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Tap the brakes. I’m not talking about you domineering everybody in your life. And I’m not talking about how wonderful people are who refuse to submit to anybody over anything at any time. I’m talking about the most dreaded factor in our daily lives.

FEAR

Business owners – excuse me, entrepreneurs – often feel like they’re supposed to be immune. It’s like we all lined up at some secret clinic and got vaccinated with a vaccine unavailable to ordinary folks. That’d be great, wouldn’t it?

Culture presses on us unprecedented glorification. In my lifetime I’ve never seen business ownership or business startup glorified more. It’s the grand panacea for what ails you. Start your own company and all your wildest dreams will come true. Leave your 9 to 5 and enter the land of Utopia.

The reality is very different. Statistically, most don’t make it. Failure rates are extremely high. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go for it. It just means culture paints an unrealistic picture that sets very unreasonable expectations.

For those already in the game, it can press us to think, “My life isn’t like that. What’s wrong?” The average business owner isn’t living an Instagram kind of life. Fear is real. Fear that we’re failing. Fear that we won’t find success. Fear that we’re not as successful as we should be. Fear that we’re not measuring up.

Thankfully, there is an increasing volume of attention being given to the mental and emotional health of entrepreneurs. It’s a far cry from being able to offset the negative, fictionalized viewpoints, but it’s a start.

Do a Google search for the word “fear” and here’s what you get…

About 1,230,000,000 results (0.58 seconds)

The first results are definitions. Mayo Clinic defines fear as…

An unpleasant feeling triggered by the perception of danger, real or imagined.

But Merriam-Webster defines it as…

fear is the most general term and implies anxiety and usually loss of courage. fear of the unknown dread usually adds the idea of intense reluctance to face or meet a person or situation and suggests aversion as well as anxiety.

I’ll join the many who refuse to look at fear as the absence or loss of courage. That just adds to the negative pressures and imposes on us an unhelpful viewpoint.

It’s shallow to think that courage can’t coexist with fear because courageous people often confess their fear. Look in the mirror. You’ve exercised courage before. And you’ve done it in spite of fear. Courage is more likely doing what we need to do – or what we should do – anyway. In spite of fear or any other threat.

Let’s narrow our fear focus this morning. Let’s take aim at an action that has grown increasingly fascinating to me for the last few years – judgment.

Judgment

I’ve grown fond of a statement that I think is so ridiculously accurate. There are variations of it and I don’t claim to have originated it, but it’s brilliant and I rather wish I had.

just because you came into this chapter of my life doesn’t mean you know my whole story

But people think they’ve got it all figured out. We may think we’ve got others figured out. We judge each other. Easy to do because we’re not living their life. So we can second guess everything they do. And enjoy it.

That’s a real fear. A really big fear. Fear that people will judge us. Think less of us. Not be impressed by us. Blah, blah, blah.

Guess what?

They’re doing that now about you. And they’ll keep doing it. It doesn’t matter. Here’s what matters – how much headspace you’re willing to give to it. That’s why I’m becoming a more devoted convert to another truth.

Fear comes from a willingness to let someone else have the upper hand in judging you.

Why?

Because we’re human. Because we want to fit in. Because we want to be liked.

Even if it’s with and by people who don’t matter to us. 😉

Unreasonable? Sure. Completely.

But you’re mindful of your lifestyle in large part by how you look to others. If you want to own a multi-million dollar home with 12,000 square feet, then good on you. If you want to own a 1,400 home with a small yard and back patio where you can grill in the summer, then good on you. Truth is, neither one impacts me one little bit. If so, how?

Drive a $250,000 Bentley. Bully for you. Drive a Toyota Corolla, good for you. What you drive impacts me how? It doesn’t. Well, unless we’ve got a meeting and your car won’t start making you late or absent from our appointment. 😀

Passing judgment is indicative of people’s willingness and the duration, too. It’s passing. So why not let it pass without giving any oxygen to it?

Don’t admire anybody enough to take their point of view about you as more valuable than your own.

But we often do. It stymies us. Cripples us. Why?

Because these people came in on this chapter of our lives and we’re now going to let them write our complete story? How ridiculous!

