If there’s a phrase that describes the small business experience... it has to be “survival of the fittest!” So what questions do you need to ask of yourself and your business to make sure you survive? Well, I’ve got three for you... so, let’s talk about that today.

Hey everyone! Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here.

In the crazy pace that most small business owners run, it’s easy to run through a week, two weeks, a month, and never come up for air! There are sales to make, employees to manage, fires to put out, books to reconcile, invoices to send, voicemails to return, tech issues, supply chain issues, angry customers... and whose shoulders do almost all of that fall on? Yep, you guessed it... YOURS!

So how do we make sure we’re tracking the right direction. How can we grab a small ounce of perspective in the midst of the craziness? Well, I would argue that you can ask yourself 3 simple questions in an owners-only meeting with yourself and have a quick idea of if you’re on track.

So start by putting a 20-30 min meeting on the calendar with yourself. Don’t cancel it for anything. If you need to bring in a key leader from time to time to get some different perspectives, that’s completely fine. I would actually encourage it once a month or so, but cherish this time for the value it can bring to your business.

Question number 1...

     1. Are we distracted by anything?

What a great question to start off with. It forces you to look back at your Vision and Mission. In the context of where we want to go and why we’re going there, is there anything pulling us away from that? Services we’re offering, problems that we need to solve, employees holding us back, things we need to say no to instead of winging it. Is there anything in our life or business that is preventing us from moving forward?

Write those things down. Keep a list. And one by one, begin to eliminate them. I think you’d be surprised by what you come up with when you look back at your vision and mission weekly. I think it would prevent you from taking detours and keep you laser-focused on the goal. 

Here’s the thing, maybe you realize your vision is off... GREAT!!! Write down the updated Vision so that you and your team can run after it. Distractions hold you back, and if you label them weekly, you can push past and through them towards your mission.

     2. What did I implement this week?

We have so many ideas and thoughts every week. But what are we truly implementing? I have a client who is incredibly disciplined as a reader and podcast listener. He’s an amazing learner, really consumes an incredible about of content, but struggles to implement the content. So... we made a new rule. After each bit of content, audiobook, podcast, keynote talk, or whatever. After each thing he consumes, he has to write down and implement 1 thing before consuming the next. 

Because what good is it to consume the information if we’re going to do NOTHING with it??? No, we have to be people of action. It’s what brings freedom and impact to our businesses! So what if you set aside time each week and either wrote down what you implemented or wrote down what you were going to implement the next week? Maybe something from your 12-week plan? Good grief your business would change in 1-2 months!

But we’re so consumed with what’s right in front of us, we forget to implement and forget to continue tweaking everything, every week.

     3. Are we who we say we are?

If you’re brave enough to be honest with yourself, this question is a game-changer. Are we overselling and underdelivering? The answer may be yes or no. Or there may be areas where it’s yes and areas where it’s no. But this gives you the freedom to take an honest look at who you are and who you say you are. They NEED to match up! 

Imagine these past two questions working together as you realize where you fall short and then commit to implementing something that would change that answer. That is powerful! That’s building your business on purpose!

So when are you sitting down and making time for these 3 questions? Who else needs to be asked these questions to help give you perspective. 

I’d wager right now your business would transform if you had the guts to ask these every week for 4-6 months. It can’t help but improve. Do it, be brave, and do it!

1. Are we distracted by anything?
2. What did I implement this week?
3. Are we who we say we are?

Thanks for listening, hey if you aren’t already subscribed to our podcast and YouTube channel, please jump on that! It’s free content delivered right to you every week and it’s changing businesses all over the world. Come be a part of it.

Have a great week friends!

Hey y’all Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. 

Let’s talk about qualifying leads in your business. 

In an article written in Business News Daily, Max Freedman writes,

“Lead generation is important, but qualifying your leads to determine which ones are worth pursuing can save you time and money.” Now I don’t know about you, but saving time and money when it comes to your business should be a priority as an owner.

I spent over a year working outside sales for a company that sells aviation wiring and cables. We sold to the military, major airlines,  mom and pop hangers that flew Cessnas... if you have a vehicle that flew, we sold to you. I got to go to some pretty cool places over that year... Space X out in California, American Airlines HQ in Texas, Salt Lake City to see some guys who are doing amazing work on developing defense technology for the airforce. Literally, we went all over. 

