Get Your Thinking Clean Enough

Steve Jobs once said that it takes a lot of hard work to get your thinking clean enough to make things simple. He was right. It's much easier to make things more complicated than it is to simplify.

The ultimate purpose of strategy is to create an intense focus on the few things that matter most. If you are willing to create an intense focus throughout your organization on what matters most, then your chances of success increase greatly.

The strategies presented in the next two chapters, The Three Things You Want Them to Say and The Three Things You Must Get Right, are powerful and effective in large part because of their simplicity. There's no question that the strategies work. They've been proven to work over and over again by businesses large and small, professional practices, nonprofits, and organizations of every kind and description.

For them to work, however, you must be willing to do that hard work to get your thinking clean enough to simplify how you think about your business.

You must clarify.

You must focus.

Everyone on the team must buy in and be committed.

You must execute with consistency.

Do that, and you become magnetic. Your customers will drive a steady stream of new business to you.