Stop Chasing Emergencies

It shouldn’t be surprising that so many CEOs and their companies lose their way toward chasing their dreams. They started off in business with a real connection to the why and what they sought to create. The leaders were inspired from deep inside their core, hyped-up, and ready to conquer the world.

As the years went by and companies went down their respective paths, they morphed due to a range of factors – developments in their industries, changes in the economy, the results of their business decisions, the demands of clients, the quality of their products and services, and so on. Without even realizing what was happening, business owners gradually shifted their roles from being drivers to being passengers. The dreams that had started it all faded over time.

Is this the case for you and your business? Instead of leading your Big Picture Vision, are you constantly putting out fires, scrambling to meet deadlines, struggling to meet payroll, managing cash flow, and battling for industry market share and customer mindshare? If you only had one more day in the week you’d be able to get it all done, right? Absolutely not. As I’ve discovered, business owners always manage to wrap back around to handling the fires, the deadlines, the payrolls, the cash flow, and their share of the market. Business owners have an uncanny knack for filling each day with unnecessary tasks – or at least ones that could be delegated to a more appropriate staff member.

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

—from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

If you are like these business owners, how does this approach bring you any closer to attaining your dreams? It doesn’t. Sure, you might be squeaking by and paying bills and salaries but, as time passes, you become so buried in repairing screw-ups and responding to everyone’s demands, expectations, and fears that you become overwhelmed. Your why has become that faded dream from a distant past.

Your team sees you only as a firefighter – not as a leader. Rather than focusing on what is important – continuous personal and professional growth and fulfillment of your passion – you are constantly chasing the emergencies, which is the kiss of death in business. Instead of moving forward, you are running around in circles – which means no growth and merely surviving, not thriving.

Everything is impossible until someone does it. If someone is going to do it, why can’t it be you?

The reality is this: It’s critical for you to connect with, and have great passion for, whatever it is that you do. The most important thing is your mission, your purpose – or, as I call it, your “massively transformative purpose.”

—Excerpt from a recent interview with PeterDiamandis, founder of the XPrize Foundation. To watch the full interview, go to: www.ScaleorFail.com/bonus.

You are most likely thinking: “Yes, I get that my Vision and Mission are crucial. However, right now I just need to focus on getting this project done or I’ll lose this customer.”

The irony is that most CEOs and their teams have become so disconnected from their visions that, if they were to have the courage to step back and re-embrace it, most of their emergencies would never have even surfaced. There wouldn’t be such great risk of losing that customer. Creating a Strategic Vision and relentlessly sticking to it inherently prevents all types of issues, including those related to your customers, your team, and your cash flow. I initially wrote about how to create your Big Picture Vision in my first book, Blast Off!:The Surefire Success Plan to Launch Your Dreams in Reality. Why? Because it works. Creating a story and intention of what you want your life or business to look like is like writing an order to the Universe. Now you just need to back it up with relentless action.

When my client, Liz Papagni, was growing her company, Marketing Initiative Worx, she was in the sweet spot of her vision and talents assisting big brands such as Seneca Foods and Kern’s Nectar with the launches of their food products. As overhead began to grow, as is the case for many new businesses, she began taking on clients that were too small and did not fit in with her Big Picture Vision. They may have helped with immediate cash flow, but slowed her growth toward greater capacity. Her Pinnacle Business Mentor and I worked together on revamping her entire scale strategy. Once she saw the potential for multiplying her profits by letting those smaller projects go and focusing on the whales, she was able to confidently and successfully get back on track toward her Big Picture Vision.

Your passion is a central tenet toward achieving success and your Strategic Vision is the bridge that transports that passion into a sustained future. Let’s reconnect with your passion and start building your bridge.

It takes courage to think bigger than you normally do. It isn’t easy mapping out your dream world one year from now, much less five years from now. Doing so provides you with the confidence you always had buried in yourself with regard to what you have to offer to the world. Creating your Big Picture Vision not only convinces you that what you had thought was impossible is indeed possible, it reconfigures your brain patterns away from a fear-based strategy toward where your passion is driving you to go.

For those of you who are golf lovers, think of it this way: “The Bear Trap” at the PGA National Champion Golf Course starting at the 15th hole is known as one of the most demanding three-hole stretches in the world. It was designed with water on the right and a sand trap on the left. The pin is only 150 yards away. Many pros choke in their effort to avoid the water and end up pulling the ball to the left and landing it in the sand trap. The best strategy, in golf or business, is to keep your eye on the big vision and play to win, rather than play not to lose.

In business, when you get sucked into the anticipation of not making payroll or the minutia of the details, you risk losing your vision, making fear-based decisions, and sabotaging your success. Keep your eye on the prize, apply the SCALEit Method along the way, and the how will fall into place to get you there.

