Tag: purpose

One Thing – Why Being Busy Isn’t Necessarily Being Effective

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The Wisdom of Curly: One Thing

one thingOne of the scenes practically everyone remembers from the movie City Slickers is when Curly (played by Jack Palance) is talking with Mitch (played by Billy Crystal) about his view on life.  The following conversation ensues:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?   [holds up index finger]   This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean s***.

Mitch: But, what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles] That’s what *you* have to find out.

Curly, the old cowhand, knew it while the radio executive had not yet figured it out.

[SPOILER ALERT]  Eventually he does.

Busy Lives without that One Thing

What’s your schedule like?  Is it filled with focus or filled with events?  We book our calendar with things to do and it is typically a wide variety of things.  We may support a variety of non-profit organizations, take the kids here and there to piano lessons, dance class, Scout meetings, football or baseball practice, soccer, lacrosse.  We have committee meetings at church, the house needs straightening up, we have meetings in the office, a lunch appointment, gotta fix dinner, gotta check our Facebook page, gotta scan the news, attend a webinar we heard was good.  Somewhere in there we may decide to say hello to our Significant Other and then watch a little (or a lot) of TV.  What’s our One Thing?

We are busy, but are we really getting where we want to go?  Are we getting the most out of the moment?  Are we learning to focus our energy?

One Thing We Are Gifted For

The urgent message behind the Wisdom of Curly is that ONE THING.  To be truly effective, to utilize more of our potential, we must focus on the one thing that truly fills us.  It is the thing we were created for.  We were particularly and UNIQUELY gifted for this one thing and somewhere deep inside of us is a passion for the one thing.  The two must coincide; you cannot be gifted for something without having a passion for it.  It may have been suppressed or even trained out of you by your environment, but deep inside you is that passion for that ONE THING!

If you really want to get the most out of your life, you must draw more focus onto that ONE THING.  If you know what it is, you must devote more resources to developing it and exploiting it (exploiting in this case is a good thing).  If you don’t know what it is, you need to spend time searching and finding it.

“What?!” you say, “find time for SOMETHING ELSE to do?  I just don’t have any more time!”

You don’t have to time to NOT do it!  Anything else, if you are not leveraging your ONE THING, is wasted effort.

Focus Not Flurry

target - one thing focus not flurryThe secret, I believe, is in Focus and Not Flurry.  Stop being caught up in a never-ending flurry of activity and start being concentrated on establishing or optimizing that ONE THING.  Now, some busy things in life are unavoidable; shopping still needs to get done, meals still need to be cooked, some meetings are inevitable, charities still need our help (although this could use focus too), and the kids still need to go places.  But the last two are good examples of flurry instead of focus.  I see many people get involved in a wide variety of charitable activities, dabbling here and there but never really digging in to one.  Pick ONE, maybe two at the most, and focus your energy on serving them as best you can.

Additionally, in our earnest ambition to give our kids the best opportunity to succeed, we overbook them in an expanse of activities that we end up investing a lot of time and money into and become a shuttle for moving them around from place to place.  And so, we ingrain in them also the mindset of FLURRY instead of FOCUS.  They become a jack of all trades and we wonder why they don’t settle down and DO SOMETHING as they get older.  They have had no time to develop a real passion for anything before we moved them on to the next conquest.  They need exactly what we need: FOCUS NOT FLURRY.

They need that ONE THING.

You need that ONE THING.

Go get it!

Action Plan

  1. Do you know what your ONE THING is?  If not, start today to identify it.  Seek help from a coach.  They can help you identify strengths and passions that may be hidden.
  2. If you know your ONE THING, decide on something you will do daily to work on it.

 

 

Growth Like a Weed

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Growth Through Blogging

In my accountability group this morning, I brought up the fact that I was blogging daily.  I began this a few weeks ago based on a suggestion that Seth Godin once made that you should blog daily and have something to say about your business.  I hasten to add that while I thought on it from Seth’s suggestion, the decision and reason are mine (which I will get into in a minute).  You will never be at peace fulfilling someone else’s plan for you; it has to be your plan and your reasons.

