[00:00:00] Speaker A: Success isn't given. It's earned. And earning it means becoming the person who deserves it. The bottom line is where we cut through the chaos to simplify success, uncovering the strategies, mindset, and resilience it takes to win real stories, expert insights, and practical tools. Because the only way to the top is by putting in the world. This is the bottom line.
Welcome back to the Bottom Line.
This show, we really like to cut through the chaos to simplify what it takes to be successful. I'm your host, Ryan Herpin, and today we're exploring the kind of insights that can transform the way you lead and grow your business. I'm joined by a very, very successful, wonderful, driven individual, Douglas Wick, a business coach, broadcaster, and executive with over 40 years of experience in sales, leadership, and business growth. As the founder of Positioning Systems and a certified ETH and Gazelle's coach, Douglas has guided more than 250 companies toward greater success.
What makes his story especially powerful is not just his professional expertise, but also his personal resilience. As a former broadcaster and station owner, Douglas also battled and survived acute myeloid leukemia, an experience that fuels his passion for helping others achieve freedom, resilience, and clarity in both business and life.
Douglas, thank you for joining us here. I'm so excited to have these conversations with you and to really show the world just how incredible you are.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate being here.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. It's my honor. And. And, you know, so many business leaders today feel like they're drowning in decisions. Their company is, you know, it's messy and out of control.
You know, I. I really want to start by talking about clarity and how leaders can cut through the cloud of confusion to find their path forward. So I really want to frame a problem here. This. This helps really kind of make this relatable in ways. And, you know, a lot of the audience, they feel like their business is messy. It's overwhelming and out of control.
And in this segment, I really want to focus on how to cut through that noise, to sharpen the vision and create a clear focus that transforms not only the leader, but their teams as well. And as. As the show suggests, I like to get to the bottom line of things. Your time is valuable. I want to pick that wonderful brain of yours and start with a really big question.
Why do you think so many leaders struggle with clarity when it comes to their vision and direction?
[00:02:44] Speaker B: It's interesting that you asked that question. I saw a quote from Steven Spielberg, and he said the hardest thing for a director to do is to know what they want.
And I think that that's at the core of the issue because most businesses have so many different things, challenges. You know, right now I. What do we do with that? They've got people problems and, you know, whether to keep people, to hire more people. What is it? Sales problems, you name it. There's, there's a cloud of so many challenges that they faced. Even if the business is doing well, the question is, you know, where do we get our next growth from? So the, the question that I would ask, or we always start with, with customers, is what's the one thing you can do such that by doing it, everything else would be easier or unnecessary? And that comes from the book the One Thing by. I'm trying to remember Gary Keller, but the, the, the, the issue is if you're trying to choose four or five things, usually you're not going to be able to do any one of them good. Whereas if you focus on one thing and it is the most important thing, then you're going to be successful.
And even if you're not successful, you've worked on the most important thing.
The best way I can explain that is, you know, you mentioned having cancer. There wasn't anything more important than making sure that I lived at that point. And that gave me such clarity about what I needed to do and how I needed to structure activities and do things in order to hopefully get past the cancer. And that's what a cus. That's what my customers, a business needs to do, is to really focus on what's that one thing that you can cut out all the distractions and focus on. That'll move the needle on your business and, and make everything else easier as well.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: I love how you framed that because when it's very clear, it does get easier. Right. I'm going to bring up two quotes. One quote is from my business partner and my mentor here said something to me early on in my career that I'll never forget. He talked about don't start anything before you finish it. And he meant vision. He meant the plan. He meant the preparation. Don't start a project, don't start a business. Don't start anything until you have seen it through step by step in a plan and have a clear vision of what that looks like. And the second quote is by Mr. Eric Thomas. He said, if you want success, you have to want it as much as your need to breathe.
That is so important. That drive, that need for it makes all the difference. It's pointless to have a good vision if you don't have the passion to back it up. But it does make me curious.
What are the first small steps a business owner can take to cut through the noise and create that, you know, Clear focus?
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Well, once you answer that question, by the way, your quotes were excellent.
Once you establish that there's.
