The Business Of Your Life.

Decisions made on the outside - the work you do, how you do it - reflect compulsions on the inside. Be clear about these. Learn about them. Get friendly with them. As long as that might take. What your company is, what it does, why it does it, it’s all a statement; a statement of the swirling, emotional tendencies. Is it scale, safety, recognition you seek? What am I looking to fill up, to say? How much time do you spend getting clear? How clear is your vision of the future? Do you know where you’re going? How will you know when you’ve arrived?

You need to understand how to connect with your market, your people.

How will you make it safe for them to follow you? They make decisions on their best - or most safe - interest. Everything new is a risk. Most new things aren’t for anybody. It is a slog. It is uphill. But some new things are for people.

The story you tell is important.

Knowing that their decision starts where they are. The more completely and fully you know where your prospective client is, why they think how they do, why they do, what they’re worried about, really worried about - what are they trying to say, because buying ‘you’ says something, buying everything says something - knowing this will help you interact, to transact.

Getting the sale is about understanding safety, your clients safety, about the right mix of vision, of reassurance, of energy, of clarity and starting where your clients, your prospects are.

That might be a practical thing - they understand what they buy as x, y, z.

It might be an emotional thing - they buy to make themselves bigger or feel safer or look more powerful or successful.

Your clients just want to be heard. We all do. If we’re in the right place, their place, we can close the gap between us and them, we can make buying us an expression of their story they want to tell.

And then we need to do. Doing is different. It requires different skills, different experiences, perspectives, people and teams. You need to round yourself out. Make the company family holistic.

And then you start to find the balance between getting work and doing work. And getting work makes getting more work easier and more likely. People follow people. It’s about that safety after all. Maintaining the cycle of getting work and doing is a balance.

Operating a business is about balance. It’s like a gas hob: too much energy and the pan boils over. Too little and it goes flat. Energy, focus, application needs to be just right.

It’s dynamic too. Everything is always changing. How do you respond, be mindful of the changes which come? Because come they do. Again, balance, an ability to respond, not react, to keep the system balanced and moving. To channel appropriate energy into finding, keeping and doing work. Channel appropriate energy into finding the team, helping them grow, letting them grow, or go.

All the while, where are you heading? How will you know when you’ve got there? How do you know its the right destination? Refresh it. Refresh what you’re aiming for. Refresh how you plan to get there. Because the context is always changing. The market in which you live, work, operates is constantly shifting, changing. Holding on tight is important to help you realise the goal, to get to the destination, but holding on too tight makes it hard to see, hard to see what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it.

Balance is important. Yes, be clear where you’re going and why. Refresh these ideas. Let them evolve. Ask questions of it and yourself. Ask others to ask questions of you. Take time out. Reflect. Don’t be in it everyday.

The energy of your life will flow. We are born, we grow, we shift, we change, we do - we have a yearning to do. This stuff is super powerful. Understand what it is your life wants to do and let your work be its expression. Let the company grow to support it.