Now, we would usually plan a trip around 1-2 of our biggest customers or suppliers in that area we were traveling to. But we couldn’t go anywhere unless we had 9-10 visits set up for that week. But even a step furthers, my direct boss would make us submit our visits a few weeks in advance, so he could make sure... you guessed it.

These were qualified leads. He didn’t want us traveling week in and week out if we weren’t coming back with something that benefited the company. A new supplier, a new customer, a new point of contact at a company that we were trying to crack. Our trips were all justified because we had the take the time to qualify our leads.

In his book, Business Made Simple, Donald Miller notes that a qualified lead meets the following three criteria…

• They have a problem your product or service will solve

• They are able to afford your product or service

• They have the authority to buy your product or service

Let me read those again…

• They have a problem your product or service will solve

• They are able to afford your product or service

• They have the authority to buy your product or service

So the question is, are you qualifying the leads in your business?

If not, you may be wasting some of your time, energy, and money chasing down any lead that pops up. 

Miller goes on to write, 

“Create a list of criteria that qualifies leads so you can move them into a story that solves their problem and changes their lives.”

If your business already has a list of criteria, great! I would say make sure you are reviewing that list once a quarter or so to make sure you are up to date.

If you currently don’t have that list readily available for yourself or your employees, that's a good place to start. Let’s make sure we are going after the right people. A little work on the front end will save your time, energy, and money in the long run. 

Thanks for listening. 

If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

Why do we push so hard for weekly team meetings? Let’s talk about that today!

Hello there friends, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here.

So, if you’ve listened to this podcast much at all, you know one of the cornerstones of our system is the Weekly Team Meeting. But why? Don’t most team meetings just turn into a task list that’s communicated verbally to a team? Just a box that’s checked off so we can be face to face for an hour a week?

The painful response to those questions is YES! Unfortunately, most meetings really serve little purpose and could better be communicated in an email. But that’s the Team Meeting of old. In fact, if you do them well, they become a source of accountability for the team. A place to connect. A jump-start of energy. And the lifeblood of training for your team.

Last week I had a client come in and they were frustrated. “I feel like we have the same problems week after week!” Alright, tell me about those, I asked. 

The next 10 minutes were spent listening to a myriad of frustrations and disappointments from the past month. 

My first question…”Well, tell me about your last few team meetings?” I could tell that question was uncomfortable. We implemented Weekly Team Meetings about 10 months ago and they started off with a bang.

“Well, we’re so busy, we’ve kind of put those aside here and there. We’ve probably done 1 in the last 6 weeks.”

“Ok,” I said, “now we know the root of some of the problem... let’s talk through why that is keeping your team from underperforming.”

You see... when we view weekly team meetings as just a box to check off, we miss the entire purpose. It’s so much more than that. So let’s talk through the components of an effective team meeting and jump off from there.

     1. Something that builds community

For us, it’s BIG Wins. We start every meeting with them. For others, I’ve heard talk about their High and Low for the week. But is there something you can put at the beginning of the meeting so that your team feels like a group of human beings, not just a group of employees? That’s building culture and encouraging buy-in.

     2. Accountability from last week's action items. 

Are there areas you asked your team to improve? I know that I, for one, rarely implement things that I know will not get asked about again. But, if I know I’m going to be asked about it at next week's meeting, I will 100% find the time to accomplish it. It works the same way for your team. Don’t just assign tasks without following up and making sure they got done. Without critiquing the little things. That’s how you make sure your team is following your processes. You review it EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.

I’ll never forget meeting with a client months ago and they told me how powerful that time of follow-up was. My response? Awesome! Now do it again, and again the next week, and again and again and again. The power is in the repetition! 

     3. The action items for the week ahead. 

Not every single little thing, but some areas for emphasis that, you guessed it, you will follow up on next week! Does your team need to work on customer service? Do they need to clean out their utility vehicles? Do they need to improve the estimating process and follow the system? I don’t know, but put it out in front of them and let them know you will discuss the following week.

