3 Steps; How to Guarantee Highest Potential

--  I was recently asked to address the graduating class for an adult based trade school. I thought you might find benefit in my message. --

Graduating Class, I wish to congratulate you!

But before I address you, I wanted to say something to your fans. 

FANS -  I am so proud of each of you!!  Your encouragement and support has turned a life around.

You see, "there is No investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to encourage and to support a friend."  These graduates, despite there own hard work and dedication over the past few months, have succeeded because YOU cared.  This is a powerful day –and you should applaud each other.

GRADUATES -  Tonight I want to address your future but before we go there  -let’s recap the last 12mos…

• You woke-up one day and made an Assessment – that’s right, you took inventory of what you had in your pocket – After finding only a few pieces of pocket lint; you decided that was not good enough for you, and that you wanted a brighter future.

• Then, You had a Thought… gee, if I could get a little education and learned a trade; I just might improve what I find in my pocket.

• Finally, You decided to take some Action… You enrolled at NTMA and disciplined yourself enough so that tonight you could walk into this Community Center to the warm applause of your fans  - your family and friends.

 ASSESSMENT - THOUGHT - ACTION

- pretty simple -

wouldn't you agree?

Now, Before I ask you what you are going to do tomorrow.  I wanted to ask you;  Did you know that this pattern of;  Assessment, Thought, Action; are the very same steps that Thomas Edison took to create the light bulb?  The same steps that Henry Ford followed to mass produce automobiles, that Andrew Carnegie used to amass of fortune in wealth. Did you know that this same pattern were the same steps that Steve Jobs took to create every Apple product?

You see besides teaching you a trade,  your education at NTMA has introduced you to a NEVER Failing process. In the short time frame of 12 months, you have learned and experienced a 3-step process; guaranteed to deliver a lifetime of Highest Potential. A process so Powerful, that all you have to do is repeat it beginning tomorrow. And, if you are courageous enough to do this – You Can Be, Do or Have Anything, that you Desire.

 ASSESSMENT - THOUGHT - ACTION

So now, let me ask…  What are you going to do tomorrow?

Class Congratulations!!    NTMA Staff Congratulations!!    I will let you continue on with tonight’s great event.    Thank-You and Continued SUCCESS to all of you.

Zig-Zag-Zoom -Part III: HOW, Staying out of the Weeds.

   As we voyage the seas of Highest Human Potential, we sail from Port-to-Port. Our long term survival depends on our ability to continuously review the sailing maps.  The sailing maps- outline for us the things that we cannot see; the diversions and distractions; aka, The weed beds and rock formations.

  The weed beds are the distractions and inefficiencies of our day-to-day actions. The rock formations are the short-term successes that tear a hole in the hull, the short term positive results that keep us from sailing the full course we have set for ourselves.  Gaining a complete understanding of your sailing map is just as important as guarding against Pacing, or being mindful of your WHO values. The challenge is to recognize that your sailing map is just that... Individual, personal and will vary according to your profitability and objectives.

 To avoid the loss of momentum or capsizing, you need to give specific thought to your sailing map.  Your watch words should be self-discipline and self-control.  You do not want to attempt to correct your course while in the middle of your voyage, in the middle of a Port-to-Port heading.  If you get tangled in the weeds at this point, at the very least it will lead to delays; at the very worst, it could include a loss of passengers and significant cargo. In all cases, Profitability will be impacted.

  Your sailing map needs to identify the things you feel are significant to avoid. I went to a few of my seasoned entrepreneurial captains, to collect their look-out points.  Here are a few to guide you...

 - I will not get involved in a business that goes against my moral compass.

 - I will not work with people I do not enjoy.  This includes customers, vendors, or an employee.

 - I will not make or sign on a personal guarantee, on a business that I do not personally control.

 - I will not jeopardize the financial stability of my family home.

 - I will not let anyone into my circle that does not fit with my WHO values.

 Utimately, You CAN sail the Seas of Highest Potential!   Your voyage begins with a single step filled with faith.  Your WHO values establish the set of your sails and will determine the speed at which you sail from Port-to-Port.  Your Capitains log will allow you a repeat-able course of direction, allowing you to load passengers and to add needed cargo. Your sailing map will guide you to avoid the weeds and rock formations.


