Month: July 2017

more problems

How much of your energy aka thoughts aka time is spent trying to solve tomorrow’s problems? It is a losing battle to work from today to solve issues that could come up in the future. In a meeting with one of the people in my inner circle yesterday he shared with me how he was learning that things he thought would be hard were more often showing up as easy, and that what he thought would go smoothly would surprise him time and time again by being hard. We can plan and strategize and forecast endlessly, and yet it is impossible to solve tomorrow’s problems from today. Granted, as a leader your job is to see more and to see before, to look around the corner and anticipate what is coming in order to lead your team successfully. That’s not what I am talking about. I am talking about the thing we call worry. Achievers call it stress. It is the energy/time/thoughts we use up thinking about all the things that are not in our control.

The What Ifs. My son Nick’s third grade teacher is always quoted in our family for calling out “That is a what if question”. In other words, it hasn’t happened. You can create all kinds of scenarios in your mind with lots of juicy things that could happen and may happen and holy shit what if that happens. But the only way to deal with the inevitable sideswipes that come our way is in the moment. The work you invest on a daily basis on yourself and with the people you work with and with your family especially your kids, and again, ON YOURSELF, is what will give you the tools to solve the problems that will always arise as long as you are alive. Problems are inevitable. Trade not having enough customers for not having enough product to sell. Trade not having enough time with someone you are dating to figuring out how to co-habitate once you are living together. The secret is to see that every problem presents an opportunity. An opportunity to solve it and grow and trade it for a better quality problem.

more time

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” Dwight Eisenhower

Time. We all just have 24 hours in a day, yet why do people say they don’t have enough? It’s the most common excuse I hear, “I didn’t have enough time”. How is it that some people are able to accomplish so much more in their 24 hours than others?

When you are spending your time on what is important, instead of the urgent things that clamor so noisily for our attention, you get more time. Not more time exactly, but more time in the zone where it matters. It’s important to show your partner you love them daily through your words and actions, or you will have an urgent problem when you grow apart. Its important to pay your taxes, or you will definitely have an urgent issue when the Fed catches up with you. If you spend the time connecting with your team, working side by side and sharing and learning about who they are, when it’s crazy busy and you need a helping hand they will be there for you.

It takes focus and a conscious intent to spend your time on the important things that will help build the foundation for handling the inevitable urgent things that life brings your way. In our organization we train our leaders that the MOST important job they have is to support and be there for their team. Of course there are duties and tasks and responsibilities that are important to running a successful business, you have to place your vendor orders, make schedules, respond to emails, talk to clients…BUT you will always be running from behind, putting out fires, if you fail to understand the most simple truth. People are what matter. Your team will help you sail, or they will sink you. The deciding factor is if you have made the time to support them and be there for them – get this – When it matters to them. Not when it is convenient for you.

it’s happening all around you

“In organization after organization, real leadership rarely comes from the CEO…it happens out of the corner of your eye, in a place you weren’t watching.” – Seth Godin

I didn’t even know what it was called at first, I just knew when we had someone who was able to take the reins and not just maintain what we had built, but make it better. There have been many helping hands along the road to our success, and each one has brought their own piece of the puzzle and lessons that we needed to learn. There are no shortcuts, although you can certainly read and study and go to seminars to learn how to be a better leader. The real leadership happens though, not from knowing HOW to lead, but from actually living it. You have got to be totally committed to the belief that your people matter to you. You have to love them. It happens when you see the members of your team, your tribe, helping each other out. Its happening right now if you take a look and notice the bonds that the people that work with you have created, and their willingness to work together to make the day better.

assumptions

Question every assumption you’ve made that makes you feel bad. Is this how I want to feel? What questions have I been asking myself that give me this feeling?

Ask yourself empowering questions- what, who, when, where…NOT how or why (path to the pity party, stops creativity) If you fall into the pity party, set a deadline for it to run.

80% of results in life are based on your psychology, 20% on the mechanics. You may not be good at something, but that is because you have not yet developed the skills to be good at it.

backpacks

When James was in high school he and his friend Mike Zamzow went on a backpacking trip with the dads. Mike’s poor dad was trudging up that hill wondering why he was in such bad shape, lagging behind and huffing and puffing the whole way. They finally reached the summit and sat down to pull some beef jerky out and have a snack. Mike’s dad opens up the pack and reaches in, only to pull out lead weight after lead weight, as the other dad is chuckling beneath his breath at the joke. James learned that day to pack his own pack, he could have lugged a 4 course dinner up the hill had he traded the weights for something worthwhile. What if you put down the bag you are carrying. Take a look inside and see if you have been carrying lead weights up the mountain for so long that you don’t even realize it.

