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This is going to help you because I’m going to pull the curtain back and walk you through why I changed the name and strategy of the podcast not that long ago…and why I’m now changing it again. First, let me tell you about my experience in completely changing  – and I mean COMPLETELY CHANGING – my business.

Context provides understanding. 

My context goes back to my entry into retailing. Specifically, consumer electronics retail. I walked into a local hi-fi store when I was in high school and asked for a sales job. I had no sales experience, but I loved the stereo gear because I loved music.

With no experience, but a lot of enthusiasm I got a job selling stereo equipment for straight commission. That meant I got no pay unless I sold something (illegal today, but this was the mid-70’s). I loved retailing, stereo gear, music, observing human behavior and performance-based pay (not necessarily in that order). 😉

By the time I was 25 I was leading a multi-million dollar company. By the time I was 50 I had almost 35 years of experience selling, merchandising, advertising, managing, leading and operating. It was time to pass on what experience had taught me. And to lean more into my passions of being a good operator and leader.

As a lifelong learner (and reader), I had been consumed with leadership, management, human behavior, psychology, consumer behavior, marketing and sales for as long as I could remember. I was still in high school when I first read of W. Edwards Deming, the man General Douglas MacArthur brought to Japan in 1951 to help with the census following World War II. Deming was a brilliant engineer and is largely responsible for helping Japan become the world power in manufacturing long before Korea and China came to power.

If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.

It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.

I was obsessed with improvement. My own and the companies I ran.

Books have always surrounded me. Business books. Self-help (now called Personal Development) books. Psychology or human behavior books. Marketing books. Sales books. Leadership books.

I’ve invested gobs of money in books, but I’ve invested even more time in reading them.

I’ve invested far more than Malcolm Gladwell’s proverbial 10,000 hours to watching human behavior, especially consumer behavior. And I’ve invested 7-8 times that many hours practicing the craft.

Trying things. Experimenting. Working hard to figure things out.

I didn’t always succeed. I failed plenty.

The failures were all me. The successes mostly the result of having good, sometimes great people, around me. But I figured a few things out along the way. Mostly, I figured myself out.

By the time I left the C-suite I was ready to do more significant work. Work that would be legacy work. I found myself using the phrase “passing it on” far too often. And I was slowly, but surely leaning more and more into who I really am – a communicator who thrives in helping people figure things out.

I’d long know I was different in many respects. Growing up I was envious of people who weren’t plagued with what I saw as a big burden. I was a noticer. Small details were inescapable. Subtle human behaviors stood out like a sore thumb for me. Things others didn’t seem to notice leapt out at me, refusing to be ignored. I could sense things with alarming accuracy. Simply by watching people’s facial expressions, body language, and vocal tone. It was ridiculously annoying growing up.

Empathy was a natural gift. Words, too. Compassion was easy and necessary. That simply meant my empathy drove compassion which is the fuel for doing something to help. To serve.

Sure, along the way I suffered being taken advantage of some. I suffered being disappointed in people and their foolish choices. But at every turn, I was naturally wired to figure out why they did what they did. To understand them.

According to the Myers-Briggs survey, I’m an INFJ, which basically means I’m introverted, highly intuitive, emotionally driven and discerning (judging). I appear like an extrovert much of the time, but I’m fueled by going deep with people – as deeply as they’re willing to go. INFJ personality types are often called COUNSELORS because there is something we emit – some signal or something others pick up – that lets them know we’re anxious to help. So people tend to easily lean on us for assistance. And speaking only for myself, I love it. I love being that guy.

Mostly, I love that people feel safe with me. And that people trust me. Keeping secrets isn’t hard for me. Forgiveness is easy. Bitterness is hard.

Now before you start thinking I’m all that and then some, I’ve got some serious flaws. For starters, I think I can help anybody in any situation. That’s ridiculous and I know (logically) it’s not true, but I still believe it and will die trying to help. I’m also an over communicator, which can drive family nuts I know. I enjoy understanding, which means I ask questions (lots of questions). I enjoy conveying what I’m feeling (but only to those with whom I feel the safest). And that necessarily means, at least for me, that it’s an extremely small number of people who really know me. Not because I’m unwilling to share or because I’m unwilling to be vulnerable, but because I’m unwilling to impose, which is how it feels.

