Clarity and Focus During Crisis - Next Level Growth

Hi, everyone. I'm Michael Erath, and I'm the founder and head coach here at the Traction Hub in Phoenix, Arizona. I want to share some practical ways with you today that you can create clarity and focus during times of disruption. I came across a quote not too long ago, I loved it, said that disruption is inevitable, but chaos is a choice. So I just came out of a strategic session today, and I wanted to share this takeaway with you because it was really impactful for the client that I was working with. We're in the middle of the COVID 19 pandemic right now. It's obviously a time of crisis. These times are certainly unprecedented, but they're not impossible. And I think that's an important distinction to make. So I started this session today by asking a question for checking in. And I just asked the team, how are you feeling? Just four simple words. But I asked them all to take a few quiet minutes and really think about the emotion words that described how they were feeling and the words they used. When we started our day together were numb, anxious, unsettled, unclear, and unable to see a path forward as a leadership team in any organization. That's a really dark place to be and a painful place to be. And unfortunately, right now, so many leaders in our small businesses, in our entrepreneurial community, are feeling that way. By the end of our time together, as we checked out, I asked the same question. How are you feeling? And the words they used were three consistently across the team. Focused, confident, and clear. So what I want to give you today are the specific things we did together to help them transform from that feeling of being lost and stuck to being crystal clear. So the first thing we did, we're only focusing on the next 45 days. That's when we're going to be meeting again to reassess how we're doing and set the next plans in motion. So based on the next 45 days, we just wanted to break it down. We started by making an issues list and getting clear on the whiteboard what the critical, most impactful issues were that had to be solved in the next 45 days. We really wanted to shut off the rest of the noise and focus on these next 45 days. So once we got clear on what the issues were, with that as our context, we took a step back and we had a conversation around, when we meet again in 45 days, if we think of that as a season, what will it look like to win that season? What will we look like on the other side of these 45 days? So we spent some time talking through that, and we came away with a few statements that describe with great clarity what success will look like, what winning the season will look like for us over these next 45 days. Once we got that clarity, we just took it one week at a time. And we started with the next week, the next seven days, and we established again through some dialogue and conversation and facilitation, what would it look like to win this next seven days? If we look at these seven days as the game that we've got to play to win, what does that look like? And of the leadership team members, who's accountable for which pieces of it, and based on their accountabilities, what do they have to do to win the week? So that if they all win the week as an organization, we win the week and just take it one week at a time so we got clarity on that. And then what I left them with, and we practiced this today, they've got clear marching orders for Monday. Break that week down into individual days and really start every morning by asking yourself, based on where we've got to be at the end of the week, what do I have to do to win the day today? And just focus on today. Take it one day at a time, break it down one day at a time. There may be one, two or three things that have to happen for you to really feel like you won the day in the context of winning your week, which ultimately will lead to you winning the season. If that's still not enough, you can break it down even further. And inside that day. If you start every day by getting clarity on what do I have to do to win the day today, the next step is to think about one to two hour increments. If I'm going to win the day today, what do I have to do in this next hour that I have in front of me or these next two hours? It may be reach out to three of my key clients and just get clarity from them on where they are, how they're doing, check in on them, build the relationship. There may be some tactical things that you need to do. Maybe I need to get to Inbox zero by the end of the day. So the next two hours I'm going to block time. I'm going to shut off notifications, I'm going to get into my inbox and I'm going to clean it up. It may be as simple as for the next hour, for me to win the hour, I've got to get outside, go for a walk, get the endorphins going, get the adrenaline going and break a sweat just to get some clarity and get some headspace. Or maybe it's for the next hour I need to shut things off, go have lunch with my kids since we're stuck in the house together, whatever it is, one to two hour blocks. What do you have to do to win that little block of time so that you ultimately win the day? What happens when we break our goals down and our direction down like that? We break it into such small pieces that we start to feel like we have absolute control. Very few people feel like they can't control what they're going to do and focus on for the next one to two hours. That starts to restore confidence. And as we start to restore confidence, the anxiety starts to go away and we start to feel more clear and have better direction on where want to go. So that's a specific process that you can use. It works in your personal life, it'll work in your professional life. It'll work beyond this crisis. To think about how you take your weekly objectives, break them down into daily goals. 1, 2 or 3 goals for the day. And if you're going to accomplish those goals and win the day, what do you have to do from one hour to the next? Breaking it down into one hour blocks. I hope this is something that's been helpful for you. We'd love for you to subscribe to our channel. In the bottom right corner of your screen there's a subscribe button. There are plenty more videos on the on our channel that you can watch to get some more content like this. We hope you'll join us. If there's anything we can do to help, please reach out to us infothetractionhub.com and we'll get back to you as quickly as we can. Thanks so much. It.