Someone hid them in your backpack and you thought you were carrying all you needed for the journey, but its all a practical joke played on you by the comedienne named FEAR. She isn’t trying to be funny, she really truly believes that you need to remember every mistake and painful experience you had in your life, so she engraved them on the bricks and put them in your pack and you have been carrying them along with you all the way up the mountain. From her perspective everything is out to get her. There are bad people and scary things that can happen. You can get your feelings hurt and your heart broken and feel embarrassment and loss and less than. She is so freaking scared of not being loved and of any discomfort that she holds on to every negative thing that has happened to you so that you can remember and avoid it next time. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. The bricks you carry are actually magnets. They are there in your pack, and they attract more of the same. Even the ones buried deep in the bag pull you into situations that remind you again and again what it feels like to be scared.

What if I told you that you don’t have to carry that stuff around anymore? What if you just put down the backpack, the one you didn’t even realize was full of fear, and felt the freedom and weightlessness of letting go? You can have the joy and lightness of a child, just let go of the fear. What is the worst thing that could happen? You could fall down, but you fell down before and got back up. You could lose everything, but you can’t lose yourself and your capacity to love and rebuild. You could fail, but you can learn.

everything is changing

One of the basic human needs that all of us share, although granted some of us more strongly than others, is the need for certainty. We like to know that the car will start, the double almond milk latte we order on Tuesday will taste the same as Friday’s, that our stock portfolio will be worth more in the future, that we will turn on the shower and hot water will come out. We get jobs, have relationships, teach our kids, train our employees, choose the cities where we live, even go into business for ourselves, and work to get our world in order. We coach and shuffle and move things around until we finally get to the sweet spot where its all operating “smoothly”. There you are, cruising along, albeit sometimes at high speed, and what happens? Life happens. The universe and the multitude of different people, personalities, nature…shifts and the unavoidable happens. Things change.

Change is the one and only thing that is constant. The world is always evolving, moving, shaking, growing, dying. I don’t know why it always catches me by surprise, but there you go. In the best cases it is subtle, and we don’t notice it daily, like aging and our kids getting taller, but the biggest struggles happen when we get caddywomped by a big one. You lose a big client, you get fired, the market crashes, you lose someone…Life.

Change is never painful, only resistance to change is painful. –Buddha

Unfortunately there is no shortcut around the pain that we feel when we have to alter our inner workings, change our psychology, accept the changes that happen whether we plan for them or not. You can read all you want but the only way out of the pain is through it, by feeling it and accepting the feelings, and remembering what we all know deep inside at our core, that change is inevitable. No matter how much money you make, how perfect you make your world, your level of success, things are always changing. No matter how painful it is, you can’t put the fire out by focusing your energy on it, that just feeds the flames and makes it grow.

Feel that fire and see that it has the potential to free you from your old beliefs, beliefs that you may not even realize you have, that you are not enough, that you don’t have enough, that you are not perfect just as you are. Remember that everything changes, and that you are not alone on this journey, we are all here with you, at different stages on the path.

journey to presence

I can look back at my entire life and appreciate and notice how everything I have experienced has allowed me to grow. Some of the most painful experiences are the greatest teachers.

I spent so much time and energy looking for the secret- how to be happy, not realizing it is just a choice. So liberating to get that. To realize that no matter what happens during this life experience, I an have peace and joy if I jut center myself, and remember that I am here to enjoy life.

The big revelation for me right now is to surrender. That means to stop resisting what is in my life. By resisting or having ANY resentment or negativity towards my current situation, I am blocking any transformation, and really perpetuating more of the very thing I am rejecting.

It is one thing to intellectually know something to be true, to read, learn study. That is all very right brained – to really know something you need to know it/accept it with your heart, or your true self. This means to surrender. You can never figure out how to do this with your mind, it is the examiner examining itself. The fish asking what is water.

The ego wants certainty – this is what keeps it safe.

We don’t realize we are powerful beings, and our reality is our own creation. Change the way you look at your life situations- attach a new meaning.

This is happening FOR me ((to learn and grow)) not TO me ((victim))

Everything is constantly changing. That is the only certainty there is. The world of things will always grow then die. The only thing that never changes is your true self.

listening

Listen more and talk less. Ask questions, become curious. Don’t ask why-ask how, who, what, when…
Be present when listening instead of formulating your reply. Listen to the gaps between the words, what is unsaid or implied.
When asked for advice, trust that the answer is inside them, and ask open questions that will help make them aware of their own answer.
Remember this.

perfectionists

“I am a perfectionist” was my badge of honor, what I would tell myself for years. I iterated this to myself and to other people as my secret ingredient that made me a good at the things I was good at. Imagine my surprise when I heard a mentor of mine say that perfectionism is the lowest possible standard you can have. What? How is that even possible? I denied it at first, but there was a seed of truth to his statement. When I dug deep down and looked at myself, I realized that my “perfectionism” had stopped me time and time again from taking action on my dreams.

