales efforts?

Urgency

Building your business right, so that it produces the result you want it to, is like building a house. You don’t stop when it’s half done and start living in it. You must finish it well, then you can stop building it.  

Build your business. Construct it. Observe the results it achieves with all stakeholders and build it some more. Don’t stop when it’s halfway complete.

Have a sense of urgency, which is different than being in a hurry. Act each day to make it a better functioning machine.

Sooner is better

How old are you?

The sooner you achieve financial success through your business, the longer you get to live as a financially successful person.

Giddy up!

Play to win

If we fear losing, we won’t risk it, and this will guarantee we won’t succeed.

We must risk losing to have a chance at winning.

Are you playing to win, or playing not to lose?

You can't MAKE others successful

You can’t want success for others more than they want it for themselves.  If they don’t want to do what it takes to succeed, you pulling them along will only lead to disappointment and even disaster for yourself.

What you can do is make opportunities available for them to succeed and then find the people who want those opportunities.  It may not be the ones you had hoped, but that’s the way it is.

Have you tried to make specific people successful more than they have?

New goal, new vision

If our business is feeling old and stale, it’s because our thinking is old and stale.  

When we set a new goal and commit to accomplishing it, we begin to see what is old and familiar in a new way.

Change your reason for showing up, and you change how it all looks to you. 

Is it time to make a new reason for showing up?

Unmotivated?

It’s nice when we are motivated to go get it each day. But we can’t count on that. So what do we do?

Act. Get going. Do what we know we must even if we don’t feel like it.

“A body in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted on by an outside force.”

Once you get going, you’ll start to “feel like it” and it will be easier to continue.

Let’s go.

What does a good day look like for a leader?

I’m a list maker and list checker. Each day I often have more on the list to do than actually gets done. Things always take longer than you expect. Last week I consistently had days where less than half of the things I had on my list got done.  It was so bad that a few times all I had to do to prepare for the next day is scratch off “Tuesday” at the top and write “Wednesday.”  

But were my days unproductive? If quantity of tasks completed is the definition of productive, then yes, they were very unproductive.  But that’s not my definition, and it shouldn’t be yours either.

A good day is when you work on a project which impacts your business positively far into the future. If the positive impact lasts only for a day, then it’s not very important. If it lasts a week, that’s better, but it will still need re-doing soon. If the positive effect from your project lasts for a few months, or a few years, or indefinitely – now you’re talking!

So I found last week that many of my days I only got to two things – but I spent hours on those few things each day because they were “legacy projects.”  Even though I had a lot of stuff left undone, I know I accomplished something worthwhile with these key projects and their lasting impact.

What are the key projects you need to get done to make many tomorrows better at your company?  Focus your attention on them, even if you have to leave much other stuff undone.