In this Life - You CAN, Be, Do or Have, anything that you Desire!!

I wish you continued success and clear waters!  I hope that you found this 3-Part post to be insightful and useful.

Publishers reading recommendations...
 - Bootstrap Business by Rich Christiansen and Ron E. Porter
 - The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
 - Poke the Box by Seth Godin

Zig-Zag-Zoom - Part II(b); WHAT... Before How

Are you ready to pull up anchor? Are you prepared to begin your voyage, along the Seas of Highest Potential? As you push a way from the dock, you will

undoubtedly hear a small voice in your head and feel just a little queasy.  You may even be tempted to drop the anchor and abandon ship. Not to worry!  For many, this is a normal reaction - You are experiencing what  others before you have experienced.  The phenomenon is known as Fear of the Unknown. Our fear of the unknown, leads to undue stress and potential procrastination. Procrastination then, increases stress, amplifing your fear level, which just brings on More Stress... and the cycle can go on and on and on.  So let's break the cycle - let's eliminate some unknowns.  To accomplish this we will set-up a Captains log. The Captains Log will give you direction and purpose and establish measurable guide-points of progress. Your maiden voyage will guide you through 3 Ports of Repeat-ability.   


A Journey through 3 Ports of Repeat-ability  
  Port #1.  The beauty of aiming for a Port is that it allows you to have a clear direction and destination. Your first business-for-self Port is "Profitability."  Initially, you should define profitability as the ability to pay all your bills and have enough cash to move forward.  While money does not insure happiness, being broke can surely be traced back as the root cause of stress, which typically assure's unhappiness.  
  As you aim for Port #1, you have two principles which guide you;

1. You are not aiming for perfection, you are aiming for profitability.  Your focus here is getting your vessel out of the harbor and out to open water. You spend your time and money in accordance with the 80/20 rule. This means that you focus your time and money on the 20% activities, that will yield 80% of the results that you are looking for.
2. You are working against time. This means you need to know when to Stop.  Give yourself a profitability deadline and stick to it.  If you are unwilling to stop, you will fail at a point in time which may have long term devastating consequences, emotionally and financially.

  Port #2, Having achieved a first level of Profitability we are now ready to take on Passengers and add Cargo. Your passengers are your employees and your cargo becomes things like capital equipment, and proprietary processes.
At this point  you have grown accustomed to micromanaging the details.  A self delusional thought that you carry is, 'only I can get this right.'   After all, this is your baby, this is your pride and hard work. Most importantly, this is your income stream! For many it is hard to let go!  Port #2 assures that you abandon this thought!  To insure that you maintain balance and control you do things like:
a) Reassess what you have in your pocket.  Make a list of the things that you
are good at, and compare it to the list of WHAT is needed in order to get to Port #2.
b) Hire the right people. Reference your WHO values list, and select this 
critical hire, based on the list of things that you are not good at. You can't
sail to your Highest Potential alone! It takes teamwork... Somebody has to; 
chart the course, man the rudder, trim the sail, yes, even swab the decks.   
c) Document the process that led to your profitability and train someone else
in that process. In today's business world, you cannot achieve your highest
potential by doing it alone. So take a deep breath, and recognize this to be
a simple task. There is only one wrong way here... that would be; not 
breaking down the process into chew-able pieces. You can always adjust
the size of the pieces to meet the knowledge and passion level of your
employee.

  Port #3. With profitability intact, filled with passengers and sufficient cargo- let's point ourselves toward Port #3; Scaling.  


WHAT does Scaling refer to?  Scaling refers to the development of your business model. In it's most simplified form, Scaling refers to two components;
1) a business model that you can replicate quickly and,
2) a business model which allows you to quickly get your product or service to market.


Scaling is a deliberate planning event.  It is an acedemic, cereberal  process. To over come the pit-falls of Scaling you need to adjust your mind-set. To this point your voyage looks like this...
- At Port #1, it's all about You - You are working hard and doing everything.
- At Port #2, You are defining the process and cheerleading others to do the work
- At Port #3,  You are looking for systematic growth. You are working with others to create the system which replicates the process and moves product.


