June 2018

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On Saturday at Bonnaroo in Tennessee rap artist, Eminem ended his show with sound effects of realistic gunshots. As you’d imagine, panic rolled through the crowd. 

It’s just another example of something that I guess seemed like a good idea to somebody, at some point. But turned out to be pretty foolish. 

As we begin this new week, let’s consider how we can better protect ourselves from foolish decisions. The day is young and I’m sure within the next few hours we’re going to be blitzed with new reports of one foolish thing after another. And it doesn’t matter when you’re listening to this. The date, the day and the time aren’t going to matter. Within a short time frame after you listen to this short episode you’ll become aware of some foolishness you didn’t know earlier. Foolishness abounds. There’s a limitless supply!

We want to avoid it being part of our lives. How?

Don’t expect me to give you a list of 10 things you can do. Or avoid doing. Instead, I’d like to offer you something a bit more practical, thoughtful and challenging. 

Artists sign their paintings declaring authenticity and the facts of their having created it. 

Authors have their names emblazoned on the covers of their books. 

Writers have their byline, their names, giving them attribution for their work.

Every day that you open your business, your name is on the line. As the business owner, it’s your name. Maybe the business bears your actual name, but even if it doesn’t, your name and reputation are still on the line. Well, that’s not likely a bunch of help. Eminem’s performance was totally his own. It was still a rather foolish choice. 

Context matters.

Context includes time, place and circumstance. 

Realistic gunshot sound effects are commonly found in video games where players know they’re participating in a game. Judge that all you want. That’s not my point. I’m not a gamer, but I’ll let others debate the topic. My point is that if shooting weapons is part of the game, then the appropriate sound effects make sense. It fits.

Realistic gunshot sound effects are commonly found in TV shows and movies depicting those things. We’d be puzzled if the character in The Godfather fired a weapon and we heard the sound of a trumpet. Gunshot sound effects are congruent with what we’re watching. 

Realistic gunshot sound effects are not expected at a concert. We expect to hear musicians. Not gunfire.

And given the sniper shooting during a concert in Las Veags last October – that killed 59 people – and given the number of public shootings we’ve seen around the world – it would be reasonable to expect people to be caught off-guard and not even know it’s a sound effect. 

Two simple things may have prevented this – and will hopefully prevent us from making an equally (or worse) decision.

Ask yourself (and your team), “What purpose will this serve?”

I have no idea what purpose Eminem or his people thought that sound effect would serve. I doubt they asked the question. If they had, that alone may have stopped it. Maybe not. 

Maybe they thought everybody would know it was just an effect. For all I know, it’s all one big publicity stunt aimed at putting Eminem in the news. If so, well done. It worked. I’m not so naive to believe that some bad publicity isn’t created and carefully crafted. We’re manipulated daily by such things. You can certainly play the game that way and succeed. Many people have. I won’t judge you if that’s your choice. But I’m clearly working from the assumption that you don’t likely roll that way. 😉 

What purpose will this decision serve? We’re running a business. It should serve a purpose that moves our company forward. Since we’re aiming to hit the trifecta of business building (speaking of horse racing – since “trifecta” is a horse racing term – congrats to Justify, 13th Triple Crown winner), our objectives are heavily focused on our customers. Getting them and serving them better are two thirds of the trifecta. So as you wrestle with this question think about the impact on your customers.

If Eminem had thought about his audience, he may have made a different choice. We’ll often get into more trouble when we start focusing too much on ourselves and take our eyes off our customers. It’s going to be difficult to make too foolish a choice if your intentions toward your customers are always on point. 

Next, ask yourself if this decision will make you and your team proud. If we do this, will we step up and be the first to own it because it’s such a spectacularly good idea. Or, if we’re caught, are we going to deny it? Or blame somebody else?

You and your team know the things you’re hiding. I’m going to suggest you behave with complete honor and integrity 100% of the time. I know that’s hard. And I know why. Greed. 

Business owners who teach, train or condone taking advantage of suppliers and customers are foolish for thinking their employees won’t take advantage of them, too. But I’m hopeful that you’ve got a culture based on high integrity. If not, then get busy changing it. Yes, it’ll cost you in the short-term, but you’ll make up for it in multiples over the long haul. And you’ll be able to sleep better, too.

