My Business On Purpose

How To Structure Your Business Mentoring Program To Change Lives

Tragedy struck this past Friday night. A young, 18-year-old student, friend, athlete, and rising star is dead.

What we know right now is that at least one, if not two gunmen took fire on another car while driving their own car. Now one young man is dead, one is in critical condition, and one is in a wheelchair for now while he processes in his mind everything that went so wrong so fast.

Our family was beyond excited that same Friday night because our college daughter had come home for an evening to hang out and catch her breath before heading back to school. We laughed around the dinner table for a while... in another part of town, chaos was brewing.

Then.

Gunshots.

Why?

Saturday we woke up somber but still distant from the story. Our kids knew of the students involved in the incident, but not firsthand.

Sunday morning we woke up with a completely different proximity. A mug shot of one of the young men who was a member of the small group that we started four years ago when these students were freshmen. There were only five in that original group... and now one of those five is wearing prison orange staring empty and scared into a County Detention Center camera.

The emotion centers in our heads began to buffer and spin. How? Why? Who? When?

Over and over again.

Feeling real empathy for the Field's family of this young man who is now gone, and for the lifetime of lingering pain.

Feeling anger at the escalation of teenage emotion.

Feeling confusion.

Feeling failure.

Why?

WHY??

Here is a hard truth that I was forced to reckon…

While I spin my wheels myopically building a kingdom that will ultimately dissolve, an 18-year-old somewhere is ready for my faulty influence, my lackluster enCOURAGEment, my unpolished intercession, my handshake, my slap on the shoulder, and my curiosity about their life.

A business on purpose affords us options. We have the option to grow, build, create, innovate, lead, shift, and research.

We also have the opportunity to invest the margin our business provides; marginal time, money, resources, and connections.

Tim Elmore in his book Gen Z Unfiltered relayed that "72 percent of high-school students wanted to start a business and nearly one-third of those ages sixteen to nineteen had already begun volunteering their time."

There is a real desire among High School students to do something unique, innovative, entrepreneurial, and meaningful.

Your business can be a training ground for that.

Here are three ways (there are plenty more) for you to begin a business mentoring program that would provide students exposure to your influence, and just maybe give them a reason to their still-developing teenage emotion.

First, you can simply begin meeting with a group of students regularly. You may be surprised... but students like to congregate and they love it even better when there is food.

Come up with a basic theme of your time together, get some cheap food, and plan a simple activity.

We began meeting with students four years ago at a local Wendy's Restaurant with cheap breakfast biscuits. I would play a five-minute video of something motivational and then have a silly activity ready like burning a match from end to end, or a spit-ball competition at the head of a Dave Thomas poster (the founder of Wendy's).

I would share stories from our life and business and focus on one big takeaway from our time and then drive those five guys to school. That group still meets, now it is on Tuesday nights (because all of the guys can drive) and has grown to 10 to 15 on any given night.

Where do you find the students? Ask the coaches and local youth leaders (like YoungLife or FCA). They would welcome your support, and the students will invite their friends.

Second, build a simple business mentor program. Create one role in your business that could easily be filled by a student (especially social media management) and create a one-year, revolving program where you bring a student in each year.

During that year, go ahead and map out a calendar for their time and also the time that you and your team will intentionally spend with them so they can learn.

I am proud of a local drone training company here in Bluffton (Crossflight) that has invited a group of four students to come and take part in an internship. One of the young men in our Tuesday night group is a part of it and they have taken the kid gloves off and are empowering these students to learn drone flight while also taking their drone pilot's license.

Finally, connect with other local business owners and collectively determine mutual roles that one or two High School students could co-op on.

If you are a law office, maybe you can connect with other firms in the area for mutual services that a young student can help with.

Investing in students is an active decision that takes active effort, time, and money.

Your failure rate may be high, your confidence level may be low, but the good news is that those don't matter.

What matters is showing up with intentionality. We all knew that one lady, or guy, that as a student we thought, "what a freak!" Then when we grew into adulthood we realized…" what a sage."

May you and your business be an intentional light to a student today and maybe we'll have one less student in the grave, and one less student in a jumpsuit.

