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How to define what’s really important

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

In my last blog, I feel like I may have left you hanging. Maybe you could identify with the idea of living a life without a mission or purpose or direction. Never confuse busyness with authentic purpose. In this blog, you are going to need to use your imagination. I want you to imagine that you only have one year to live. I know this isn’t something we like to think about or talk about, but it is necessary to get your mind focused on what’s really important.

I want you to imagine that you have just been notified that you’ve got one year, 12 months, 365 days. The clock starts right now. Don’t worry about saying good bye to loved ones or getting a will in place. Let’s assume that’s all done. Just focus on how you will live for the next 365 days. Take some time and answer the following questions the best way that you can.

• Who will you spend your time with? Why?
• How will you spend your time with the ones you’ve chosen to be with?
• Is there anything you need to work out with God?
• Are there any big decisions that need to be made?
• Is there anything you’ve been putting off that you need to take action on?
• Is there anyone you need to apologize to?
• What legacy are you going to leave?
• What’s important now that wasn’t important before? Why?
• What do you worry about?
• What were you worrying about before that you are not worrying about now?
• Is there anything you haven’t done that you would like to do?
• Is there anything that you’ve been doing that needs to stop?
• Do you have any regrets? What are they?
• What are you most excited about?
• What do you want people to say about you in 12 months?
• What do you want people to know?

I hope you found this exercise enlightening. My hope is that your mind is really turning about the big things of life right now. Let me ask you this. Are you going to do anything different? Has anything changed in your life? If so, I want you to start writing it down immediately. Don’t wait for tomorrow or another minute. Write down the top 5 things that need to change in your life right now. Do not hesitate. Write them down.

Once you’ve written those things down, you are well on your way to defining your top priorities. The approach that you just took should have cut right to the chase. We want to get to the top priorities and not waste any time with things that don’t matter. You are beginning the process of doing great things.

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Where am I going?

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

When I was a junior in high school, my family and I took a trip to a lake in Indiana for a week of water skiing and fun. I brought a friend with me, and we took two cars. My parents and my brother were in one car, and my friend and I were in the other. I only had my driver’s license for about 9 months, so I was not accustomed to reading maps and watching for landmarks.

I just followed my dad all the way. When my dad exited off for gas, I followed him. When it was time to stop and eat, I followed him to the restaurant. I didn’t even know the name of the place that we were going or the name of the lake or town that we were heading to. I just knew it was a lake in Indiana.
When we were within an hour or so of our final destination, something happened. I don’t even remember exactly how it happened, but I lost my dad. One minute we were right behind him, and the next minute he was gone. My friend and I were probably having some deep conversation about music or cars or something that high school boys tend to talk about, but somehow I found myself with no-one to follow.

To compound the problem, we were now on a back road, off the main interstate. I felt like Lightning McQueen from the movie Cars. This was my status:
• I didn’t know where we were
• I had no idea where we were going to
• I didn’t have a map (navigation systems had not been invented yet)
• There was no cell phone
• I had never been in the area we were driving in
• There were no gas stations or places of business to stop at
• We had no game plan

Have you ever been in that situation before? I didn’t know if we should just pull over or keep driving or try to find some place to stop. It was total confusion. There was no way to communicate, and it was a guessing game. Even if I stopped for directions, what would I say? Can you help me get somewhere? I don’t really know where it is, but I sure could use some help.

Maybe you’ve never experienced a situation like that on a trip, but let me tell you something. There are millions of people living that situation out every day in their personal lives. They started off by following someone, probably their parents. There wasn’t a need to really do much thinking or planning, because those things were done for them on a daily basis. Maybe they went to college or perhaps they started a job out of high school. Maybe they never finished high school, or maybe they got one degree after another for years and years.

And then something happened. They realized they had no idea where they were, where they were going, how to communicate and no game plan of any kind. When you don’t have a target destination, then what do you do? You can take action, but what action do you take?

Most people take some type of action, regardless of the result. Action makes us feel that we are in control. It gives us a false sense of accomplishment. The problem is that action without a plan is simply aimless busyness.

In subsequent posts, I will detail a plan for creating a mission for your life, and you will be well on your way to doing great things.

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Taking the risk out of risk

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

“Do you want to be safe and good, or do you want to take a chance and be great?” – Jimmy Johnson, Dallas Cowboys Coach.

I think deep down there’s a part of every one of us that wants to throw caution to the wind and take a chance on being great. In theory it’s a great idea, but in reality, it means you would have to actually take the risk.

In my last blog, we walked through how to minimize risk, assess all the options, and maximize opportunity utilizing an entrepreneurial process. As your level of understanding and awareness around a particular situation increases, the potential to make a better and more creative decision increases exponentially. However, risk will always be present. I don’t care how thorough and complete your analysis may be, you are still facing some level of risk.

Let me present an additional approach to consider in parallel to the risk analysis approach presented in the last blog. In every situation, you can usually find someone who’s had some level of experience in a situation similar to yours. That kind of knowledge can be priceless, but it’s never perfect. Every situation is different and every person is unique, but there is one constant in the entire universe – God.

If there is a God and He created you, then don’t you think He would have the exact solution for your particular situation? Think about it for a moment. If God is all-knowing (and I know that He is), then He knows exactly how things are going to turn out.