The Triple-It Factor

Now let’s take your Big Picture Vision a step (or three steps) further. When I ask my clients to think big, there is a natural inclination to stretch themselves a little – maybe 10% or even 30%. For most people, if you have not experienced reaching massive goals it’s challenging to stretch your imagination beyond your current reality. If you try to, all of those old self-doubts emerge to the surface whispering (or screaming) disempowering thoughts, such as: “I could never do that,” “I feel like a phony,” or “Who do I think I am to ever accomplish that?”

The following exercise is one of my favorites and helps people bust through those limiting thoughts and think bigger than ever before.

Close your eyes. Take a big deep breath and, for a moment, let go of anything that you are worrying about or distracted by. Now imagine the absolute biggest vision for your business and life that you can possibly see in your mind’s eye. What is a massive change you want to bring about in the world? What do you love? What pisses you off? How do you see your business changing lives? Is it going global, revolutionizing your industry, creating a viral brand, or franchising your concept worldwide? Whatever it is, forget about the how and allow yourself to dream in magnanimous proportions. Hold that vision in your mind. What does it look like? How would it feel to be living that dream right now? How will others feel about the results of your vision? Okay … are you ready? Here is the kicker. Now I want you to triple your dream. Yes, your blockbuster dream is now three times the size of your initial expanded thinking. For most people, this process takes their breath way because they have never allowed themselves to dream in such a colossal way. This, my friends, is the experience of thinking big. First you have to see it and believe it, and then you can make it real.

Visualization: See It. Feel It. Do It.

Visualization isn’t magic, though sometimes it might seem like it is. There is a great deal of science behind it. Dr. Robin S. Vealey, author of Coaching for the Inner Edge, believes that when we rehearse a performance in our imagination, our muscles respond in a way that simulates the actual activity. It’s as if a mental roadmap is being created to prepare us for the real thing. That’s why athletes visualize their moves over and over again until their plans become emblazoned in their physical memories.

I have always used visualization in my business and in my personal life. Each time before I take my leap off the trapeze, I visualize my flight and the mid-air trick I am about to execute. I see myself spinning or floating around, whatever that particular trick might involve. I see and feel myself taking the leap, gaining height, spinning in the air, and then being caught by the catcher. Once I see it in my mind, I gain clarity in my body. The two go together well! Having clarity in the body creates confidence, and confidence is a key to success.

Everything you can imagine is real.

—Pablo Picasso, artist

Think Visual!

While you are sitting in your quiet space, review the answers you wrote on your notepad with your scribbles in the circles on the Big Picture Vision Mind Map. Update your Big Picture Vision now that you have done the Triple-It Factor Exercise. How far are you from where you would like to be in five years? It may seem like light years – but that’s okay! Your future begins right now.

Read over everything you wrote: where you would like to see yourself and your company in five years; the people around you; the size and makeup of your team; the innovative products and/or services you are selling; the new customer base you have formed; what you are doing with all of the free time you have; the company’s illustrious reputation; the areas where you dominate; the awards you’ve won; the piles of revenue your company brings in; and the excess profit you are enjoying.

When you visualize, then you materialize.

—Denis Waitley, motivational speaker and consultant

Now that you have read over what you’ve written, surrender to it and accept it all as 100% fact. Close your eyes and believe with your heart, soul, and mind that this is your reality. Picture what everything looks like up close with clarity and in full color. Actually feel yourself in the present moment as if that vision is a reality … as if you are there right now experiencing the growth and results of your work. Repeat this visualization on a daily basis (morning and night) so it becomes ingrained in your unconscious mind.

Do you feel pumped about how you feel? You should! You have taken the first step toward making that mid-air jump. Congratulate yourself on your bravery. When you replay your vision like a movie – with you as the main character – right before you fall asleep every night, the images embed themselves in your subconscious mind. That sleepy state right before you fall asleep and as you begin to awake is when the subconscious grabs hold of your vision.

When you wake up in the morning, guess what you should do? Visualize! You’ll do this again in the evening. This may seem like a lot, but it isn’t. Think of yourself as an athlete training for a major event: The more you visualize, the clearer the picture and the greater chance everything you do will feed into helping making that vision come to fruition. For further reading on creating your vision, read Vivid Vision by Cameron Herold.

Improv Your Way to Your Vision

In comedy improvisation, the audience calls out random ideas and words and the comedians must spontaneously collaborate to create a skit on the fly. The results are often hilarious, and just watching that level of creative, quick-thinking energy merge into a coherent and fluid performance can be absolutely magical.