Because that person judging you is somebody who is in your life for mere minutes (if that), and we give them the upper hand in making an assessment on our total life? Crazy, right?

Don’t listen to opinions that don’t matter.

What makes you happy with your business? What revenue goals excite you have nothing to do with me, or anybody else. Ditto for your lifestyle. Live as frugal as you want or as extravagant as you want, makes me no bit of difference. If so, how? And even if I judge you harshly – which is the tendency of many – what difference does it really make? Answer: it makes no difference unless you let it.

Unless you let it

Today, I’m encouraging you to not allow the judgment of anybody else to sidetrack you. Don’t give it any attention at all.

Examine yourself. Learn all you can about yourself and your circumstance. Seek understanding. Yes, solicit the perspective of people willing and able to help you. Perspective isn’t judgment. It’s a service from others that helps you eliminate your blind spots. Then grow! Make changes to improve. Forget what people think about you, your business or your choices. Your growth doesn’t depend on what others think of you.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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One of the first rules of personal finance is to keep track of your expenses and income. That’s how you know where the money is. And where it’s going.

Knowing isn’t enough though. Nothing changes simply because you know that 18% of your money is going toward dining out. But without knowing that…you’re powerless to do much about it.

What your KPI’s? What key numbers are important to you?

Think about driving your car. Look at the instrument cluster on your dash. Do you pay equal attention to every gauge? Nope. Because some of them are unimportant. In fact, I’ll bet you don’t even understand some of them. Those are the ones you ignore completely.

Speedometer. It matters.

Fuel gauge. It really matters.

Check engine light. Yep, that one matters, too.

There’s 3. But we’re talking about your car, not your business. Both have more nuances that first meet the eye. In spite of the complexity of our cars, they’re mostly very simple to operate. That’s where the metaphor breaks down. Our businesses can seem simple, but we know how complex they truly are.

What are the three big measurements inside your business? The ones that really let you know what’s going on?

Sales / Revenues

Most owners will mention this first, and for good reason. No sales mean no customers. No customers mean no business. It’s the oxygen we need to keep our businesses alive.

There’s a problem. Sales and revenues don’t tell us how healthy our business is. Worse yet, these numbers can fool us into thinking things are okay. Even terrific. And merely tracking sales doesn’t necessarily reveal why sales/revenues are going up, or down. We just know it is what it is. Why is still a baffling question.

Profits

Gross. Net. Track both and now we’re getting a clearer picture of the health of our business. More is better, but simply tracking the number doesn’t indicate why it’s going up, or down. Again, the why can evade us.

Expenses

Tracking where the money goes and now we’re closing in the why of it all. Why is our cash flow being pinched? Expenses can tell us.

Why aren’t we keeping more profits? Expenses provide the answer.

What’s our customer acquisition cost? Without knowing our expense (investment), we have no way to calculate it.

Data is your friend, but you have to see it clearly. And for what it is. Tracking whatever matters is just the price you pay for the opportunity to improve the number. It shines a light on the thing (whatever THE THING is) so you can focus on it.

Track it, improve it centers on measurement, analysis and asking lots of questions…most of which revolve around, “What can we do about this?” Put another way, “How can we improve this?”

Improvement after tracking is an assumption we must make as owners. Don’t assume it can’t be made better!

Feedback

There are trackable things that have no gauges. You’re back behind the wheel of your car tooling to work at 60 miles an hour. Suddenly, a small vibration begins. You can’t tell where it’s coming from, but you know something is wrong. You slow to 50 miles an hour, but the vibration worsens. No warning lights go off on your dash. Nothing would indicate there’s a problem, but your senses don’t lie. Something is clearly wrong. So you pull off to the shoulder to have a closer look where you discover one wheel is loose.

Paying attention pays off. When we’re driving a car our eyes, ears and other senses help us navigate safely. It’s why developing autonomous vehicles has been slow coming. The human brain has an ability to process all the incoming data at unparalleled speed. Things that aren’t tracked – measured technically using meters or gauges – are instantly measured by the human brain. We adjust accordingly. That’s why you pulled your car over when that vibration began and didn’t improve.