Do your employees know all that you think they know?

So many frustrations with employees. Why can't they just do things the way I would do them? Well, maybe they don't know how you would do them!

Good morning everyone, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose.

The past few weeks I've set up Weekly Team Meetings and trained local business owners on our process for that.

The funny thing is we always get the same objection. "Thomas, we've tried it in the past and it doesn't really work."

You see, most team meetings are miserable. Boring. Basically pointless. They go on for way too long, they don't accomplish what they should accomplish... and worst of all, there's no follow-up.

So, what should a team meeting look like? What makes it worthwhile and game-changing for your business?

5 simple things:

1. A written agenda.

If you don't write it down it doesn't exist. Here's what writing things down shows your team… it shows them you've prepared. Shows them this is a legit meeting and gives them a predictable set of items that they know they will be asked about. Write out what you want to cover.

1. BIG Wins

If you've spent any time around us, you know we are all about BIG Wins. It stands for begin in gratitude. It's simple but helps to make you feel known and seen. Gives it a personal touch in a meeting that normally feels all about business. But it also gives you rare insight into your teams life that you don't get when you jump straight into business. Do it, every week.

1. Follow up from last week's action items

Nothing is more frustrating than being asked to do something and then never get any feedback. This is your chance to hold your team accountable. You don't need to list everything your team needs to do, but what are the main focus points from the last meeting and how did they go.

1. Next week's action items, or action items for the near future

Again, if your team knows they will be asked about them at the next team meeting, they can plan accordingly and execute the plan. Give them the things to focus on and let them know y'all will talk about it next week.

1. 5-10 min of Training

This is where you get creative. Pick one process each week and train the entire team. Let everyone poke holes in the workflow or give feedback on things. Businesses want to do these day long or multi-day training days, and while that's great, your team retains less of it than you think. But if you can build 5-10 min of training into each team meeting, times 52 weeks... that's A LOT of training throughout the course of the year. Served up to your team in bite-size chunks they can digest and be held accountable.

So back to my clients... I've had to try their first team meetings in the last 2 weeks. The first one came back and said it was one of the best things they had done this year. He picked an easy process, how to set up your service truck every day. What are the things you don't leave the shop without?

You know what? They had no idea what they were responsible for having on their truck every day. They grew as a team. So, next time something happens, the business owner isn't driving it out to them on the job site, or they aren't getting paid to drive back to the office for supplies. Their trucks and employees are ready for whatever comes.

That changes your business! That gives you freedom from the chaos!

And when, inevitably, one of your team members fails in an area. Hey, it's ok, but we talked about this. You were trained on our process. That's radical accountability that brings the performance of your team up every day.

So, what's stopping you from having a team meeting? Is it the thought of, "Oh, well they just don't work for us."

It's not true. Build out your process, implement it, and watch your team grow.

I can't wait to hear some stories of successful team meetings.

Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube and podcast. So much great stuff on there.

Have a great weekend!

My Friend's Cancer Made Me Confront Chaos

I received a quote recently that bothered me, "slow dancing with chaos".

It immediately recalled the famed John Mayer title, "Slow Dancing In A Burning Room".

Christmas Eve, we are driving through a small, pass-thru town on the way to have a quick glimpse at the university that my son just committed to attending and running for.

"Hey man...just wanted you to know before word got out... I've got stage 3 melanoma."

About four weeks later, another bomb... a 14 x 14 centimeter mass on his kidney.

My friend and I along with another dear wisdom mentor grabbed lunch as we do throughout the year. No agenda, we typically just check in with each other and then meandor the back roads of our experiences while laboring intently to take in new views along the way while staring out a windshield of the wisdom of foundational books and Proverbs.

If it sounds geeky, your perception would not be misaligned.

Throughout our lunch, I was unusually quiet primarily because I was moved by my friend's hope, joy, laughter, humility, curiosity, and confidence.

At one point he told us of the many texts he had received encouraging him to "kick cancer's ass", and "you can do it!".

He obviously appreciated the backing and optimism, and yet he had a contrasting strategy for the next few months as he cranked up radiation.

"Scott, I want to be a helpless lamb in God's arms."