You need to then set a system or a group of activities up that will help you achieve that. You might be familiar with James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. One of his quotes in there is, you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. And he talks about Olympic. Anybody who's in the Olympics, they're all trying, you know, they all want to win the gold medal, right? Well, not everybody's going to do it. And the difference between, you know, talent being maybe one exception to that is the system that they have. How did they go about practicing and rehearsing and getting ready for that event? And the more challenging, the more systematic they are, the better they're going to be. So what we suggest is they develop you. You set the goal, you have an idea what that is, but then you build a weekly structure. How are we going to get there? What's good, what's what, what do we need to be doing along the way to get to that ultimate goal and develop a system or a set of activities that will achieve that. So hopefully that answers your question.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Yes.
Powerful. Very, very powerful. A good system, a good strategy takes out that, that confusion, the chaos, the fog that makes everything seem so complicated and difficult. And it's funny, the quote. Yeah, I'm loving that we're going back and forth with quotes right now because the quote you just said reminded me of another very, very similar. But on a personal level, you don't rise to the standards you hold when others are watching. You fall to the standards you have when no one's around. Yeah, so it kind of boils down to the same thing, but it's. There's so much value in what you're saying right now. And I'm absolutely loving this, but I, I do want to dig into this a little bit more. I like the real life, the real world scenarios. So can you share a story of a client who went from being overwhelmed to finally having clarity and, and what really changed for them?
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got a very interesting story about a customer. This, this goes back quite a ways, but it's a very good example.
I had a car wash business that I worked with. This is about 2009, 2010, and it was probably before most car washes had the membership process. If you, if you've ever gone to a car wash, they're usually trying to get you to now to sign up for a membership in discount. Well, this, this customer, he attended a workshop that we had. He was one of my customers already and we were talking about cash flow and he was struggling with his membership card program at the time because he said, you know, we have, we have their credit cards, we have nobody set up to call them because what happens is they're credit cards fall through. And he says, I'm thinking about getting rid of the whole membership thing because it's just too much of a hassle and I don't have anybody to run it. He got back to the back after the workshop, it was a two day workshop, and started crunching the numbers and realized, oh my God, my membership customers are worth 10 times the amount that a one time customers.
And when he realized that, he changed his whole procedure in his, you know, he had five car washes to focus on that membership and then also to measure the quality or the customer fulfillment with him. He hired a company out of India to call his customers to make sure that their, their level of what success or level of customer satisfaction was, you know, very high.
Measured that consistently and he changed. His managers used to manage the, the business and the, the people, he changed that to their focus, 75% of their focus being on making sure customers were satisfied.
And that completely changed his business, gave the business the focus of. As he told me one time, he says, Doug, I'm not in the car wash business, I'm in the membership business. I spoke to him well just about three or four months ago. He now has I think six or seven car washes and his every, every month. He starts out at about a million dollars in revenue through his membership business. So it's been just a phenomenal success for him and he's doing extremely well.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, talk about a success story. My goodness, that's a great example. And it's real world. I mean my goodness, that's, that's something that can happen to any business given the right opportunities, the focus and the strategies involved.
So to our audience, once again, Douglas is somebody you really should be taking notes on. You should pay attention to this closely because there is value, value here that has the potential to change your business, change your life. So we'll be right back on the bottom line and, and coming up, we're tackling the challenge of growth and how to expand your business without burning out along the way. Don't go anywhere.
Welcome back to the Bottom Line. Loving what you're watching.
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We are back with the magnificent Douglas Wick. And in this segment we are going to be addressing a massive challenge that I have to deal with on a regular basis with clients. And that's the challenge of change.
Many businesses are facing a struggle and it's fearing change, not just the owners of the business, but the teams as well. And the way you approach it, the way you face it can make all the difference. You know, Douglas, it's such, it's such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for being on the show and I'm excited to dive into the segment with you.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks for, again for having me.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you know, the problem facing many in the audience is that change feels really scary and often feels like the team resists even the smallest adjustments. So, so diving right back into these questions to get that value to that to our audience as much as possible, very straightforward is why is change so difficult for both leaders and teams?
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Well, the, the biggest reason, and this comes from a lot of the work that I did when I was in the hospital with Dr. Joe Dispenza is breaking the habit of being yourself.
In order to change, we have to break the habit of being ourselves.
We have 60 to 70, 000 thoughts each day and 90 to 95% of them are the exact same thoughts we had yesterday.
Because, and we're unconscious of that. Okay. That's the problem.
And unless, and this is, you know, when we talked about how to create a clear up the cloud of confusion earlier.
The, the problem is, is if you don't have a vision for your future, people aren't going to follow you. So many people start, don't start with the, as you talked about in our earlier conversation, the end in mind or have a clear vision of what, what it's going to look like when it's done.