     4. Last, but not least, a quick time for training. 

Don’t overcomplicate it. Pick a system or process and retrain on it. That way your entire team is trained on every process a minimum of once a year! That’s powerful. I have a client that keeps a notepad in his truck. Every time one of his guys calls him with a question, he writes it down and trains the whole team on the question at the next team meeting. His thought process is that if one guy doesn’t know that answer, he can’t be the only one! And week after week he is getting less phone calls from his guys as they are trained better and better each week. 

THAT'S POWERFUL! That’s a team meeting with a purpose.

Now back to my client. We rebuilt their team meeting process and recommitted to it. Because if they can feel like a team weekly, be held accountable for their actions, trained on the way we want to do business, and then be sent back out to do the work? That’s a recipe for success!

So have you given up on weekly team meetings? Have you just kind of rolled your eyes and done them half-heartedly? 

This is your moment to grab a hold of them and make them matter! Make them truly give you some momentum heading into your week. Your team will thank you. Your business will thank you. And the chaos will slowly start to melt away.

It’s time to start a Weekly Team Meeting if you’re not doing one already. THIS WEEK!

Hope that is what you decide to do this week!

Hey Real fast, one thing most people do NOT know about with Business on Purpose, is if you are a solopreneur or a young business, we have an online Membership that is much more affordable than 1 on 1 coaching. All of our content, PLUS monthly accountability calls, to help you build this in your own business. If you would like to know more, reach out because you need this TODAY!

Have a great week.

As we got started, the mood of the room was tempered.  We were a small group of 20 business owners all from the same town and with a narrow purpose; help each other to discover simple ways to lead our teams into a post-pandemic world.

The volume of life is on maximum decibels and the opportunity to come into a quiet, intentional room to think and respond are becoming scarce.

After a few minutes walking through the reality of where we are today, we began to think deeply about that reality and what it would take to lead in the life geography of what is around the corner.

We admitted that what life looks like today was something that we were unable to predict back in the spring of 2020 with the choppy and confusing announcements being reported and the prognostics changing minute by minute.

We also agreed that we would not be able to closely predict what would be coming around the corner.  We started instead with what we know... human behavior.

While we do not have a roadmap to the future of pandemics and geo-politics, we do have wisdom roadmaps explaining that for human behavior, namely, “there is nothing new under the sun” (incidentally, that wisdom likely holds true for pandemics and geo-politics as well).

We began to think back and ask ourselves the question, “based on what we know about people, what are the areas that people of all types and all situations are positively impacted by, and how can we install those things to lead our team into a post-pandemic world?” 

With no grand strategy in place, our small group of 20 business owners determined three areas that would empower our businesses to lead into a post-pandemic world.

First, play.

That’s it... play.

Twice this year, I can think back to times where I have had a smile on my face that would not come off.

In August, my wife and daughter sent my two sons and I off barreling down the side of a Montana mountain on bikes.  It was a blast!  We would ride up a chair lift, mount up the mountain bikes and race down the hill.

At one point, I was trying to show off for my oldest son who was stopped up ahead, and jumped what I thought were back to back jumps not realizing there was a third jump awaiting my low-skilled experience.  My feet slammed to the ground, and my rear end slammed down so hard on the seat that it bent the seat frame and I was riding the tire.  I thought my foot was broken, and the right pedal dug into my calf looking like a bear had dug its claws in.  My back hurt, my foot hurt, my calf was on fire...and I was SMILING!

Just recently, me and a couple of clients went to a local indoor, electric go-kart track where the cars are capable of speeds up to 40 mph.  Not sure how fast we were going, but for about an hour, I couldn’t stop smiling.  

When is the last time you played?  When is the last time your team members played?

Must I dole on the value of play?  We all know it is healthy... let’s do it more.

Second, we are determined to do a better job of leading our teams into a post-pandemic world by creating higher levels of predictability.

We are obsessed with new, shiny, loud, novel, innovative, and late-model ideas and things.  As we continued to have conversation, we realized that amidst tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses handed out, salary increases, employee benefits, and making sure we had just the right logo, what people care about more is predictability.  

