The Second Habit - Begin With The End In Mind

This week, John Goodpaster sent out an article on "the second habit".  In Stephen Covey's landmark business book, "The Seven Habits Of Highly Successful People", the second habit is to begin with the end in mind.

I find this an odd perspective.  Simply put, if you don't know where you are going, you can't focus on getting anywhere.  The other six habits don't do much good.  Let's face it, how do you really know what "Win/Win" is if you don't have a vision of the end game?  Or how do you "Put First Things First" if you don't know what you are really trying to do?

Some of my thinking comes from personal experience, some from observation, and a little from coaching.  I am so driven about the idea though because I saw what it did to my business, and other owners like me, and I don't want anyone to have to experience it.

Years ago when I retired from the Air Force Reserves I took over and built up a business in the Houston Texas area.  I didn't "Begin With The End In Mind".  I just tried to grow a business that didn't have any purpose or direction.  When I built my first business, I knew exactly where I wanted it to go, and how it would help other business grow.  Basically it was a different format of what I do now, same end game.

The Houston company didn't have any of that.  It really was something for me to do, and it was a very very expensive lesson.

When I work with clients today, the primary effort of my work is defining that end game, even if it is a vague image.

To illustrate how this works, I met John through a real estate office I used to be affiliated with.  My end game for real estate isn't to become a Millionaire Real Estate Agent.  Rather, it is to invest in Real Estate and have an inside advantage as an agent.  The truth is there isn't much advantage because sellers are always cautious when you tell them you are a Realtor.

Knowing I would never be the top agent at my last firm, I started looking for a firm geared towards investor agents.  At the suggestion of one of my mentors, I took a look at Keller-Williams.  My license is now hanging on the wall in the local Keller-Williams office.

Knowing what I wanted out of Real Estate helped me make a better decision of which office to affiliate with and it also helped me find an office that wouldn't be trying to send me door knocking for listings.  It also helps to keep me from letting the real estate business side track me from my primary purpose of helping and inspiring people to take responsibility for their lives and make something great.

If you pick up a copy of the Covey Book, Seven Habits, add my little twist and make Habit 2 the foundation that drives the remaining habits.  If you save that habit for last, the other habits are wasted energy and nothing more.

If you aren't sure what your end game is, think about something you wanted to do, even as a child that could change the world, even if only just a little and make something great.  Do That!

The Power of Direction aka Getting More Done In Less Time

With the right direction you can get a lot more done in a lot less time.  At least that is what I have been saying and writing about for many years.  So yesterday as I was running off to one of my four "jobs", and a neighbor stopped me.  I could see the question before he asked it.  "Isn't it a little hypocritical that you have four jobs and call yourself a focus coach?"

Without question on the surface it looks a little odd, but I have a couple of secrets that I will share from my current book project, and a little perspective to boot.

My four jobs aren't the only things that I do. I also have written books, edit websites and write articles outside of my blog.  Also, my house is a giant toy store for big boys.  Classic rag top car, surfboard, paddle board, four beach bikes (everyone that visits likes to ride the beach path), skateboards and a radio controlled helicopter.  I like toys, and yes they are for many people a distraction to getting focused.  That is because they use them wrong.

Focused Doesn't Mean No Life.

Being focused simply means that you can see where you are going, you have a "destination" as I like to call it, and you are making progress.  It doesn't mean you are stuck in front of a computer for thirty hours at a time.  Writers block is famously cured by leaving the writing office.  

As a former military competitive marksman, I used to say you could see your target clearly.   When I moved back to the west coast, I realized two problems with that metaphor.  First, any competitive shooter knows that you don't focus on your target.  The front site right in front of you is the focus.  Second, not enough people on the west coast have guns, and if they do, not enough are technically proficient at shooting to understand the metaphor.

The truth is, shooting is still a great metaphor for life.  Looking at the front site is like looking at what you have right in front of you.  The tools you have today, here and now are what you have, nothing more.  Seeing a blurry target is also a great metaphor, because life is a little blurry.  Those who get things done know exactly what they want to do, just like a shooter knows exactly what he is shooting at.  At least that is true for a successful shooter, just ask Dick Cheney about now knowing what you are shooting at.  