People don't have that. It's, it's, it's like starting an exercise program.
And if you don't know, in fact, I wouldn't even say visualize, you've got to feel as if you're already whatever weight you want to be and how that's going to feel, how that's going to benefit you and so forth. Once you have that feeling, okay, the to get out of bed and, you know, go for a run, do your exercises, becomes a lot easier. And, and so many times, leaders will go, well, why aren't they? Why aren't my people doing this?
You haven't created a vision. And a vision is to invest your energy in possibilities versus the familiar past or whatever. You know that because your people are, are thinking 90, 95 of the time. They're thinking in the familiar past or the predictable future, and they're not seeing the vision that you want. And that's why change.
If as long if your people are aware of what the benefits are and what they're going, what. What's in it for me, then they don't have a problem changing. They, They'll. They'll actually want to change. Right?
[00:15:50] Speaker A: So I agree with you very, very deeply on this matter. You know, something that I find to be all too common in business is think of it like this. If you're an adult and you're going to go on a trip with a friend, if you don't know the destination, are you gonna go? Are you gonna hop in the car and put a blindfold on and go blindly?
No.
Why would employees and teammates want to do the same? It requires vision. It's just like taking a vacation. You got to decide the destination, then you got to map out how to get there. Clear vision gives people the trust and confidence to change.
If you don't see what's around the corner, it's kind of hard to be willing to change.
We fear the unknown. That's kind of a natural thing. So if you don't know where you're going and you don't see why the change is necessary to get there, you won't do it. And at the same time, you addressed one of the biggest factors I see. It's showing how the change can benefit the team. How does it align with their goals, their purpose, their objectives? That makes a team so much more apt to changing. They can be excited about it instead of afraid of it. Right? When they see the value it adds for them, it's huge. So how can leaders introduce change in a way that feels less threatening and more inspiring? I'm curious your thoughts on that.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Well, again, there's a. You mentioned a word that we talk about in Neuro Change Solutions, training the unknown.
People are afraid of the unknown. And yet the only way any creature in nature changes is by being uncomfortable and being challenged. And so what we have to do and what really overcomes this is to create what we call an elevated emotion. What. And that's where we're looking at possibilities rather than. Because what. What most people do when they think of, again, this is that negative. We spend 70% of our time in stress and 70% of our thoughts are usually negative as well. And so unless you're looking at possibilities, you're always going to go back to what's the worst case scenario? What is the possibility? Because that's the way our brain works. We're wired, you know, since Neanderthals, to be cautious and protect ourselves from danger.
That's what leaders need to do. They need to create that vision of what this is going to accomplish, what is this going to do. And that, you know, for them as well as the company, but mostly for them, because if they don't see what's in it for them, it's going to be difficult to get them to change. And so create that envisioned future and be, as you had stated earlier as well, passionate about it, committed to it, and that's what's going to make a significant difference. I think the other thing that people don't realize is in the workplace, most people are living again about 70 to 75% of the time in stress.
And leaders don't know that. They don't realize it because they're not, they're not there. And it could be coming from a co worker. One co worker may do something that just irritates the, you know the heck out of you and it means you're stressed. And when you were in stress, we, we can't create. And so to get our people thinking in the future gets them out of stress and gets them to move toward that goal and ultimately the success you want with your business.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: Such a good point. It's funny, there's two things you said that really stood out to me and I'm going to bring up two points I make in one of my keynotes. That keynote's called earn not given outworking the odds in the first one is we are wired for survival, not thrival.
We are. Our brain is designed to keep us comfortable and safe, not to step out. And that leads me to the second point for my keynote is if you do what's hard, life and things will become Easier. But if you keep doing what's easy, life's going to get a whole lot harder. And it's the same thing with change.
If you're not willing to embrace change, accept change and make the change, life's going to get a whole lot harder. But if you get comfortable being uncomfortable, life gets a whole lot easier. So that's one way I like to think of change. And you just really inspired some of that to really kind of fire up with me because it's, it's such a beautiful point that I like to make to people because it can reframe the way we look at change. But can you share an example of a business that embraced change successfully and what made the difference?
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And I, I'll go back to what you said, that the uncomfortability is the unknown. And when we, when we realize that being uncomfortable is a good place to be and it's not that scary, we can overcome it. The company that I, I can bring up this again was a company I worked with I think in 2016, something like that. They were, they were beci. They're out of, based out of Florida, but They've got about 10 or 15 locations now nationwide. But when I started with them, they were at about two and a half million.