It’s been long said of INFJ personality types that we counsel others, but find it hard to accept help ourselves. And that’s truer than you may know. Accepting help is very difficult because it’s a role reversal I’m not used to.

When I left leading multi-million dollar companies I set about to help business owners and leaders tackle their problems. I was a lifelong operator. An expert in human behavior. A guy with mad dog people skills – those soft skills. But I had no experience in “professional services” like executive or CEO coaching.

For the past 10 years or so I’ve experienced success and failure along the way diving deeply into the problems of CEOs and top-level leaders. What began as “roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty” consulting morphed more into coaching. I hated consulting. I loved coaching.

Consulting is “I’ll do it for you.”

Coaching is “Here, let’s help you figure out how to do it yourself.”

True confession – there was something I absolutely hated. With a passion.

Getting clients.

Not because I hated selling or because I wasn’t very good at it. Quite the contrary.

It was because I was selling ME. It was way too personal. It felt way too nasty. Too much self-promotion (something that is insanely difficult for me). In a world filled with thought-leaders I found myself saying to people (quite seriously, I might add), “I’m struggling to lead my own thoughts so I’m in no position to lead yours.” Yes, it was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it was more real than people understood. I meant it. I still mean it.

Along the way, I rubbed shoulders with authors, speakers, experts and self-proclaimed “thought leaders.” Sometimes I envied them. Mostly I didn’t feel at home around them. They just weren’t “my people.”

I was trying to learn from them – trying hard to figure out what the most successful among them had figured out. Namely, how to grow and build a successful enterprise so more people could be served. At at every turn it was growing increasingly more obvious, it wasn’t my natural wiring to promote the way I needed to. To exude the confidence and bravado that the world pays attention to – and that the world positively responds to.

Simultaneously I was finding success just being true to who I was. I’ve landed as many clients as not by sitting down with them in the first meeting, listening to what they most want to accomplish and figuring out that I’m not likely the best option for them – and telling them so.

“I’m probably not the best option to address the specifics of what you seem to want,” I’ll say. And I’ll even go on, “I’m not using a ploy to get you to want to hire me. I genuinely think you may find somebody with experience in your space who can better serve you.”

They’ll often look at me and I know the look. It’s the look, “I want to hire YOU.” It makes me feel good but puts tremendous pressure for me to over-deliver (something I’m naturally wired to do anyway). I take every engagement very personally and give it my all. It’s the only way I know to operate. I get fully invested in the people I serve.

Which is great.

Until the engagement ends. And then I’m wrecked for a period of time because it feels like the loss of a close relationship. People who have shared their deepest, darkest fears and challenges. People who found me safe. People who trusted me completely. Then we say good-bye after 6 months. Or three years.

I maintain contact with at least 80% of everybody I’ve ever served. It may be a random text message, “Just checking in on you. Hope all is well.” Or it may be a lunch where we break bread together and catch up. I don’t know any other way to be.

Four years ago I was given an epiphany. I’m being big and bold calling it an “epiphany.” It was more like a moment of enlightenment. I became aware of something I didn’t know about. Not fully.

Peer advisory groups. Professional peer advisory groups.

It instantly made sense to me. Join yourself to others who share one big thing in common – in this sense, everybody is an entrepreneur or CEO. No matter that everybody is running a company that may be very different from the others in the group. The common denominator is running a business. That provides instant understanding. Everybody knows what it is to meet payroll, generate revenues, handle HR issues, serve customers and all the other things involved in operating a profitable business.

The power is in the difference though. The various experiences and insights that each person brings to the table provide more perspectives than anybody could have alone.

One evening in this journey had me thinking about typical (if there is such a thing) support groups. That led me to one particular group – The National Organization of Parents Of Murdered Children, Inc.

I’ve seen enough shows on the ID channel to have some understanding of the searing pain parents suffer at such dreadful news. But I can’t possibly understand it. Not really. Because it hasn’t happened to me. I instantly thought, “What better place could there be for parents in that situation?” I mean, you walk into a meeting, introduce yourself and that’s all that’s required. Everybody in the room is just like you. They know your pain. It’s an instant bond and trust.

