Decisions aren’t created equally. Risk and reward vary. Size and magnitude do, too.

Owning the joint doesn’t mean you make all the decisions. You’ve already learned the value of pushing some decisions off your plate by letting people super close to the work do it. 

Let’s play a quick game. Off the top of your head, what’s one decision you made that paid off BIG TIME. Personal. Professional.

Maybe it was asking that girl out 43 years ago and now you’ve got 5 grandkids and a tribe (family).

Maybe it was befriending a super smart person who became your business partner 10 years ago.

What was it? One decision that changed the trajectory of your life, professionally or personally. Or both.

These decisions don’t happen often, but we don’t need them to. Hopefully, they happen when we most need them. 

You knew the truth to the question the moment you read it or heard me read it. “What if you were just one decision away from changing everything?”

Innovation. Creativity.

Decide today to increase both. It’s a decision that may change everything in your business. 

Commit to curiosity and wonder. What will happen if we do this? What if scenarios are just one way you can decide to more deeply embrace innovation and creativity.

Another is to push the limits of how your business or industry operates. Every business (and industry) operates from assumptions. Assumptions aren’t bad, they’re necessary. But that doesn’t mean you have to fall in love with every single one of them and never test or challenge them. Get a little bit rebellious. Start questioning things you’ve never questioned before. An easy place to start is all the sacred cows in your business or industry. Pick on the things that you and everybody else, assume are just truths that can’t be contested. Start challenging them one by one. All of them. 

Problems or Opportunities?

Decide today to look at your problems in a different way. I’m not denying that you’ve got problems. I just know that if you’re able – and determined – to look at them differently, you may find there are opportunities you can exploit and not just problems you must solve.

Where is the opportunity here – in this problem? What might we be able to do because of this problem that we couldn’t – or wouldn’t – otherwise do? 

Deploy the brainpower of your team to find the opportunities in every problem. That’s right, opportunities. There are likely multiple opportunities. 

Business history is filled with stories of happy accidents that were failures turned into major successes. Post-It Notes by 3M is just one famous example. You likely have heard and read of others. Well, stop reading about them and start creating your own. Just make up your mind – make a decision to search for successes and opportunities in your failures and problems. 

Leverage people.

You’ve got work that must be done. I get it. But you’ve got a business filled with individuals who need and want certain things in order to feel great about themselves and their work. Decide today to stop considering what your business needs and make up your mind to scale the power of the individual inside your company. 

Do you advertise or tell the market that your people are part of your competitive advantage? Many companies do. Most of them lie. But let’s assume you do it and you’re telling the truth. I know what you mean by it. You mean that your people are really good at what they do,

Leo Bottary and I were enjoying lunch and conversation this week. We don’t get to see each other in person very often, the hazards of me living in Texas and him living in California. We do a podcast together – What Anyone Can Do (titled after Leo’s latest book by the same title). Buy a copy here. 

Among the many things I enjoy about my friendship with Leo is our diversity. He’s well educated. Me? Not so much. I left college with 18 hours shy of a degree in journalism. Leo has an advanced degree. Leo has spent a lifetime making a variety of connections in all sorts of spaces. Until about a decade ago I spent my entire career with my head down operating retail companies. He’s from Boston. I’m from Ada, Oklahoma.

It’s the reverse of what makes people feel comfortable. Or confident. 

We want to figure it all out first, then start. But that doesn’t work. It’s not how we do anything, or how we’ve done anything. 

There is no realized ROI on thinking. The ROI is in the action taken, which is certainly impacted by thinking…but thinking by itself is useless.

Every innovation I’ve ever been a part of began with an idea. A thought. A premise. But that’s not where the power was. The power was in putting it to the test. Will it work? We think it will, but we’re never sure until we prove it. So we start and figure it out along the way validating the idea or figuring out that it won’t work, prompting us to ditch it or morph it into something else. Often times something we never imagined when we began.

What are you thinking about right now? What innovations or creative solutions are you and your team considering? 

Have you been vetting the ideas for a while, but you still haven’t learned if they’ll work? 

Perfectionism isn’t always the culprit. It’s the popular culprit, but sometimes it’s something not nearly as sexy. I mean, it’s a badge of honor for some people to declare how much of a perfectionist they are, when the truth is, they’re just lazy. Or a procrastinator. Or they’re scared. “I’m a perfectionist” is better than saying, “I’m scared.” Or is it? 