How did he come to such an outrageous game plan? The human spirit must fight, battle, war, aggress, and strike blows to that which invades.

This quiet warrior had procured a different armamentarium. His stockpile was one of quiet, thought, slowness, patience, stillness, and sharp perception.

To my knowledge, I do not have cancer or one of a thousand other possible ailments that can lob death threats and sentences at the very bodies they call home.

I, and you likely as well, suffer from a more social disease; submitting to chaos.

Email tethers us. Facebook (insert your channel of choice) grips us. The expectations of others blind us, and societal noise confuses us.

Ryan Holiday contends that Stillness Is The Key.

How can my friend have the courage to build an arsenal in such stark contrast to the common battle tools that are wielded?

He practices stillness.

My friend wields the sword of wisdom, the shield of a quiet life, the helmet of thinking, the spectacles of reading, and the smiles of joy.

Chaos thrives in the stickiness environment of busy. Chaos LOVES busy.

Our usual response to chaos is to match it with louder and louder chaos. Chaos is loud, be louder. Chaos punches, punch back harder. Chaos confuses, act like a know-it-all. Chaos delivers a blow, try to kick its ass.

Holiday quotes Marcus Aurelius, "Ask yourself at every moment, 'Is this necessary?'" Holiday goes on to say, "Knowing what not to think about. What to ignore and not to do. It's your first and most important job."

Stillness will determine your battle armour. Stillness will provide the insight that you need in the moment. Stillness sets the stage for wisdom.

Chaos on the other hand... well, if stillness is the key, then chaos is the beautifully groomed path to destruction.

I will not offer a typical stepwise approach to stillness... for I need stillness in order to see it for myself.

Maybe this wisdom statement will help, "be still…" Drop your hands. Step back.

"... and know…"

I'll invite you to fill in the blank.

Scott Beebe is the founder of Business On Purpose, author of Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, And Build A Business That Matters. Scott also hosts The Business On Purpose Podcast and can be found at mybusinessonpurpose.com.

Is your business ready for a huge boost in revenue?

Are you drowning in opportunity? Frustrated thinking that if you could just get your head above water, everything would stabilize? Well, that's a great place to dig in for a bit today. Happy Monday y'all, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose.

One of my favorite shows to watch with my wife is Shark Tank. Not only do you see some amazing new products, but I love the dialogue between the Sharks and the business owners. It's a back and forth as they figure out a valuation and then agree upon what to do moving forward.

I bet 1 out of 3 businesses that come on the show is frustrated because they can't effectively manage inventory. They need cash to fulfill orders and are, as Mark Cuban likes to say, "Drowning in Opportunity." When the orders are manageable, they can fulfill them and keep customers happy. But, when they make it big and the wal-marts or the Krogers of the world start putting in PO's for thousands and hundreds of thousands of units, they have no way to finance the order and quite literally go under because they can't fulfill the order.

It's something I saw last week...live, in person!

I got a call from a client last week in a panic. We just got offered a $500,000 contract. What do we do!?!? Now, 500k may not seem like a lot to you. Or it may seem like more than you ever imagined from a revenue standpoint. But this would bump his business up about 30% overnight. That's substantial. As we spoke, it was fascinating to look back on how far his business has come in working together for the past 6 mos.

Had this opportunity come about 6 mos ago, he would have had to say no. He had no clue what the margins were on his jobs, no clue how much cash he had to work with. Hiring? Nope, not right now.

But with months of hard work, he's locked in on his margins, he knows to the penny how much cash profit is in his business, because it's sitting in an account (not on some spreadsheet somewhere), and he's ready to hire to make this happen.

That is liberation from chaos! Gah, I get so pumped up just talking about him because I'm so proud of him. He's put in the hard work to get his head above water and be able to make sound decisions from a position of thriving instead of just surviving. That's what is going to keep his business growing. Continuing to build the foundation and make wise decisions for growth instead of just winging it and risking it all.

So...where are you in your business today?

If that opportunity presented itself, could you take advantage of it? Seriously, ask yourself what would be a life-changing contract for your business to receive. Name the number right now. Then ask yourself, if I'm honest, could I handle it and would I know what to do?