But…

The power is in the differences. Some are further up the trail in having dealt with their pain. Some are wired very differently than you. Everybody is coming from their own unique experience and place in life. Yet, they all know the pain of losing a child to murder.

A single tie binds them. The differences are where the power is to get through it.

It made sense to me. Truth is, it has made sense to anybody who will listen to it. It universally makes sense.

That led to leveraging some information made more clearly known to me by a book, The Knowing-Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton (2000). The book focuses on companies closing the gap between what they know and what they do. The authors argue that quite often we know enough. We just don’t do enough. It’s equally true of individuals.

You likely already know enough. You’re not likely doing everything you already know to do.

As I dove more deeply into the whole peer advisory advantage – people surrounding themselves with others who are like them in some way (for me it was either everybody is a CEO or business owner) – I knew it was work I was meant to do. How to make the transition wasn’t something I understood. Yet.

“Everything is hard until it’s easy.”

We each hold personal truths. They’re not empirical truths. In other words, they form our reality, but they may not all be real. We just think they are. And we behave as though they are. These personal truths drive our behavior. Empirical truths don’t.

Mostly we chase more information. I’m not prone to data overload. I don’t go seeking more information before reaching a conclusion. Yet I lean heavily toward evidence because my intuition is so high I want to do my best to make sure I’m seeing it as it really is. If the decision is important (which just means the stakes are higher), then I look for more evidence that I’m seeing things correctly. If the stakes are low (which just means the stakes aren’t high at all), then I’m comfortable and confident leaning more on my intuition.

I’d been coaching individual people or small groups. The work had been personal, intimate and always within the context of their challenges, opportunities, and experiences. In every case, there was also another important element – internal politics. In some engagements, the politics were so enormous they impacted every decision made by individuals or the teams. In every engagement, the coaching sessions had to take into account politics. It’s just how the work went.

I had not analyzed this. I just accepted it.

Working to get myself up to speed on peer advisory groups was opening my eyes to some existing things that weren’t working for me personally. I was growing increasingly unhappy because I was having to regulate myself more and more. And I didn’t like it.

For example, candid conversations are easy for me. I relish them. They work. Beating around the proverbial bush, talking in riddles, making clear things mysterious is a surefire recipe for poor performance, unhappy and disengaged people. But I’d often find myself surrounded by that kind of behavior. In some cases leaders were quite committed to that effort, wanting me to “change” their people when in reality THEY were the problem.

I lost myself somewhere along the way.

Never one to sell out, every engagement took a large part of who I am and eroded it. Some much more than others. Sitting down with people helping them gave me energy. Dealing the politics knowing they were in a circumstance where so many other things beyond performance had to be considered — sucked the life right out of me.

By the time I reached out to Leo Bottary who had co-authored the book, Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth, and Success – I knew I was due to major change. I didn’t yet know how or what that meant.

Leo and I became fast friends and I began to learn. And learn some more. And learn some more.

Along the way, I decided it was time to push all my chips into the middle of the table and bet the farm on becoming a leader of peer groups. That prompted the birth of an idea, The Peer Advantage.

Twice – that’s right, TWICE – I’ve made a shift in this podcast by renaming it The Peer Advantage podcast. Thought was, become the podcast with that focus. The first time I did it without much thought. The second time I did it with lots of forethought. That was recently, within the last few months.

It was a mistake both times. I wasn’t doing what I knew to do. Instead, I began to do what I knew I likely shouldn’t do, but I was desperate to make this shift or change in my life’s work.

“What do you want to be known for?” I had asked myself. Not in some vanity sense, but in a marketing or business sense. My answer was, “I want to run at least two online peer groups serving business leaders.” The answer was far less focused on identity as it was on what I most wanted to DO. Truth was, I simply didn’t want to be restricted to worry about helping navigate the politics inside their organizations. Instead, I wanted to help top-level leaders – the ones mostly responsible for the politics (and culture) – to forge ahead in building, growing and sustaining a high performing organization. The only way to do that is to help the person at the top.

