One of the clients of The Growth Coach recently sent me an e-mail to simply thank us for creating and sharing our coaching and accountability process with the small business world. As a business coaching client, he went on to say that our coaching system over the years helped save his consulting business and personal life. In so many words, he said the structure, discipline and on-going process we provided through our quarterly strategic-focusing workshops got him "back on track" professionally and personally and "back from the brink of disaster." This is why I love what we do! We change lives for the better. Here is his story.
As I read his e-mail, it was quite unique and revealing how he summed up his coaching experience. He said, as a business owner, one of the main lessons he learned and fully applies to this very day is, "The most important thing is to keep your most important things most important. And by the way, they really aren't things!" Read that again and let it settle in. Talk about priority management!
However, in his e-mail, he never told me what his most important things were. That's probably a good thing not to know the details. It keeps us guessing and examining our own business and personal life. Ideally, every owner needs to search his/her heart, head, and soul for their very own Most Important Things. As the client hinted at, they ARE NOT even things but rather priorities, people, plans, roles and responsibilities.
What are your most important matters? Do they have to do with leadership? Marketing? Selling? Innovation? Customer retention and satisfaction? Systematizing your business? Focusing on your relationships? Your family and balance? Your faith? Your friends? Your health? Your mind? Your legacy?
Again, he stated, "The most important thing is to keep your most important things most important." That was his interpretation of our business coaching process and it made me reflect. I had never heard anyone describe our business coaching process in those terms. While he probably heard that or something similar from someone else, you could tell even through his e-mail that he fully owned the meaning of this statement and fully practiced it.
He did reveal that, before the coaching process, he was handling about every conceivable task in his business (12 employees, $1.9 million in revenue) except the most important ones. He said he had the wrong mindset, focus, habits, and priorities. Fortunately, through our process, he was able to regularly examine his role as owner, what he was doing on a daily basis, and began to question and modify what he was doing. He became more focused, strategic and effective.
He was learning to execute on his most important roles, responsibilities and tasks. In other words, he was keeping his top priorities his top priority. He was focusing on the vital few tasks instead of the trivial many. He was not majoring in minor things; he was majoring in major things. He was doing first things first. He was keeping his main things his main thing.
Whatever your Most Important Things are to YOU, write them down and keep them in front of your face at all times. Remember, "The most important thing is to keep your most important things most important. And by the way, they really aren't things!" Powerful stuff if we believe it and apply it.
Daniel M. Murphy
The Growth Coach
Business Coaching Franchise System