Not boredom, not mundanity... predictability.

Owners are notoriously unpredictable, irrational, and last-minute personalities.

Team members do not typically speak that language.  According to the DISC profile, most people are passive and responsive... waiting for instructions on what to do next. 

When we act unpredictably, it causes confusion, tension, anxiety, and concern.  

The good news is that predictability is within reach.  We can create predictable structure (org charts), vision, mission, values, processes, and systems; all of which bring clarity and confidence.

Finally, in order to better lead our teams in a post-pandemic world, we believe that over communication will win the day.

The irony is, you can’t over-communicate if you don’t have predictability.

Think back to the time you were stuck in an airplane on the tarmac for 15 minutes without moving (or an hour, or 3 hours!).  Wouldn’t have been just a little better if the pilot would have come on to simply explain what she knew, even if it is no new news?

Communication is the simple exchange of information.  This does not give us license to air all things, but it does give us the opportunity to share the things that others need to hear.

Predictable communication happens through planning.  Planned team meetings, daily huddles, regularly scheduled team member check-ins, vision days, and training days. 

We hear the excuse all the time, “well, we talk all throughout the day.”  That is not a winning communication strategy for any relationship, including your business.

Let’s commit ourselves to do a better job of playing, of creating predictability, and of over communication with our team, our family, and our customers.  

Scott touched on it and really hammered it home. Culture is NOT an Accident. It’s fought for, cultivated, intentional, curated, and tangible. 

About a year ago, we were looking to expand our coaching staff and I stuck my neck out for a buddy. He began the interview process, which is lengthy, sat in on some coaching calls and team meetings, went through our Vision Story and I’ll never forget when he called me and said, “Y’alls culture is ridiculous. I can literally feel it when I’m on the phone with anyone at BoP.” 

Now the point of that is not to brag on us. We do have a great team, but it’s to say that culture should be felt by all who come in contact with you. It should be what you hear when you’re standing in line at a restaurant and overhear someone mention your business. It’s that feeling all your employees have when they step inside your building. And it’s the feeling left for your clients after they work with you.

Now, we’ve spoken about what Culture is a ton, but I want to clear up, before this next bit, what Culture is NOT.

Culture is NOT:

100% 5-star reviews

That’s external. There are too many miserable people out there who go out of their way to nitpick every little thing and have nothing better to do with their days than tell the world about only getting two pumps of peppermint in their coffee instead of the 3 they ordered. You can’t measure culture solely off of what reviews are.

Culture is NOT:

More vacation days

Yes, that’s a part of it. Right, we rest AFTER we’re exhausted. We take turns running and running and running until we hit empty and then foolishly try to figure out a way to get back to a full tank. In reality, we run from ½ a tank to Empty all day instead of being proactive and RUnning between full and ½ a tank. Culture is proactive!

Culture is NOT:

A finished product. It’s not an arrival. There’s no app that you can type in the destination and arrive. No, it’s fluid. It’s constantly shifting. As soon as a new project starts, you know what, you have to fight to protect it. As soon as a new client shows up, you have to lean on it. 

But the moment you think you have arrived, you’re one step away from the culture you worked so hard to build crumbling and falling apart. 

So today... we’re going to answer some questions internally. I’m going to ask you all to be honest. If you have a great culture? YES!!! Awesome, what are the little tweaks to make it better.

If you have a crappy culture? Be honest. Forget people’s birthdays? Work too many hours? Burn out your team? Are y’all angry at each other? Do you shout back and forth? Do you do the least amount of work possible? Do people sulk around when asked to help? 

I don’t know, but it starts with being honest. So let’s have an open conversation.

Before we dive into questions for you I want to highlight something we’ve built that I’d like for us all to build before the end of the year. We call it our Culture Calendar.

EXPLAIN:

We’ve realized that without writing it down, planning it out, and being highly intentional, our culture fails. 

-Team Meetings

-Retreats

-Birthdays

-Onboarding/continued learning calls

-Vision days quarterly

EVERYTHING WE FEEL WE NEED TO DO TO BUILD THE CULTURE WE WANT

So what needs to go on your culture calendar.

