How to do less and get more done.
“There is nothing so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.”
In the past month, I've sat across from four different CEOs and asked them the same questions,
"What are all challenges you're working on as a business right now? Write all of them down."
Heads are thrown back, tears trickle down cheeks, and a quick "Where do I even start?" follows. CEOs react this way because they think these challenges are stealing the freedom entrepreneurship is supposed to provide. They're not. If freedom for business owners comes only from a business without challenges, it's never coming.
They proceeded to rattle off their problems. I listened. Hugged them. Maybe even cried with them. Then got back to business,
"What is the one thing that is most important to your business right now? Write it down."
Each CEO rattled off their one thing to me without a beat. Growth. Growth. Stop the bleeding. Growth. Rarely does a CEO not know the answer to this question. If they all know the answer, why do they need you, KC?
I'm so glad you asked. You can look into a mirror, and it will tell you your face is dirty, but it can't clean it for you. Because it's not the lack of an answer that is the problem; it's what they're doing about it.
This combination of answers is music to my ears because it fills out a formula I use to give you freedom from the business you feel controlled by.
How?
First, by understanding what you want when you say freedom. It isn't life without work or tension. Whoever has correlated those two things for entrepreneurs has never met one. We don't want to hide from work; we want to do meaningful work. Freedom is spending all our work hours in our zone of genius - which I'll elaborate on in next week's newsletter - not fumbling through tasks we only do because there's no one else to do it. Second, it brings simplicity, I can see it as a coach, but you miss it as a business owner due to proximity. We tinker all day in our heads. Nothing is ever perfect, which means there is always a new action waiting in line to become our top priority. You can't have 10 top priorities.
After writing the one thing, I tell the leader to look at their first list and circle all the challenges that are actually contributing to solving their one thing. I've never seen a case where all the challenges were circled. Every challenge is real, but not all of them are relevant. As a CEO, you can learn to live with fires, if you know your hoses are pointed at the ones that are the nearest threat to burning your company down. Stress relief comes from putting out the right fires, not being without them. They are next quarter's or next year's problems.
🧑🏼🚒 Stress relief comes from putting out the right fires, not being without them.
By making these circles, you correlate the challenges with your one thing, and in doing so, flip those into opportunities. They become exciting. We want to put our time, energy, and effort from ourselves and our teams toward opportunities, not challenges.
Here's the formula for flipping challenges into opportunities to tackle your one thing:
Write the list of challenges you are tackling as a company. (Start here, so you don't cheat - yeah, I'd cheat too.)
Write down the one thing you should focus on as a company.
Circle the challenges that correlate with your one thing.
Say no to the irrelevant challenges. (Let those little fires burn, baby)
Establish alignment and accountability from the team on where to focus.
Create a quarterly plan based on what you circled.
Spend a minimum of 2 hours each day as the CEO on your one thing until it's done, and then move on to the next one.
A business with limited resources, which in my experience as a self-employed coach is all of them 😉, shouldn't dilute its value by tackling what isn't going to lead to more resources. Imagine being without a house, but spending all day picking out wallpaper instead of laying bricks. If your product is good enough to sell to one customer, it doesn't need more features. You don't need to Kool-Aid man your way to success; if that dude focused on one thing, like knocking, he wouldn't need to cause the damage he does, especially with today's labor prices.
Coaching is pointing out the obvious simplicity proximity has hidden. I hope this newsletter did that for you. Tackle your one thing, and maybe you'll start believing freedom and success do like hanging out together.