So now I use my second life to teach focus.  As a military and airline pilot, we never start the jet without a mission or a destination.  Hopefully in the military you accomplish both.  Starting out, I don't always know what the place I am going to looks like.  Every place I have ever been is new at least once.  Some change making them new again.  I know enough to get there, and have a plan.  I also have a backup plan in case there are obstacles that are too big for my current plan.

The first time a pilot goes to an airport, he has no idea what it looks like, yet thousands of times every day pilots land safely at new airports hundreds or thousands of miles from where they started.

So how does all of this relate to the power of direction and getting more done in less time?

When you have a direction, or a destination, you have a reason, a purpose, an intention or a burning desire to get there.  If you want to get there bad enough you will.  

The problem for most people is distraction.  Those little daily fires that pop up.   My two dogs are sitting here staring at me waiting for a morning walk.  Because of my burning desire to move my business forward and help more people, the dogs have to wait, and I keep typing.

See if this sounds familiar in any way.  

Saturday morning you are going to sit down and re-write your resume so you can get a big promotion or move to another company.  You get up, and the kids want to have breakfast.  You tell yourself, just after breakfast, you'll sit down and fix your resume.

After breakfast, your spouse reminds you that Jonny has baseball and Janie has ballet and you promised Janie you would take her.  Not wanting to let your child down, you take her to ballet.  You can do the Resume when you get back.  After all it is just a couple of pages and the old one isn't that bad is it?

After ballet the other parents are going to have lunch at that new girls store across town, and Janie is screaming to go.  So you do.

At 3 pm you finally walk in the door dog tired of running all over town when you are told, the Jones want to get together for dinner, the sitter arrives at 5 and the dog needs a walk and the dishes need to get done, which would you like?

At 9:30 you get home from dinner, tuck the kids in, sit down and realize it is 10:30.  Tomorrow you'll get to your resume.

Sound Familiar?  Even without kids this has happened to me more than once.  

Building a business isn't any different, you can map out a business and plan it down to the exact color blue on your business cards, and wake up a month later with a great plan and no business, or a business with no income.

The Secrets

My first secret to keeping sane with four jobs is that I don't have children.  Just two dogs.  It isn't by choice, it just is my life.  Any parent will tell you that having kids is a job on it's own.  Many parents are overwhelmed by the kids and make excuses to get out of the house that make things worse not better.  This isn't really a secret, but it is something you need to understand as you set out on your journey if you want to stay sane.

My second secret comes from the ability to harness that internal desire.  It takes a lot of practice, and a litte discipline.  Each of my four jobs only gets one major item for the day.  The reality is, if I focused on just one job*, I would make a lot more money at it.  I have made the decision based on my white board to create dozens of small streams of income rather than one large one.  You have to make that decision based on your own "wants" and "don't wants"

The flying job at the airline often gets none.  The advantage of that job, for the most part is when I am not flying I don't have to think about it.  With over 25 years of flying in the military and the airline, flying is now second nature.  All jets are basically the same after a while.

Even if you have kids and a day job, you can pick one major goal and make a destination out of it.  If your family understands where you are going, why it is important to you and how it helps them, they will understand the next part.  I suggest the white board method for this.  

The next part is setting priorities every day.  Each day at the end of the day I look at the small white board in my office.  Not the big one in the garage that has my "Wants" and "Don't Wants" on it.  Here too are three columns.  The first is the daily task list.  One major item for each of my four main "jobs".  The second is my Open or Follow up list.  Sort of my brainstorm of things that should become something on the daily task list.  These are things I haven't done, and haven't put a deadline on but are important enough not to "dump".  Some will get delegated when I find the right person.

The third column is my notes and big picture items to work on when I have completed my daily tasks or hit a road block and need to let my subconscious do some work.

Here is the big secret that takes a little practice.  When I get stuck on a task in column one like "Write a New Chapter for Book Project", I focus on it for just 5 or 10 minutes.  If I don't see a solution, I tell my subconscious to work on it, and then I either go to the far right column and work on something like "Solar Panels for the roof" or I go grab a toy and play or exercise for 45 minutes.  I find that almost every time I do this,  a solution will just "pop in my head".  Oddly solutions for the other three items on the list show up as well.  