So what’s the point? Brace yourself because I’m going to throw you a curveball. Track everything. I’m not saying make everything important, but give it to somebody to track. Solicit people inside your organization who love this sort of stuff. We need people willing (and happy) to track stuff – to measure it. If necessary, solicit as many people as you need. Why track everything?

Years of operating businesses with lots of moving parts has shown me that you don’t always know what’s important. Or when.

If everything is important, nothing is important. I started saying that decades ago because I learned as a young leader that priorities are needed if we’re going to grow great. I’ve not seen anybody grow great, or grow anything great by making everything equally important. But at the same time I’ve also learned the value of tracking everything. Not to make it a priority, but to keep an eye on it. To look for trends and patterns – which is largely what we’re doing as we operate our businesses. 

Retailers and manufacturers know the importance of tracking inventory. The companies that can do it best tend to churn to the top. WalMart did. Now you’ve got to do something with that data. Just knowing it isn’t the key. WalMart stores know what items are best sellers at one store versus the other one 10 miles away. Stocking levels are adjusted based on the rate of sale. The power is in the doing, but the doing is sparked by knowing. It’s the pressure to always close that knowing-doing gap.

Can it be tracked? Track it. Give the task to somebody willing (and excited) to own it. Challenge them to make sense of it. To look for patterns and trends. Then to make suggestions on ways it can be improved.

Meet with these folks regularly. Get them in a room together regularly. Let them nerd out about it. Don’t muzzle them. Turn them loose. Challenge them to make sure they’re tracking accurately. Question everything. Then listen!

In short order you’ll figure out there are some new things you’re tracking for the first time that you can now improve – things you never thought of improving before.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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Spring break was last week here in DFW. While I don’t have school-age kids I do have school-age grandkids. More importantly, I have clients who have school-age kids and many of them (check that, almost all of them) took last week off to get in one last vacation before the end of the school year. Quite a few made a trek to Colorado or some other snow-laden environment where skiing and snowboarding happen.

I didn’t operate at full-strength last week (sorry, that’s a hockey reference meaning all 5 skaters are on the ice). Now that we’re into a new week, and folks are back at work, I thought we’d think about the value of stepping away. Vacations. Sabbaticals. Retreats. They’re all forms of stopping the normal, usual and routine. And they’re harder for some than others.

Stepping away. Unplugging. They’re often helpful if we want to more deeply connect. To something or somebody beyond or outside our normal routines. Maybe that’s the power – connecting to something or somebody else outside our routines.

In episode 165 I talked about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s comments on the mental and emotional health of today’s NBA player. Watch athletes today as they enter the stadiums and arenas. Headphones on. Faces in phones. Connection, which feeds our emotional stability, is increasingly challenged by the need to be plugged in and always ON. But we know this and we’ve all read plenty about how social media platforms are designed to hook us to the rush we get by knowing what’s happening at all times. Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is a real thing.

The irony is we are missing out. We’re often missing out on deeper conversations. We’re missing out on fueling our curiosity about others. A deep enough curiosity that compels us to engage in conversation, to ask questions and to form deeper connections.

Intimacy has given way to more shallow casual connection. I know what you ate for dinner last night. I know the concert you plan to go to tonight. I see the new clothes you bought. I feed on all these details, but I don’t really know you. I just know what you want me, and the rest of the world, to know. I know how you front to all of us. And you can easily see how I front to others, too. That’s the depth of our connection. We just see the storefront without ever taking the time to walk into the store and peruse the real merchandise.

When we stop fronting with a sincere intention on more deeply connecting with others, or even with ourselves, we gain something more precious than shallow knowledge of what food we’re eating, or what clothes we’re buying or where we’re vacationing.

ENVY

a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck

Being so plugged in feeds our envy, which in turn weakens our connections because it increases our judgment and discontentment. “Man, you went to Hawaii during Spring Break? I didn’t get to go anywhere.” So it goes.

No need to connect. No need to figure anything else out about you. I’ve got your whole story figured out.

Or do I?

Flip it around. How many people know your whole story? Come on, think about it. Answer it.

One? Two? Five? I’m betting most of us can’t name 5 people who know our whole story. People who understand the total person we really are. People who know and understand our context. But not just people who know us…people willing and able to help us.

Compassion is where it starts. That’s why it’s the first C on my list.