I hope the answer is yes. I hope your business is in a place of strength and can take advantage of these kinds of opportunities because they don't happen very often.

If the answer is no, don't beat yourself up. We work with businesses every day that answered no to that question just a few weeks and months ago. But the difference with them is they made the tough decision to start working ON their businesses and never looked back. They got help from people who know how to get them there.

If you're curious, here are the 3 things I see holding businesses back from being able to take advantage of opportunity.

1. They are in a poor cash position in their business. They are either over-leveraged, or just don't know the margins, so they can't make an educated decision on how best to grow.
2. Their teams are poorly trained and rarely held accountable. This happens all the time when a business owner can't delegate and effectively equip their teams to do the work they're asked to do. It limits the ceiling and holds you back from ever growing to your potential.
3. Not getting perspective. It happens to all of us...we see things the way we see them and when someone else finally gives us some perspective, a new way of seeing things, we can make adjustments and grow. You need perspective.

So...don't wait to build your business into what it can be. If you want to be able to grab hold of opportunities as they come up, do the work and set your business up for success. You owe it to yourself, your employees, and the people you do business with.

Thanks so much! I hope you have subscribed to our podcast and our youtube channel. Our entire team is putting content out there, so make sure you don't miss it.

Have a great week!

How To Find And Hire The Right Person For The Right Job

This is a monumental week for us, today our team welcomes a new team member, and tomorrow is the six-year anniversary for our business.

To give you some context, we spend our days liberating business owners from chaos so they can make time for what matters most. We do that with powerful business coaching that helps business owners and key leaders build systems, processes, and purpose using the Business On Purpose Roadmap and then graduate onto the Business On Purpose Compass.

Business coaching is nuanced and requires a unique skill set that requires intuition and is hard to replicate. That is why we are a team of four coaches instead of forty at this stage of the game.

How did we find and hire the right person for the right job?

What I am about to share is simply the play that we have called when the game situation calls for bringing a new team member in. There are many ways to proceed... this is ours.

We will do well to remember that hiring and leading a team is not the equivalent to a primary care nurse checking vitals prior to a visit with a physician. Of course, vitals are a part of it; prior skill set, past employment, complimentary personality, etc.

Hiring should be thoughtfully intrusive and investigative. Not in a weird CSI television kind of way, but in a thoughtful, well processed, well-intentioned, goal-focused direction. Hiring an employee is more metaphorically aligned with marriage than it is with dating. We are not inviting someone to a job, we are inviting them to a mission, a calling, and we need their help to get there.

An in-human way of hiring is how most hiring is achieved; check for a pulse, make sure they are not too bazaar for what you are comfortable with, see when they can start, and send over the paperwork.

An incredible human way of hiring is slowing the process down. Not starting at the minimum requirements (experience, degrees, certificates, etc.), but instead walking them through the mission and the role with check in along the way.

We have eight steps that we thoughtfully walk a new team member through over an extended period of time in order both to make sure we are aligned with that person and that they are aligned with our mission.

Step one is pre-recruiting. Before we ever reach out to someone we check off five pre-recruiting items:

• Define the gap: what is the gap in the business for which we need to bring another team member in to fill?
• Define the role: what role do we need that person to play in order to fill the gap?
• Define the budget: what compensation will be appropriate for this role based on the revenue that will be generated or supported because this role exists.
• Ask for internal candidates: larger businesses should look around internally to see if there are any "homegrown" candidates for the role.
• Share the role with key stakeholders: prior to traditional posting of your new role in the job search databases

Step two to finding and hiring the right person for the right role is the initial phone or Zoom interview. It is intentionally distant and has a goal of simply reading the situation by asking general questions of background, experience, desire, and motivation.

Step three is the first in-person interview (if applicable to location). In this interview, we do not share anything about role specifics or compensation. Before you get married your biggest questions are not regarding future financial goals and or roles within the home. They are important to discuss prior to marriage certainly, but out of the gate, it is important to make sure there is a simple motivational fit.

We want to make sure this new candidate is aligned with our vision, mission, values, and culture. We spend the entire time reviewing those written cultural and purpose-centered documents along with our Org Chart and case studies so they can get clarity and ask questions.

