Ready. Aim. Fire.

If I had to sum up what I think about goals, I'd use these three words. 

"Goals" has become a buzz term in recent years. As a result, I believe the concept has become over complicated. Let's keep it simple. The fact is - goals are critical to success. No sane person would just hold a gun into the air and shoot randomly. Neither should you be so careless with the firepower of talent, ability, ingenuity and raw creativity God has gifted you with. This haphazard approach is not only unproductive and wasteful, it can be downright dangerous. Goals force you to direct your resources toward a target – both personally and professionally. So let's break them down. 

1.)   Ready

What do you want? Specifically. Define what “SUCCESS” means to you. “I want a better life for my family” is not success. “I want to make more money” is not success. Your challenge is to specifically, quantitatively outline what “SUCCESS” means to you. We aren’t to the part where you actually set a goal – this is bigger than that. What do you want your life to look like? Don’t be too detailed – but don’t be vague. Example: I want to send my kids to private school. I want to earn passive income through rental properties. I want to take a 2-week vacation each summer. I want to visit ten countries. I want to pay cash for all of my vehicles. 

2.)   Aim

This is the goal-setting part. Now that you have defined what success means to you, break that down into incremental steps you can take to get there. Make them S.M.A.R.T. (google it if you aren’t familiar) and make them visible. Revisit them each week, each month, each year. Evaluate yourself and recalibrate. Make goals for your personal life, your family life, your work life, your recreational life. The more clearly you have done step 1, the simpler this step will be. Your goals need to excite you, inspire you, strengthen you. If they don’t, the daily steps you need to take to accomplish them may wear you out before you get there. 

3.)   Fire

Go. Hard. Every day. Articulating your goals and putting them down on paper brings focus to your day. Don’t be obsessive but be diligent. Our culture screams at us that we should have what we want now...YESTERDAY actually. Daily disciplines are a thing of the past, it would seem. The truth is, they aren’t a thing of the past. They are the only means that allows us to accomplish big things. I once heard someone say that skyscrapers are held together by millions of bolts. I love this picture. The bolts are the every day, seemingly mundane tasks that are required to construct a life of impact and success. Wake up each day and remember your definition of success. Then remember your goals. Then fire. 

Lean Forward, 

Bekka

Follow The Leader

Are you a leader? 

There’s a “leadership” cliché that goes something like this: 

“You can only consider yourself a leader if there are others following you.” 

As obviously correct as this idea sounds – I disagree. In my opinion, we all have a distinct and equal opportunity to lead at least one person for the entirety of our lives.

Some people take this opportunity and create for themselves success in relationships, in business and in their families. Others fail to take it, struggling thru life a dollar short and a day late, wondering why others seem to “catch all the breaks”. Which one do you most relate to?

You have a fresh opportunity to lead yourself every day. Even if no one ever “follows” you, your ability to lead your time, your emotions, your passions and most importantly your thoughts will quickly distinguish you from others who neglect to develop this ability. Self-Leadership is a skill – something that can be improved upon and developed. It’s not the same as repression or “stuffing” your emotions. How important to you is honing this ability? The more attention you give to it, the more important it will become to you.

Take some time today to identify the areas in your life in which you feel “out of control”. Write them down and critically look at them, committing to be realistic and objective about your responsibility in each area. Don’t take more than is yours, but don’t shirk your responsibility either.

Do you feel like the days get away from you with important tasks left undone?

Do you wish you could go back to conversations and speak differently?

Do you regret losing your cool in front of your kids or co-workers over something relatively small in the grand scheme of things?

If you consistently answer these questions in the affirmative, perhaps you should consider how well you are leading yourself, and how you might go about improving your ability in this foundational area. 

Lean Forward.

-Bekka

Who Knows?

You don't know everything. 

That's not a bad thing. 

A good leader isn't afraid of his or her own ignorance. In fact, there are times when your ignorance is not only bliss, but is actually ADVANTAGEOUS to your business and to building your team. Responding to a question or problem with "I don't know" can create several desirable outcomes for those you lead. It doesn’t have to be an excuse for inaction. It can be an inspiration for BETTER action. Skeptical? Check this out...

