Clearing Out the Clutter

Clutter is a fact in all of our lives. We recently had to say good bye to our long-time Honda Odyssey Van whose second transmission gave up. We scrapped the van, but its summer tires have been sitting along the side of our house since January. I finally made the commitment to get them out, photograph them, and put them for sale on Craigslist.

The problem with clutter is that it drags at us draining away some of our limited energy. As entrepreneurs, the more drains and distractions we have, the worse our performance and that of our business. Regularly clearing out the clutter frees us to pursue more of the key strategic initiatives that will push us and our businesses ahead the fastest and furthest.

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Doing It All Yourself

Things were tense onboard Van Kedisi. The four of us had sailed that morning from Los Christianos on the island of Tenerife. We were approaching San Sebastian on the island of La Gomera, Christopher Columbus’ launching point for sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. All four of us onboard were working together to spot the entrance channel and the tiny opening to the harbour as we passed massive ferries on the commercial dock. On a sailboat you all have to work together because your lives depend on it. In this instance grounding out on a rock or hitting the breakwater would not likely have cost us our lives, but it would have done serious damage to Van Kedisi scuttling our well laid plans to sail across the Atlantic together.

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Plan Your Day

In 4 Vital Actions, I present four areas of your day where you should focus: start, plan, connections, and finish. How and when you plan your day has a massive impact on how your day works out. What path are you going to choose for the mountains you need to climb? How will you communicate to your team what route they need to take?

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Plan to Succeed

You stand up to present to your entire company. Together all of you moved through the challenges of the last year. After the polite applause died down, you press the forward button on your remote control. No one except you know for sure whether the ambitious goals that you and your senior team together came up with were achieved. Instead of showing financial numbers and progress against your goals, you show them a picture of the strip in Las Vegas. Cheering erupts in the room as everyone realizes that the each of them and their spouses are going to Las Vegas for three days to celebrate achieving those very goals you put in front of them a year ago.

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Change to Grow

Thirteen years ago, we sailed from Kos, Greece to Bodrum, Turkey. It was the last and shortest crossing between two countries of the two years that we lived and sailed in the Mediterranean. Our son Kevin was twelve as we sailed across the Aegean Sea. We have seen enormous change in Kevin over the intervening years as he met challenges, changed, and grew.

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