My Reasons

One of the members of the group asked me why I was doing it, what was the purpose I hoped to accomplish.  Had I attracted a lot of traffic for it?  Did I hope to build traffic or clients through it?  My response surprised them a bit.  No, that is not my objective at this time.  While I welcome people to the blog and while I do work some SEO features into it, building my list or traffic is not currently my primary objective of blogging daily.  I had two big reasons for doing it:

  1. I had a goal and it was an ambitious one.  I not only have to have something to say every day but I have to have a sufficient amount to say about it.  If you think it is easy, try it sometime; although I will say once I get going have enough to say rarely is an issue.  But it was important for me to set an ambitious short-term goal and accomplish it.  So far, so good; haven’t missed a day yet.
  2. It gets me to put my thoughts on paper, as it were.  Topics I think you might want to read about it because, quite frankly, they interest me as well.  It forces me to think on what I have know and what I have learned about these subjects and organize them.  It also forces me to explore a little more and see different perspectives and increase my knowledge.  Who knows, perhaps all this may wind up in a book someday.

growth through goal achievement Both of these reasons have little or nothing to do with building lists, increasing traffic, making sales, or gaining clients.  It has to do with growth; an intentional plan of growth to prepare myself to be able to add value to others more and serve better.  Setting and reaching an ambitious goal is a growth initiative as it not only requires discipline to accomplish it but reinforces self-confidence when I achieve it.  As Henry Thoreau wrote,

 What you get by achieving your goal is not as important as what you become by achieving your goal!

So I am seeking to achieve more to become more and the reverse is also true, I become more to achieve more.  It stretches me and makes me reach higher and deeper.  In addition, putting my thoughts down helps me create and improve content that has garnered through years of experience and research.  Getting it all down prepares me to turn around and share it with others.  All the knowledge in the world is useless unless you can share it with someone else and help them grow.  According to John Maxwell, the idea is to

be a river and not a reservoir.

And what I got into this business for is to Cultivate Growth.  It is my primary purpose for all I do, to foster growth within others to become better leaders, better family members, better employees, and better citizens of their community.  To do that best, I must also cultivate growth within myself.

Cultivating Growth

For growth to really work, your growth has to be like a weed.  A weed grows daily and it grows regardless of what is going on around it.  It takes whatever it can feed off of and keeps going.  Your growth needs to be the same as the weed and more.  It needs to be

  • daily
  • intentional
  • undeterred by circumstance
  • measurable

growth by 1% a dayEvery day, keep 1% in mind.  Commit to grow yourself by 1% daily.  I used to say that if you do that the after one year you will have grown by 365%.  Actually, however, it is not additive, it is exponential.  You get 1% on top of 1% on top of 1% and so on.  Large amounts of growth through a daily commitment.  Make that growth in measurable areas where you can see the changes; that builds confidence and reinforces the movement towards progress.  The progress is key.  Keep going, keep growing.

Be a 1%er!

Action Plan

  1. What are you doing specifically and intentionally to foster your own growth?  If nothing, what are you willing to do?
  2. Track your progress on a daily basis.

Purpose at Our Core

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Purpose is the Foundation

Grad with no Purpose

Many years ago, I partnered with a good friend to start a career counseling business.  Now, we were not one of the “job in a drawer” places where someone just flips through the Rolodex and says, “here’s your perfect job!”  We actually worked with our clients to help  identify where they would be happiest and where they would be at their element.  Where they can be fulfilled and fit in.  We were trying to do something of significance, because so often we ran across people who really had no clue who they were or what they were designed to do.

Purposeless Education

Case in point.  One client comes in.  She has gone through college, went to medical school and became a doctor.  Went through residency.  At the end of residency, decided she did not want to be a doctor.  Went back to school and studied psychiatry.  Went through residency again.  Decided she did not want to be a psychiatrist.  Now, 30 years old and all that time and money spent in school and programs – all that knowledge and training – and she had no idea what she wanted to be.  Sitting in my office, tears and sobbing, she felt lost and that all was lost.  She had no idea where to go, what to do, how to make a difference.  She had no purpose.

We All Seek Purpose

She is not alone.  Too many are in the same place.  Not sure where to go or what to do.  Many times, they made decisions on what to do or what job to take or career to pursue based on someone else’s dream.  So they trudge along in a job they can’t stand, where they can’t wait for quitting time to come around or can’t wait until they hit retirement age and do something else.  But even retiring doesn’t solve the problem.  They still feel lost and without direction, they are just doing it from home instead of the office.  There are even studies to suggest that retiring leads to an earlier death.  I emphasized the suggest because it is far from conclusive.  Anyway, we are lost for most of our lives without purpose.

