When I started my own business within Southwestern, I wanted it to be up and running as quickly as possible. I went into everything with the mindset, “yesterday is soon enough.”
I remember being frustrated with Henry Bedford, CEO of Southwestern at the time, because he laughed at my sense of urgency. He calmed me down and so wisely said, “Slow down. Put one foot in front of the other. Time is the X factor.” I was frustrated at the then because I thought we needed everything now. But, time has a way of rounding things out. Recognizing the reality of where we’re at and where we need to be can create a more normalized sense of urgency
“Time is the X factor.” —Henry Bedford, Chairman of the Board, Southwestern
Creating Time
What are we thinking about when we say we don’t have time to do something? Our words matter so much, our perspective matters so much. If we think we don’t have time to accomplish something, to do something, to make something happen, then what are we doing? We are probably wasting time! The more time we focus on how little time we have, then it’s actually playing a huge role in what is possible.
How do you create time? How do you alter your perspective of time so that you have endless time for yourself, your business, and your team?
A Track to Run On
When thinking of what to do with your time, one of the things you can apply to your business is creating a track to run on.
Most people never get to this point in their life or in their business. They don’t create a track for themselves to run on nor for anyone else to run on after them. Most leaders are winging it. They are shooting from the hip—they are hoping they know what to do, they are hoping something good happens, and meanwhile, there is no consistency, there is no duplicatable ability built into their business model.
This is where to focus your time. If you want a starting point, if you want to change your perspective of time, and if you want to create traction for your business to grow, then create a track to run on. Everything else can wait. The marketing materials, the emails, the websites, it can all wait. You need to think about what’s possible—what makes your business run?
Establish the metrics of your business. When you can provide specific activity targets in your business, then your team can look at a year, a week, even into 30-minute increments and know what to do. They have a track to run on.
You prove what’s possible by the track you create. If you create a track, then your time, your team’s time, your business’s time will be exponential. When anyone says they don’t have time, you now have a solid action plan to utilize time to not only their benefit but also to your business’s benefit.
You have plenty of time to hit your goal today, for the month, even for the year when you realize how much you can get done in a little amount of time—that’s the value of the perspective of time.