And they, one of the first things we did was we went through an organizational chart.
They had four different owners or you know, partners in the ownership and it wasn't clear who was in charge. People would ask questions of somebody in, at the top or one of the owners and they get different answers or they go ask the person that they know they knew they'd probably get the answer they wanted. So one of the first things we did was to differentiate and create job scorecards for each person and decide who is actually in charge of the company.
And there were a number of other strategies that we did, but they had to, you know, the, the first thing was the leadership team had to accept the idea we've got to change in order for the organization to change. And so they, they went on, they did a number of things that are talked about in good to great. They created a 20 mile march of opening one location each year. They determined what their BHAG is and developed a measurable number which was based on the number of engineers they had. And they grew to 10 million by 2020 and they're now over 20 million. And most of it is just because they got the foundational pieces together and agreed as a leadership team we've got to change, otherwise we're not going to grow.
So hopefully that's a good example.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: However, that's a great example. I mean, it's very clear and concise and anyone can follow through with that. That's, that's incredible. It's a great example of what can really happen.
And Douglas, this, this has been absolutely incredible.
Serious value in this conversation today. Where can our audience find you? How can they get in contact with you and follow your work?
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Yeah, well, they can reach me at
[email protected] My phone number is 319-393-2565 and I have a blog where I touch on a lot of these subjects. You can see on the right hand column there's a, a number of topics that I've spoke about and it is strategic discipline.
Positioningsystems.com blog that you can find me there.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Douglas, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your wisdom. From your decades of experience and confidence coaching leaders, you know, to your personal story of, of, of resilience, you've shown us that clarity and freedom in business are, are possible and even in the face of chaos. So for our viewers, watch this back, take those notes and reach out to Douglas because I personally would recommend this gentleman. I can tell you right now the philosophies, the beliefs, the systems, I see eye to eye with this man in a lot of ways and I can personally say I've seen this stuff work.
So for the audience, we will be right back on the Bottom Line with a couple more segments digging into different topics that can really complement what Douglas has presented today. Don't go anywhere.
Welcome back to the Bottom Line. We've been talking to Doug Wick about finding clarity and scaling without burnout. But let me share something I've learned personally. You know, clarity isn't just about strategy.
It's about self leadership.
You can have the best, best growth plan in the world, but if you're operating from chaos internally, you know, you're overwhelmed, distracted, burned out, your plan won't really mean a thing. You know, clarity starts with you.
Before you fix your operations, you, you've got to get honest about your own habits, mindset and how you show up every day. Are you consistent?
Are you aligned with your values?
Do you lead with vision or react when things get really urgent? Right.
This is a very complicated topic for some. And in the heat of things, in the moment, in everyday business life when we're grinding and moving and trying to accomplish everything all at once as leaders, it's easy to react rather than respond.
Now self control is really about Responding, choosing to respond to a situation, choosing to respond to emotions. But self leadership is very, very important in making a business successful, right? So I'm going to start here. Many business owners mistake busy for clear.
Just because your calendar is full doesn't mean your, your direction is, is really focused, right? Something that I try to talk about as often as possible with clients and, and mentees and friends and family is there's a difference between doing more and getting more done. Just because you're busy doesn't mean you're productive.
Just because you've got that full calendar doesn't mean you're clearly focused on.
Sometimes it's easier for us to fill our plate so we can subtly avoid actually doing what's hard and getting the work done.
It's easy to mask that as something of value where really you might be spending a lot of time on something that doesn't really matter. It's like majoring in minor things, right? Jumping over a dollar to pick up a penny.
There's a lot of ways you can phrase it, a lot of ways you can look at it, but truth is, it is easy to fall in that trap of busy but not productive.
So self leadership means having hard conversations with yourself first about your values, your habits and your intentions, right?
There is this weird separation that some people feel they have to have between their intentions and what they actually do.
You know, it lead always leads back, back to money, always does. I, I seem to find this more often than not.
If your goal is money, it will be fleeting.
If your goal is impact, money's a byproduct, is automatic.
So it's the same thing with your intentions. If you intend on doing good, the results are automatic. If you put in the work, you stay focused, you don't stay busy, you stay driven and impactful.
You'll see the results. But self leadership is being able to clearly define what your values are in the first place.