That insight is important because it make the change of this podcast to The Peer Advantage even more idiotic. Bad move. Failure. Why? Quite simply because more than 99% of top-level leaders have any experience with professional peer advisory groups. Almost nobody has experienced them. Almost nobody understands the true value of being surrounded by other CEOs or entrepreneurs. And many others, who still don’t understand them, think they’re something they’re not. Some think they’re networking groups where entrepreneur exchange business. Some sort of “you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours” deal. Some think they’re “good ‘ol boys” clubs where people get together to just shoot the breeze. Almost nobody I’ve encountered in the last few years to engage in conversations about the power of peers understand it in a professional context.

I’m empathetic about all this, but it was puzzling because almost everybody gets the power of peers when it comes to kids. We all seem to fully understand the impact our friends had on us when we were young. And those of us who are parents or grandparents understand how important it is that our kids run with the right group. We care about who our kids choose as friends.

We don’t seem to understand how that same exact power is present in our lives as adults. That’s important because it’s what drove me to make the change in this podcast, a change that I repeat – was a failure and the wrong move. I knew what to do, but instead of doing it…I did something different. I didn’t’ think clearly. And I got impatient. That’s a big part of my failure.

I reached out to a couple of podcasting buddies who have vast knowledge of this medium and how it all works. Not just from a technical viewpoint, but from a marketing and building an audience standpoint. One responded right away, but the other one didn’t respond at all. I thought nothing of it. Rather than move forward with my plan to have these guys question me, challenge me and help me figure this out – I just dove in to do what I felt I should do. I made the change and immediately felt like it wasn’t right. But I leaned into it anyway. I’m not afraid to try something, but I wanted to get it right. I failed.

Some weeks went by and I heard from the buddy who hadn’t responded. He was up for the challenge. But by then I was multiple episodes into the change. Too late. I hadn’t given enough breath to the process. Instead, I had dug in and made a move that likely could have been prevented – a failure that I could have avoided if I would have relied on these two trusted friends. Friends who understand me, podcasting and my context. But I ignored it. Trudged forward even though at some level I know what to do, and they could have helped me.

The emperor has no clothes.

Here I was embarking on making major shifts in my business and this podcast. Aiming to help people learn how to leverage the power of others. And I was forced to face the reality that I wasn’t doing the very thing I was preaching. I was completely hypocritical. Trying to go it alone when I had two buddies willing to help me.

The lesson for you is no different. We’re driven to do things. Make things happen. Patience isn’t likely our strong suit. We’re driven to get things done. Accomplish something.

I could have avoided confusion, failure and feeling crappy about myself if I had leveraged the power of others. These guys were willing to serve me simply because I had asked. That’s the kind of guys they are. It’s the kind of relationship we have. I’ll go you one better — I told them both that I’d like to record it because I felt the conversation might benefit other podcasters fretting about changing their business or their podcast. It was a good idea. A really good idea. But I blew it. Ripped it to shreds without much thought because I got antsy.

After some weeks of thinking, “I shouldn’t have done this” I just stopped. One day I got up and decided I’m going back to Grow Great. Classic case of neglecting to do what I knew I should and an even more classic case of making a decision without the insights of others fully capable and willing to help me. Guilty of preaching one message and doing something completely contrary to it. #DOH

There are likely so many things in your life as a leader that you already know to do, but you’re not doing them. Let me encourage you to get in touch with those things. Sit down and think more soberly about what those things are.

Here are some things that might help.

1. Write down the top 3 things that are putting pressure on you today. Put them in order of importance.
2. Focus on the top one. Is there one thing you feel very confident about doing with regard to that one issue — but you’re not doing it? It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small. Just one thing that you’re thinking you should do. It would be something as innocuous as calling a meeting to discuss it with people who could likely influence a better decision. It would be something more concrete like an important decision to take some action. Narrow your attention on the one thing you could do next.
3. Do that one thing. Call that meeting. Make that decision. Do whatever it is that might move you forward.
4. Measure the impact. How did it work out? Does it feel right? Is it working out favorably? Get a grip on whether it’s working or not. Does it need more time?
5. Get feedback from people who can help. This is important – and something I neglected to do. I skipped this step. Truth is I skipped many of these steps and created confusion and chaos that could have been avoided. But I got impatient and stupid. Huddle with people who can provide valuable insight so you better understand the adjustments you should make.
6. Take action based on whatever commitment you made to yourself based on the feedback.
7. Lean on the people who provided the feedback to help you become or remain accountable for what you decided. You owe it to yourself. It’s less about what you owe the people who helped you. You owe it to your own forward progress and success.
8. Keep doing this so you develop better habits of focusing on the important things – those critical decisions you must make – and on leaning on others to help you do it better. Exercise these steps on those number 2 and number 3 things on your list of things that are putting pressure on you today. Don’t neglect them, but don’t commingle them with the top priority. It doesn’t mean you can’t tackle three things at once (you do that all the time and it’s often necessary). Do each item as you need to. They may or may not influence each other. That’s for you to decide.

