Business Plan

17
Dec
2020
3 Secrets to Stress Less this Holiday Season

3 Secrets to Stress Less this Holiday Season

‘Tis the season… How you finish this will say a lot about how you show up for your family and loved ones for this year’s holidays. If you’ve crushed your goals this year and are finished planning your business for next year, odds are good you will rest easy this holiday season. For the rest, the holidays may bring a dose of stress and angst. It’s not too late! If you are in the latter group, you can still make yours merry and stress less! Follow these simple tips.

1. Look forward

What happens when we haven’t seen the results we hoped for or when we miss the mark on a goal or an expectation? Our minds naturally slip on their Sherlock Holmes caps and begin investigating. It seems so logical to investigate the cause of the failure so that you can avoid repeating the error. The trouble is, we have a hard time leaving it alone once we’ve discovered the cause. Our minds are bullies, constantly reminding us of times we weren’t successful and have trouble leaving this loop.

If you enter the holiday season stressed about the things you have no control over, these negatives will undoubtedly spill over to your loved ones, which will perpetuate your stress. Take this tip from therapist Emily Garcia on disqualifying the negative:

Ignoring a negative comment is easier said than done. Instead of repeating the negative comment in your head, try repeating all of the comments in order to give yourself perspective. Focus on what you did well and allow yourself to feel proud then consider how you can improve on what is already good.

If you can focus on your successes and those things which went well, you will find yourself not only in a better place to enjoy the holidays, but also to begin planning for next year.

focus on the plan, not the problem. Stress less this holiday season

2. Have a plan

If you haven’t yet made a business plan for next year, it isn’t too late. While I highly recommend a full day off-site business planning and goal setting retreat, simply starting a plan now may be enough to let your mind relax and stop racing.

If the holidays sneaked up on you and caught you with your pants down, so to speak, you can make your very own One Page Business Plan in just an hour or two! Get it out of your head and organized on paper. Then schedule a call with me for right after the New Year to put this into action.

3. Stop working!

I really do embrace technology and appreciate how it has changed the face of business. We continue to improve it and make it more efficient. Just this year we all learned another meaning for the word Zoom. Now, especially with the increased number of remote workers, we find more Americans are over-working themselves and working longer hours.

Set expectations with your clients and with your team. Teach people how to treat you. What would happen if that client who called you on Christmas day while your kids were opening presents had to wait until the next business day? In most lines of business, at worst the problem will remain the same. At best, it may have worked itself out. What would you really gain from jumping on that other person’s priority? One thing is certain… you would affirm for them that you have no boundaries and are available to their beck and call.

stress less this holiday season with a digital detox

Get rid of your digital crack! When you are with your loved ones and with your family, be there for them. That buzz in your pocket and that text message ding release dopamine which is addicting. Once you know there is a message or an email, you’ll have a hard time focusing on what’s important and you are more inclined to place your work before irreplaceable memories. Turn your notifications off, leave your smart phone and laptop in your office, and be there for your loved ones. As Gary Keller says in The ONE Thing:

Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls– family, health, friends, integrity– are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.

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‘Tis the season of giving! If you know someone in business who could benefit from a less stressful holiday season, please share this post with them. If you know someone who is on the verge of their next breakthrough or who could use a rebound, give the gift of coaching!

This month, I am offering a 50% discount on your first month of Mastery Coaching. This special expires when the ball drops on the New Year. Sign up today or give the gift of coaching to someone you care about.

Give the gift of coaching, for a happy and stress less holiday!
Posted by Adam Lendi in Coaching, Goal Setting, Life, Tools, 0 comments
16
Jul
2020
Win Your Day, Win Your Life!

Win Your Day, Win Your Life!

The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago. The next best time is today! It’s not hard for us to daydream about the life we’d like to live and the people we want to be. If you caught my goal setting class last week (if you didn’t, you can watch the recording and download your own one page business plan, HERE), you know we can reverse-engineer your life’s goals and lay a roadmap to make each year a measurable step toward your ideal life. Why then do we procrastinate? Do we not value our precious and finite time on this world enough?

