Search

action

The First Next Thing to Building A Better Business

by

 

 

Action Is Required for Building Anything

 

It doesn’t matter if we are building a home, a business or a life…they all require physical action. Planning is critical but not enough.

At a lunch meeting with my financial assistant (my sister) earlier this week we were discussing what is needed to move closer to achieving the company’s goals. This conversation confirmed what I already knew. By nature, I am a planner, a dreamer and a recovering perfectionist. I have lots of ideas and plans, all great ones too, no doubt. 😊 But it takes more than just plans.

The necessary thing needed to build the business, just like a building, is action. You can’t live in a blueprint. The same is true for a business. You have to move beyond planning. You have to do the first next thing.

When doing a construction project, I understand the order of the process – to start, proceed and finish. I asked myself why the physical construction comes naturally but I struggle with building a business. I have come up with a few reasons for this:

  • It’s hard for me to delegate – I know that I suck at it. People who know me know that I suck at it. This leaves me with two options; do everything myself and do less or share the shovels. I listened to a Story Brand podcast a few days ago that pointed out that successful entrepreneurs don’t try to do everything by themselves.

  • I have a broken people meter – I was thinking about the discussion with my sister and came to the realization that part of the delegation problem is that my people meter is broke or maybe I just don’t have one. So, I need to incorporate the help of people who have good people meters into the process of finding the right people to delegate to.

 

  • My “to do list” is too long and I like lists – When the list of things that need to be done is too long we become overwhelmed. Being pulled in so many different directions leads to confusion and causes a lack of clarity. Trying to spin too many plates doesn’t move things forward it just makes us dizzy. Trying to do too many things causes chaos. I don’t have the time to do everything on my list. We need a plan for this but if things are going to change there needs to be some action.
 

  • Recovering perfectionist – Finding the separation between perfection and excellence is tricky. This is a very fine line. Having been a perfectionist for years it is difficult to not cross back into perfection. Perfection causes inaction. It slows down all the processes and makes it difficult to leave the planning and start the doing.

 

Moving forward with the first next step I must narrowly clarify excellent delegation.

 

Just like I can’t drive more than one nail at a time when doing physical construction, the same is true when building a business or a life. If I don’t quit trying to perfect the plans and start swinging the hammer I will never get anything built.

Taking Off the Blinders Helps You See the Big Picture

by

Without A Vision…You Run into Things

One of my core values is, “take off the blinders, be more observant”. I told you in a previously post that I would go into each of them in more detail later, so here’s the third one.

Core values are foundational for the life that God designed for each of us. They are critical for building our best life.

We all have core values, whether intentional or not. You may not have given much thought to yours, but they are there regardless. It is important to think about the ones you’re building your life with and choose the right ones.

I decided to write about this core value while reading “The Seventh Most Important Thing”, by Shelley Pearsall. In the story Mr. Hampton leaves a hand-written message for Arthur on a piece of cardboard, “where there is no vision, the people parish”. Arthur is a teenage boy struggling through adolescence and the death of his father. He has no idea what this saying means. At this point Arthur can’t see past all the bad things happening in his life. He has blinders on.

I think there are a lot of people like Arthur. They just show up to life each day without any vision or plan for what their life could should be. Trudging through life focused on a narrow image. Neglecting or are unable to see the bigger picture. It is like they have blinders on that allow them to only see the slim view of what is directly in front of them.

I chose this as one of my core values because I certainly can be too focused on my work and neglect other areas of my life. My core values serve two different purposes. One is to confirm my natural strengths. The other is to remind me of my weaknesses. I need to keep both of these in sight to help me “find and maintain the balance” (another core value for a later post).

I want to work toward building the dream life that the Master Architect designed specifically for me and “honor God in all that I do”. If I am going to do this I need to take “intentional action” in the construction of that life. I also need to be open to new and different ideas and input from other people and places. I need to “take off my blinders and be more observant”.

It has been my experience when building a building that people have a dream of what they envision the finished project to look like. The problem is, they don’t know how to get that dream from their head to a physical structure. This is where vision comes in. The vision is the process of taking the imagined and turning it into reality. This provides a clear and intentional plan for building the dream.

It is helpful to have experienced professionals (architects, engineers, contractors, etc.) guide the construction process. The same is true in building a business or life.

If you have questions about turning your dreams into reality contact us below.

 

Getting Back to the Core

by

Ideas Without Actions Don’t Do Anybody Any Good

 

“I AM A PERSON OF ACTION.”

“My future is immediate. I will grasp it with both hands and carry it with running feet. When I am faced with the choice of doing nothing or doing something, I will always choose to act!”

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

From the book “The Travelers Gift” by Andy Andrews

We are already almost a month into the new year. It is crazy how fast time goes and there are so many things that I want to do this year. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were celebrating Christmas and beginning the process of looking forward to the new year. I have some big plans for this year so we have to get to work.

I was a dreamer at an early age. I had big ideas and plans for my life. Then there was a portion of my life where I became disillusioned and accepted that my dreams were just that…dreams that couldn’t and wouldn’t come true. I decided that I was just kidding myself the whole time. Then in 2012 I had “A Life Changing Wakeup Call” and realized that I had gotten sucked into the world of doubt. I had given up and quit dreaming. I was just accepting what life was giving me and that was just the way it was. Since the accident I have become reenergized about dreaming and about life. It’s great to be excited about life again!

One of the conclusions that I came to after this accident was that dreams are just dreams if there isn’t any action taken. It can be hard for those of us that are dreamers to move things from ideas to doing. This is where the ‘rubber meets the road’ or in builder lingo where the nail meets the board. I told you in a previous blog, “Using Core Values as My Life Filter”, that I would come back to the ‘Core Values’ and here we are. One of those core values is “Intentional Action”. This is a simple, straight forward value, but it requires me to move things from the dream to the action. This part is critical to the outcome. It is like seeing a beautiful picture of a dream home, but never being able to live in it if you don’t start nailing boards together.

Another self-realization that I discovered was my tendency toward planning. I like to plan. I can plan things to death if I’m not careful. It’s good to have a plan to avoid as many problems as possible, but finding a balance in planning and doing is important. Planning is like dreaming, nothing is built until you physically move some boards and swing the hammer. Like dreaming, planning requires action to get things accomplished.

As I was recovering from the accident I had time to reflect. I discovered things about myself that I naturally knew, but hadn’t slowed down long enough to evaluate. This time of self-discovery was a big help to me and was one of the Intentional Actions that I then began to implement regularly. I know that everyone of us is different and we all have our own individual strengths and weaknesses. This is why it is important to give some time to knowing yourself. It is easy to get sucked into the daily routines of living our lives, but if we hope to achieve our purpose in life we need to be Intentional in our Actions. In the next Life blog, we will discuss “Finding and Maintaining the Balance in Everything”.