We take just a minute to explain the compensation structure (i.e. base plus commission) but do not discuss numbers. Our desire is they want to be on the team because of purpose first, then we can get to some of the other elements of the agreement down the road.

Step four to finding and hiring the right person for the right role is the due diligence phase where we ask the candidate to take a DISC profile, complete an appropriate homework assignment to determine competency and motivation, and we follow up with three references from three different relational backgrounds to the candidate.

Step five is our second in-person interview (if applicable to location). This step is where we dive deep into the role, where that role fits within the larger organization, and how that role helps our business to take another step towards liberating business owners from chaos so they can make time for what matters most.

This is time that we roll out the specifics of compensation for discussion and review.

Step six is a live meet up with the candidate and their spouse (is applicable). We want to spend time with them in a casual environment so we can have unscripted discussions about life, business, and a variety of other things. It also allows another member of their household to get to know us better and hear our heart.

Step seven to finding and hiring the right person for the right role is the formal offer where we send a formal employee agreement of expectations within a formal offer email. We put a time limit on the offer and expect prompt response.

The final step to finding and hiring the right person for the right role is ONBOARDING! We script out the schedule and calendar of the first four weeks for our new team member. We also host weekly onboarding calls with our new team member for the first 90 days and ask them pre-set questions. We want them to focus on learning and growing rather than constantly wondering "what's next?"

The hiring process is the decision-making process to helping your new team member find out if they really do want to run the marathon of your mission with you, the 90 day onboarding time is the stretch period before the race, and the 90-day mark of their new role is when the marathon gun fires at the starting line.

You owe it to yourself, to your team, your mission, and your new team member to take the time to do this right.

For help in this go join our Business On Purpose Roadmap membership community where you can work through a complete training on hiring and 30 other crucial elements of building a business that liberates you from chaos and makes time for what matters most.

Scott Beebe is the founder of Business On Purpose, author of Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, And Build A Business That Matters. Scott also hosts The Business On Purpose Podcast and can be found at mybusinessonpurpose.com.

Does your business rely on you... or your system?

Employee-dependent businesses, lack of trust for employees, and never taking the time to systematize... so many things to get to this morning. Happy Friday friends I hope it's been a great week. Thomas Joyner here with Business on Purpose.

We do a business owner lunch about once a quarter or so with businesses we have zero connection to. It's so much fun as there's really no expectation other than to invest back into some new businesses and make some new connections.

Yesterday I sat down with about 8 business owners and we began to talk all about Delegation... the goods, the bads, and the uglies associated with it. It was powerful and they left with some practical ways to own delegation in their businesses and left with multiple tasks to systematize and train on after they choose to delegate.

We were moving until we hit a roadblock. One of the business owners brought up the frustration of feeling like there were several things that he couldn't delegate. "What do you mean by that?" I kind of asked him to go a little further in-depth.

"Well, estimating is probably 80% of my job. There are so many variables. So many things you have to know and things I can't really train on to get this off my plate."

I agreed with him for a minute but then asked this question.

"So what happens if something happens to you?"

You see, that's what we have to think about. When we are the business, we're severely limiting the ceiling we can achieve. Severely holding our business back from reaching its potential. But, what happens if something happens to us and we can't estimate for two weeks, a month, 6 most? Does this business just stop estimating? Especially in times of COVID... we have to think these things through.

"The challenge," I said, "is to get people to buy into your system, not buy into you." Salespeople want to sell themselves first and foremost. Because oftentimes they view sales as someone's not buying what I'm selling, they're buying me.

While that sells a ton at first... you're basically selling your time at that and becoming incredibly vulnerable as a business. But... when you can create a system that people are buying into, a customer experience that is a competitive advantage, then people aren't coming to you for you, they're coming to you for your system. Which, in turn, sets others up to help carry the load of estimating, bidding, coaching, and whatever complicated operations you may have.

It's no different from when I started here at BOP. Scott was the face of this business for 7 years. When you called for business coaching you wanted Scott. And he is AMAZING at it. But think about this…

Think there aren't a ton of different variables in our business? We coach businesses all across the country and world, in every different industry (in a time of pandemic I might add) and there's problem-solving that goes into every coaching session. It's a training nightmare getting me up to speed.

