Hey everybody, how are you today? Fast Tip Friday from Charlie Hauck, President and Lead Trainer at Growth Dynamics.
I've probably hit this topic before, but for some reason it's percolating in my mind again, so I thought I'd share it with everybody and let you find a way to apply it in your own life.
It's one of the things that I think a lot of us struggle with because we've put ourselves in a society of expectation that everything has got to happen now. We're all impatient, and we don't have time. And the more we succumb to that thought process, I think the more negative things can happen. The more less-than-positive experiences will find their way into your life.
So today, I'm calling this: Rush to Failure, Walk to Success.
I just really want to emphasize to people that the slower you go, the faster things will happen. And as counterintuitive as that seems, I know that as I've gotten older and I've allowed myself to buy into this idea, the more true it becomes in almost everything I do in my life—business, personal, and relationships.
I seem to have more time to enjoy them, and I seem to be able to do more of the right things to make all those relationships, or my endeavors, or my attempts to succeed actually take place and come to fruition.
So, a couple things to think about.
There's an old adage that we've probably all heard in our lives. We hear it, and my guess is the first time you heard it, you were too young to understand the message:
Haste makes waste.
When you go too fast, we tend to measure once and take too much or not enough. So the piece that we cut off too short, we can't use for the part of the project that it was supposed to fit in.
All of the things that we throw in the cooler because, "We'll probably need it," end up being food or other items we never eat. We leave them in the cooler, forget to put them back in the refrigerator, and throw them away four days later.
If we would just slow down and think, "All right, let's plan what we really need. Let's minimize the opportunity to waste things. Let's be very conscious and very deliberate about whether we need this or just think we might need it."
Let's concentrate on the things we're really going to need, not the things that make us say, "Well, what if we might?"
It helps you make better decisions, and I think less wasteful decisions.
I often look at these ideas as baking a cake. You can put all the right ingredients in the bowl, and you can blend it for the right amount of time. But if you only have 15 minutes to bake a cake, and you think you can just turn the oven up—instead of 375, you turn it up to 550 and it'll cook right—you know it's not going to happen.
So don't even try it.
Well, you should do the same thing with the things you're trying to do in business. Bake the right business cake. Put the right things in it, mix it up the right amount of time, and then let it take as long as it takes to cook.
Don't rush the process, and don't take it out of the oven too early thinking it's still going to taste pretty good, because it won't.
So slow yourself down. Give yourself a chance to think about what you're doing, not rush about what you're doing.
I kind of like things I try to remember, and I've abused this rule myself. I can remember getting out of the car at our home in Vermont, and my wife and I looked at each other and laughed because we had forgotten the suitcase with all of our clothes. I think I've mentioned that here before.
So I like to tell people: walk your way there and relax on the journey.
Create your checklist. Give yourself a chance. If you write it down, it's more embedded in your brain than if you just thought about it. Write it down, check it off, and use pre-flight discipline.
I was just on a business trip that turned into the return trip home from hell, but we had to change planes because there was a mechanical problem. I didn't want the pilot to feel sorry for us and rush his pre-flight preparation before that flight took off from Baltimore—or from Charlotte to Philadelphia.
I'm glad he took his time, couldn't get the indicator light to change, and made the right decision and got us back to the terminal without a crash in between. So have pre-flight discipline.
This one will sound pretty simple and maybe too basic for a lot of people: take your time and breathe. Be conscious of your breathing.
Are you rushed? Are you hyperventilating? Or are you relaxed? Are you just enjoying the process of getting from here to there, or getting something started and something finished?
Be conscious of your breathing. Your breathing is a great indicator of your state of mind, whether you're tense or nervous, or you're relaxed and enjoying the experience.
There's a rule I learned a long time ago, and I think it's pretty accurate, although the ratios may change depending on what you're doing:
One hour of preparation will generally return you ten hours of production.
So prepare what you're going to do. Read the directions, although that's something I'm not the best at following as advice. But read the directions, and you'll see the whole process before you start.
I think it'll help you actually get that IKEA bookcase put together quicker than if you just rip all the packages open and throw the crap all over the floor.
So prepare and be more productive. And then think about these two words together—not separately, but together. Think about what it takes to be both efficient and effective. Efficient means you get things done with the least amount of effort and energy expended. Effective means the result that you produce has the most impact.
Do them together, and I think you'll find yourself more satisfied personally and professionally. I think your customers and your relationships will enjoy that part of you more than the person who's stressed out being highly efficient but not effective, or highly effective but taking too damn long to deliver what you're trying to deliver.
So slow down.
Rush to failure. Walk to success.
Minimize the risk of, "Oh no, what did we forget?" or "What the hell did we bring this for?"
And don't worry about the hiccups. There's a Walmart everywhere. You can buy it when you get there if you have to.
Enjoy your life. Take your time. Breathe. And it'll all happen for you.
Thanks for listening. Take care.