Believe it not, you can apply improvisation into your business as well. Yes, business is fun! This is a great method to get your team to be “in the moment” in a super-charged, creative way, and it becomes a lasting memory for everyone involved. Not only does it ensure that your vision doesn’t become a horse pill for everyone to swallow regardless of whether they agree with it, it helps employees to feel as if they were part of its creation. In turn, they become more vested in your organization and develop a deeper sense of long-term commitment to the business.

It’s so simple to get started and no one should feel nervous about “performing” in front of his or her peers. When it comes to improv, often it’s the “screw-up moments” and weird, unexpected activities that lead to the biggest laughs and takeaways.

When I lead a client’s team through an improvisation, I might say to them: “Imagine you’re walking into your company five years from now. What is the experience like? What do you see? What do you feel?”

There is no “right or wrong” answer. It’s all intended to be spontaneous. It’s a remarkable experience for CEOs to see what their staff thinks about the company’s future. Perhaps someone on your team reveals a creative side that no one knew existed. Or, someone has even grander ideas than you do. That is perfectly all right! You may or may not be 100% in sync with those ideas, but you want to listen to them, acknowledge them, and encourage that kind of positive attitude. You want your employees to think big and feel confident that your company is capable of creating remarkable things.

Companies have a way of “operationalizing” everyone and everything. Your employees end up being forced to do the same things day in and day out – only with greater accuracy, faster, and cheaper wherever possible. This improv process gets them out of “perfectionism mode” and removes the burden of their being stuck in how these amazing things will get accomplished, so the ideas and unique solutions pop up spontaneously.

Isn’t this so much better than sitting around a table in a conference room brainstorming? I’ve found most of those sessions end up stagnant and unproductive because everyone – especially the CEO – feels the need to shoot down ideas before they are even fully aired. I’m sure all of these sound familiar: “Oh, we tried that and it didn’t work,” “It’s too expensive,” “We don’t have the resources for that,” “That isn’t what we do here,” and so on. It’s much easier to be critical and kill an idea in its infancy rather than to originate one and pitch it.

Improvisation is effective because there is no room for criticism or judgment. It all mixes together – the good ideas and the bad ones. For this reason, no one feels wounded or embarrassed expressing an idea. It’s all part of the entertainment and excitement. The team becomes part of the momentum, and the vision starts to come alive for everyone involved.

Rearview Casting

To shake things up, try something a little different. Instead of forecasting and looking five years ahead, pretend you are looking in the rearview mirror and seeing that it has already happened. Or, pretend you are sitting on a mountaintop, and you look behind you to see that your vision has come true. Through this process, you are visualizing that it has been completed with a feeling of certainty. You are sealing it in your mind as something well within your grasp because you have visualized it as already having occurred.

Rearview Casting is a form of meditation that helps you create a degree of confidence and ownership that you have done the task. It enables you to revel in the wonderful feeling of delight that you have accomplished such a brilliant work of art with your business. When you feel that sense of pleasure, it gives you even more incentive and inspiration to continue.

Go ahead. Try it now. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and clear your mind. Shake your arms and your hands to release any stress and unwanted energy. Pretend you have completed your Big Picture Vision and you are turning around and looking back at the rewarding journey you have completed – all the ups and downs and major breakthroughs – and you have come out the other side. You feel a sense of pride that you did it, regardless of all the roadblocks along the way. You see how it all came together beautifully in the end, as well as the positive impact it had on your team, their families, and your customers. You feel elated and calm at the same time: the former because you conquered your dream; and the latter because your confidence in yourself has grown dramatically. You feel a strong knowingness in your heart. You have let go of any and all worry, insecurity, or confusion. You were right all along to pursue your dream vigorously. Congratulations!

You can also try this meditation with your team, as it helps demonstrate their important contributions to the process. They don’t just hear about it, they get to see and feel it. You will find that Rearview Casting can be a complete game-changer.

In the End, the Story Is Remembered

People learn through stories because our lives are essentially made up of one story after another. Chances are you remember stories from your childhood more so than you do specific lessons from school. It’s estimated that only 10% of any lecture actually gets retained. We recall stories better than straight information because our minds can follow and relate to them, thanks to an emotional connection we make with them.

Yes, there are many ways to learn. But these days, with the never-ending flood of information coming at us day and night from 24/7 digital communication sources, it’s easy to tune out someone who is talking at you. Stories, on the other hand, take us on a journey and we become part of them. That’s why I love using storytelling as a creative method with my clients and with my own team.

Here are a few ways to create your Big Picture Vision through Storytelling:

1. Take your Big Picture Vision Mind Map and then write it in story form as if your team is watching it transpire.
2. Create a storyboard about your Big Picture Vision and have the team act it out for you in the manner they choose.
3. Create a video story about your Big Picture Vision and share the journey of it coming to life.

Storytelling can be used to jumpstart your vision. If the stories you create are visual and powerful, they will make a lasting impression on your team.