Let’s start off by quantifying how much life you’ve lived and how much you expect you have left. According to website, Macrotrends (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life-expectancy), life expectancy in 2020 is 78.93 years. That’s 28,809 days. Now that is the average. I don’t know about you, however, I am dedicated to living to triple digits, meaning that if I reached my 100th birthday, it would be a win, at 36,525 days. I am currently 34 years old and on the day I am writing this post I have been on this earth for 12,478 days. By subtracting my current days from my anticipated days, I know I have 24,047 days remaining. Imagine that countdown clock on your wall. Would you change your behavior if each day you saw that number counting down? 24,046… 24,045… 24,044. Imagine if you weren’t as optimistic as me and you only expected to live the average and that countdown was about to fall below 10,000. How would you behave tomorrow to ensure you don’t squander another day and to ensure your success?

In The ONE Thing (Gary Keller, Jay Papasan), the authors symbolize accomplishments in life like a series of dominoes. Studies have shown that a single domino standing can knock down another domino, fifty-percent larger than itself. If you start with a two-inch domino, the second would be three-inches, and the third four-and-a-half. As the dominoes get exponentially larger, so does the energy exerted by the last domino. The twenty-third domino would be the height of the Eiffel Tower, the thirty-first would be three-thousand feet taller than Mt. Everest, and the fifty-seventh would reach the moon from the earth’s surface.

Imagine how little effort it took this man to knock down his 5mm domino that toppled the one-hundred pound monolith at the end.

What doesn’t change is the energy required to knock down that simple two-inch domino, starting the chain reaction which inevitably knocks down your moonshot domino. Sometimes in life, you’re staring down that domino that casts shade on Mt. Everest, wondering how you’ll ever topple it. Now that you know your objective, we need to go small.

Once you’re clear on where you want to be, we can reverse-engineer your goals and break them down to the year, month, week, and even the day. If you knew that adherence to your schedule today would build the life of your dreams, would you squander another day? Would you let other people’s priorities and “emergencies” distract you from the playbook of your dreams? Your clock is counting down. You don’t have until next year… Not even next quarter. You could live to be 100, like I intend. You could make it to 78. You might develop a rare form of cancer and be given a prognosis of one year from today. What is the legacy you will leave? What will your obituary say about how you lived?

If you are stuck finding your big domino, check out my goal setting class, HERE. Once you have your big domino, join me at my next class, Get the 4-1-1 on Your Schedule. We’ll reverse engineer your goals and I’ll give you the tools you need to fill your calendar with the activities which will ensure your inevitable success.

Posted by Adam Lendi in Business Planning, Coaching, Events, Goal Setting, Time Blocking, 2 comments
09
Jul
2020
Tragedy or Triumph… YOU Choose

Tragedy or Triumph… YOU Choose

It’s rare that things ever go as planned and whether we recognize it or not, we make several decisions each day to compensate for these changes and unforeseen hurdles. Why then do we, the resilient, the nimble and adaptive taskmasters, the can-doers, why did we get de-railed THIS time? Why does it seem that for so many around us there is a sense of hopelessness and defeat?

For millennia, people have had their lifestyles changed and their businesses affected, however, it doesn’t typically happen to many industries at the same time. When Henry Ford brought the modern automobile to market, no doubt this upended the buggy-whip operators, however, it likely did not affect the financial industry. When the internet and dotcom boom of the 1990’s began digging the grave for many brick-and-mortars, the automobile industry was not negatively impacted. The point being, businesses and industries often experience significant shifts and sometimes even obsolescence. What’s different this year is that many people and businesses are experiencing this all at the same time.