You WILL figure it out. Others can help accelerate that. And make it more effective and impactful. Stop behaving like a hermit with all the answers. Save yourself the time, embarrassment and failure that can often accompany stubbornness.

I’ve made a commitment. To myself.

I’m going to lean on people I trust. Period.

It’s at the heart of the work I most want to do. Work that I think provides some of the highest value the planet has ever known – the power of others!

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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Everything good is sales. 

Everything bad is lack of sales.

Go ahead. Argue against it. Push back.

But I know what I’m talking about. I’ve experienced dreadful lease negotiations. I’ve participated in tense and uncomfortable vendor negotiations.
I’ve experienced fires and break-ins.
I know what it is to lose a good key employee.

I know what bad looks like and how it feels.

A business consists of daily problems that have to be solved. A business also consists of daily opportunities that have to be spotted and seized.

There’s a good reason why the first leg of my business-building trifecta is “getting new customers.” Nothing comes before that. Not really.

The other night my wife and I were watching the History channel series on “The Food That Made America.” Part of that history involved Milton Hershey, creator of The Hershey Company, a chocolate maker.

Hershey had sold an earlier company for $1M. He poured that money into a remote area of Pennsylvania where he designed a town and a factory. All before he even had a recipe for milk chocolate, an idea he had discovered from European chocolatiers who used powdered condensed milk. He was determined to use fresh milk from the many dairies around the site of his new city and factory.

Construction went on for over 2 years and was almost complete before a Hershey employee finally stumbled on a recipe. And, as they say, the rest of history.

My wife and I were observing how backwards it all seemed. No recipe for milk chocolate…just a die-hard determination that it had to be milk chocolate and it had to use fresh milk. No customers. But he built a city and an enormous factory.

Okay, it can work. Clearly. But that doesn’t mean it’s how you should go about it. It’s not advisable. Unless you’ve got a brilliant idea, a lot of money and a do-or-die spirit. Hershey had all of that. Most of us don’t.

“We didn’t hit our numbers last month.”

“It’s a slow month so far.”

“Things are slow.”

Owners and leaders universally understand the pressures of poor or lackluster sales. “We need to make something happen,” we sometimes say. What we mean is that we need to make something good happen. We need to get more business!

We need to get new customers!

Making something good happen is what drives us. It’s what separates us from others. Confidence and belief that we can affect change. The desire to control our destiny rather than let others impose on us. And if we are going to fail, we’ll do it on our own terms by doing things based on our deep beliefs that they’ll work.

Success stories are those where it worked out.

Stories of failure demonstrate instances where it didn’t work out.

How are you gonna know until or unless you try though? You won’t. You can’t.

Let’s think about what we can do as business owners and leaders to make something good happen. 

Step 1 – You have to believe you can.

This should go without saying, but I’ve learned through the years that nothing really should go without saying because basic, foundational truths are the ones that most often escape us.

A person calls tech support for a manufacturer of a surge protector. You’ve likely seen this social media meme. I chuckle every time I see it…probably because I spent many years in consumer electronics and it resonates with me.

Starting with something as fundamental as, “Is it plugged in?” eliminates the most obvious problems. Well, unless the customer is a complete moron as the meme depicts. 😀

The point? Basics and fundamentals often provide solutions.

That’s why I begin with you – and your belief that you can do something that will affect positive change. Until or unless you truly think you have the capacity as an owner or leader to influence the outcome, then you’re sunk. What purpose do you serve as a leader if you lack that ability or influence?

Leaders must deeply believe, “If it is to be, it’s up to me.” Not in some self-centered, I’m-going-to-do-it-all sort of way. But in a way where you know that somebody – namely, YOU – must step up and get the ball rolling toward pushing back against bad things happening.