It will take practice to Captain a vessel. And although each vessel has it's own unique characteristics, you CAN safely and prudently guide yourself, passengers and cargo toward your Highest Potential. The Port's outlined above give you a repeat-able and trainable courses to navigate. Find the other Captains, seek advise if you need it. Most importantly, don't forget to celebrate!


In Part III, we will review the sailing maps, looking for the diversions and distractions. As you sail toward your Highest Potential we will want to keep you out of the weeds.


Continued Success!!

Zig-Zag-Zoom - Part II(a); WHAT... Before How

I am sure that at some time in your life, you have been blindfolded and asked to walk forward. Or have had to enter an unfamiliar room with no lights.  I am confident we can agree that, these were not comfortable circumstances. 

Reaching your Business-for-Self, Highest Potential, has much in common with walking around blindfolded or having to walk through a pitch-dark room.  Suddenly, you run into things that you had no idea even existed.  Even if you are headed in the right direction, clear of obstacles, you remain filled with anxiety, self-doubt and uncertainty.  If you remain in this state for an extended period, FEAR creeps-in, to distort your thinking, paralyze your intuition, and eventually render all action as useless. This is NOT a Good Place to be!!

So let's put into place a firm thought foundation that will afford you a course of repeatable and trainable action.  We have 3 fundamentals in the understanding of WHAT... Before How.  These include;

• The Need for Pacing
•  Creating Your Lighthouse in the Fog and
•  The Journey through 3 Ports of Repeat-ability / Part II(b)

The Need for Pacing
As we covered in Part I; WHO... Before What,  CHARGING is a highly desirable entrepreneurial trait. When you are ready to combine Action with watch words such as Focus, Determination, Attention-to-Detail, and Patience, you can begin to move forward. Filled with the need to Succeed, the tendency will be to CHARGE HARD. Attempting to move straight forward, rapidly, often without regard to potential negative effects. 

Pacing is required to insure three things;

1. You don't develop shaky knees and wobbly legs; which inhibit you from taking daily action. The world is filled with hopeful ambitions and dreams that never clear the runway. But, You are No Longer Dreaming! You are No Longer content to sit on the sidelines! You want your 767 to take-off, to clear the runway. You are willing to wake-up every morning take responsibility for the things that you do, and the things that you choose not to do.  As an entrepreneur, You are creating your reality.  
2. You are able to maintain a high level of Mental, Physical and Spiritual fortitude.  You don't want to charge so hard that you get halfway there and run out of resources. 
3. Pacing allows you to collect data, analyze the data, and then make corrective steps to maintain balance and forward progress. Remember, that your target is moving. Collecting and Analyzing data assures that you are running your race without blinders.  You need to look side-to-side; you’re attempting to fulfil an opportunity marked by time.  With the passage of time, the target may have moved, and if you are not prepared, the opportunity will be missed. Pacing affords you the flexibility to adjust in preparation for this.

 
The first critical Pacing step is Assessing Resources.  You need to have a firm inventory of what is in your pocket.  This is not a financially based statement. Many assume that they need money to succeed in business.  This is the wrong - CHARGE HARD mentality to adopt as you begin to undertake whatever you have set your sights on. YES, money, at some point, is often needed to reach the end.  More significant than money are the resources of knowledge, passion and relationships. This thought foundation is influenced by the factual success of many businesses that started in a basement or college dorm room with little more than a Passion.  Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard...  all started with little more than the smarts and the passion of their founders.  These founders achieved their Highest Potential by moving side-to-side; zig-zagging if you will, stringing together smarts, passion and the network of their friends and their financial resources. 
  Your ability to build relationships is the most important resource that you carry in your pocket. Money does not yield knowledge, passion or relationships. Knowledge, passion and relationships, will always yield money. While you attempt to build and maintain relationships, you are able to reduce stress if you remember two things... a) Do the right things for the right reasons.  b) NEVER use People - Have a genuine concern for others and constantly be on the lookout for ways that your product or service can serve those around you.

Creating Your Lighthouse in the Fog
As you prepare to set sail toward your highest potential, rest assured that there are many who will attempt to dissuade you.  So you need to be on guard!  You are looking for three types here: (1) Those that Never Do,   (2) Those that wish they could and are hoping that you don't, and,     (3) Those that say, You can't do it.  So, WHAT do you need to keep on course while you endure the fog of dissuasion?