An important consideration is that not all businesses are being affected by COVID-19, the riots, or even the murder hornets. Many businesses were already positioned to thrive in the changing environment from in-person to remote and virtual environments. These businesses may have had foresight or they may have simply lucked their way into success. Any business which was already tech-enabled and ready to operate remotely, may have survived this year, thus far, without any losses, or even significant gains.

Where does this leave the rest of us? I’ve talked to a number of business owners who tell me they can’t change and that they will not be able to recover until things “go back to normal.” The reality we may be faced with is that things will never completely return to any sense of normalcy. We may have entire industries made obsolete if they don’t pivot and find a new opportunity.

Even now, these owners would be wise to explore other options and find a need they can fulfill. One outcome may be that your business does return to its prior operation. Another may be that you don’t ever return to the way things were and you’ve now forged the next phase of your business; until the next pivot. What we cannot do is nothing. Eventually, the buggy-whip operator needed to become a chauffeur, to avoid being out of business.

If you’re stuck and not sure where to go next, it’s time to revisit your business plan and your goals. Schedule a free business assessment with me to determine the one thing you can do right now to ensure your year is successful. The call is free and I only ask that you set aside time you won’t be driving or otherwise distracted and that you bring a pen and paper. You will likely have an a-ha moment that you’ll want to write down.

Schedule your FREE Business Assessment
Posted by Adam Lendi in Business Planning, Goal Setting, 1 comment
15
Jun
2020
Pressing Reset

Pressing Reset

Not often in life do things go perfectly as planned. Overcoming adversity and challenge is routine in all parts of life and business. No doubt, 2020 has thrown its share of challenges at us which have challenged and stressed our systems. Though some are looking forward to quarters three and four with high optimism, assuming it will only be smooth sailing, there is no guarantee and we can not afford to throw caution to the wind.

Remember December of 2019. It wasn’t that long ago. We were brimming with excitement as we set our goals for 2020, wrote our business plans, and made New Year’s resolutions. I saw many jubilant posts reading “20/20 in 2020” and the like. How many of us planned for a global-health event which would pause our economy for three months, legislation and regulations challenging the operations of our businesses, riots, and maybe even murder hornets! Truth is, there is no way we could have planned for any of these things.

In the military, when special units plan their operations, they don’t simply write one script. Their experience has taught them that things, often outside of their control, can and will go wrong. Many top tier special forces teams don’t even create just one backup plan… they create three! They use the acronym PACE, which stands for:

Primary
Alternate
Contingency
Emergency

In the 2011 raid of Osama Bin Laden’s compound, special forces units had rehearsed the operation for weeks, on their primary objective. They built a replicate model of his compound and rehearsed the assault until it was perfected. The only flaw in the rehearsal was that they used chain-link fence to replicate the outer walls of the compound. When the mission was executed, the solid and impermeable walls of the compound did not allow the first Black Hawk helicopter’s rotor wash to disperse and it deflected it back at the helicopter causing a controlled crash landing.

Fortunately, an alternate plan had already been devised and the second Black Hawk landed outside of the compound’s walls and the raid went according to one of its alternate plans, leading to a successful outcome and the removal of one of the world’s worst terrorist leaders.

The primary plan is where most of us stop. When life throws us a curve ball, we are forced to react in real time, more than likely when we aren’t prepared to do so. Having even just one alternate plan would allow us to pivot quickly, should our circumstances change. The reality is that many businesses are regularly affected, in big ways, and have been for as long as we have been building and operating businesses. The difference now is only that it is happening to many industries all at once.

Regardless of whether you made a contingency plan, or even a business plan at all, you do not and should not wait until December to review your progress toward your goals and plan ahead for next year. We all need a halftime to assess our performance from the first half, re-orient, and determine what we’ll need to do in the second half to achieve our goals this year.

If you are behind on your goals, stuck on where to go next, or unsure about what you should be doing, we need to talk. I’m offering free business assessments to help you identify the next move which will propel your business forward.

Posted by Adam Lendi in Business Planning, Coaching, 0 comments