Benefits of Purpose

Purpose gives us positive emotions that bolster us.  We feel passion to drive us.  We feel emotional connection.  We feel satisfaction at having an impact.  We feel fulfillment at adding value to someone else.  Purpose does more than provide direction, it provides meaning and significance to our lives.  As a result, working to fulfill our purpose can lead to more profitability personally and corporately in part because we will have a more positive attitude.  That improved attitude will allow us to view the challenges of life in a different perspective.  Mountains become molehills, nothing seems insurmountable.  Sacrifice seems more temporary and more worthwhile.  We feel and see victory.

Do you know your purpose?  Do you really feel the significance of what you are doing, how it impacts others and adds value to them?  If not, know that IT IS NEVER TOO LATE to discover it.  At the same time, you don’t want to wait.  Some wait too late and miss the opportunity to discover and live that purpose.  As Oliver Wendell Holmes said,

Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

Some day may never come and the greatest tragedy of all isn’t taking a risk and losing it all, it’s going to the end of your life on earth with that song still in your heart.

Purpose Finds your heartIf you know your purpose, truly feel the passion that drives you, I commend you and hope that you are pursuing it on a daily basis.  Let me know how I can help you.

If you don’t know your purpose, make a commitment to start TODAY to begin the journey of discovery.  Don’t be afraid to seek help finding it.  Trusting a professional coach can help you accelerate the process and more accurately identify your purpose.  You would not be alone in this; a large number of successful corporate executives use coaches for this and other reasons.  However you do it, DON’T WAIT ANOTHER DAY!  Take that first step.  You can do this, it’s in you.  Let the song out.

Action Plan

  1. Sit down RIGHT NOW and do one of two things:
    1. If you know your purpose, list the things you need to do DAILY to live it.  Schedule time on your calendar to work it and commit yourself to the process.
    2. If you don’t know your purpose, commit to do something TODAY to start the process of discovery.  Not sure where to start or what to do, find a coach.  Do it now.

Risky Business: The Power of WHY

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Why Powers Risk

WHY Power WHY power makes us do things that others question.  It has been almost three years now since I took this very risky venture on several fronts.  I chose to work for myself instead of for someone else.  I chose to change my primary business from technical training and development to cultivating leadership and personal growth.  I chose to invest in being a Founding Partner in the John Maxwell Team and a certified leadership speaker/trainer/coach.  I chose to pour my resources into developing that business.  For a variety of reasons, it is still not a booming success but I know it is coming and continue to work towards that.

Why Powers Purpose?

The big question I usually get is WHY I chose to make the change to leadership development and fostering personal growth as opposed to sticking where I was with training and development consulting (I still do that by the way).  I can only say that it is the answer to that very same WHY that drives me. Over the years I have worked for several companies, large and small, and through that with many client companies.  A consistent issue I saw in many organizations is that there was plenty of management going on and very little leadership.  And there is a difference, which I have talked about in an Ah-Ha! Moment of the Week video.

And what I saw from this was that most of the problems of the organization was due to that lack of leadership.  I truly believe that

Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership

and that the level of effectiveness of leadership is what determines how a company succeeds and grows or withers and dies.  Small businesses today especially need to embrace this because in this hard economy it becomes real easy to lose vision what you are trying to accomplish and how you are going to get there.  You get lost in the trees of survival that you can no longer see the forest.  Then, when things do clear you are totally unprepared to take advantage of the growth opportunities before you.  I believe in small business and I believe in YOU and that’s the WHY that drives me every day! It’s why I became the TOP-LINE GUY to help you achieve BOTTOM-LINE RESULTS!

Action Plan

  1. What’s your WHY?  Is it specific?  Just making money is not enough; just serving people is not enough.  You need a WHY that will drive you through hard times.  A WHY that will compel you to take risks, financial and otherwise.  A WHY that will set the stage for you to swallow pride and independence enough to seek help to excel.  A WHY that will drive you to learn what you need to learn and gather who you need to gather.  A WHY that demands a legacy to go far beyond where you will ever take it.
  2. Write that WHY down.  Remind yourself of it every day.  Let it infiltrate your organization in the vision, in the mission statement, in the customer service, in employee relations; in everything you do.
  3. Not sure how to make all that happen?  Not sure of your WHY?  Seek a coach or partner who can help you identify it, define it, and live it.  There’s a reason that highly successful organizations have coaches; because that’s how they became highly successful organizations.

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