I had the right contacts; I was the only resource considered. As I talked to the decision-makers, it was clear that they saw the value the engagement would create. The price was right for both sides.

But it didn’t happen.

The worse part is that no one moment or conversation killed the deal. The prospect got distracted with other issues, and the urgency dissipated.

In past year’s I might have fought to re-ignite it or replayed it in my head a million times to find an angle to get back in.

But this year, I let it go.

While it was work I’m good at that would be meaningful and valuable, with a client I admire, I don’t have to win this deal.

I’m OK.

In fact, I’ve got a great life, a good business, my health is good. I’ve got everything I need.

I don’t need that deal. Not getting it doesn’t change any of that.

Is there something you are holding on to more tightly than you should? Is there something you are taking too personally?

You can let go. You’ll be OK.

The Raven’s scored with 12 seconds left. If they kick the extra point, they tie, and the game goes into overtime. If they go for two and make it, they win outright.

Jim Harbaugh goes for two and calls the perfect play, a quick slant to TE Mark Andrews. Unfortunately, the pass was thrown just a few inches wide, and they lost the game. (Watch it for yourself.)

How do you think Jim Harbaugh feels after that loss? Is he beating himself up? Second-guessing his decision?

“You saw the play,” Harbaugh said. “It’s a game of inches. That’s football. It’s just that close.”

Sometimes things don’t go your way.

Even if you make the right decision, you don’t always win the game, or get a signed deal, or get approval for the logo design, or…

The best you can do is have a process, a way to make decisions. Make the best decision you can using your process and then let go of your attachment to the outcome.

You’re going to be OK.

So the next time that dream project falls through, or your client decimates your logo concepts, or your favorite team member quits, think about Jim Harbaugh and say, “You saw it, that’s agency life…”

It’s not personal; it doesn’t mean you aren’t good at it; it doesn’t mean anything.

It’s not about you.

Systems are great for problems with mostly known steps; if we’ve done it before, we can map out a plan.

But what if we’re venturing into the unknown? (Or at least the unknown to us.)

In that situation, my attempt to build a system can end up a tad convoluted.

The work I’m spending creating a system is likely busy work that my brain is doing to keep me from venturing into the unknown.

The unknown is scary.

Fear is our number one enemy when we try to do something for the first time.

If I wanted to start a regular email conversation (like this one), launch a webinar series or a podcast, or commit to value pricing, fear is normally my biggest obstacle.

When we’re afraid of the unknown, afraid we might be wasting our time, afraid we’ll be embarrassed, or we can’t sustain it, we hesitate. That might look like over-analysis or endlessly looking for the perfect system or way to do it.

Just start

In those cases, what works for me is to abandon the system and start with the next right thing.

What’s the one step I can take toward my goal? Do that!

99% of the time, the next right step isn’t a planning step; it’s a doing step.

Write one email, record one podcast, schedule the webinar, value price your next proposal.

Just do it, once.

What are you stuck planning that you should start doing today? Hit reply and tell me the next right step and when you’ll have it done.

I have been dealing with issues in the team this week, and it dawned on me that there doesn’t seem to be a single person on our team who meets expectations. I’m not sure if anyone in our organization has ever met expectations! I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t been a source of frustration and disappointment over ten years.

I was grateful that this CEO was self-aware enough to realize that she was part of the problem, but she still had no idea what to change!

The problem with expectations

Expectations are clear as can be, in our heads, but when they get to our employee’s heads, they are often less clear. When we broadcast our “expectations,” there’s a power difference between our team and us. They may not feel like they can ask questions or clarify things that aren’t understood. Further, when questions do arise down the line, we have communicated that we don’t want feedback, and so folks continue along with their uncertainty.

Instead of broadcasting our expectations, start a discussion about what outcomes are required. Start with talking out the result you’re looking for, then solicit feedback from the team about achieving that outcome. Often, that conversation involves modifying the way I’m looking at the problem and the solution!

How much, how long?

An explicit agreement also involves boundaries. How much time and what resources are available to reach this outcome? How doable is that considering all the other commitments you have? Being clear about the priority you place on this effort helps the team to align it against the rest of the work on their plate. 

Expectations involve primarily one-way communication, but agreements involve back and forth and compromise on both sides to land on common ground.

Can you think about areas where you have expectations of your team? How would you turn those expectations into agreements?

You’ve got limited time to make the impact you want to make on the world, or your industry, or your family.

You can’t afford to spend time chasing money.

First you serve, then you earn.

If you want to maximize the impact you make, and earn good money, chase the impact and not the money.

Only a tiny fraction of the people and businesses you can serve even know you exist! None of them want to get a cold email from you, very few are looking for you, and hardly any of those want to hear a sales pitch from you.

So what do you do?

Hopefully, you’ve chosen a market that you want to serve.

What do those people and businesses need that you can supply?

Serve them with that thing.

You serve.

Don’t reach out to sell something; offer something of value. Make a difference in 4 lives a week. Change people’s awareness of the challenges that they face and the difference you can make.

When you do that, folks will ask you how they can work with you, and you’ll have folks referring you right and left.

Want to find out more about how to do business development by serving first? Hit reply and send me your questions. I’ll answer, I promise.

• I’m too busy.
• My team never finishes anything on time.
• I keep getting ghosted by prospects.
• I’m so tired of managing my tight cash flow.
• Why am I the only one who ever does anything around here!

But if you are serious about growing your firm, you can’t be talking like this.

Victim or Creator

In each of these statements, the person speaking is in a situation that they don’t like, that they’d like to be different, but none of those statements take any responsibility for the outcome!

Each statement assumes that the situation is beyond their control, and they can’t (or won’t) change it.

When we see the world as acting on us, we deny responsibility for our situation; we disempower ourselves, giving up our power and diminishing our creativity to find a solution.

Take the wheel

If, instead of thinking that the world is acting on you, you see that you have agency, power, and creativity, you can create any outcome from the situation you are in.

Don’t believe me, here are some ideas:

• Too busy? Set standards for what earns a slot on your calendar and enforce those standards. Add time blocks that your clients and team can’t schedule over. Finally, tolerate people’s disappointment when they have to wait for you to have free time!
• Is your team always late? Bring folks together to identify the root cause of the last three missed deadlines. (Be open to the possibility that you might be the root cause!) Resolve those issues and make it clear that as soon as anyone sees things happening that will jeopardize the deadline, they need to talk to you directly about it.
• Are prospects ghosting you? You can set the next meeting at the end of each call, so you always have the next meeting on the calendar. Are they blowing those off? You didn’t make a big enough difference for them in the first call – they don’t see how you can help them.
• Tight cash flow? Cut costs now.
• Resentful of your team? Start delegating and holding folks accountable.

I’m sure none of these are perfect solutions for your problem, and that’s not the point. The point is that you have choices; use them!

The situation you are in right now is the perfect result of the systems you have and the decisions you’ve made. Don’t like it? Make different decisions or change your methods.

You can do it.

One of the most significant results of slowing down my life has been an increase in gratitude.

When I have more time between commitments, when I’m not rushing around, it’s easier to see the progress we’ve made. I notice how much I enjoyed my time with my client or how nice my yard looks in the autumn sun.

When my days have more moments of spontaneous gratitude, it does wonders for my energy and perspective. Things seem possible; roadblocks look like speed bumps.

Happy Thanksgiving

This week in the U.S., families will sit down and eat a big meal together on Thanksgiving.

For our farmer forefathers, it was a time to slow down after a hard summer and fall of planting and reaping to focus on gratitude. Maybe we could take a cue from their tradition?

I pray that you and your family have a healthy Thanksgiving free from hurry!

P.S. Lincoln’s proclamation of Thanksgiving in 1863 is brief and (to me) very moving. Worth a read.