If we do this thing we’re proposing to do, are we going to be willing to step forward and fully own it. “Yes, we did that. And we’re proud of that decision.” 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Angela Maiers is leading a charge in education. Her mantra is simple but profoundly powerful. Just two words: You Matter!

I know Angela and like her. She won’t mind me using her 2-word tagline to make today’s point. Pushing her message forward is just a side benefit to today’s brief. I hope you’ll check out her work. But my main reason for today’s brief are the two most news notable suicides that have occurred – Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. Accomplished and successful by most visible standards, these two mature people (Spade was 55, Bourdain 61) figured ending their life was the option they’d take. 

This week wasn’t extraordinary. Desperate people – people others don’t think are desperate – do desperate things every single day. While the names may not always make national or global news, loneliness and despair overpower people. Some, like Spade and Bourdain, take the most drastic step. Others embrace destructive behaviors grasping for something to hang onto. 

I’m not a mental health professional. I do know it’s not one of those “it’s just in your head” kind of deals though. Mental health must be taken as seriously as physical health. When you stop to think of the people who suffer some physical ailment undiagnosed – like cancer or a heart condition – remember, there are also many people (likely people you know) suffering undiagnosed mental health issues. 

Loneliness and feeling lack of connection with others – deep enough connections that make you feel safe, heard and loved – is often a culprit according to professionals. Business owners and CEOs have to live up to an ideal. Resilient, tenacious, unfazed. Those are the qualities we feel we must display. 100% of the time. Vulnerability is hard. But so stinking powerful. Which is why I preach it every single day to business owners and leaders. 

Find somebody or a few somebodies with whom you can be completely safe. As Dr. Henry Cloud (I’m such a fan) says…someone with whom you can be “careless.” Not in the sense of being reckless, but in the sense that you trust them so much you know they won’t use anything you say or do against you. They’ll be there to help you. Not judge your every decision. 

Sadly, many high achieving business leaders don’t have somebody like that. What they do have is pressure-filled relationships. People who want something from them. People who need something from them. Eyes and ears always focused on them. I get it. We exist in a world where outwardly we have to put our best face on. Covering up anything that may be bugging us. Certainly hiding our pain and worry. Nobody wants to buy from a business owned by a person with problems, right? 

It’s not hypocrisy. It’s professionalism. And it’s our privacy. We protect it. Way more when it comes to our actual personal presence than our online presence…sometimes. Scroll through Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter and you see us all putting our best foot forward. Sure, some people are faking it all, but that’s not us. You and me, we’re focused on making ourselves and our businesses attractive to prospects. We have honorable intentions. We deeply believe in our services and products. We know we can serve people well. Solving problems our prospects face. Helping make our customers’ lives better!

Yes, we want to hit the trifecta of business building. We all want and need new customers. We all need to find ways to serve our existing customers better. Customer demands continue to go higher and we’ve got to match those demands or our businesses become irrelevant. And the last leg of the trifecta is not going crazy in the process. We’d like to achieve killer business success without losing ourselves.

Money. Success. Stuff. They won’t help us hit the last leg of the trifecta. Wealthy, successful and high achieving people fall off the ledge daily. For a variety of reasons. We don’t have to obsess about each individual problem. But we do need to focus on the general remedy for every single person – deeper, safe, trusting, caring, compassionate connections with other people. It begins with thinking and then really believing that YOU MATTER!

Consider the impact you’re making on the world. Even if it’s just your little corner of the world, it’s a big impact. And here’s the real rub — it’s not predicated on your being some high achieving, successful business owner. It’s predicated on you being YOU. 

My parents. My wife. My kids. My grandkids. My close friends.  

They’re not important to me and I’m not important to them because of any financial accomplishments. My love for them and their love for me isn’t nearly that shallow! These people have seen me fail. They’ve seen me weep. They love me and I love them because of who and what we all are as people. Supportive. Encouraging. Serving.