What habits build the person you want to become, what habits destroy the person you want to become.
I do an exercise with a lot of my mentees when they tell me all the wonderful things they want to accomplish in this world. I always like to start with, okay, if your goals and objectives are like taking a vacation, you've got to decide on the destination, what you're going to do, when you actually arrive at it, what's the next steps.
But then how do you get there? You've got to map it out.
Because when you set a vacation, you know destination, you don't just hop in the car, drive off Any direction? No. How are you going to get there? You've got to map it out, find milestones, find the in between places, the possible detours, and then you can start traveling in that direction.
Self leadership means being honest with yourself about Are you staying in alignment with what your objectives are?
Are you compromising your core values to get you where you think you want to be?
Are your habits building the person in the life you want? Or are they breaking it? Because you're always building something. The question is, what are you building your purpose? Are you building your dream? Or are you building your excuses?
So you've got to ask yourself, am I leading from vision or reacting from. From pressure?
In the world of business, it's all too easy to feel the pressure and react to it. As I mentioned before, the difference, you know, a lot of people see is respond, overreact. I believe it's also a message of maturity.
You know, children, they have a tendency to react to everything.
Children also speak first, listen second, and then understand.
Mature people, they respond to the problems, they respond to the situation. Mature people tend to listen first, understand and then speak.
You see, this all is wonderful to say. It's wonderful to talk about, wonderful concepts to have and to chew on. But to put it into practice is a completely different story.
You see, no one overnight can just automatically be the perfect at responding to the world around them.
That's just not how that works. It's a practice, it's a discipline. It's consistent effort placed in growing, becoming, and staying in alignment with who you want to be.
A great book that I always refer to is the Compound Effect by Darren Harding. This book really encapsulates what these small disciplines on a daily basis can do. A great example is you don't have to move an entire mountain at once.
If you move one stone every day consistently, you'll still move the mountain.
Sometimes our objectives and goals seem so big that we don't know where to start, where to begin.
So we get discouraged, deflated, and avoided.
When reality. If we just do the next small best thing again and again and again and again, we will get there. We will become, we will grow. It's the same thing when it comes to controlling your emotion. It's not really control, it's just deciding to respond, to react instead of immediately reacting with anger. When someone cuts you off in traffic, take a moment to decide, was it that big of a deal?
Is it worth consuming part of my day, part of my energy, part of my mental space, and then decide how to respond the way I look at it is if everything is objective based, then what response will get you close to the objective when driving? My objective is to get from point A to point B safely and in somewhat of a timely fashion.
Okay, well if I didn't crash, then I'm still safe.
Sometimes I can't really control the time thing, but I still get to choose how I handle it.
A good response would be, okay, maybe next time I'll leave a little earlier to plan for the potential delays.
That's a sense of maturity, right? That is self leadership. And the self leadership reads clarity. But create daily stillness, even 15 minutes to really realign before jumping into, you know, the executive mode, right, that, that, that mode of get things done. The I've got to control, control, control, conquer, conquer, conquer.
I find a lot of power in taking 15 minutes to be still, to be quiet, to listen, to understand before trying to tackle my day, to tackle the next thing that has to be done.
It's too often that we get caught into that, that rhythm of, of just move, move, move, where the rhythm doesn't have to be as concrete, doesn't have to be as condensed. You can take a moment to separate yourself from that rhythm and find the best path forward.
You don't have, you don't know if you're taking these massive ways around. If you have a more direct approach that just takes a few minutes to see.
So it's easier said than done. Like most things, but in business I try to really be an example of take a moment, take a breath, be still, be quiet, think about the bigger picture, look at your destination, look at what you're doing in the moment to get there and re evaluate.
15 minutes can save you 15 hours of wasted time and movement done consistently. 15 minutes can save you 15 years of struggle, failure, frustration, problems, discouragement.
I can say this because I've seen this many, many times.
I was very blessed to shortcut 10, 20 years of experience in my field because I had a good mentor and I was able to take the time to reflect, to look at myself, be honest, hold myself accountable and move with very intentional effort.
Not everyone has this, but to take it from somebody who has seen it, try to apply it time and time again. You know, use weekly planning like your, your Monday focus plan, right to, to zoom out and clarify priorities before you get lost in the weeds.
There is an art to going between 10,000ft and right back in the weeds. You can't spend all your time in either one.
You've got to go to the weeds sometimes and You've got to get to 10,000ft sometimes.