I’ve intentionally used sales – specifically a sales slump – as the metaphor for today’s show. And I’ve done so because slow or low sales create more tension than anything I know.

Imagine that your sales are 15% lower than projected. You’ve hit a dip you didn’t expect to hit. And you’re without evidence as to why. If you dive in to sort it out without deeply being convicted of you – and your team’s ability – to remedy this problem, then you’ll be grabbing at straws and likely drown. Confidence and belief are key. It starts with your own so you can then relay that to your team. A major part of your role as a leader is to provide encouragement so your team will have the confidence you have.

Do not underestimate the value of belief.

Step 2 – Find the truth. Face the truth.

Whenever bad things happen the first reaction is to finger point and find somebody or something to blame. Eliminate that. Don’t even let it get started. It can be tough to stop once it starts.

Instead, insist on evidence and make people prove their theories. Theories and assumptions aren’t bad. You just need to insist that people effectively argue their positions.

Key: Have your team focus on themselves and the organization. Rather than look to things as nebulous as the economy, or the weather – hold them accountable for keeping their search on how the company is reacting or managing all the external forces.

It’s vanity to think external forces don’t influence our businesses. But it’s NOT vanity to focus on how our business is dealing with those forces. That’s where we’re going to discover some ways we can improve.

Don’t spend time crafting fairy tales to make everybody feel better about their effort. Nobody cares about your effort. Lots of folks are out here working hard and going broke. Besides, when you impose a culture of truth-finding and truth-facing you’ll build a culture of high performance.

Don’t let anything or anybody – including yourself – off the hook. That doesn’t mean when you find the truth that you rail against it. Or that you find somebody to barbeque. It means together – you and your team – stare it in the eye, acknowledge what you think you did wrong (collectively), and you then focus on the final step.

Step 3 – Work out a plan to answer the question, “What should we do next?”

It’s great to know the future years from now, but none of us have that ability. We sometimes think we do. We’re wrong.

How provides that confidence that is so important to you and your team. Belief kicks in when we can best see how we’re going to get out of this mess. This is the business strategy part of the solution.

Let’s assume that our 15% sales decline (we missed our budget by that amount) appears to be due a few things. One, we based it on our historical seasonality. The month before we blew the lid off our projections. That month was also based on historical seasonality. But some of our key vendors had special financing for our customers this year that didn’t happen last year. When we look at the financing data it’s clear that our financing business is off the charts. Those inducements drove business and shook up our seasonality. Two, the competitors to our key suppliers responded and a month later they offered their own financing. Our team concludes that we were both ill-prepared to take full advantage of the promotions offered by our suppliers and we were equally unprepared to combat the competitor’s offers a month later.

Deeper investigation shows that almost 80% of our sales with the promotional financing involved bundling – that is, customers purchased more because of the financing. Our average ticket was significantly higher.

The team decides a good strategy would be to incorporate in-house financing coupled with aggressive bundle pricing. They discuss concerns about how that may adversely impact margins and future business, but they’re more concerned about losing momentum during these months that are historically their strongest.

When people are buying, help them buy more. When people aren’t buying, you’re not likely able to compel them to buy. It’s a classic mistake businesses make, especially businesses without deep pockets to drive promotion and advertising.

The team leans into making the most of the seasonality that has persisted for more than a decade with very little variation.

Bonus Step – Keep moving forward and keep asking and answering the question, “Now what?”

Business success is about making wise adjustments. Will the team’s strategy work? They don’t know, but they believe it will.

Now it’s time to keep your eyes on it and see how it goes. Adjust as needed. Course correction may be necessary. Don’t be afraid to learn from failure. Find greater success. Make something good happen, then make something even better happen.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

P.S. Yes, I’ve gone back to Grow Great as the name of the podcast. It just feels better. Right. And it’s in keeping with what I do best according to trusted advisors. I leveraged the power of others – other people with whom I feel safe – who urged me to lean into my natural state of being a counselor. It’s congruent with my character strengths, my talent strengths and my personality. It’s also evidence of working live without a net and letting you behind the curtain to see how things work around here. Next time I’ll share more details so you can learn from my process. It’s all part of the plan of us helping each other figure things out for ourselves, but without having to do it alone!