Don’t confuse yourself with your business. Your company is a reflection of you, but it’s not you. And I’m not saying your business doesn’t matter, but I am saying it doesn’t 100% define you – unless you let it. Don’t. Let it. 

Today is Saturday. Think about the value YOU – as a person – provide. Not your business. It’s fine to consider your value in the context of your business. You should. But that’s just one element of your life. I come home to my wife. I come home to my family. Not my business.

YOU MATTER!

Let’s wrap up this week with one final idea that I’d ask you to think about. Really think about it. Think about the people who matter to you! A great remedy for our own fretfulness, worry and anxiety is service. It begins with being thankful. Thankful for the blessings in our life. For the people who matter. Then it goes to finding ways you can help each of them through their struggles. This isn’t check writing stuff. It’s human touch stuff. It’s you being encouraged and doing some encouraging. It’s you being accountable and holding others accountable. It’s you listening. And you sharing. It’s learning from their experiences. And you willing to share your experiences with them. It’s all that stuff that drives deeper human connections. It’s the stuff that helps us fend off the demons that will cripple us, make us less than all we can be, or worse yet — destroy us. 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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In the neverending debate between head and heart, I declare, “No contest!” Well, to be fair…I declare there is no debate or fight. They can’t be separated.

Mostly we think of heart representing feelings and emotions. Those reside in your head. Your brain. They’re formed based on what you think and believe. Debate over!

To assume that logical and rational thought are disconnected from emotions and feelings is to assume you can have Spock-like qualities. You’re neither completely logical or emotional. You’re a confluence of them both. Sometimes one tips heavier on the scales than the other. It happens. 

As a small business owner, you serve your employees. First and foremost, they’re the “customers” you must effectively serve. They’ve got feelings, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and ambitions. Which is why you must lead with your heart.

Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. First, it’s understanding. Second, it’s sharing (based on understanding).

Think about the last time you were angry, frustrated or annoyed. Maybe it was 5 seconds ago. Maybe 5 minutes ago. Doesn’t matter. Remember what happened? Think about it. Hold that thought. 

Did it impact your behavior in any way? Of course, it did. Maybe you snapped at somebody who hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Maybe you closed your door and threw papers. You reacted by doing or saying something. Or, you sat there stewing about it. It affected your performance. 

But feelings and emotions don’t matter, right? 

You own the place and thoughts, feelings and emotions drive your performance. Don’t you think they drive the performance of your employees? 

Question: What are the professional and personal goals of your top 3 employees?

Most business owners may say, “I have no idea. It doesn’t matter.” But it does matter. 

Convince yourself that the only thing that matters is what YOU need those employees to do, and you’re blowing it as a leader. Miserably. You’re making sure your people know you don’t really care about them. It’s not about them. It’s about you. Yet you expect them to perform at the highest levels possible. You’ve lost your mind. Now you’re working on losing your employees. 

Try leading with your heart. Let me give you a specific action you can take today. Yep, today’s Friday. It’ll be a great way to wind down the week. Don’t put it off. Don’t wait until next week. 

Got a conference room or someplace private where you can meet employees one-on-one? Unless you’ve got an office where you can sit by the employee without your desk being between you, then avoid your office. Sit side by side with the employee. Like two friends having a conversation. 

Got 20 employees? 50? 100? The more employees you’ve got the longer this is gonna take. Schedule accordingly. 

Map out a strategy that is least disruptive to the work. Carve out 10 minutes with each employee. Just you and the employee. 

They’ll panic if you’ve never done this before. That’s normal. Don’t sweat it. They’ll realize what’s going on within the first few seconds. 

Schedule as many as you can. Twenty employees will take you a little over 3 hours. Easily done in a day. Figure it out.

Greet them when they walk in as you would a friend. Stand up, shake their hand and welcome them. 

Tell them you’ve decided to periodically spend a few minutes with every employee to find out more about them. Don’t make this time about you. It’s about them. You’re their servant. You want what’s best for them. You must get that across if this is going to be impactful. 

Over the course of the next few minutes, you’re hoping to find out how they’re doing. What’s their goal? What do they want to achieve over the rest of the year? Are their things happening that frustrate them? Are these things you can remedy? You must make them know how much you care, and how dedicated you are to help them succeed.