As you analyze a particular situation or decision, take some time to consult the creator of the universe. It doesn’t mean things will be easy or perfect, but usually the great things aren’t easy. In the bible it says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:5-6).

I believe that if you take the entrepreneurial approach of assessing risk, and you begin trusting God for His best direction in your life and situation, you will put yourself in a position to do great things.

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Secrets to Reducing Risk

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

As an entrepreneur, I’ve learned that risk assessment is an extremely important skill set. Before jumping into a new venture, you have to weigh all the risks and compare those to the potential benefits. You then have to evaluate the probability of those risks, and then do the really hard part – make a decision. I’ve also learned that risk assessment is just as important in our personal lives. Think about the big questions you’ve had to consider in your own life for just a moment:

• What am I going to choose to believe as it relates to God?
• Who am I going to marry?
• Where will I go to school?
• Should I take the new job in a different state and move my family?
• How do I handle the specific problem my child is facing?
• Should I sell the house and consolidate my debt?
• Do I retire now or work a couple more years?
• Etc., Etc.

In “every day life”, we are faced with decisions that must be made one way or the other. Choosing to delay a decision is in most cases the same as making a decision. As you evaluate the components of a decision, you must consider the risks and the probability of those risks. We can learn a great deal from how entrepreneurs evaluate risk.

Risk Assessment starts first with identifying all the things that could go wrong. I usually try to focus on the top 3 things that could go wrong as a result of the potential decision I’m about to make. Once I’ve identified those top 3 potential items, I then put my own percentage of probability that they will happen. I have found in my own life that I tend to fear those things that are really not that probable, and I’ll bet you do the same.

As you assess the downsides of making a decision, you must also assess the downside of not making the decision. For example, if I choose to not pursue an advanced degree, what might be the risk for my career over the next 10 years?

Upon completing your assessment of the risks, you must now list the top 3 benefits of your potential decision. What are you getting by making this move or action? You should also list the top 3 benefits of a “no-go” decision.

Once you’ve had the opportunity to look at every angle of your potential decision (top 3 benefits of a yes and a no, top 3 negative outcomes of a yes and a no), you need to do a creative alternatives list. This is an area of risk assessment that many people rarely consider. As a person confronts a decision point in their life, they become so locked on that particular situation, that other alternatives are never considered.

Imagine that you are looking for a new house. Let’s suppose you only look at one house, and it has a lot of potential. As you start evaluating if this is the right home, wouldn’t you continue to look at other homes on the market? Why would you limit yourself to only seeing one house?

Unfortunately many people make the mistake of closing off their mind to the idea of multiple options. It could be that the perfect solution is one that you haven’t considered yet. As an entrepreneur, I have limited capital, resources and time, so as I assess the risk of a potential business, I also have to consider other opportunities that might yield higher results with less risk.

Have you ever heard the term, “higher risk; higher rewards”? Well, this isn’t always the case. I have evaluated several opportunities that were high in risk without much upside potential. In your personal life, the same can be true, and that is why you must take the time and effort to do a proper evaluation.

The final component to your risk analysis should include this one question. “Is there anything that I can do to reduce the risk of this potential decision?” The answer may be no, but it could be that your creative thinking might just develop an alternative that could really be interesting.

Once you’ve evaluated the risks, the probability, benefits of both sides, considered all the potential options and you’ve considered how to reduce the risk, you will be equipped to do great things. In the next blog, I will reveal a great secret to taking the risk out of risk.

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Indecision could be affecting your personal life and your income

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

We all make decisions every day, and every decision has consequences that can have some degree of impact on our lives. Several years ago, I struggled with making tough decisions, especially when I was faced with multiple choices that all seemed good. I always wanted to keep my options open, and a decision inherently blocks all options but the one you chose. To decide means to cut off from any other choice.

It was painful for me to be cutting off choices that were good choices. What if the choice I made appeared to be good, but it ended in disaster? What if I could have made a better choice? As a result, I hesitated to make tough decisions by not making the decision at all. This strategy is a common one among those who fear decision making.

I learned over time that by not making a decision, I was actually making a decision. In every case, I unintentionally made a bad decision through indecision.

My leadership abilities changed profoundly after I realized the effect that indecision had on my life. Napoleon Hill wrote this about Henry Ford, “One of Henry Ford’s most outstanding qualities was his habit of reaching decisions quickly and definitely, and changing them slowly.”

Hill also writes, “Analysis of several hundred people who had accumulated fortunes well beyond the million-dollar mark disclosed the fact that every one of them had the habit of reaching decisions promptly, and of changing these decisions slowly, if, and when they were changed.”

I have found that people who struggle to lead effectively struggle to make decisions in a timely manner, and they tend to change their decisions regularly. As a person who always worked to keep his options open, I found myself vacillating from one idea to the next without ever really taking a stand by making a decision on the most important ideas.

It is imperative that you learn to make effective decisions as quickly as you can, and then you must hold the line on those decisions through thick and thin. I believe it wise to always leave room for a change, but that change should be made slowly and with great care.

Once you’ve committed to a decision, you no longer waste your time in turmoil and indecision. You are now free to focus on next steps and moving forward. You’ll be well on your way to doing great things.

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