Compassion • Communication • Connection • Collaboration • Culture

Compassion opposes envy and judgment. Until we can establish compassion for each other we’re going to be severely limited in the depth of our communication. Without communication, we can’t truly connect. Not in a meaningful way where we can serve each other.

So today, let’s lift our eyes up beyond our phones and devices. It doesn’t mean we bemoan technology. It’s terrific. We all love it. But it can’t replace human curiosity and compassion. Or the care we need to take to nurture relationships.

Walk around your company today. Call people by name. Shake some hands. Brag on folks. It won’t seem so deep to you, but it’ll be deep to the people you serve. Keep doing it and you’ll find paths to deeper connections over time.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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A couple of days ago there was a UFC fight in Las Vegas for the welterweight title. Tyron Woodley was the defending champion. Kamaru Usman was the opponent. The champ lost. Badly.

But it was what happened after the fight that got all the press. Tyron’s mom, Deborah, a 66-year-old who raised Tyron all by herself while working multiple jobs – as she put it, she did what she had to do – approached the new champion as he limped to his dressing room with the championship belt slung over his shoulder.

Deborah, who has a long history of showing grace to the opponents of her son (she even did it during his wrestling days in high school back in Missouri). Tonight was no different. She hollered at the victor, approached him and hugged him. He broke down crying into her shoulder, apologizing to her. You can read more and see the video here.

“It’s all good, baby. It’s all good. It’s your turn. It ain’t his turn.”

Her kindness clearly moves Usman, who won the contest and was now the current champion. Proving that even champions and winners need encouragement.

Do you have any doubt whatsoever that Deborah and her son, Tyron, are the real winners? Do you have any doubt at all that Usman, now the UFC welterweight champion is the winner? Do you have any doubt that by seeing this story YOU are a winner, benefiting from the grace shown by a 66-year-old mother?

Yeah, me neither. We’re all better for it.

Look at that. Look at the reach. The impact. The power.

Is it that winners also need encouragement or is it that in order to win we all need it? I think the later.

Who benefits more? The person giving the encouragement or the person receiving it?

Does it matter? It’s not a contest where somebody wins and somebody loses. It’s not even a matter of who wins more. It’s a matter of need, opportunity and benefit. The need for encouragement and grace is high. Always. The opportunities to extend grace, compassion and understanding – and encouragement – are equally high. There’s never a time where you’ll struggle to find it. It’s staring you in the face almost at every turn. Daily. And the benefit? Well, go dive into that story and video and then tell me what you think about the benefit. ENORMOUS.

It’s the power of people. It’s our ability to have a big impact on each other. To help each other, even when it’s not obvious that we may need the help. I mean, come on. The man has her son’s championship belt slung over one shoulder. What does he need from her? Was she driven by what she needed to extend? Was she driven because she noticed something in the man who just defeated her son? Some sadness perhaps? I don’t know.

But just like her work raising her son, she did what she had to. She did what she could.

What about you? What about me?

Are we doing what we should? Are we doing what we can? To serve each other? To support each other? To encourage each other?

I’m proud to have seen the story. I’m sad that such a story gets our attention because that depth of concern, care, compassion, grace and encouragement is too stinking rare. That’s sad.

We need to change that.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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“I’m not sure it’s ever going to be right,” he tells me. He’s spent the last few minutes telling me about a project that is very important to him. A project he’s as passionate about as anything he’s done in a long time. I ask some questions to make sure I’m seeing and hearing things as they truly are. One of the first things I want to know is how far along he is in the project. That’s when I get a reality check.

He says, “Oh, we haven’t launched it yet.” I press a bit more asking him to describe what has been done so far. He rambles on about planning sessions, timelines established and a host of other details that I’m assuming are important, but certainly not vital to launching because…well, because they’ve not yet launched. So how important could they be? 😉

“When do you think you’ll be ready to start?” I ask. Now he’s repeating himself. “I just don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to get it squared away. Not at this rate.”

We’re about 10 minutes into the conversation. Enough already. I hit LAUNCH and thus begins my mini-sermon on taking something from start to profit (profit could be in dollars, productivity or anything else one deems valuable or important).