Stay on time. As they leave, remind them they can contact you at will. Encourage them. Cheer them on. THANK them. 

Make leading with your heart a habit and you’ll improve quickly. You’ll also become quickly convinced that you should have done this a long time ago because you’ll notice a positive difference in performance.

If you called me up right now and shared your frustrations, aspirations and dreams…we’d have a productive conversation about it. I’d ask you some questions. You’d share more. I’d ask a few more questions. You’d be figuring some things out during our talk. I’d challenge you in the best ways to achieve what you want. Not what I want because it’s your life, not mine. You’d leave our conversation energized, uplifted and more firmly believing in yourself. I’d make sure of it. It’s what I do with CEOs, business owners and leaders. 

You need to start making sure you’re doing that for your employees.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Don’t get your britches in a bunch because I use the word “crazy.” You get it. We all use it in a slang sense, not in a judgmental sense. And as business people, we’re driven crazy daily by something. Frustrated. Annoyed. Riddled with anxiety. Fretful. Worried. The emotions are all over the place when we’re going crazy. 

Your mental health is important. You’ve got to take it more seriously. Business stress coupled with personal stress can overtake us. Wreck us. Send us down a rabbit hole of despair. Even if we’ve had no history or sign of genuine mental health challenges. 

Some of my best friends suffer a variety of real issues. Serious issues. From clinical depression (as opposed to the generic kind we all get, and call “being depressed” when we just mean we’re sad, etc.) to bipolar disorder to high anxiety and a variety of other things that require medication. Most of them know the seriousness of their situation and they take care of themselves. That is, they continue to take their medication as prescribed. They seek help from qualified therapists and other mental health professionals. 

A few of them don’t. They start feeling better and stop taking their meds. They stop seeing a professional. “I’m all better now” thinking creeps in and they fall into delusions of thinking they no longer need to do the very things that helped them. They’re wrong. Those of us who care about them urge them to go back to doing the things that benefited them. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. As we learned with Kate Spade’s recent suicide and what her sister revealed, Spade suffered for years. Sadly, her sister and others were unable to get her to seek and accept the help she most needed. 

Entrepreneurship and business ownership is hard. Very hard. Even when it’s easy, it’s hard. 

That doesn’t mean it’s not rewarding. Or not worth doing. 

It just means it’s hectic, exciting, demanding, time-consuming, life-consuming, and a host of other things that can disrupt other areas of our life. Which is why many years ago as I formed what I called “hitting the trifecta of successful business building” I purposefully included that last one, which has grown to be THE most important one – not going crazy in the process.

Business owners consume themselves with the first two legs of the trifecta – getting new customers and serving existing customers better. Often to the complete neglect of the third leg of maintaining their best mental and emotional well being. 

You own the business. So much rests on you. Everybody is expecting something from you. People pressure you constantly for a decision, an opinion, a thought, some help, some action. Your confidence and tenacity help build your business. You think you’re immune from the pains mere mortals suffer. Well, deep down you know better, but you’ve been so immersed in the “never let ’em see you sweat” mindset that you don’t know any other way to perform (or behave). And it’s taking a toll. On your business’ most valuable resource. YOU.

You maintain your company assets. Got trucks? I’m betting you wash them and have them regularly serviced. You probably also stress taking care of them to the people who use them daily. Trucks aren’t cheap. You want them to last as long as possible so you take care of them. When one goes down, it disrupts your business. Plenty of reasons to take care of them. So it goes with other assets you’ve got. 

Then why don’t you take care of YOU? Physically, mentally and emotionally. 

Your doctor will urge you to lose weight, eat better and exercise. Your physical shape is more easily seen than what’s going on in your head. Which is why “not going crazy in the process” is so critical and urgent! You can be dying inside, ignore it and find yourself going down a path of self-destruction. Business leaders misbehave constantly in attempts to fill voids of connection. Drugs, alcohol, extramarital affairs…even worse. And these are the most apparent destructive things we tend to consider.