Using this method, I work three to four hours a day on three of my four jobs.  I believe if you use this method, you can easily start a profitable second career or business in just a few hours each week.

*Because the airline job is union and a straight trade of time for money, none of these rules apply.  I can't work any smarter to get paid more and work less than the contract will allow.  As much fun as flying is, I do plan to leave commercial flying and purchase a private aircraft in the next 24 months.  I will be too young to retire just in case you are thinking that is the reason for 24 months.

Life Mapping With a White Board aka White Board a Great Life

I can year you now, "Life Mapping With a White Board, Yeah Right!".  I know this because I get the same response just about every time I bring it up.  People ask me for advice all the time, and they ask the wrong questions.  I hear things like, "You race cars,  I want to do it too." or "Hey your website is making money, I want to build a website that makes money too." or "I want to write a book, you wrote a book, will you help me do it?"

My answer is always the same "You can't be me".  How boring would that be anyway?

So how can a White Board help you map out a great life?  To start with, the human mind is a funny thing. This little three part computer we carry around in our heads needs a little guidance from time to time.  I say three parts because we have the instinctive part that is our Freeze-Fly-Fight computer whenever we encounter things we don't know or understand.  Then we have the big part we use to think about problems.  That big part has a conscious part and a subconscious part.

All together I count this as three parts, the amygdala or the little primitive brain, the subconscious mind and the conscious mind.

When you read books about becoming an "expert" at something, and getting those five or ten thousand hours of experience, what you are really doing is training your big brain or your mind as I like to call it to overpower your instinctive little amygdala, your little brain.  The Mind fails us when it encounters something it hasn't seen or thought about and then defers to the little brain which knows to Freeze like a possum and hope nothing happens.  If that doesn't work, then it moves to Fly, like a scared cat being followed by a German Shepherd, and finally as a last resort it turns to Fight, like a deer in the corner.

So how does a white board help the Mind?

My technique of Life Mapping with a White Board gives the big brain another perspective on what you really want.  It is one more step to keeping the big brain in control of your life.  The key is to replace fear with knowledge.

What is the white board technique?

The white board technique is a way of finding a destination if you don't have one.  Even if you have what you think is a clear destination, the Life Mapping on a White Board method can help you see problems with your destination and help get your family on board if needed.  It brings it all together for everyone.

Originally I used just two columns.  "I Want" and "I Don't Want", and drew a line down the middle.

The first time I did this, I did it by myself.   Doing it by yourself isn't a great plan because we'll say things like "I want a Ferrari", and the truth is, we don't.  The Ferrari is just a status thing representing something we really want.  You still might get a Ferrari but it isn't necessarily a destination of itself and your friends and family will help bring clarity here.  Just keep it to direct family and very close friends.

You can do this with your business partner too.

When you involve others, be prepared to sell it a little.  If you put "one million in cash by the end of the year" on the "I Want" side, you might get laughed out of your own house if the most you have made is $50,000 a year and your savings is empty.  Involving others takes more internal strength too.  It helps you to say out loud those things you really want and might be embarrassed or ashamed to say.  By writing them down it helps you overcome that fear.

Our culture has grown to believe that "I Want" is selfish and is looked down upon.  It is a big reason we are in the trouble we are in.  Go back to Ben Franklin and the Founding Fathers.  The Declaration of Independence is an entire list of "I Want".

You Must "Want" on the "I Want" Side

Think back to being a kid, you wanted everything.  Today when you want something, you feel guilty.  When I wanted a new car and put my truck up for sale I believed my dogs gave me the evil eye.  I could hear them saying "NOT OUR TRUCK, DON'T SELL OUR TRUCK".  Our brains are trained to avoid pain, not seek gain.  We aren't taught to try and get A+'s in school, we are taught not to get F's.

My parents didn't reward me for getting A's, they rewarded me for not getting C's.  A B was my standard.  When I tried college for the first time, and there wasn't a carrot for the B's, I quickly got to the mental state of avoiding D's, C's were good enough.

The difference between me and the valedictorian was simple.  She had a destination going into college of being number one when she got out.  I didn't.  My destination was to fly jets, nobody told me that jet pilots needed good grades.  Lucky for me persistence beats grades once in a while.