I’m going to go quickly through these questions. There’s no way to digest all of these questions in the 10 min we have, so write them down and maybe use your team meetings to ask one question a week for 6 weeks. Tackle them together and build the culture you want to be a part of. I’ll give you about 2 minutes to chat amongst your team, but come back to these questions, as we have, and figure out how to implement in your business!

     1. What is our culture today?

     2. How would our last 5 clients describe working with us??

     3. What do we do year-round to ensure we’re building a positive culture that people want to be a part of?

               a. Again, look back at our content calendar…

               b. Team Meetings, Retreats, Onboarding meetings, trainings, Production meetings, etc...

     4. What else could we do?

     5. Is there anything pulling us away or distracting us from the culture we want?

     6. Is there another business culture out there we would like to be more like, what about it are we drawn to, who do we need to ask about it?

These questions matter. They help build your culture into something you can be proud of. So take time with your team outside this meeting to dive in. I think you’ll be glad a year from now when people are sticking around a long time and feel valued in being a part of your team.

Hey, y’all! Brent Perry with Business on Purpose. 

As I am recording this, my beloved UT volunteers just received a good old-fashioned whoopin from the Gators down in Gainesville, FL. 

Now anyone who knows anything about college football could have told you before the ball was kicked at 6:00 pm down at Ben Hill Griffin stadium what the outcome of the game was going to be. 

But I would be lying if I didn’t tell y’all about an hour before kickoff I started thinking, we actually have a little bit of a shot to win this thing. I kept it to myself, I have been laughed at enough being a fan of the Vols (always will be), but over the years sadly losing to good teams (and some pretty bad ones) has become “The Normal” for us. 

6-6 or 7-5 is a heck of a season in our books these days. Beating Alabama, Florida, or Georgia...probably not going to happen. Occasionally we pull off something bigger than ourselves (and we make sure to celebrate it for a long time) because we have found ourselves accept “that new normal”. 

The question to toss around today is, how do we accept the normal in our business? ” And what do I even mean by that? 

When I am talking about the normal, I am really talking about the systems and processes that you create that give you the results you are looking for. Is there such a thing as predictability in business, we think yes. 

What SOP’s (standard operating procedures) have you built that gives you and your team your vision and making those wins regular. 

At Business on Purpose, we use the Master Process Roadmap that holds all our processes in one place. Literally, any process that we have in our business is on this roadmap. 

One of our coaches, Thomas, tells a funny story about his first week in the office with our owner Scott Beebe. Thomas noticed that the trash bag was full in the office and asked Scott, hey where do I take the trash out to, and where are the new bags. Scott’s response, oh just check the taking out the trash process on the roadmap. What? The man had created a taking out the trash process for everyone in the office. 

It went through the details of where to take the trash, where to find the new bags, what to do when the new bags get down to 5 or less, etc. 

Sounds funny, and simple, yet it’s effective. 

Scott doesn’t have to worry about whether or not the trash gets taken care of. Or whether or not the office has enough bags. We all have access to the procedure, and we can use it effectively to accept the normal 

In this case that we will always have trash bags, and everyone on the team knows what to do about it. 

Now this is a very small example. I can’t even begin to count how many processes that have been created at Business on Purpose over the last 6 years. But just like the trash bags, they are all effective. They provide us with the normal results that we can expect and accept from each other. 

So how do you as a business owner accept the normal and get your team on the same page? You have heard us say this before, write them out! 

Get what’s in your head down on paper (or digitally) 

Take the time to create it, and you will not regret it. 

Thanks for listening. 

If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

Hey y’all, Brent Perry here with Business on Purpose.

The question on the table today, how to make your business adaptable? And I guess before we dive into this question we have to take a small step back and ask ourselves…

What does it mean to be adaptable?

And is it important that we are building a business that is in fact adaptable? 

An article written by Martin Reeves in the Harvard Business Review cited that Adaptability is the new competitive advantage for businesses. 

“Instead of being really good at doing some particular thing, companies must be really good at learning how to do new things.”

They go on to describe some characteristics of companies that are willing to adapt. 

“Those that thrive are quick to read and act on signals of change. They have worked out how to experiment rapidly, frequently, and economically—not only with products and services, but also with business models, processes, and strategies.”