It's, it's the same reason which I've used before. I've used this example many times on the show.
Same reason why LeBron James need a basketball coach. He needs a basketball coach. It's not because the coach is better than a basketball guarantee you he's not, but it's because the coach can see the forest beyond the tree that's standing in his way.
It's similar in a way that we can do it for ourself. Jump to 10,000ft, hold a third perspective, get out of the weeds and see the bigger picture.
You know, clarity doesn't mean you always know every step. It means knowing your why and your next right move. You don't got to see the ten year plan at every moment of your day. You just got to see what the next move in that ten year plan is.
So the clearer you are as a leader, the less confusion your team will have.
Envision cascades downward.
So share that vision.
Your clarity, your confidence, your competence, all of that will rub off on your team.
It will make an impact in their ability to be leaders of themselves, to have clarity, to move forward.
So self discipline is the bridge between knowing what needs to change and actually changing it.
So I'll leave you with this in this segment before we move on to the next.
If the leader is chaotic, the business will be too. But when the leader is clear, the whole organization breathes easier. In my own life, clarity was forged through discipline. Waking up early, reflecting weekly, asking hard questions and being willing to make hard decisions.
That's what creates the margin to lead. Not just manage, but the bottom line is leadership without self. Leadership is a trap. To gain clarity in your business, start by getting clear in yourself.
We will be right back with more of the bottom line.
We are back on the bottom line and I want to dive right back into something that is extremely important and really boils down to when to push, when to pause.
In that secret rhythm of sustainable growth, every business owner, every leader wants to know what's the secret sauce to growth.
And it's understanding yourself. But here's a truth we don't like to talk about. Enough Growth is not supposed to feel like survival. If your growth feels like you're, you know, sprinting just to keep from drowning, you're probably in the wrong rhythm. As a consultant, I help business owners tune in to a a different beat. One that includes seasons, seasons to push and seasons to pause. Growth without rest leads to burnout, but rest without purpose Leads to stagnantation. It just, it just, it can really cause you to freeze up, to pause too long, to be stagnant in what it is you're trying to accomplish.
And there's a powerful secret to sustainable growth.
Strategic pause.
Time to reflect, reset and reinforce the systems that are scaling your company.
Time to ensure your team is aligned, your vision is evolving, and your life isn't being swallowed by your business.
I'm a very big advocate for three major things as a consultant.
Maximizing profitability, growing revenue, and finding the work life rhythm that works.
See, it's too often that we get this rhythm all thrown off.
Growth is not sustainable if there's no rest. It's the same thing with lifting weights. Easy, easy, easy example to use.
If you're training every day, pushing it to your limits, you're giving your body no time to recover.
You will fail, you will be injured, you will inevitably be forced to slow down or even stop.
So my advice to business owners all over the place. If you're in a season of grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, you need to pay attention for the season of take a breath, take a step back, look at the bigger picture. Analyze what's working, what's not. You see, growth isn't just about doing more. It's about doing what matters in the right season.
You know, if you're always pushing, you never reflect.
And if you never reflect, you repeat the same mistakes faster.
Learning is about not making the same mistakes twice. And if you do, it's making that mistake and when it doesn't look the same, right?
Being able to reflect is being able to be honest with yourself when you've made mistakes. To analyze your path forward and decide to go a different direction, to make subtle adjustments and changes. If you're building a culture and you're going a million miles an hour trying to do it, yet you're overlooking the people that actually influence the culture.
It's never going to change. You're never going to get to the destination.
You'll arrive somewhere, but it's not where you want to go.
So taking the time to reflect, you should be able to see the reality.
Sometimes self reflection leads to discussion with others, getting their opinion, outside sources of how you're doing, what they see, what they feel, right.
Pausing gives you space to notice the cracks before they become foundational issues.
Some will disagree with my thought process.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: Here.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: And I'm just asking for you to be open about it.
Be, be open to the idea. Be open to the concept of taking a deep breath once in A while. I've known several people in business that honestly seems like the robotic. They seem like they're machines.
They're perpetually in a position of go at a million miles an hour, live in fear, live in stress, live in chaos.
And then they lie to themselves and say that's what drives them, that's what actually works for them, that's what gets them where they're going.
It's just that, a lie, It's a facade. It's a way to justify not taking a second to look at what you're doing and realizing whether you're doing more or getting more done, just as I addressed in the previous segment.