This movie is played out daily in every organization of any size. People stuck in planning mode. It’s like a person going target shooting and getting stuck in ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim mode. What’s the point in going target shooting if you never pull the trigger? Seems foolish, but we don’t feel foolish because we fool ourselves into thinking that planning is doing. Well, kinda sorta, but not really.

Time for a reality check.

The reality is that we learn by doing. Okay, we learn MORE by doing. We certainly learn better (more deeply) by DOING.

Let’s be practical. And real.

Soldiers preparing to go into combat learn by training, practice and lots of repetition. Ditto for pilots and anybody else who is about to engage in life and death situations. The stakes determine the level of preparation. Rightfully so.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that whatever you’re planning to do isn’t going to put anybody’s life at risk. If so, then plan away. Get it as right as you can. Test it. Test it some more. Then launch.

For all the rest of us, we’re likely going to be way ahead of the game if we have plans that hit 70% on our confidence meter. Sometimes anything north of 50% may be sufficient. Again, the stakes determine the requirements.

Speed doesn’t mean reckless.

Launch speed matters. The faster you start, the faster you can fix. The faster you fix, the more success you experience. It’s a formula that works.

My conversation partner ultimately had to acknowledge that weeks and months of planning, planning, and planning hadn’t brought the launch date any closer. Mostly, it had been a major waste of time and effort whose aim was directed at making people feel better. More confident to start. And it hadn’t worked. Instead, it had fostered timidity. The ongoing striving to make it “just right.”

The team was stuck but didn’t know it.

We learn fastest by pulling the trigger. How else can we tell if our aim is off?

Ready, aim, fire. Yes, by all means, prepare and plan. That’s the whole ready and aim part. Give yourself the best chance to hit what you’re aiming at – the target. Keep your eyes on the target as you pull the trigger. Won’t do you any good to watch the target unless you do though – pull the trigger, that is!

Now, fix your aim. Did you hit the target on the first shot? Great! Now shoot again, and again and again. As long as you’re hitting the target, keep shooting.

If your aim is off, fix it. Adjust. Correct it. Pull the trigger again.

Rinse and repeat.

Where is the growth? Where is the real fixing happening?

After you pull the trigger. Only then.

Everything else is just hypothetical until you pull the trigger. Planning and all the other ready, aim stuff you think is so important is largely “here’s what we think will happen” or “here’s what we want to happen.” Pulling the trigger is our reality check. It’s how we find out if our theories are true or not. It’s how we figure out what adjustments to make so we can find success.

The problem is plans don’t have to fail.

We can stay in planning mode and never find out if we’re right. We can just assume we’re right and get stuck in the endless loop tape of preparing, planning and planning some more. Who cares why? Fear. Perfectionism. What difference does it make? Failure to DO SOMETHING is failure, period.

Risk versus reward. If pulling the trigger has an extraordinarily high price, then do the work to get it as right as you can. If the price is too high, you may want to figure something else out. Don’t even take the shot if you don’t want to. That’s okay, too.

But the game is made of taking shots. Pulling the trigger is where achievement and success are found. If you’re not able to pull the trigger then you have to figure out why. Why are we putting this off? What are we hoping to improve by all this preparation and planning? You’re either in it to win it, or you’re not.

Get going. Fix it as you go. It’ll accelerate learning and growth. And you’ll figure out how to win, or you’ll figure out you can’t. Either way, you’ll win.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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Last Friday NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke with at the MIT Sports Analytics Conference. The topic? The mental health of the players.

Silver reported that social media and headphones are impacting the professional athletes, sometimes making them feel more anxious and isolated. Players fly or board buses with headphones affixed and interactions aren’t what they once were.

Heads down. Music in their ears. Scrolling through their social media.

During the conversation Silver recalls Isaiah Thomas telling him,

“Championships are won on the bus.”

I recently watched a 2014 documentary – The Hornet’s Nest – about a father and son who were embedded with troops in Afganistan. Like most other wartime military documentaries, it’s evident that the soldiers are fighting for each other. Band of brothers is a real thing.

Our lives are enriched by the deep connection we have with comrades, co-workers, family members and the other people in our lives. When those connections begin to slip, so do we.