As I am recording this, the 43rd Ryder cup of Golf is underway! It’s a fun golf event played every 2 years between the US and the European team. An article in Golf Digest had this to say about the Ryder Cup, 

“One of the reasons many—most—players crave playing in the Ryder Cup is because it is unique in that you are playing for your teammates, for your country... It isn’t, as Koepka points out, just about you. In the week-to-week tournaments that go on around the world, including the four majors, you succeed or you fail. Period. It is why golf is so difficult mentally. It’s all on you.

But the Ryder Cup is different. At the end of the weekend, individual records really don’t matter very much. All that matters is the team result.” 

The best Ryder Cup teams in history have all been able to adapt. 

If you and your company are going to be able to adapt, you have to be ready to adjust to new conditions. 

But how do we do that?

I am glad you asked that question. We have ideas on how you can become a company that doesn't get left behind as you continue to adapt to the ever-changing environment. 

• Evaluate your competitors' strategies and products

• Utilize a wide range of resources

• Collaborate with employees

• Test new product adaptations without fear of failure

• Utilize technology, virtual environments, and online communities

• Utilize your business coach

Thanks for listening. 

If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.

Do you give anyone license to speak into your life? Does anyone have a voice? Well, let’s talk about why that’s important today. Good morning friends, Thomas Joyner here with Business on Purpose.

I was driving home from the gym this week and pulled up at a traffic light. Normally I kind of just zone out. Not really taking much in. It’s a great time for quiet and thought before a day of coaching. 

As I’m sitting there at the light, I notice the truck in front of me has a license plate that’s a funky series of letters and numbers. I love quirky license plates. It took me a minute to figure this one out, but the letters were all caps. SG2BME. So Good to be me! 

Bold! Right?

So good to be me! My thoughts started racing. Wonder what that guy's life is like? I mean he does have a nice truck. Wonder what he does? Wonder why it’s good to be him! Haha.

But then, I thought. That’s a pretty cocky statement. Like that dude is flaunting that his life is good. Did no one tell him that? Did he ask for anyone’s opinion about how that comes across? Is it a joke? Does he have anyone close enough to him that they would speak up? Man, I hope so...

Ok, maybe I’m overanalyzing it, but the question should remain. Do we have people in our life we give permission to tell us the truth? Do we have a tribe that we let in on the good and the bad?

Another example for you, my wife runs a small business from home selling teaching curriculum around the world. She’s REALLY good at it. This past week she had a mastermind retreat of several business owners who do the exact same thing. They watched several keynote talks and sat around in the evenings discussing their businesses. They talked about the areas they have momentum, the areas they’re struggling and both cheered each other on and challenged one another. 

It was such a valuable time for her! To have another set of eyes watching her business telling her the truth.

It’s, in all honesty, one of the main values we bring as coaches. Holding business owners and key leaders accountable to what they say they’re going to do. Providing perspective and honesty when necessary. Encouraging, cheering on, challenging, and grounding them when the time calls for it.

But here’s the thing... we have to be invited into that space. I think sometimes we believe the lie that we have it, but we’ve never invited anyone in. We guard that space, because we’re too arrogant in believing that we don’t need it. Or maybe we believe the lie that we don’t have time. Either way, there’s a major area that’s a blind spot for you if you don’t have someone looking and speaking into your life and business.

So, take a minute to pause this video and think through this...who is honest with you? Does anyone have the freedom to tell you, “Getting a license plate that says, ‘So good to be me,’ probably isn’t the best idea you’ve ever had!” Now I’m joking obviously, but who do you allow in to that space?

Do they know they’re allowed in? If the answer is, “They should know!” That’s probably not good enough. Set a time and place for those conversations to happen. Set up a lunch twice a month to facilitate that happening. Tell them you want everything they got!

Do you need a coach? Someone with content to lead you through and game-changing accountability to match it? Yes, you probably do! 

Only you can open up the door for it. Don’t miss out. Don’t be the guy driving around with no clue how he’s being perceived.