It was the process of becoming a pilot after being told I didn't have the grades to become one that I started thinking about the Life Mapping process.  It was dominated by "I Want To Fly Jets".

You Must Know What You "Don't Want" Too.

The "I Don't Want" Side is important too.  If your "I Don't Want" side includes "I don't want to be at any Disney Park on a weekend or Holiday ever again" and you build a business that requires you to be there Monday through Friday for life, what happens?  You have a conflict.  It is these little conflicts that cause problems.

When you list out all of your "I Want" and "I Don't Want" items and life style choices, you start to see problems and conflicts.  Dreaming up the Wants and Don't Wants is fun, now comes the work.

The work is to look at the conflicts and set priorities.  In the example above, which is more important, the business, or time at Disney on a weekday.  Which one gives and how?  For me and my wife it was easy, we chose to work weekends and play on weekdays.  Easier to do when you don't have kids, and it can be a hassle when family wants to visit.

The New Third Column - The Mission

Recently I added a third column to my board, and it is my "mission" listed in three major goals.  I look at them two and three times a day.  They are also in a card in my wallet.  My goal sheet used to have ten different things on it, and I realized that ten was too many.  I wasn't doing any of them.

Gary Keller in his book "The One Thing" suggests that you only have one goal at a time.  I think we have more power than that, but this book is a great starting point.

The way I see it, we should have the primary goal and two on the bench.  When we hit an obstacle with the first goal, we have something to take our minds off it, and let the subconscious mind work on it.  While we are focused on the primary goal, the back of the brain is working on the other two in its off time.

When I reach a primary goal, it gets removed, the other two move up, and I start looking for a new one.

The big white board with the "I Want" - "I Don't Want" - "Goal Column" is revisited every time a major goal is achieved.  I make sure the major goal fit my "wants" and "don't wants" and then use those two columns to work on a new third goal.

When I come up with a new third, I let it sit at least a week and look at it again to make sure it fits.  It it does, I change it from black to blue, indicating a change from a "penciled in goal" changing to a "real goal" and the process starts over.

Just like flying jets, things change in life constantly.  Weather changes just like life changes, so you can never put away your white board and forget about it.  Every month or two my wife and I sit down with a nice glass of wine and a cheese plate and look at the white board, we review our "wants" and "don't wants" and talk about progress towards the primary goal, and if the other two still should be on the bench.

We don't change or mission or goals often, in fact it only happened once.  If you keep changing your goals, you are changing direction, meaning you never get anywhere.  You don't need to Life Map on a White Board to go nowhere, you can do that quite easily without trying.  People do it every day.  The reason you are reading this is so you don't become one of those people.

We do change "Wants" and "Don't Wants" from time to time.  Why? Simply put, life changes.  We learn.  Something that sounded good at first ends up being wrong.  For instance we wanted to be more "water conservative".  Following that we bought a very nice low flow toilet for our bathroom downstairs.  Quickly we found out that it didn't always flush everything and at a party our guests were embarrassed.  Not embarrassing guests, outweighed water conservation, so the toilet hit the curb.  Funny little things can tweak your list.  The trick is to make sure those little things don't guide you away from your destination.

Setting Priorities.

When you get the white board filled up with wants, don't wants and goals, now is the hard part, setting priorities.  You have to remove all of the conflicts first.  All of the wants, don't wants and goals that aren't consistent with the overall scheme.

Next is to list the "Wants" from most important to least, then do the same with "Don't Wants" and "Goals".

With that done, sit back and ask yourself "Where is this taking me?  Is this really where I want to go?"  If you did it right, what you have is a clear picture of where you are and the tools you have, and a pretty solid description of the place you want to go.

Just like flying a jet, every time someone asks you about doing something, you look at your list and ask a very simple question, "Does what they want me to do help me follow my list, or does it conflict with my list?"  When it conflicts you simply say "No Thank You" and move on.  This takes practice, and as you see results don't stop.

What you have just created is your own magic compass that points at what you really want.  When you get knocked off course or a storm is in the way, look at the compass on your white board, go around or over the obstacle and keep going to your destination.

