Happy Holidays!

In November for Thanksgiving, I wrote an article introducing “Magic Moments”, a tradition I instilled with my family to share special events and moments from the prior week. I shared this idea with others like yourself, in hopes that this practice might help you take a moment to capture special moments that happen to you and your family on a weekly basis.

As we approach the Holiday Season…I wanted to share another gift with you!

Most of you know I was recently in Fiji for a Tony Robbins Life Mastery program that truly took my life to the next level! If you have consumed any content from Tony Robbins, there’s a good chance that you have seen, or even used, his “Wheel of Life”. The Wheel of Life is a tool that Tony developed to help you learn to build a more “rounded” life. The example below shows a Wheel of Life with segments that you can use to measure your quality of that targeted area.     The idea of this wheel is that once completed… you’ll be able see which areas of your life you’re thriving in, as well as certain segments of your life that could use more attention and improvement. One of the analogies that really stuck with me was imagining that this is a wheel on your car of life! If your wheel is anything like the sample above, you could tell this would not be a very smooth ride! You might be able to roll on it slowly (because you already are), but once you start to pick up speed…this ride gets very rough. Let’s take a look at the segment wheel above. This person is scoring highly in their health and relationship segments at this current time. Now look at the scores in their livelihood and social life segment… you can easily tell that these two segments need attention. This creates a great visual representation of which areas you are currently striving in and which areas of your life could really use your attention! I will traditionally use a wheel with 5 to 7 segments, but you aren’t limited to just those! You are also not limited to personal enrichment categories either! In fact, the reason I am sharing this with you this holiday season is to help you better manage your work life as well!  

Embark on 2019 with a great tool to better manage your business life!

  When I personally use this wheel for my business life, I focus on the following areas:

• Marketing
• Accounting and finance
• Operations
• Sales
• Human resources

At the beginning of every week, I sit down with my business wheel and map out a current snapshot of where I think I stand in my business life at that moment in time. As you can imagine, the score on each of these segments varies week to week based on the performance and focus we had the week before. As you can also imagine… sometimes these segments will reflect what you are naturally good at! Take a look at me for example… my education is in marketing… and I’m very good at sales… so guess which two segments come naturally for me to score high in? On the other end… accounting and finance will always be a weakness or opportunity for me unless I give it the attention and focus that it deserves! What about you? What areas are you naturally strong in? And what areas do you struggle in? Let’s get back to the wheel! Have you ever had an experience where everything seems to be flowing well? You’re on top of all of your work, with nothing falling behind? What about the other way around? Remember those times where it feels like everything is piling on top of you?  I know I have! This is why the business wheel has been so impactful for me! It is such a simple tool… yet when used, I am always amazed at how it creates attention and focus.   And it’s that focus that makes all the difference in the world!   As I said earlier… accounting and finance is not my strongest area! This is a story I’ve been telling myself for as long as I can remember.  Ironically, I’m a wizard at spreadsheets and financial reports! So even though I’ve been able to run financial calculations and create reports and spreadsheets relevant to the sales world…I had compartmentalized that outside of the traditional accounting and finance segment of my business leading me to think I was weak in that area! But even as I write this now, I had all of the tools in my toolbox the whole time to be successful at having a better grasp on the accounting and finance portions of my business! It was the stories I kept telling myself inside which limited me from reaching into the toolbox and actually using it!   Now, let’s get back to you! If you’re still reading at this point…this means you’re interested! And I applaud your effort to get a better understanding and grasp of your business life!  Take a look at the five segments that I’ve listed above, this could be a great jump off point for you to start! For this exercise, take a moment to grade yourself in those five areas as you see yourself right now! Be honest with yourself…some areas you may score naturally high, and other areas you may be struggling.  The whole point of this exercise is for you to be honest with yourself! There are no wrong answers! You are the only one who is going to see these numbers…so fill in where you really feel you are at in this point in time! Even if all five of your areas are at number 2!  In fact, this will become most useful if you are at a number two!  

Fill out your own wheel below!

[polar_chart]   You can also download a pdf copy to fill out yourself! BusinessCycleStateOfHealth_Blank Here’s what my personal Business Wheel looks like:   Now that you’ve filled out your wheel, how does it look? Back to the wheel on your car analogy…would you be able to drive your car on the wheel like this? I would imagine if it’s anything like my wheel at any given time…the answer would be no way! Congratulations, you’ve taken the first step to making progress and making a more rounded wheel!   We pursue pleasure and avoid pain   Now that we have data from your wheel, it’s time to analyze it and see what we can learn from it! WHY did you score each section the way you did? Successes: What were the “Successes” that made you rank this section as strongly as you did? Pains: What were the “Pains” that prevented you from ranking this section a 10?   B.F. Skinner, an American Psychologist most widely known for his studies in Operant Conditioning, noticed that animals were most likely to “avoid punishing stimulus instead of avoiding the behavior that was causing punishment” (1). Read that last line again, I want you to let that sink in because this is so true in human nature as well!!!   RUN TOWARD THE PAIN and you will RUN INTO THE SOLUTION!   We are naturally good at pursuing pleasure. From birth, we are always pursuing what makes us feel good! We are also naturally good at avoiding pain… or any stimulus that we fear will cause pain! This sounds pretty common sense to most… but the realization of this can be really impactful if you are aware of it! As I said earlier… There are certain segments of the business wheel that I am naturally good at! This often means though, that I can “hide” in these areas and still feel like I’m getting things done! The reality of it though, is that if I were to invest that same time and energy into the areas that I am not very good at -read as my “pain” areas- I would make much more progress in creating a well-rounded business wheel! Even today… I’m dealing with an issue at work that is less than fun! I want to do some research on the issue… I open up a web browser and I subconsciously opened a web page and did a Google search on a new 12.9 inch iPad that I’ve had my eye on! Do you ever find yourself trying to distract yourself when it’s time to deal with painful issues? Even though I was initially running towards a solution to a problem topic… I subconsciously tried to distract myself by running towards a pleasure topic, a shiny new iPad! And I didn’t even realize it until two minutes in to my iPad shopping search! It was ludicrous! And funny! And sad! Because even though I’m writing about a well-rounded business wheel… I still subconsciously run away from painful subjects!   But the true gift is the awareness!   In years past… I could have run down that new iPad rabbit hole for a good 20 minutes… and then completely forgot and left my pain where it was… and then moved onto the next task… completely forgetting what I had originally embarked on…which was solving a problem! But just like the example I just painted… I became aware of my subconscious and got myself back on track! It takes effort to run towards the pain, but this is that sweet spot where we will quickly find the solutions. Once we can make finding a solution fast, we have now developed a habit that will enrich our lives by creating more time for us to celebrate the pleasures in our lives!   Happy Holidays to you and your beautiful family!!!   Michael Fleming President, CEO Innovate Dental Marketing