But there are other things we avoid thinking about, things we may not consider — like how well we perform as business owners. You want your employees, trucks, machinery and everything else inside your business to operate like that proverbial “well-oiled machine.” Then why don’t you want to perform up to that standard yourself? What makes you think you can continue to erode your mental and emotional fortitude and operate at your peak? You’re fooling yourself. Stop it.

We all need deeper connections with people we feel safe with. People who will listen to us without judgment. People with whom we can confide things, knowing they don’t expect anything from us – and they won’t use what we confide in them against us. It’s perfectly natural and right to crave these connections. We all do. Some of us just work harder to suppress them than to find them. Foolish. Today’s the day to start exercising greater wisdom. Give yourself the attention you and your business deserve. The upside is that it won’t just benefit you. Your family, employees, customers, suppliers and everybody else whose life is impacted by your business – they’ll all benefit, too. It’s the most positive ROI thing you can do because it has NO downside.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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I first remember uttering this phrase as a teenager working for an autocratic, micromanager of a stereo shop who loved to preach, “Everything is important.” He would traipse around picking nits. Quite often we’d find ourselves doing things to appease him while other things that are far more critical went undone. For example, I remember working to connect some equipment in a sound room so we could avoid embarrassment when a shopper wanted to hear a certain setup. When you work in a retail environment that requires you to demonstrate something to a shopper, you want things to work as they should. I’d endured the ongoing embarrassment of a foiled demo because a co-worker would move or disconnect a piece of gear without letting the rest of us know (and without fixing what he broke). Almost daily the rest of us were frustrated, and we all knew the main culprit.

As I’m taking care of that, the manager did an “all hands to the back” rampage session. We would file the owner’s manuals to the showroom gear in a file cabinet, alphabetically. Somebody had pulled one and left it laying on a box in the warehouse instead of filing it back where it belonged. This was almost never a problem. Mostly because shoppers rarely wanted to see one. 

This Tuesday news broke and the Internet is losing its mind over the White House rescinding an invitation to greet the President because a handful of players don’t want to go. I’m apolitical. That means I don’t care. You can judge me if you’d like. I’m a capitalist willing to assume responsibility for my own life. I’m thankful for our freedoms, but I don’t get wrapped around the axle about what goes on in D.C. (well, that’s not entirely true – Tuesday night I was disturbed that Vegas lost, again in the Stanley Cup Finals). Nearly everywhere I look online people are writing, judging, slamming or supporting what’s going on with an NFL team visiting the White House. 

And this impacts my life, or my business HOW?

My life is made worse by this HOW?

My life is improved by this HOW?

It’s not. It doesn’t affect me one little bit. Unless I allow it. By being distracted from what really matters. Sorta like that manager who felt it more urgent for all hands to be lambasted instead of making sure our showroom was shopper ready!

If everything is important, then nothing is important!

Many managers, leaders and business owners love to preach their perceived truth that every detail matters. Perhaps. If you’re manufacturing aerospace parts it matters more than if you’re manufacturing beanies. I get it. 

When you tell your employees that everything is important then you’re telling them there are no priorities. How can there be if everything is equally important? But you don’t stop to realize that’s what you’re saying. And you’re not likely understanding how demoralizing it is to your people as they do their work. They know some things matter more than others. They understand some things are more critical than others. The more you beat them down with messages contrary to that truth – the worse it gets. Customer service and all other performance standards will erode. As you strain to emphasize everything being important, you’ll notice everything begins to fail. 

Set your own standards. Do you really care about your employees and customers? You should. If you do, then make the things that are important those things that most impact employees and customers. It’s not about refusing to look at lesser things (like an unfiled owner’s manual). It just means you can weigh if that’s a problem or not. A problem that requires some corrective action other than asking people to make sure they do it correctly next time. 

Stop trying to fix every problem with an immediate whack of a sledgehammer. If your employees can’t recite to you what’s most important in your business, then you’ve got serious work to do.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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At the beginning, we may be actually doing much of the work. But as our business grows things change. Necessarily. Our role changes, too.

We hire people. The business grows and expansion requires additional help. Perhaps even new skills. Over time we realize that our role, as the owner, transitions away from doing the actual work (selling the thing, or making the thing, or delivering the thing)…to helping others do the work better!

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Thank you!