But here's the thing Scott saw a while back. He doesn't have to train me on 5,000 different variables, he just has to train me on our system. He put the time in to create a system that works industry-wide and then pushed me to focus on learning and implementing our system.

And the verbiage changes right. No longer is it…" Hey, come to me for coaching and we'll get you straightened out." It's, "Hey, we have to get you in our roadmap to get you moving the right direction."

You see the beauty and the power and the secret sauce, if you will, should be your system. That's what unlocks almost unlimited growth. So now, it almost doesn't matter who the coach is, the system is intact and the coach walks you through our system.

So, here's the challenge for you. How do you build that system where you currently are? It doesn't just happen. But...if you want your business to be able to thrive if something happens to you, for your employees to be able to run without wondering if they're doing the right things if you want to rip the lid off your potential and allow for huge amounts of growth... PERFECT YOUR SYSTEM!

Or at least get started. Yesterday we talked a ton about just getting started. Because the perfectionist in us wants to say that if we don't get it perfected quickly then it's not worth doing. No, Scott took 6-7 years building this system, and it's still changing today as we learn and re-implement. But we wouldn't be where we are today had he not written it down and started creating it.

Don't let it scare you... but also don't believe the lie that you can't get things off of your plate. It's just not true.

Hey, if you haven't already subscribed to our podcast or YouTube channel... check out my business on purpose on both platforms. So much great content coming out weekly!

Have a great weekend y'all and let me know if you ever want to connect.

Cameron Herold Interview Hosted by: Scott Beebe Founder | Head Coach Business On Purpose CHECK OUT our website: https://www.mybusinessonpurpose.com/ LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube and Podcast channels: My Business On Purpose #businessonpurpose

Is your success in spite of you?

So often there are so many variables linked to success, so how do we know which ones were the real reason behind it all? Well, that's what we're going to talk about this morning. Happy Monday y'all, Thomas Joyner with business on Purpose here.

I love meeting with new businesses and asking them what they attribute their success to. A couple of weeks ago I was meeting with a friend who ran a mortgage office and he said something that struck me.

We were talking about the Mortgage business and how on fire it has been recently. Clearly, he had a great year and originated a record number of loans for his branch. I started asking him what was behind that. He said a few things I expected like, "Well the rates were so low, people's buying power jumped this year," or, "so many people moved south due to the pandemic and needed a lender", or even, "everyone and their brother decided to refinance their homes this year to lower their rate."

All that stuff was predictable. But, what I appreciated was what he said next. He said, "Thomas, if you didn't succeed in the mortgage industry this year, you probably can't make it. It was almost too easy. This year we succeeded IN SPITE of ourselves, but the true measure is going to be next year where we have to succeed BECAUSE of ourselves."

Now that's a heck of an observation. You see, he realized that this year's performance had very little to do with the effectiveness of his business. It didn't have to do with the processes or workflow or even the customer service. Sure, that stuff helped, but the waterfall of business was flowing so strongly, that they didn't have to be great at what they did in order to succeed.

But next year, when the pipeline is a little less strong, when the refinance market slows down and everyone has the rate they are after, the competition really kicks in. The playing field is narrowed so to succeed, it has to be ON PURPOSE!

I thought about that in the context of this pandemic. Are you ready for the year after the pandemic? Have you been living in chaos mode so long that you've lost your advantage? So when the pipeline starts to slow down a bit, your processes aren't ready to keep the sales moving forward?

You see this is why we're so passionate about systems and processes. They are tested in the midst of the fire, but they are perfected in the calm. Their worth is truly realized when there is nothing else to fall back on.

So, before it's too late, where are the holes in your processes? Where do you need to take some time to work ON your business, so that your business is ready to handle what this year will inevitably throw at you?

You have to have a plan!

I loved what my friend said. They weren't just expecting this year to go off without at hitch but were going back to customers and asking how they can improve by sending surveys. They were poking holes in the customer experience to make sure that, this year, they succeeded because of their systems and processes.