Starting is a commitment. Thinking isn’t. So we can keep thinking and be safe. No exposure. We can even talk about what we’re thinking. Still safe!

But try to do something and now we’re exposed. Feeling naked before the whole world, which we’re convinced are watching our every misstep. Funny how we can convince ourselves that the universe notices our every failure, but nobody sees our successes. New flash: nobody is paying attention to either one. We’ve all got our own stuff. No time to pay attention to everything you may try, much less to keep score of how well or how poorly you’re doing. 

Yesterday we talked about how it’s your life, and it’s your fault. Go back and listen to it — or listen to it again. Get that truth cemented in your head. Accept the truth of it. 

Now, what is there to be afraid of? Failure? Success? I’m not going to tell you be fearless. That’s unreasonable. And unrealistic. We all have fears. False evidence appearing real. 

The only way to combat our fear – this includes our fear of starting – is courage. Don’t get wrapped up thinking you’ll eliminate the fear. I wouldn’t even waste my time trying to reduce the fear. Instead, try to increase your courage. In this case, the courage to get going. 

Here’s the evidence — courage is best increased by doing, not by thinking. Displays of courage, even small acts of courage, foster more displays of courage. In short, courage begets courage. And it’s why you’re not able to figure things out more quickly. You’re trying to think your way to success and that’s not how success happens. Anywhere!

I’m not a scientist, but let’s consider some brainiac in a white lab coat. Maybe somebody working on a very noble mission, like finding a cure for cancer or dementia. All that learning and knowledge provokes ideas and thoughts. The group of lab coats can sit around sharing their ideas, but nobody will find any cure for anything if that’s all they do. They have to test their ideas. They have to start so they can get on with figuring it out. In this case,

“Play the hand you’re dealt.” Even non-poker players like me understand the meaning. 

It’s the only strategy worth deploying. That doesn’t mean we people don’t react in other ways. They often do. 

For starters, they whine and complain. Cause it’s fun to enjoy the sympathy of others. 

The root of complaining is envy and jealousy. Comparing our “cards” or life circumstances against others who we think have it better. It’s not fair. We want what they’ve got. 

The truth is…

There are people less qualified than you, with fewer advantages than you, doing the things you want to do, because they decided to take responsibility for their own life. They believe in themselves. They also believe their life’s outcome is their fault. 

You’re holding cards in your hand. Sure, let’s assume the real truth – much of it is random. You had no say in who your parents were. Or where you were born. Or how you were raised. Or where you were educated through high school. You didn’t have any say in how short or tall you are. How athletic or unathletic you are. How musical or unmusical you are. Whether you love to read or hate it. Whether you love to write, or never write. So much of what defines you seems random. But the results of that randomness is what you’ve got to play with. It’s the hand you were dealt. Now what?

Now what?

This is where we need to employ a bit more logic and less emotion. Lean left. The left hemisphere of your brain. Focus logically on where you are, not where you wish you were. 

You can feel an array of emotions about your parents, or where you grew up, or any of the other circumstances of your life. Part of maturity is adding the coping skills necessary to navigate life successfully. It’s why we behaved like idiots when we were kids. We didn’t have the skills or wisdom to always make the best choices. Mostly, we made decisions on what we wanted to do at the time. Fun was likely the main objective. “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” probably summed up our teen years. But things changed.

We grew. We say we grew “up.” Nobody says, “I grew down.” We grew up. We grew past something. We got over it, like any other hurdle in life. Growth. Improvement. Transformation.

Now, we’re grown up. Mature. 

Now what?

Are we gonna focus on how bad we’ve got it? Are we gonna look at others and wish we had it better? Are we gonna blame everybody and everything for our life? 

Go ahead. It won’t work out well. Never does. 

Instead, let’s go back to the cards you’re holding. There’s only one strategy you can deploy. Just one choice if moving forward is your goal. 

Play them.

That means you accept the fact that these ARE your cards. Wishing you had one card different. Or wishing all five cards were different won’t change them. How is that strategy or tactic going to help you? 