Last thing I’ll comment on is this. You may say, “Thomas I can’t spend all my time wondering what someone else is thinking and trying to please them!” You’re absolutely right. That’s why you give that permission to a select person or a select few people. People who care about you and will tell you the truth. NOT everyone else.

Find someone you trust and let them in today. If we at Business on Purpose can do that for you, let me take you to lunch and see where it leads. We’d love to match you up with a coach who can hold you accountable and lead you to a place of freedom instead of chaos as a business owner.

It’s so so worth it!

Have a great day everyone!

Although I am a child of the 1980s, I never fully embraced its music; too much hairspray and synthesizer for me.  But for all of the studded leather jackets and the poorly designed Buicks of the ’80s, the famed duo Hall and Oates did have a song title that still resonates, Everywhere I Look.

They decried, “Everywhere I look I see people waking up, so why are we still sleeping, everywhere I look I see people shaking off all the old ways, so why can't we follow through”.

A modern version of that classic 80’s rock dynamic might declare, “everywhere I look I see wealth and stuff, so why are we so anxious and unnerved?”

In the west, we equate material wealth with personal success.  I heard a statement last week that stunned me, “success is the sickness that is slowly killing us”.  

Wow.  Is that true?

Could it be that success (or our response to success) has a part to play as a catalyst for the significant decrease in human wellbeing?  

Regardless, we have solid evidence and reason to believe that the well-being of our souls, our minds, our bodies, and our spirits are teetering on the cliff of discontent and isolation.

There has been increased attention lately from companies (Shoreline Construction, Nike, Bumble, Hootsuite, and LinkedIn to name a few) providing a week off for their employees.  A senior leader within Nike explains their suggestion to, “take the time to unwind, de-stress and spend time with your loved ones. Do not work…”

This could be misconstrued as another line item in a long list of employee benefits companies are hoping will provide a reason for talented leaders to remain long-term.  But this is more than a corporate benefit strategy.  This is a real recognition that what we have been through, and are going through is unique, peculiar, and something worth acknowledging.

Everything is shifting.  

Just last week I was attending a conference where leaders from a variety of faith and commercial backgrounds were in attendance.  During a general session, a researcher began explaining the seismic shift up ahead for faith communities (churches, synagogues, etc.)  Even the religious leaders, those most thought to be “stuck in a rut” are being presented with significant changes that culture is about to impose on their outward manifestations.

Minus the hairspray and synthesizer, we are about to find ourselves echoing the lyrics of John Hall and Daryl Oates, “Everywhere I look I see people waking up, so why are we still sleeping?”

Sleep is healthy, in moderation.  The question is what do we do with the time we’re awake?

There are four disciplines that we can embed in our day-to-day that will provide us each a good rich soil for human wellbeing.

First, practice the simple (and hard) art of thinking.

Meditation is a common word used when discussing this personal discipline, but I don’t want your mind to immediately cliche this idea with a trance-like “ohming” exercise that most of us think of.

Part of the challenge of human wellbeing is that our minds are cluttered, confused, and foggy.  

Just yesterday Ashley and I took our cars to the car wash.  We drove in feeling loud and cluttered because our cars were loud and cluttered.  After a wash and a lot of time cleaning out and vacuuming, we left feeling just a touch more peace-filled and orderly.

Making time (don’t miss that... making time) to think deeply provides you with opportunities to begin decluttering, organizing, and culling all of the thoughts, impulses, and invitations your mind has received.

Making time to think also allows for the space to replace negative, unhelpful, and degrading lies with uplifting and progressive truths that will literally renew your mind, providing that same sense of peace, orderliness, and clear-headedness that you know you want.  

Merely thinking is highly valuable, and is a step that most of us do not intentionally take leaving us wondering why we remain so cluttered.

I literally schedule time to think... and then follow my schedule!

The second discipline to encourage wellbeing is reading and writing.

We now have no excuses to not read and write.  Audiobooks are pervasive, and books have never been more accessible.

Imagine if I asked you, “would you pay $20 to spend six hours with Peter Drucker?”

Of course, you would.  Books allow you to do that.