One thing we say around here all the time is, "There's no competition for a well-run business." And we truly believe that. The day you commit to that is the day you stop succeeding in spite of yourself and truly build a competitive advantage that keeps you in front for the long haul.

If that doesn't make sense, reach out... let's have a conversation. We want you to succeed because of yourself. To build a business free of the chaos! One that you can be proud of and not have to worry as much about the external factors blowing your business around.

Hope you guys have a great week! Make sure to follow my business on purpose on YouTube and subscribe to our podcast. Man, there's so much good stuff on there.

Take Care guys.

Four Tools To Help Resolve Conflict At Work

It was silly; grown adults yelling and screaming at an umpire for a bad call... at a tee-ball game.

Why? Why do we lose our minds and create conflict?

Conflict is literally to strike together.

Think about metal grinding together... conflict... parks... explosion.

We are people with emotions. We are people with opinions. We are people with varying perspectives, worldviews, tendencies, and biases.

It is only logical then if you put two people together in an emotional situation where opinions can be expressed, or biases can surface; explosion may not be far behind.

My first manager at Pfizer Skip Clarkson used to say, "speak to people the way they wish to be spoken to."

That mindset is our foundational rally cry when discussing the importance and power of the DISC profile. Understanding where a person is on the DISC graph gives you incredible empathy and intelligence when having the right conversations with the right people.

It is not our nature to think about another person when responding or reacting to a situation. We are bent to be me-first thinkers. What is in it for me? What does this mean for me?

It is not surprising that when two, me-first people connect, an explosion is imminent.

But what happens when explosion is the outcome? What happens when the tension of conflict gets red hot. How do we cool that tension, and repair any fractures or brokenness that comes?

We always say, life and business necessarily intersect. You can't have something happen at work and then successfully "leave it at work" in the same way that home-things follow you straight to work.

John Ussery, who oversees business development at Shoreline Construction in South Carolina, said this recently in one of our coaching meetings, "You can't change someone's mind. But you can build rapport, offer empathy, and give them new information so they can change their own mind."

In other words, the goal is not to try harder, yell louder, talk faster, cry harder, withdraw sooner, or demand more for less.

Instead, your goal is to be a stage-builder.

Stage-builders set a stage for which others have the opportunity to perform.

Stage-builders get very specific instructions from the performers quietly and behind the scenes so they can create the right atmosphere for the show to wow the crowd.

It is impossible for the stage-builder to win if the performer does not win. But if the performer wins, the stage-builder automatically wins every time.

The entire goal of a stage-builder is to, again as Ussery put it, "de-escalate a combustible scenario." In other words, set the stage so the performer is in position to wow the crowd... then we all win.

In conflict resolution, being right is not the goal, instead, setting the right stage is the aim.

There are four tools to discover that we will equip you with to stock your emotional and relational toolbelt that will allow you to minimize the pain and discomfort of conflict, and instead build relationships that bring mutual joy and value.

The first of these four tools is listening.

Chris Voss in his book Never Split The Difference says, "it all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there."

Listening is discovering, finding out new bits of insight, information, and perspective.

Listening is not thinking while the other person is talking and missing everything they are saying or having your arms crossed and eyes down like a six-year-old. Listening is not, showing apathy, having an attitude of "it's fine", or being selective in what you hear.

Active listening requires you to use your EARS...

1. Eye contact & Nonverbal Responses
2. Ask GENUINE questions
3. Repeat & Drill Down (Tell me more about that…)
4. Summarize With Notes

The second tool of resolving conflict is mirroring; simply repeating the last 3 to 5 words of what the other person just said.

For instance: "you really frustrated me when you cut me off in that meeting". You respond, "I cut you off in that meeting?" They correct, "well, I felt like my point wasn't made yet."

Mirroring forces more details. The goal of mirroring is to allow the other person to keep talking... and talking... and talking. Many times, they don't want to be right... they just want to know that you are listening with your EARS!!!

Voss quotes Psychologist Richard Wiseman who studied restaurant servers and found the average tip of waiters increased by 70% using mirroring versus those just using the positive reinforcement of "great", "awesome".

The third tool of conflict resolution is labeling allowing you to verify the emotions of another person. Voss says, "give someone's emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels."

