3 Stools

The past 2 weeks has shown us how critical it is to ensure you are surrounded by quality operators, who are aligned with your vision, values and purpose. We have seen a number of scenarios where working in isolation, or feeling like they had to have all the answers themselves, has created even more challenges for business owners. They started to put some of their challenges in to the “too hard basket” or applied the “ostrich head in the sand” approach. Short term this was the most comfortable option, but now these items had grown and had become even more confronting. Got any of these things going on in your space now ?

Each of these business owners, when they were 100% honest with themselves, realised they were choosing comfort over moving forward. I would prefer to not know the whole truth as i feel i can deal with this… not the whole truth. This was now impacting their business and they didn’t know how to move forward… which is where we came in. Helping them own their direction allowed them to reset their immediate focus.

believe in yourself - business coach Paul Farmer

So how do you identify the best way to drop the “I have to do and know everything” and allow others to add value in your space?

Here are 3 areas you can focus on:

  1. It will be an opportunity for others to grow – yes in the short term, it is easier to do things yourself. For those things you choose to do today, ask yourself “if not me, then who”… who would be doing this activity in a year’s time. This will identify who should probably be taking it on now… why wait a year for them to take it on. Make time today and invest in growing your wolfpack, and create time for you  
  2. You can compliment your skillset – most business leaders are blessed with a quality technical skillset. Where you are less proficient in other areas, or where you can include others to speed up your growth path, you look to others to add their expertise. We have provided cashflow forecasts that have helped business owners understand their cash needs and shape their immediate focus areas   
  3. You create opportunities to focus – by having others free up your time, compliment your skillset and educate you in areas where you may be less proficient, it allows you to focus on those areas where you are able to have the biggest impact. By knowing their cashflow forecast, business owners were able to focus on sales targets, funding requirements, team targets and communicating the strategy of the business to the team. These wouldn’t have happened if the leader was trying to focus on controlling everything.

An African proverb says “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. This seems such a simple quote, yet one that highlights where we can add so much value in our businesses. Drop the expectation of having to know & do everything, drop the ego that having others take things on, shows you aren’t capable of doing everything. It’s those business leaders who embrace their multi person wolfpack, and invest in them, who are the ones who get to choose where they spend their time.  

Forward this to those you feel would benefit from hearing this and want to create choice in where they spend their time. We love helping quality humans choose where they spend their time, which leads to living a life on their terms… reaching more of these people is our mission.   

Thank you and have an amazing week.