So pausing, like I said, gives you the space to notice those cracks before they topple your house completely down.
The risk of being a business owner is at any more, at any point, any moment, you could lose your business. It could all fall apart. So it'd be a shame if what you believe builds it is moving at a million miles an hour with no brakes actually is the thing that tears it down.
So a little bit of advice. Train your. Train your team to understand that rest is a part of performance, not the opposite of it.
Pro athletes, they take off seasons, power lifters, off seasons, Skilled, intelligent individuals, people that run big businesses, they have off seasons, they have vacations, they have time away.
The most successful people on this planet take time to rest, to recuperate, to review, reflect, to make decisions, move forward.
Train your team to do the same thing. Don't make them believe that if they're not actively beating themselves to death in the workplace, they're not being productive. Because that's just not true.
You could run 20 miles an hour on a treadmill. Are you getting anywhere? No. You could run on the treadmill for days and days and days. You're not getting anywhere.
You could walk on a sidewalk, you're going to get further than you would if you're sprinting on a treadmill.
Maybe it's a simple analogy, I don't know, but the truth is it's real.
So take those breaks, but don't take them too often.
There is a dichotomy that has to be balanced every other. Every week cannot be a rest week. Every day cannot be a rest day. You've got to have time for grind and time for hold up, to take a break.
So find the dichotomy that works. Maybe take one day a month to days a month to take a minute.
Shut everything else out. Look at the bigger picture. Review, analyze. Same thing. If you're Doing a quarterly review.
Do a review of your progress. Do a review of your disciplines, your routine, your mentality, your stress levels, your connection with your family.
But think of it like implementing quarterly rest days, right? One day every 90 days is, is what I would say is the minimum, the minimum you should do to really assess where you are and what you're doing and maybe what you shouldn't do. You know, if you feel like you're. You're sprinting just to keep up, you're probably outgrowing your systems.
Take a step back, look at the system, evaluate, improve.
Your system should scale with you and work with you, not hold you back or outrun you.
If you're falling behind your team and the productivity of the business altogether, it's because, well, you have yet to take a break to recuperate to get back up to full speed. You know, sustainable growth, it happens when leaders optimize capacity, not just maximize effort.
That part can be easily missed. So I'm going to say it again.
Sustainable growth happens when leaders optimize capacity, not just maximize effort.
Think of it as rush hour.
You've got a couple thousand cars trying to get down a freeway.
You can build the freeway to be only two lanes and just try really hard to make sure cars are able to get through efficiently and effectively. Up the speed limit, make the signs better, but it's still not optimal.
So if you take the time to invest in widening the highway overall, you're going to get significantly more flow of traffic.
You're going to get those cars through that freeway significantly faster, more efficiently.
So once again, sustainable growth happens when leaders optimize capacity, not just maximizing effort. So ask yourself regularly, what's one thing I need to subtract to grow stronger? Is it a habit?
Is it a belief?
Is it a break that you're taking that you shouldn't be? Is it an extra step you're taking that you shouldn't?
For me, once upon a time, it was, I need to be done working at a certain time. I need to no longer work on the weekends so I can be consistent for my family, so I can grow in the relationships of my children, my wife. It's the same thing with business as well. If you're taking too much time off your business, you're allowing yourself to be distracted too often. You're not going to get the results that you want.
So I'll tell you, this rhythm creates resilience. It's not about speed. It's about staying strong enough to finish the race.
If you try to go too fast.
It's very easy to crash and burn.
There's a time to put the pedal to the metal and go like crazy. There's also a time to slow down for the turns.
If your foot is on the gas while you're trying to hit that turn, you're going to fly right off the road.
Same thing in business.
Once again, easier said than done.
Not always easy, but it is simple.
So I challenge all of you to our audience. Take some time today to reflect on what you're doing in your business.
Are you doing more or getting more done?
Are you progressing or regressing? Are you making mistakes that could be avoided if you just slow down a little bit?
So if you don't make time to pause, life will make you pause. And it's usually much messier when it's forced.
So the bottom line, growth isn't just about adding more. Sometimes it's about subtracting chaos, simplifying your focus and building rhythm into your leadership.
That's how you scale something that actually lasts.
This has been the bottom line. And remember, success isn't given. It's earned.
Sometimes earning it means you've got to become the person that deserves it.
Deserving it sometimes means you've got to slow down, find the clarity, and move with purpose. We'll see you next time.