Labeling connects you to a person much faster than traditional "get to know you" methods

Voss gives us three phrases to use in your toolbox for labeling…

• It seems like…

1. It sounds like…
2. It looks like…

The final helpful tool to resolve conflict is simply your voice. Your voice can speed things up, or slow things down.

Remember again, rarely is a person defending the emotion they feel on the outside... but instead are instead trying to deal with the turmoil that is happening on the inside. Your goal is to dig that up. We're not looking to put out the smoke... we want to blanket the fire.

When you are intentional about using these four tools, then you can reasonably hope for two outcomes; empathy and rapport.

Empathy is the capability of sharing someone else's feelings, and rapport is a close harmonious relationship.

In using these four tools to resolve conflict, our goal is not to be right... but instead to speak to others the way they wish to be spoken to.

Do you let yourself dream about your business?

The same old thing... day after day. Nothing exciting on the horizon. Nothing new to speak of. Sound familiar? Great, let's talk about how to change that. Happy Friday friends, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here.

I had a mentor in Young Life that told me something 5-6 years ago that changed my life. Now I like change, by nature. I go looking for it. I like something new and different every day, so systems and routine and schedules taste bitter in my mouth, even though I know how beneficial they are to me and my productivity.

I went to a meeting for all of our regional Area Directors and the guy speaking to us was asking us if we dream. And not just practical dreams, but big, elaborate dreams. Dreams that kind of take your breath away and make you go… "Man, if that really happened, it would change everything! For the better."

You see, I think we get so stuck dealing with the fires going on around us, that we forget to dream of a different way of doing things. Or, we get so stuck with one part of our business, that it robs us of the ability to dream about what else we could offer as a product or service. We lose our ability to just wonder...what if?

As I sat there in the meeting I realized that I was in that boat. I hadn't dreamed anything really BIG in a while. The speaker went on to talk about a meeting he sets with himself at 2 pm every single Friday. He calls it his "New/Next/Nap" meeting.

It's exactly what it sounds like. He blocks out an hour at the end of every week on Friday afternoon at 2 pm. If someone tries to meet with him, hey I'm booked at 2 that day. It's non-negotiable. And he does one of three things. He dreams about something "New", something that could come "Next," or some days he's so beat, he just takes a quick power nap to recover from a crazy week.

This was a man who was responsible for 100's of people, that made a meeting every single week to dream or take a nap. There was very little on the agenda. Some days he would dream about starting Young Life in a new town, so he would get in his car and drive over there to pray at a local high school. He might walk in the principal's office just to meet them and see what happened.

Other days he would just make a phone call or two to see if anyone had any connections or just start writing down thoughts on what's next. But here's the cool thing. The growth and things that were brought about from one hour every Friday was game-changing. New ministries were started, new teams built, new plans were hatched to reach new communities. And some days he just realized his limitations and took a nap. Because he realized to be his best he couldn't burn out.

You think... well that works in a ministry setting, but we have stuff to get done. I can't just daydream and actually run a profitable business.

Oh really???

Google has recently started something called the 20% Project. They allow (and in some cases mandate) their employees to use up to 20% of their paid hours at work, working on personal projects. Working on things that may go nowhere. On innovating, developing...and DREAMING.

So, if it works for Google... one of the largest companies in the world, why can't it work for you?

Don't get so locked into the day to day that you can't dream about a new product or service or a new business idea. It's why we build it into our Vision story. We want you always innovating and always poking holes in your workflow so you can continue to get better at what you do.

So get into your Weekly Schedule. Start making time for it. I'd be surprised if it wasn't life giving to you. You see, we don't start a business so we can do the same thing day after day until we die. No, we get into business because we see that we can do things a better way from the get go.

And yet, somewhere along the way, we lose that.

So here's my challenge today. Next week, go ahead and schedule your "New/Next/Nap" meeting with yourself. Fight to keep it on there and not push it aside. Be consistent with it over the next month or two. I guarantee your business will benefit from it... even if it's just having a more rested, more productive owner.

Have a great weekend everyone and if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel or our podcast, search my business purpose and join the family. We're releasing new content there just about every day!

Take care!