The NBA Players Association is so serious about the mental health of their members they launched a mental health and wellness initiative last May. In spite of the multi-million dollar contracts, the jet-set lifestyle and the other perks that come with being a professional athlete…these people endure constant scrutiny, criticism and glorification. It’s easy to see how the noise could be overwhelming and foil the best attempts to have peace.

Last week a local radio team on the number 1 station in Dallas traveled one week with the Dallas Stars NHL team. They’ve done it for 14 seasons now. This is a team, like most, with their own team plane, built with every possible amenity to make the players comfortable. These radio hosts get to experience world-class travel just like the athletes, staying at 5-star hotels and dining at the finest restaurants. When they returned they talked about how exhausting it was to be in 4 hotels over 5 days. And they only had to focus on doing a 3-hour radio show each day. Proof once again that all that glitters ain’t necessarily gold.

We’re not operating professional sports franchises. Some of us may want to one day (not me), but we’re operating businesses and organizations that aren’t likely so high flying as the Dallas Stars. Or the Golden State Warriors. Or the Boston Red Sox. What does any of this mean for us?

Just this – isolation is destructive to happiness. And unhappiness is counterproductive to high performance.

Workplace dynamics – or the lack of them – is worth a closer look. That includes how people are set up. The open office concept is increasingly under fire for failing to do the very thing it was designed to do – help people connect and collaborate.

Perhaps people need their own space in order to more deeply connect. Not hard to understand. Look at your home. Inside our families, we all need our space, time for ourselves. Then we yearn to come together. Imagine your entire family having to occupy one big room, together all the time? Food for thought.

But the point is how deeply can we care about each other.

I focus frequently on communication, connection, collaboration, and culture. At the heart of all 4 of these important components is COMPASSION. It’s about our willingness and ability to care about one another.

It’s why I find myself constantly telling folks about Tom Rath’s 2006 book, Vital Friends.

The sub-title is, “The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without.” Truth is, the people who surround us, the people we care about and the people who care about us have a dramatic impact on our lives.

Team chemistry. Living in DFW where we have every major professional sport represented we get to hear lots of coaches and pro athletes talk. Beyond the X’s and O’s of each sport, there is a lot of talk about how well the players gel. General managers and coaches are always trying to find players who have skills to help the team, but also humans who will fit in. It’s harder than it looks, likely complicated by the things NBA Commissioner Silver pointed out.

People working elbow to elbow day after day, with headphones on, checking social media, posting narratives to depict their lives as something different than what they truly are — increasing their sense of being imposters, amplifying their need to find social acceptance on Instagram – and perhaps resulting in a deeper loneliness than they know how to manage.

You’re the leader. What do you do?

I don’t have THE answer. Today I hope to help you give it some headspace. Think about it. Look around your organization. Listen. What do you observe? What’s working in your opinion? What isn’t working?

I can tell you that short-term trendy solutions are crap, sparked largely by coaching or consulting companies selling a solution. Climbing walls, rope courses, and other adventure-based team building exercises may have their place, but I’m not a fan. Artificial setting designed to overcome day-after-day, hour-after-hour routine just seem shallow and empty to me. I wouldn’t be impressed if a leader asked me to spend a morning, an afternoon or an entire day doing such things. You may though. And that’s fine. I’m not opposed to these things. I’m just opposed to leaders or bosses thinking those are going to fix a broken culture. They won’t.

Let me slam my generation for a moment. 😉 Butts in the seat meant work was being done. That’s why too many older leaders whine about younger generation workers. And why an awful lot of them are opposed to virtual workers. If they can’t see people where they’re supposed to be stationed, then they incorrectly assume productivity is being hampered.

Truth is, time spent connecting, sharing and learning about each other may have an incalculable ROI. When employees roam around the visit with each other (sure, moderation in all things), they’re not necessarily wasting time. They’re communicating and connecting. Those must happen before collaboration. And all 3 are vital to forming your culture.

I know this. Leaders who foster the first 3 C’s build the best cultures on the planet. People are happier. They enjoy doing battle with others. Fighting along side others. That’s what time on that bus represents. Our ability to learn to care about people, know people and trust people. If you can’t foster that in your organization…you’ll never be a champion.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC