Rule 4: Focus on as little as possible. A few weeks ago I had to have two hard conversations with two different people that I know love me - because they had the conversations with me. I preach focus like it's my job - and it is - but these brothers both had to tell me to scoop some stuff off my plate and regain mine.
This rule isn't real in depth, but again, hard to practice. Many of us leaders are fixers - we want to see success and we succumb to the lie that if we do it, it will be successful, but if anyone else does it, it' might fail. This leads to the gravy sloshing off one side of our plates while the greens beans are rolling off the other. Our plates are full of stuff to do and that violates rule 1. But the bottom line is this: the less you focus on, the better it will be.
The key here is that scary word many leaders shy away from... no. It means that things go undone and people get upset. But think about this, if we would build a culture around us that says "I don't do everything because I'm not good at everything and I refuse to sacrifice quality", would people get as upset?
Get started now - just pick something to say no to that you would really like to see done well... and see what happens. I've found that the outcomes are limited to 2 categories: either it's not getting done and nobody cares - so drop it, or it's not getting done and now the need is finally clear to to the masses. Unfortunetely, most of the things I've dropped, no one cares about, which hurts at first and you'll try to come up with excuses like "well... they'll only notice after it's too late!" But once you accept your responsibility alone and drop them, it's very freeing.
Whether you're a CEO or a high school student, these rules apply.
Thanks for listening to my short list of the things that are changing me. I hope God uses it to change you.
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