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Getting your vehicle stuck in a rut ain’t fun. And it can be difficult to get yourself out. Which is why sometimes we have to get somebody to pull or tow us out of a rut.

In life, our ruts are just our habits. Sometimes we call them what they truly are, but more polite language makes them seem less destructive. They’re the habits that prevent us from moving forward. We get stuck. In a rut. Or in multiple ruts.

It happen when the habits have persisted for so long we’ve worn such a deep groove into our life that we can’t escape it. Not without some help. Maybe a lot of help if we’re really stuck.

Are there ruts in your life that have you stuck?

Need some help being towed out of them?

Or…

Are you just going to sit there and remain stuck?

This is the week to do something about it. Shake it up. Jump out of it and jump into an improved track so you can move forward.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple or easy.

Experience has taught me a few things about ruts. Largely, they’re habits. We sometimes refer to them affectionately because we fool ourselves into thinking they’re serving us…when in fact, they’re restricting us. Holding us back. Digging us in. Sticking us so we can’t move.

There’s a phenomenal impact that happens to us when somebody cares enough about us to ask us challenging questions. Understanding, compassion, and support from people willing to invest in us, and willing to let us invest in them, will either pull us or push us out of our sticky habits. First, by making us aware of them. Until we see our habits for what they are – sometimes they’re excuses, sometimes they’re crutches, sometimes they’re something else – we’re unlikely to change them. That’s where the friendly, safe challenges serve us. But the phenomenon I see is how people react when those habits or assumptions are challenged and they then see things more clearly. Sometimes they see clearly for the first time.

Some get physically ill. No, nothing serious. Nothing worthy of seeing a doctor necessarily, but I’ve seen people quite literally get sick finding it tough to get out of bed for a day or two. The shock to their system is so severe they physically need some time to process the clarity and deal with the truth that THEY have become the problem.

Has that ever happened to you? I know the feeling. As awful as those hours are, the impact is powerful. For me, it was the realization that I had it so terribly wrong. As much as I didn’t see it earlier, once it was pointed out to me…I couldn’t resist seeing it. And glaring at it. It made me sick! But the sickness didn’t last because determination quickly set in.

And that’s the other side of the phenomenon. Making up your mind to face and deal with the habits that have become the ruts of your life.

It’s possible to do this work alone. It’s just highly improbable because comfort is more important to us than challenge. So we stay comfortable with our bad habits. The ones that are holding us back. Sometimes, the habits are more properly assumptions.

It’s why business performance plateaus. And why performance can largely become stagnant. It’s why leaders once thought to be superstars can lose their starlight power over time. It doesn’t feel like complacency. Until it’s too late.

Leaders don’t confess, “I’m comfortable. I’m complacent.” Because it doesn’t feel that way to them. “I’m working as hard as I can,” they’ll say. Or, “I’m working just as hard as I ever did.” But that doesn’t always address the real issue. It doesn’t address their now stale assumptions or bad habits. Facing those is best done with outside help. Safe people brave enough to serve because they want to see you accelerate past those assumptions and habits.

New levels of performance rarely happen organically. They need drivers. Those drivers can be competition. They can be the quest to survive. Humans own and lead companies. Humans need other humans willing and able to push or pull them toward something greater than the status quo.

There’s no need for our bad habits to become ruts. No need for our blind spots to expand into something bigger. We’re without excuse to be stuck because we’re humans with an enormous capacity to connect and engage with other humans who can help us.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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For the past few years, I’ve worked with and alongside Leo Bottary. We do a podcast together – WHAT ANYONE CAN DO PODCAST (the title is taken after Leo’s latest book). On Wednesday we recorded an episode centering around an article Leo wrote for CEO WORLD Magazine entitled, How Great CEOs Maximize Peer Relationships. Today I’m going to share that conversation with you here on The Peer Advantage podcast because it speaks to how CEOs and business owners can better leverage the power of others.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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It was one of the first business books I ever read. I can’t be sure, but I think my grandfather (my mother’s father) had a copy. The book was published in 1949. It’s the classic book on selling by Frank Bettger, “How I Raised Myself From A Failure To Success In Selling.” 