Simple Design aka The KISS Principle For Business

When I first entered the military in 1984, we got beat in the head with the KISS principle.   While I am sure you know that KISS means “Keep It Simple Sir”, I wonder if you have applied it to your business, your marketing and your life.  

Successful products offer a simple solution to a problem in our life. If the solution isn't easier than the product, the solution simply doesn't sell.  The same is true for businesses of all kinds. For some reason though, the entrepreneurial curse makes us feel like we must do everything.  The secret is to do everything in the background.  One of my early mentors said “list everything you do, down to the last wire and charge for it, show your customers where the money went.”  I did that for a while and it didn’t help at all.  In fact it just took up a bunch of my time and cluttered up my brain.

Instant Results, Limited Efforts

Let’s take the iPhone for instance, and even now the Windows phone with "Tiles".  They each do one job very well.  The job of these “phones” is to help you “stay connected”.  That’s it.  Nothing else.  All of the magic that keeps you connected is in the phone and the service.   Instant results, limited effort.

Yes, you have the choice to buy games and other apps, but the phone comes ready for you to connect.  Connect to friends, connect to customers, connect to the internet, connect to email and connect with text.  And all of this is easier than doing the same things on that little flip phone you used to have or you wouldn't have bought it now would you?

Windows Tiles for Windows phones and the Microsoft Surface is a hit because it takes one step out of the process.  Tiles  show you a picture of your world without you doing anything.  The flaw (Mr. Balmer are you listening) is that the purpose of a desktop pc or even a laptop isn’t the same as a phone.  Staying connected isn’t why I have a PC, it is why I have a phone and a tablet.  

SImply put, Tiles on a work PC don't work, because I need my PC to do work.

Single Purpose Wins.

Maybe a better example is the new NEST thermostat.  This is a very simple device that packs a lot of brain power in a small package.  It is All you have to do is turn it up or down to set the temperature you like.  It learns and eventually you do nothing.  No more programming schedules that leave you in the cold on those winter holiday mornings because it is Tuesday and you should have gone to work.  No more cooling the house while you are on summer vacation because you forgot to reprogram the thermostat.

The elegance of the design of the NEST is that on the outside, there is very little interaction, and on the inside is a massive amount of logic.  If you want to be the super nerd and watch your energy usage on the fly, the NEST will let you do that, but like all new toys, the novelty will wear off and the only time you’ll even remember you have a NEST is when a visitor says “What’s that?”.

The easier the interface is for the customer, the more likely they are to play along and also pay.  We can’t be experts in everything, and nobody really wants too.  Business is no different.  The easier you can make the connection to the customer, and the more “magic” you can take care of in the back ground, the happier your customer will be.  

As customers we all say we want to know what it going on.  The truth is, we just want to know the progress and know when we get what ever it is we bought.  Think about it.  If you file bankruptcy, do you care about every form, court date or filing unless you have to go to court?  No, you just want to know that the creditors will stop calling, and the nightmare is closer to an end right?  When you buy a car, 99% of us never have a clue what the engine looks like.  Why?  Manufacturers have covered it with a big piece of plastic to make it look nice.

I have a new voice activated GPS.  While it is pretty smart, it is no Siri.  I have four portable GPS devices sitting in my garage.  The one in my truck is simply the easiest to use.  It has XM traffic so it does magic while I just listen to music and drive.  I don’t care about the magic or how it works.  I could use my iPhone with Siri, but quite frankly, her new maps and navigation don't compare (Apple map guys are you listening?).  KISS doesn't mean make the product simple, it means make the inputs to and from the customer simple.

What is your "Secret Sauce"?

It is funny how many times a new client will ask me how we do it.  SEO clearly isn't that easy or everyone would do it.  

I just respond, “We don’t sell the secret sauce” and yet my book is right here for sale.  The big picture of what we do is all right here for under $20.  The difference is followup.  When you pay me, you will be reminded to simplify at every corner.  Your marketing is never put on the back burner and as you simplify your business, income will go up, relative costs will go down and so will your stress level.

What is your Secret Sauce?  Can you do it better and cheaper than you customer can do it for themselves?

If you still have that entrepreneurial urge to go out and do more, I can’t do a thing about it right now.  I took up Chump Car Racing, paddle boarding and bought a new bike.  What will you do?