What is most important now?

The master skill of high achievers – prioritization.

What is the primary obstacle between you and your goals?

What ONE thing, if solved, will have the biggest positive impact and help you move forward?

Get on it, and forget the rest for now.

“Who” not “How”

(This is an idea that it helps to be reminded of often.)

What is your business problem now?

Stop thinking about how you can solve it.

Start thinking about WHO can solve it, and get them on it.

Who has the skill, talent, tools, experience and resources?

Who?

“More” won’t lead to happiness

“More” won’t lead to happiness and sanity.

Happiness and sanity leads to more.

Don’t postpone happiness

Many big goal getters say “I will be happy when…”

…”when I achieve my goals”, as if achieving them will make them happy.  

It will make them happy, but not for very long at all.   And by then, they have developed a strong habit of not being happy that they can’t break.

Postponing happiness “until then” is a mistake, because they won’t be happy most of the time.

The happiest people learn to enjoy the daily ride.  They learn to enjoy the inputs; the doing of the things that are parts of achieving their goal.

Why did you want to achieve your goal in the first place?  To be happy, right?

Be happy now.  

Don’t forget.

Create white space – then innovate

Some busy people are fully scheduled.  Every time slot of full.  Another appointment, another meeting, another call.

They rush around all day, trying to find time to eat and go to the bathroom.  

When unscheduled things come up, they try to cram them into tiny slots in between, often throwing their schedule off.

This person has no time to think and create anything new.

A leader who has defined their own job properly has plenty of open time in their calendar and daily schedule.  In fact, they schedule open time.

In this space they can think, create, write, and innovate.

These people are more satisfied, less frustrated, and think more clearly.  They are happier.

Do you engineer time with nothing scheduled?

Help me with my work I like you. Help me with my life I love you.

If you help people do their work better, that’s good.

But if you help them be successful, that’s way better.

When your employees can feel like successful people working at your company, they will want to do their best.

Then, moments come up where they need some help.  Maybe they need some time off to take care of something at home, a health issue, or a child.  Maybe they need some other kind of support or at least some understanding.

When a leader helps them fit work and the rest of their life together without friction or conflict, and people know you have their back, they engage on a higher level.

A leader’s job is to accomplish the goals of the organization while (by) bringing out the best in other people.

Different salespeople, different results

Let’s say some salespeople prequalified some leads and cancelled the sales appointments that were set for them.

And let’s say the office saved and reassigned four of these leads to another salesperson.

And let’s say this other salesperson ran those leads and sold $120,000 worth of business.

Can you imagine this?

It’s a true story!

Salespeople do not do all they can to make good sales, even if they are on straight commission.

It takes training, expectations, oversight, encouragement, motivation, celebration, and continued attention.

And since your whole business is riding on the results of the sales team, it’s worth it.

Ask for help if you need it.

Many entrepreneurs are self-reliant to a fault.  They don’t ask for help.

To make matters worse, their people always come to them for answers and they always have them or make one up.  They start to believe they know everything they need to know.

But look at your business.  You are getting what you deserve.  

You are getting the results that your thinking and leadership has created.

The fact is, you don’t know everything you need to know to get even better results with your team, customers, and your business.

I don’t think anyone does.

Be honest.  Say “things aren’t going well”. 

Ask people for help. Ask the right people for help. Talk it out.

Borrow some brains other than your own.  

You’re going to need them.

The KWINK question

KWINK – Knowing what I now know….

You could ask other people who have done what you are trying to do – 

“Knowing what you now know, what would you do (first, differently, avoid…)?”

Ask yourself – “Knowing what you now know, would you –

– Hire this person again?

– Get into this business?

– Make this decision?

If the answer is no, the next questions are “How do I get out (undo it), and how fast?”

What do you need to ask the KWINK question about?

Detach from outcomes

There are many paradoxes we can come to understand and participate in if we are to be happy while we chase our goals.

A paradox is something that is true and not true at the same time.

Being crystal clear about what we are trying to bring about in the world is essential.  What exactly is your goal?  “Keep your eyes on the prize”.

The paradox is that we should not obsess over the goal to the point that we are unhappy that we have not accomplished it yet, or by the fact that is is taking us 2X, 3X or longer to accomplish it than we thought (common because we commonly underestimate the time it will take to achieve things).

Once we set a goal, then we should ask, “What would CAUSE this dream to come true?”  What do I (we) have to do to get this kind of result?  Who do I (we) have to be in the world?  What do we have to learn?  What do we have to execute on each day?  WHO do I need on my team?  And a host of other questions about what and who and why and where.

These answers are subject to frequent revision as your expectations collide with reality – that’s called learning.  

The answers to “What do I/we have to do to achieve this goal” are called CAUSES or INPUTS.

Now we let go of the outcome while still keeping it before us.  That’s the paradox.

Instead of obsessing on the goal, we obsess on the inputs.  We obsess on putting the things in place and executing on the inputs everyday.

Feel progress and be happy about making progress on the inputs.

Be the cause of what you want. 

If you and your organization can do that, the realization of the effect – the GOAL, will come.