1.) Creativity

We all bring something unique to the table. Admitting you don’t have a specific plan, a desired look or a standard process for something (especially something new) communicates openness to new ideas and input to your team. It builds a collaborative culture where people feel their ideas are important – even if they aren’t ultimately implemented. Creating space brings out the innovative and unique perspectives of your team. This is not a cessation of your leadership responsibility. It's an intentional inclusion. Be open. You just may end up with a brilliant course of action you would have never considered had you not given your team the opportunity of your ignorance.

2.) Demonstration

If you are trying to build leaders among those you lead, they need to know they have permission to not have an answer for everything. Those you are building up need to be encouraged in HOW to find answers for themselves. A great way to teach that skill is to take advantage of the moments when you are unsure yourself, walking them through your own process of problem-solving and demonstrating for them the importance of being honest about their own limitations while working to expand them. This is a high-impact and authentic strategy for building confidence.

3.) Trust

You will be hard pressed to get more bang for your buck in building trust than to make a promise to find an answer you don’t know – then follow through. Nothing builds trust like follow through. In the event that you don't have time for the demonstration strategy, use this one. The only hard part is admitting you don’t know. You know how to find the answers you’re looking for. Let those you lead in on your process. Say you don’t know but that you will find out and get back to them promptly. Then follow through and watch your team and your family begin to trust you even more than they already do.

Here’s a reminder from a guy who is fairly famous for knowing a lot. 

“The only true wisdom is in knowing [what] you don’t know.” – Socrates

Be comfortable enough in what you don’t know to be authentic about it. Don’t get comfy enough to stay ignorant – leverage it for the gain and development of your whole team. Remember, you can’t lead by example if you don’t let others see HOW you get to where you’re asking them to go. Let’s turn up the transparency and help our teams and families expand as we work hard to expand ourselves.

Lean forward,

Bekka

What?

"The first duty of love is to listen."
-Paul Tilich, Theologian

 

Did you know it's impossible to listen to someone without using your eyes? 

Communication scholars estimate that as much as 93% of communication happens SEPARATE FROM the words we speak. Over 50% of the message is comprised of visual components - body language, posture, eye contact, facial expression. The rest of the communication message is comprised of tone of voice and inflection. Without looking at the speaker, you miss more than half of what they're trying to share with you.

This presents some serious questions worthy of a leader's intentional consideration. 

How often, truly, do you look at the person speaking to you and "listen" to what they are telling you with their body? Are they nervous? Ashamed? Over-confident or boastful? Doubting themselves? Doubting you?

Can you truly and fully listen to someone while looking at your phone, regardless of what you're doing on it?

Does a person feel heard if you don't look up from your computer when they ask you a question?

As a leader of your family, how confident are you that you are performing your "first duty of love" effectively and intentionally?

I challenge you this week to make it a point to REALLY listen every time someone is speaking to you. Put down the phone, close the computer, look and listen to the whole message - don't settle for half. Make it a practice and a discipline to fully listen to those you lead and to those you love. You will be astounded at the difference in the way they follow as you work hard to develop the way you lead. 

Lean forward, 
Bekka

Kickoff

Did you know that knowledge and action are not the same? What you know is not synonymous with what you do. This seems like a fairly simple concept – but its ramifications are profound. In mathematical terms, it means that if you subtract what you do from what you know – the difference is that part that is empty of effectiveness. Anything you know above what you actually act upon is irrelevant in your life, at best. And in the worst case, it’s the part that makes you fake.

Leaders should be very concerned about closing the gap between what they do and what they know. Those we lead deserve our integrity – they deserve for us to act upon what we know to be true. They deserve for us to example the practices we preach. They deserve for us to demonstrate these truths openly and in a way they can learn from. But more importantly…

You owe it to yourself to be aligned in this way. Leaders who work hard to close the gap between the idea and the action have less reason to be insecure because they know what works – from experience. They have less reason to accept a place of stagnation in their teams and organizations because they know what they are capable of implementing personally – and they drive their teams from that place of confidence.

I encourage you today to identify three areas of your life where a gap exists between what you know and what you do. Truth is powerless until it is applied to your life, your organization, your team. What small, consistent, diligent steps can you start taking today to close those gaps?

Lean forward,

Bekka