There’s been a copy of this book in my collection ever since I started reading and collecting books. I picked it up for the umpteenth time the other day. The first page is by Dale Carnegie, followed by the author’s forward. These few pages demonstrate how powerful friends can be, especially friends who are peers with professional experience and know-how. Listen to them and learn.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:03 — 10.0MB)

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I’m an introvert who can often appear like an extrovert. I follow a few social media accounts dealing with introversion. Just because. I chuckled over the weekend when I saw an Instagram post by IntrovertDear.

Dentist: Open up, please.

Me: Sometimes I get sad.

(Oh, you meant my mouth)

There seem to be three basic groups of people when it comes to opening up. There are those who open up to everybody. If you’ll listen, they’ll talk. And talk. And talk. And talk.

Then there are those who won’t talk. Hardly ever. They barely open up about anything to anybody. These are the “cat has your tongue” people.

Then there are those in the middle. Perhaps these make up the largest group, but I don’t know. These people open up sometimes. To some people. They’ll open up, but they’re discriminating.

If my 3 category theory is correct, then it means two-thirds of us have some difficulty opening up. Really opening up. We need the right circumstances and the right people. Without a safe space and safe people, we’re not likely going to open. And only those who exercise no discrimination don’t much care about the conditions for opening up.

I’ll argue that even those non-discriminating folks who talk and talk and talk with anybody and everybody aren’t truly opening up very often. Mostly, they’re just blabbering without reaching any depths that can accomplish something positive.

That likely means 100% of us (okay, we’ll allow a small degree of variance in case I’m not completely correct), find it tough to open up and engage in deep enough conversation to help us unearth the source of our challenges or the reality of our opportunities (and I’m not talking about our pie-in-the-sky-dreams). Depth of discussion required to get to the heart of a matter!

A decade plus of coaching executives, leaders and business owners has given me sufficient evidence to know how rare it is for most of us. People of all ages, all walks of life, all levels of formal education and experience have shown me how infrequently they’ve been able to find a safe place with safe people. I see it in their eyes. I hear it in their voice. It’s both a relief and a challenge.

The relief to finally open up and face something head-on without searching for hiding place is cathartic, but mostly – helpful in finding ways to move forward.

The challenge is in finding another strength – one beyond the strength to open up. It’s the strength to face the truth and deal with it. That process isn’t the same for everybody. Some process it more quickly and easily than others. Others can get ill. Physically. Nausea. Headache. I’ve watched it happen.

But those who make up their mind to lean into the process for the high value they know they’ll get — they put in the mental and emotional work knowing it’s safe and for their best outcome. Once they battle through the fear of false belief that their vulnerability will be used against them (and when they’re in a safe place among safe people that will never happen), then they take off like a rocket. They soar finding new altitudes that were impossible before. The weight of the constraints and challenges prevented them from going higher. Now those weights are lightened or removed. It doesn’t mean there are no problems from now on…it just means now they have a new resource with which to face them. And deal with them.

It’s amazingly rare though. The resource, that is.

There are 17 rare earth elements. No, I don’t know all their names. Or even have a rudimentary understanding of their power. Shoot, I can’t even pronounce their names. That’s how rare they are! 😉

But I know that entrepreneurs (really ANY humans) finding a safe space with safe people surrounding them so they can leverage the power of their peers is equally rare. It’s the 18th rare element – surrounding yourself with people who can be helped by you and who can help you.

Because it’s so rare some don’t even believe it exists. I mean if you’ve never seen it or experienced it, you may think it’s just somebody’s fantasy. But it’s very real. Fewer than 1% of entrepreneurs know it firsthand. I told you it was rare. Like most rare things, it’s extraordinarily valuable. But it’s not valuable because it’s rare. It’s valuable because it works. It transforms businesses and lives. It generates greater revenues and profits. It solves problems. It seizes opportunities.

There’s nothing like it because the resource is the human brain. Multiple human brains engaged in helping each other. Multiple viewpoints. Multiple experiences. Multiple approaches to problem-solving and opportunity-seizing. AI may be in the uptick, but leveraging the power of other human beings who are individually pursuing the same thing we are (entrepreneurs and business owners) is powerful because it provides us with the strength to open up, which gives us the opportunity to grow.

Tinker Bell said it best…

All you need is faith, trust and a little bit of pixie dust.

Be well. Do good. Grow great.

Randy