It won’t, but an awful lot of people do that instead of playing their cards. They fret, worry, agonize and lament how awful their cards are. Telling anybody who will listen how badly they’ve got it, too many folks want sympathy instead of growth. 

Let’s play that game out. The Sympathy Game. Okay, complain and moan. Increase the number of people who feel badly for you. Double the number. Triple it. Multiply it by 100. or 1000. Feel better? Did the increased number of sympathizers really serve you? Help you grow or improve? Of course not. But it likely made you feel better. Like drugs, or alcohol. Quick fix with lots of long-term devastation and pain attached. 

The real help – where you’ll find the real service – is accepting responsibility for your o...

Soar with your strengths. It’s valid. I believe in it. Strongly. But…

Every small business is prone to stagnation. And it’s not restricted to businesses that have been around for a very long time. Stagnation can happen more quickly than we think. 

Small business ownership isn’t just mom ‘n pop shops. It’s the $50M manufacturing business. It’s the $3M retail shop. It’s the $127M custom home builder. It’s the $225M car dealer. 

Water stagnates when it stops flowing. Ditto for your small business. When growth stops, when improvement isn’t highly pursued and when innovation ceases…you’re stagnant. It’s time for an infusion of what you’re lacking. And I’m not talking about capital (although your stagnation has likely resulted in cash flow pressures and a restriction in resources, including capital). 

Ideas.

Routine. Sameness. Staying the course. 

These are just a few of the many enemies you face in your small business. Yes, boredom results, but there’s a deeper – more powerful – enemy, ideas stop flowing. Stagnation.

Questions.

History. Not as in learning from it, but as in trying to hang onto it. Living in the past. Every successful business has to face this threat.

Too much time spent admiring previous accomplishments freezes us. Makes us hesitate. 

Easton is my 5-year-old grandson. He just started playing T-ball. He’ll hit the ball, but he won’t immediately drop the bat and run to first. He’ll learn that he can’t afford to look where the ball is going before dashing to first. 

The enemy is we stop asking questions. Especially tough questions. 

We assume that what once worked – or what worked in the past – is going to keep on working. Those assumptions coerce us to not see the slow erosion of effectiveness of our past. 

Curiosity.

This is especially threatening to our business if we’ve been in the industry for very long. We tend to think we’ve figured it all out if we’ve been in a space for a few years. All the dots in our industry have been figured out. Or so we think. 

Curiosity ends up being replaced by a “know-it-all” false confidence. It’s why so many industries get disrupted by newbies. Spend some time with 2-3-year-old kids and you’ll quickly get a lesson in curiosity. And you’ll also see why it’s so easy to lose it. Arrogance and pride. Too many small business owners are ashamed or embarrassed to be curious. They wrongly think it’s better to act like you’ve you’ve got all the answers. 

Ambition.

We get fat and happy. Laziness stifles accomplishment. Hunger is a powerful source of inspiration. Contentment is fine at the individual level, but it’ll kill a culture of accomplishment inside your small business. 

The big payday – success – has wrecked quite a lot of potential greatness. It’s a rare bird who can climb really high and still believe there’s a higher elevation left to discover. Most of us prefer to rest and enjoy the view. 

What do we do? How do we avoid stagnation in our small business?

One, don’t embrace loyalty over performance.

Don’t hate me. I’m not talking about booting people just for the sake of it. But I am talking about not getting so loyal to people in your business that you avoid tough scrutiny. 

“Mary has been here 15 years. We can’t get rid of Mary.” That dog won’t hunt if Mary isn’t contributing enough to the company. Sorry,

Let’s talk about OTHER PEOPLE. During the early years of my career OPM entered every business person’s vocabulary. It stood for “Other People’s Money.” This was long before business people were the heroes. And it was really before VC’s (venture capitalists) were legendary. The goal of business owners who had a business that seemed scalable was the IPO (Initial Public Offering). We all dreamed of what it might be like to “go public.” That’s where the big money was, taking your company public and being listed on the stock market. It was the path to get your chips off the table and cash out a portion of your equity. 

Money is great. We all want more of it, but when I talk about the power of others I don’t want to restrict it mere dollars because there are other things that have even higher value. Money will fix some things, but it won’t fix everything. It won’t solve every business problem. It won’t solve very many personal or private problems. It’s a great resource, but it’s not more valuable to us than the help and support we can get from other people. Particularly, people who get us and our situation. People who can actually do something other than listen to us. People who can help us think more clearly. People who can ask us questions that foster better answers. And people willing to hold us accountable to the very things we most want to accomplish. 

