I got an email yesterday with 100 of the funniest quips my friend had received over the years in his email joke box. “Practice Random Acts of Intelligence and Senseless Acts of Self-Control” resonated with me when I thought about my clients and why they remain to be successful in this economy.
For those of us who have been around awhile, a recession is not unfamiliar. We’ve seen many companies fail, reorganize, change direction, downsize, only to reemerge better, leaner, more productive and more profitable. I thought I might use some of these phraes this week to explain what leaders might put on their checklist to make it through recessionary times.
1. I Plead Contemporary Insanity.
If you spend an inordinate amount of time watching the news and reading the paper and news on the internet, taking it all in and panicking every morning from the stress, you are not going to be able to think clearly about your strategies for how to take care of your business now. Turn your fear of what could happen to the possiblities of what can happen if you are revisiting your vision, your mission and goals. The real news is that if you revisit your strategic plan each day, honing it, and revisiting your goals, that’s where your attention will go.
Any motorcycle riders out there? Bicyclists? Horseback riders? What happens when you’re riding and you turn your head? The motorcycle, the bicycle, the horse will go in the direction of your gaze. Your business, your life, you, will go in the direction of your gaze. If you buy into the contemporary insanity of this moment in history, you’ll surely go in the wrong direction. if you keep your gaze in the direction that you want your business to go instead of where you don’t want it to go, you’ll experience more success!
2. Does your train of thought have a caboose?
Okay. You’ve analyzed where you are and where you want to go. You’ve met with your advisors and you’ve got a plan. hmmm…maybe you better check and recheck? Really? In this economy, you have to stop making plans at some point and get out there, trust that you really can do it and do it! One of the things that some of my clients suffer from is Analysis Paralysis. They’re so busy making plans that they forget to implement. They research and rsearch, write the plans, buy innovative mind mapping programs and work on their time management until they make THAT their everyday goal. DO SOMETHING! Get to the caboose of your precious strategic planning and implement the darn thing already! (Sorry, was I ranting?)
3. Better living through denial.
Get real. You can fantasize later. The world just very well may end tomorrow, but today you’ve got bills to pay and a family to feed and it’s not going to happen if you’re constantly being negative. While you may get some people to sympathize with you for a while (I’m talking about your family, friends, co-workers, employees, clients and networks), you might even get yourself to sympathize with you for awhile, but after that, you’re really going to have to adopt a positive attitude or everyone, including yourself, is going to get sick of you. You can be positive, you can be negative. You can’t be both at the same time.
Instead of making a mental list of all the things in life that are going wrong, what are the things in life that are going right? Make a written list, a mind map, make it into lyrics to the tune of “Old MacDonald” if you have to. Get that positive mental list going and hang onto it!
4. I thought I wanted a career, but really, all I wanted was a paycheck.
Did you forget what you’re passionate about? When the economy gets tight we seem to forget it isn’t just about the money.
5. Earth is full. Go Home.
Who are the people in your life you should pull closer? Who’s in your hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, network? Are they people who inspire you? Are you inspiring them? Do you have employees who you really need to let go of? Not because of the economy, but because they just aren’t onboard? There’s a whole pool of talent out there. Maybe it’s time to set some people free so they can find their true destiny. And maybe it’s time to pull others closer into the circle of trust. Evaluate as you would your lawn. Then weed and feed.
Do this with your own thought processes as well. You can’t fire yourself and you can’t fire the truth. You have a set of circumstances to deal with, a set of people who will either support, undermine, help you pull, or make it more difficult. The same with your thoughts. Your thought life will either support, undermine, help you pull forward, or make things more difficult. It is your choice about what you will do next. Practice Random Acts of Intelligence.
“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.” – Joe Girard
Leah Henderson, President, Leah Henderson & Associates
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