Picture this – sitting in a coffee shop with a business owner friend and they are saying this. “Ugh, the widget-machine is broken, the only one we’ve got, we’ve got this huge order – really profitable – and the darn thing is laid up. I don’t know how long until it’s up and running again”.
You ask a few questions. What’s your maintenance schedule – oh, we let it sit for a day or so in the slow times. Do you have a spare? No, it’s always run fine before, so I never got around to doing that. Any finance for a replacement? Woah, that’s far too expensive!
What are you thinking about how well your business owner friend has been managing his business? His risk management? His contingency planning?
Not well, in short. His whole business model is based on a critical component and there was no backup, no planned maintenance, no attempt to forestall or mitigate a potential breakdown.
Now re-read those two paragraphs in italics and replace ‘widget-machine’ with ‘Founder’.
.
.
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This is precisely how a great many businesses operate. Their most critical component – the founder, the owner, the CEO the driver of vision, mission, purpose, the main creator of value, the key relationship holder, the very glue and fabric of the whole business – is overstretched, has no planned maintenance and there is zero contingency for a major problem
To put a plan in place is actually not that difficult. It doesn’t interrupt normal operations. It doesn’t cost any money. It requires no special training or equipment. Every founder can do it. Any founder can do it, at any time in the business cycle or time of year.
It looks like this:
- Get one hour more sleep every night
- Drink less alcohol and drink more water
- Eat more vegetables, less processed food, less white carbs and sugar
- Sit quietly for 15 minutes each day
- Take a walk outside in the daylight for 20 minutes, come rain or shine
What?! That’s it?
Yep, that’s it. But what those few, simple, cheap things do is amazing.
They calm your nervous system. They get you more rested, more clear-headed, more sharp. They improve your decision-making clarity. They improve your body rhythms so you sleep better. They improve digestion so you get more energy from your food. They help quiet that incessant noise in your head that nags at you all day – and night – long.
These are steps that I guide every client through right that the start of working together, because:
- Almost every single person will benefit from doing these things
- Decision-making gets better
- Your self-awareness improves
But – most importantly of all – they give you the foundation from which to make the bigger choices.
If you’re doing 100 miles per hour, your can’t think straight. If you’re tired, you make poor decisions. If you are full-on all the time, you have no capacity to think about the future – what you don’t want, and what you do.
It is poor business planning to have a critical component that is over-stretched all the time with no maintenance schedule.
Feel free to grab this list and make it yours. Aim to do these things 4 or more days per week.
Don’t wait for Monday, begin today, right now.
Go for a walk.
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If you are thinking “pah, that won’t work for me”. DM me and let’s get on a call. I guarantee that in 20 minutes I can help you create a routine that will work for you. No charge.
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