Other people improve every facet of our lives. We have to make sure we’re surrounded by the right ones – the ones who can best serve us. Ironically, those are also the people who will accept our help. That give and take relationship makes it a very special thing — to have others encircling us and to have others allow us to be part of the group surrounding them. 

You know what I love about the business world today versus when I was breaking in? Connection, collaboration and cooperation. It didn’t exist much when I was younger. We were competitive. Sometimes even hostile. We thought the world was a zero-sum game, meaning if we lost then it meant somebody else won. And if we won (which was always the goal), then somebody necessarily lost. That proverbial pie everybody was chasing was a finite thing. A fixed size. Nobody thought about growing the pie. We only thought about our ability to get our piece. The biggest piece possible. 

If you were born in the last 30 plus years, you’ve learned how wrong we were. You’ve learned how big the markets are, how many customers are available, how other people are THE path to greater accomplishments, opportunities, and success. 

This is at the heart of my career change with The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. 

Have you ever gone through some really tough time? Maybe it was personal and private. Maybe it was completely business-related. Maybe both. 

Something that wrecked you. Caused you to lose sleep. Lots of it. Something that caused you to lose your appetite. Something that vexed you night and day. You couldn’t get your mind off of it. 

Jason Isbell released a song in 2013 on his album, Southeastern. It was entitled Elephant. A sad, awful song about a woman with terminal cancer, something that has afflicted many of us. Try as we might, cancer defines so many people. Not what we want. Or what we hope. But those who suffer it know it’s the constant topic of every conversation. 

We all have elephants who occupy the rooms of our lives. Dominate our minds and hearts. 

Try as we might, they don’t leave us alone. Big, imposing creatures impossible to ignore.

Acting & Feeling Your Age/Experience

I don’t feel much different than I did when I was a teenager. Kids don’t realize that in 20 years they’re not going to feel much different. And today, a 40-year-old or 60-year-old doesn’t look remotely like they did when I was a kid. Google pictures of the 1960’s compared to a picture of today. You’ll notice the differences. 

Is it culture? Modern health practices? Modern medicine? All of that, and more? Yes. 

I grew up hearing older folks tell us, as kids, to act our age. Of course, when you’re 16 you feel and think you’re acting like a 16-year-old. Honestly, you likely are acting your age. The older people want you to act older, which means they want you to act like you’ve got way more experience, wisdom, and thoughtfulness than exists in your life. 

Fake is fun, but it’s fatal.

I’m mature. I’m not old. I’m at my best right now…at this moment. 

I’ve got decades of real-world operating businesses experience and know-how, the stuff you can’t learn any other way than by doing it. 

I’ve got decades of wisdom that I didn’t have earlier, but I’m still driven by the curiosity of the things I know I need to still learn.

I’m not alone. Draw a timeline that can represent a lifetime. Make marks at 18, 24, 30, 36…and on. Every mark, every age, and experience brings value. My current value is what it is. But it’s not like my value just kicked in. 

Age and experience are realities that too many people get messed up on. Young people want to be older. Older people want to be younger. Both sometimes want to act the opposite of what they are. Or where they are. 

It’s why there’s so much fakery. We wrongly think we can fool people. Forget it. Even if you do fool people, remember you’ve only fooled the fools. 

Owning your present reality isn’t a cop-out. It doesn’t mean you don’t grow, feed your curiosities, or devote yourself fully to the mountain climb! Fact is, that’s exactly what it does mean. You do all that and more. You create, innovate, disrupt and learn — all aimed at your own life first. 

What you’ve figured out is important. What you haven’t figured out may be more important. At the heart of it all is figuring out YOU. I’m focusing on this as I return from being dormant for about a month because I continue to see people posing as something they’re genuinely not. From executives seeking new opportunities, to leaders who are finding it difficult to mimic somebody they admire, to business owners who feel the urge to jump on every latest technical tactic or strategy, even the ones they’ve not spent enough time to fully understand. It’s a big game of people grasping at straws. And it makes no sense to me.

Plus, there’s a ton of people looking for positive reinforcement for every dumb idea they’ve got. The lack of candor and accountability is the death of too many already. 

So people puff up to inflate themselves, like puffer fish trying to scare off predators. Pretending to be better, bigger, more sophisticated, more successful than they really are. It’s an addiction that will end poorly, but in the short-term, it feels great. We’re deluded. Not thinking clearly.

Reality is the recipe, the counter punch needed. 

Feeling good in the short-term produces long-term pain and guilt. Scan the Wall Street Journal, randomly looking at companies reporting performance. If the results are positive, you’ll hear company officials talk a certain way.

Mastermind groups. Think tanks. Peer groups. Support groups.

It doesn’t matter what you call them…they’re opportunities for us to surround ourselves with like-minded people who are peers. Peers are people who are in the same boat we’re in. In the case of THE PEER ADVANTAGE by Bula Network, they’re all business owners! Folks who share many common issues, challenges, and opportunities. 

Years of coaching CEO’s and top-level leaders has shown me the importance of mental health in effective leadership. People don’t like to talk about it…until something very bad happens. Then, everybody seems to chatter about it. Until interest dies back down. 

Sitting down with business owners, CEO’s and other leaders has proven to me the unquestioned need for every business owner to avail themselves of being surrounded by other business owners yearning for personal, professional and business growth. It’s obvious when the CEO quickly jumps to some personal problem that is preoccupying her mind. Sometimes it’s a crisis like caring for a sick, aging parent. Or a struggling marriage. CEO’s aren’t robots immune from struggling through life’s issues. Instead, the pressures of high expectations are ever present. Decision making can’t be put off or canceled. Instead, the show must go on!

THE PEER ADVANTAGE by Bula Network is intentionally designed to help you go on with the show. Shared experiences, shared expertise and insights – these are the priceless assets of a highly functioning peer advantage group. The power isn’t only inside you, or me. It’s in the collective. The power is in the room. In this case, a virtual room that conveniently meets every other week.

I guarantee it’ll be the most powerful room you’ll ever enter. Powerful in the sense of being valuable to you. Check out the details at ThePeerAdvantage.com. Apply today and let’s talk about this opportunity. Together we’ll figure out if it’s right for both of us.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Listen to the podcast

The benefits of physical fasting are widely researched and documented. The benefits of social media fasting might not as widely researched or documented, but I think they’re valuable, too. 

Which is why I’m doing both. And it’s why I do it every now and again.

I do this a couple of times a year — go on a social media fast. I probably fast physically close to half a dozen times or more a year. You may benefit from figuring out ways you can employ fasting in helping reach new heights of physical, mental and spiritual fitness. 

Be well. Do good. Grow great! I’ll see you when I decide to break this fast. 

Listen to the podcast

Intentions matter. 

Senator John McCain will lie in state at the Capitol in Washington today. However you may have felt about him, or his politics, you have to tip your hat to the man’s intentions. By almost all accounts, he was a man of principles and integrity. Maybe the biggest proof was when he was captured in Viet Nam as a young Navy pilot and refused to be set free because he wanted to honor the code of first captured, first freed. 

McCain wrote a farewell letter that you should read. It reveals the man’s heart and the intentions of his life. True confession. I’ve not been diagnosed with any dreaded disease, but thoughts of death compelled me to write my own farewell letter about a decade ago. I update it every whip stitch. It’s in a DropBox that my wife and I share. She gets a notification every time I update it. Sometimes my intentions change a bit.

“My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for 60 years, and especially my fellow Arizonans, 

Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life of service in uniform and service in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.

I’ve often observed that I’m the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of my life. I’ve loved my life, all of it. I’ve had experiences, adventures, friendships enough for 10 satisfying lives, and I am so thankful.  Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good or bad times, for the best day of anybody else’s.

I owe this satisfaction to the love of my family. No man ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America. To be connected to America’s causes — liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people — brings happiness more sublime than life’s fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but are enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.

Fellow Americans, that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world’s greatest Republic, a nation of ideals — not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history, and we have acquired great wealth and great power in the process.

We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals rather than trust them to be the great force for change they’ve always been. We are 325 million opinionated vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country, we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do.

Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening. I feel it powerfully still. Do not despair of our present difficulties. We believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.