P.P.S. I’m taking the rest of the week off, see you in 7 days!

When my day gets packed with meetings, my work gets pushed into the evening or the weekend. If I’ve got commitments with my family or friends, I have to skip those or reschedule them. To keep my head above water, I start to drop commitments that I have made to myself, times to exercise or relax, then health care (doctor, dentist, etc.), then sleep.

When my life gets “full” like that, things start to become a blur. I lose track of what day it is. I miss milestones like birthdays, anniversaries, or other important events. I’m not making memories or connections with my family and friends.

I feel like I’m missing things. My creativity and capacity are all used up just getting from one day to the next. I’m spent. 

What happens when I slow down?

When I focus on only the things that are mine to do I can keep my work within healthy limits. I’m not rushing from meeting to meeting, so I catch up with co-workers and clients about things outside of work. I can show care and concern for them as individuals, not just as someone who works for me.

I also notice a lot of new business opportunities that I missed before. If I slow down and respond to folks writing me with questions or leaving comments on my LinkedIn post, they frequently turn into prospects. Or, at the very least, I’ve made a connection with someone in the industry.

When I’m going slower, I have time to take care of my body and my mind. I spend time reading or listening to podcasts, and that learning sparks new ideas. Because I’m exercising and sleeping well, my creative problem-solving skills turn that learning into new opportunities.

I feel like I’m living my best life. Instead of feeling slow, it feels full and rich.

I’m having a lot of conversations with clients about how to slow down to make more progress professionally and have a full and rich life. If you’d benefit from a conversation about that, hit reply and let me know. Having these kinds of discussions is what I do!

• It might be building an outstanding studio that creates the most impactful, award-winning work.
• It might be to sail around the world.
• It might be to write the great American novel.

Whatever it is, it’s a dream because you don’t have a direct path to get there. You can see it in the distance, but if you knew how to get there, it wouldn’t be a dream; it would be a plan!

What’s standing in the way of that goal?

When I ask people, “What’s standing between you and achieving your dream,” most people think about three things:

1. Time, they don’t have the time to pursue it.
2. Money, they need more money to achieve it than they have access to.
3. Knowledge or skills, they don’t know how or aren’t able to do at a high level what you need to accomplish your dream.

I call BS

When you say, “I don’t have time,” what you mean is, “this isn’t as important as other things I’m doing.” That’s OK. Other priorities in your life may be more important right now than your “dream.” That’s a normal, grown-up choice. But own it!

As a boss told me, “money is never the problem; if you have a good idea, there is always someone who will give you the money.”

Don’t believe him? Scroll through the funded projects on Kickstarter sometime. People support a lot of crazy stuff; there’s someone who will fund your dream! Find them.

When you say, “I don’t know how,” that feels lazy to me. We live in a time when access to information and experts has never been easier. Find someone who does know how and ask them how to do it!

The biggest barrier to your dream is…

But the most likely reason that you aren’t making progress toward your dream is fear. Fear that if you started on that journey, you might not make it. You might fail.

Fear that you aren’t enough. That you aren’t smart enough, or creative enough, or you can’t work hard enough, or that you aren’t ____ enough.

But you are enough.

How do I know? Hit reply, and I’ll give you the answer!

What’s stopping you from doing that?

It’s not knowledge.

We live in a time when there’s more access to information than at any time in history. You’ve got Google, YouTube, online courses… The knowledge you need is available.

It’s not time.

We know that you have all the time that you want to put toward it. Your busyness is just an avoidance tactic.

“Do the thing, and you shall have the power.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is it clarity?

Do you have a clear view of what the next step is; a vivid picture of what it’s going to be like when you have completed it?

Is it drive?

This project is a lot of work. You’ve started down this path before, and there be dragons! Obstacles and pitfalls to overcome. Is that what’s holding you back?

Tell me; I’m dying to hear. Hit reply and tell me what’s stopping you!