This is the story that kept me trapped for the first 40 plus years of my life. This belief in the glory of perfectionism was in actuality a well versed cover up of the deep down dirt truth. The truth that I was scared out of my mind to fail. The unattainable standard of perfect that you can never reach by trying to get there. It is the perfect excuse not to start a business or launch something new. I needed to make sure that I had done ALL the research, and played out every possible scenario in my head or on paper or through endless discussion before going forward and putting the stamp of approval on something new.

This has caused me more grief than joy for sure, because paradoxically and thankfully my partner in life and business is the opposite of me in so many ways. He is impulsive and intuitive, and one of his favorite sayings is “Throw it at the wall and see if it sticks!” If you are anything like me, this will serve to drive you crazy. I took my job in our alliance very earnestly. It was my duty to look at all the downsides on any ideas we had. I parked myself firmly on the side that said “Convince me.” Only when he had (usually) worn down my defenses or I had done enough thinking and research to calm my fear did we go forward with anything new.

Back to perfection. Unlocking this truth that it is a trait or belief that is totally based on fear of failure was a huge insight for me. I remind myself constantly to do it afraid. The only way to perfect is to realize that everything is already perfect right now, perfect for you to begin accepting what is in your life today as the perfect environment for you to grow and learn and contribute more to this place we call home.

newborn

What made you great can be the one thing that is stopping you from getting to the next level.

At the beginning of any business the venture is like a newborn baby, needing your constant care, supervision and corrections. The mistake many operators make is to get stuck in the mentality of being the only one who can do what they do. The micromanaging that is not only needed but necessary to the survival of a newborn business can act as a trap that limits your ability to grow your company. It is vital to the healthy development of your business to learn to change your mindset to that of an owner, not an operator. Work ON the business, not IN the business. You can still be IN the business, but make sure you have someone with you at all times who you are connecting with, training, and developing into a leader.

We operated our business for over 12 years without a manager. You could say that James and I were the managers, but if I am totally honest with myself, we were ill equipped. We had the advantage of having the heart and the immense desire to succeed that thankfully carried us along to creating a successful business. But in those early years it was really grace that made it happen. As we progressed along and grew from a newborn business into toddler then teenagers, we were really like out of control 15 year olds, trying anything and everything without looking at any downside. I was the most guilty of the “do it all myself” mindset, and I remember night after night of waking up at 2 am with a start remembering that I had forgotten to order produce the day before. I would pick up the phone and rattle off from memory our order for that day, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado..

It’s not that we didn’t have help, we had amazing people working for us that were absolutely willing to do anything we asked, it was just my thought system that I had to do it myself. I thought it was too much to ask of someone else, I thought it was my job as the owner, I thought if I gave away my tasks what would I do? I thrived on being busy. Getting away from the business was so difficult, and when James would eventually drag me away for a much needed weekend off, it would take me hours to decompress and let go of the self created stress and worry. I would tell him “Its easy for you, your job gets done while you are away, mine just stacks and waits for me!” He would tell me, “Why don’t you just train someone to do it for you?” which would just push me further into my corner. He didn’t understand.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I began to think differently, but I think it began by listening to other voices. Why didn’t I listen to my husband, my business partner, the man I trusted? Not sure, but it was a conversation with another business owner that I think was the catalyst to the beginning of letting go. This mentor was a restaurant owner with 4 locations, at a time when I had only 1. Her path was similar to mine, and her story of burning herself out in her first location hit a nerve inside me. Like me, she had put her whole self into the business, working by day in the location, and by night working on the books and marketing and all of the thousands of other moving parts in any business. I think she knew a little more than I did about leadership, or maybe I am just a slow learner, because it didn’t take her long to realize what I was just beginning to see.

If you spend all your time working IN your business, who is working ON your business? The difference in that one letter in those little words is the difference between management and leadership. Between stress and fulfillment. Between chaos and growth. It meant letting go of the need to do it all and to truly believe that there is someone who can not only do it as good as you do but most likely better. I began training and delegating, and working on myself and the direction of my organization. The rest is history and is still happening.

What are you doing that can be done with 80% effectiveness by someone else?