Every Achiever, in order to claim their success, has had a set of values to work from.  Let’s go back to Part I, WHO... Before What - Your WHO Values are a set of behavioral traits that must be in place as you build toward your goal.  These behavioral traits, are Your Lighthouse in the Fog. Always shining in front of you, they keep you from running aground.  Tested through time they evolve to be the cultural foundation of your business. They serve to clearly define the rules you follow and they outline the direction that you are headed.
If you refuse to first establish your WHO behavioral traits, you leave yourself in jeopardy of allowing just anyone to join your efforts.  The goal here is to never let anyone into your intimate circle that does not fit with your values. Period! This applies to everyone - your important hires, your friends, your partners... everyone.

In Part II(b) of WHAT, before How...  We will pull up anchor and journey, along the Seas of Highest Potential. Our journey will lead us through 3 Ports of Repeat-ability...

Zig-Zag-Zoom / Part I; WHO, before What...

This week I found Great inspiration from a friend who is actively pursuing her Highest Potential, through the start-up of her own business.  During our phone conversation, she reveled to me that, she is pursuing this business start-up having never stepped into a business class while she was a college student.   Laughingly, I asked if she understood the term "huevos grande".  On a more serious note, business-for-self is not a laughing matter.  At times we find it difficult, but in most cases it is not impossible...

For today's College Grad, the traditional job market remains difficult to penetrate. In this environment, I am finding more and more of my college-aged friends faced with taking the plunge into business ownership. A comforting fact here is, there is a trainable and repeatable course of action to follow. This course of action greatly improves your potential to succeed. In order to cover this I will need to break this blog post into three parts:
       - Zig / Part I;  WHO, before What...
       - Zag / Part II;  WHAT, before How!
       - Zoom / Part III; HOW, Staying out of the Weeds.

So let's go over a few WHO details to help tip the success odds in your favor...

• On the path to claiming your Highest Potential, we know that the journey begins with a single step. It never hurts to load that first single step, filled with faith.  Faith is rooted in knowing that you ARE doing the right thing, for the right reasons. I often resolve myself to understanding that the universe has reveled to me an opportunity of need, I have accepted the opportunity to fill the need, and in this vein the universe will not allow me to fail.
• Balance;  guides your Attitude and Actions. The pursuit of your Highest Potential will require tremendous balance.   Avoid thinking of balance as an old-school, play-ground teeter-totter. Balance is more like a tripod. Think camera tripod... with three adjustable legs.  Rarely, have I seen a tripod tip over.  On your tripod, each leg has a name and each leg serves a specific purpose. The legs of your tripod are named;  Mental Growth, Physical Growth, and Spiritual Growth.  The tripod concept serves to maintain your balance in all terrain. It works like this - what you cannot understand Mentally, gains clarity Physically and Spiritually  -  what you cannot comprehend Physically, will appear  Mentally and Spiritually  -  what remains hidden from you Spiritually, will gain consciousness Physically and Mentally. 
• As you work to uncover your Business-for-self potential, you will need to arm yourself with watch words such as Focus, Determination, Attention-to-Detail, Patience, and Action.  Why are these watch words so important?  They are important because, Your values will always serve as the foundation for everything that you do. Staying with-in your values allows you the freedom to step on the accelerator while maintaining your balance.  Outside your values, you lose balance - increasing the potential of having to hit the brakes, stopping, backing-up, or killing the motor all together!

• In the physical world we know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  This principle holds true for the self-employed world also.  Often we are inclined to CHARGE straight forward. CHARGING forward is an entrepreneurial requirement, but you must use caution. When CHARGING too hard, we may deplete our resources too rapidly as well as  bulldoze over others. Bulldozing increases in the odds of crashing and burning, and we may lose the love and respect of those who mean the most to us. 

Keeping these fundamentals in place and before you, not only assures your footing, but they also serve as the turning point as you move from Zig, and set-up to Zag. In Part II; WHAT, before How, we will come to understand that Zig-Zagging is a deliberate process. Trainable and repeatable, this process will allow to you attain smaller goals first, while collecting data; which is used to correct and modify your course.