What If You Were Just One Decision Away From Changing Everything? – Grow Great Daily Brief #82 – October 15, 2018

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Decisions aren’t created equally. Risk and reward vary. Size and magnitude do, too.

Owning the joint doesn’t mean you make all the decisions. You’ve already learned the value of pushing some decisions off your plate by letting people super close to the work do it. 

Let’s play a quick game. Off the top of your head, what’s one decision you made that paid off BIG TIME. Personal. Professional.

Maybe it was asking that girl out 43 years ago and now you’ve got 5 grandkids and a tribe (family).

Maybe it was befriending a super smart person who became your business partner 10 years ago.

What was it? One decision that changed the trajectory of your life, professionally or personally. Or both.

These decisions don’t happen often, but we don’t need them to. Hopefully, they happen when we most need them. 

You knew the truth to the question the moment you read it or heard me read it. “What if you were just one decision away from changing everything?”

Innovation. Creativity.

Decide today to increase both. It’s a decision that may change everything in your business. 

Commit to curiosity and wonder. What will happen if we do this? What if scenarios are just one way you can decide to more deeply embrace innovation and creativity.

Another is to push the limits of how your business or industry operates. Every business (and industry) operates from assumptions. Assumptions aren’t bad, they’re necessary. But that doesn’t mean you have to fall in love with every single one of them and never test or challenge them. Get a little bit rebellious. Start questioning things you’ve never questioned before. An easy place to start is all the sacred cows in your business or industry. Pick on the things that you and everybody else, assume are just truths that can’t be contested. Start challenging them one by one. All of them. 

Problems or Opportunities?

Decide today to look at your problems in a different way. I’m not denying that you’ve got problems. I just know that if you’re able – and determined – to look at them differently, you may find there are opportunities you can exploit and not just problems you must solve.

Where is the opportunity here – in this problem? What might we be able to do because of this problem that we couldn’t – or wouldn’t – otherwise do? 

Deploy the brainpower of your team to find the opportunities in every problem. That’s right, opportunities. There are likely multiple opportunities. 

Business history is filled with stories of happy accidents that were failures turned into major successes. Post-It Notes by 3M is just one famous example. You likely have heard and read of others. Well, stop reading about them and start creating your own. Just make up your mind – make a decision to search for successes and opportunities in your failures and problems. 

Leverage people.

You’ve got work that must be done. I get it. But you’ve got a business filled with individuals who need and want certain things in order to feel great about themselves and their work. Decide today to stop considering what your business needs and make up your mind to scale the power of the individual inside your company. 

Do you advertise or tell the market that your people are part of your competitive advantage? Many companies do. Most of them lie. But let’s assume you do it and you’re telling the truth. I know what you mean by it. You mean that your people are really good at what they do, that you’ve got systems in place to help them deliver consistently to your customers. You’re proud of it and you should be. But you’re losing leverage by failing or neglecting to look at the individuals who make up your organization. 

Here’s why? You’ve got some people who are very unhappy, but you value them. You don’t know they’re unhappy and entertaining other options. They don’t want to be doing what they’re doing and they’re stuck. You’re not seeing it because you’re not thinking about them. You’re only thinking of yourself and how they’re doing the job you need them to do.

But there’s something else happening, too. There are people who have skills and talents you know nothing about because you don’t know what really jazzes them. You’re not leveraging the people who are already part of your team. People who could deliver significantly higher value if you only cooperated with them, and their individual goals and desires. 

Stop living in the past thinking that employers are in charge. Give your people permission to be in charge of their own lives and careers. Because they really are in charge. It’s in your best interest to cooperate and collaborate with them to take full advantage of all their passions, desires and skills. 

Put yourself in a better room.

I don’t mean you move your office to something fancier. Something with a better view of the skyline of your hometown. Or an office with fancier appointments. 

I mean a room – physical or virtual – filled with people who can help you and people whom you can help. 

Purpose and responsibility. Every human being craves and needs these. You have plenty of both. In spades. Because you’re a business owner. A top-level leader. 

Those burdens are advantages of business ownership, entrepreneurship. They’ve also got a downside. There’s no place to hide. Nobody to blame.

You know that. And because you know that…you’ve grown accustomed to the loneliness. It’s just part of it. And I know why you think it. Because it’s largely true. 

There are many things you simply can’t discuss with people inside your company. Or even trusted advisors outside your company. So you go it alone. 

It’s what 99% plus of entrepreneurs and top-level leaders do because they don’t think there’s any other way. But there is. There’s a different decision that can be made. A decision, like these others, that can change everything. 

I’m on a mission to bring this option to light as much as I possibly can. Because I know there’s an epidemic of loneliness and even despair among entrepreneurs today. And much of it can be fixed if we can help spread the word that there’s a remedy. The Peer Advantage by Bula Network is just my small part – just one answer for a select few entrepreneurs to combat it. The quickest way I know to help you understand the power of this one decision is to tell you about a non-profit organization called National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children. Inc.

You do NOT want to be a member of that organization, but if you find yourself the parent of a murdered child there’s likely no better place to be. The moment you enter a meeting there’s an instant connection. Instant empathy from everybody else in the room. Because everybody in the room is just like you. Nobody has to spend time explaining anything. The individual circumstances or situations of everybody’s life is different, but the elephant in the room connects everybody with the abliity to help each other, and to be helped. 

So it is with The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. Everybody is an entrepreneur. Everybody is a business owner. The specifics of their market, their enterprise and all those other details don’t matter so much. That instant connection is summed up in the phrase, “I get it,” because everybody does get it. They understand the loneliness. They understand the responsibility. They know what you’re feeling, how you feel and how badly you want your company to succeed, grow and flourish. 

The details matter in each person serving themselves, others and the group. The collective is the power. A single decision to find increased courage through vulnerability is a decision that can change everything. Fewer than 1% of all entrepreneurs make that choice. You can decide to remain among the herd of entrepreneurs fearful of letting a small, intimate group of other entrepreneurs help them. Or, you can find the courage and humility that is reserved to the business owners who make a single decision that can change everything in their business, and their life. 

If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re interested in learning more, visit ThePeerAdvantage.com.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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