We obsess about getting to meet famous people in person.  Why?  Honestly, so we can tell our friends we met them.  What’s more powerful is to actually learn from the people we hold in high regard.  Meeting them will last for a minute or two...learning from them will last our entire lifetime and will continue to return.

If I had to pick one discipline in all of human existence that I would want for everyone to learn and implement... reading.

As you read, it is most helpful to write.  

I’ve heard it said before, “if you don’t write it down you don’t own it.”

For the last couple of years, I have been writing a sentence a day (for most days) in a journal that is titled “A Sentence A Day Journal”.  

Even just a sentence a day of what you have seen, heard, or read will be a powerful display of all that is being invested inside of you, and it leads to a life of well-being.

Thirdly, to have a sense of wellbeing, try to sweat multiple times per week.

Weights, running, wrestling, kickboxing, infrared hot yoga, dri-tri’s, biking, or a good ole’ fashioned powerful walk.  Whatever you’ve got to do, and more importantly, whatever you enjoy most... go do it multiple times per week and sweat while doing it.

Get out of your chair.  Stop staring at the screen.  

In the same way that books are now pervasive, fitness is equally pervasive.  You can sweat just about anywhere for any reason and call it fitness.  

My personal goal is to sweat for at least 30 minutes a day for four to five days per week.

That takes the pressure off from feeling like I have to follow a perfect routine.  I can just sweat, and enjoy.

A final helpful discipline to promote your personal well-being is to practice periodic restraint.

What are those things that you love and have been relegated to auto-pilot in your day-to-day life?  Scrolling social media?  That quick stop in for an energy drink and a donut mid-day?  Coming home and turning on the numbing entertainment of that same show everyday?

What if you mixed it up once a week and did something else?  What if you restrained yourself from that familiar creature comfort, and did something different during that time?

When we restrain from the comfortable, it pushes us to new places and new things allowing our eyes to see things we would not otherwise see, our ears to hear things we would otherwise not hear, and our souls to begin understanding new things that can provide a unique peace and orderliness. 

Let’s write a new lyric, “Everywhere I look I see well-being and flourishing”.  We can when we begin to intentionally practice those things that lead to well-being and flourishing.

Hey y’all, Brent Perry here with Business on Purpose. 

It is once again the time on the calendar when the Business on Purpose team looks ahead and plans out our next 12 weeks of action. Each of us makes sure we get our 12 week goals and actions planned out, and we invite our clients and their teams to join us in the challenge of taking back our time and defining the important goals we want to accomplish. 

The idea of the 12 week plan has been around some time, and one of the best books that has been written on the topic, I’m sure you have heard us mention it before, “The 12 week year” written by Brian Moran. 

I tell you all this, because this past week I got my copy back out and started reading through it to prepare myself for the upcoming 12 weeks. As I reread some of the chapters and concepts each 12 weeks there tends to typically be a different chapter that challenges me and helps realign me if you will.

The chapter this past week that really hit me hard is titled, Interest versus Commitment. In the chapter, Moran writes, “When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit, but when you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”

Are you interested in your business? Or are you committed to your business in this season? 

I was with a good friend of mine this past weekend at his annual Banquet he hosts for the non-profit organization he directs. I got there early to help out a little bit, and we were talking about the unprecedented times that most nonprofit organizations have found themselves in over the past couple of years. And we all know that story. We are still living it really. It’s not just for nonprofits out there, if for you as business owners as well.

But where I was truly inspired by my friend, was his commitment to this cause. He told me that living through the past year and a half has made him more sure of the work he and this organization is doing. He is not stopping. He is not taking no for an answer. He’s not making excuses, just moving forward and fighting. 

That is commitment. I love the quote from this chapter that Moran uses, “commitment is an act, not a word.”

The 12 week plan is a powerful tool for several reasons. One of them being, the commitments you make... a.k.a. the goals you are setting for yourself, are for the next 12 weeks. Not a year, not multiple years, not a lifetime... 12 weeks. 

Again, I want to ask you the question, 

Are you interested in your business? Or are you committed to your business in this season?

If it interests you, this could be a long uphill 4th quarter coming up. 

If you are committed, make some goals for these last 12 weeks, and push on. Fight for those goals. They won’t let you down. 

Thanks for listening. 

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