I sent an email to my team. I said, “Hey, make sure you watch those videos and take copious notes because I want to make sure you apply them to our project.” Now the next day, I came back expecting to see copious notes from my team about exactly what we should be doing with one of our projects only to see jokes coming through. Now I have a great relationship with all of my team. And they said, “Doug, first of all what videos and which projects? We’re running six different companies as a whole team here, and each of those companies has multiple projects going on at any given time.” It was actually really funny. Now what I didn’t do was really be specific about which videos I wanted them to watch and which projects to apply them to. We all got a chuckle out of it, luckily, but what we really lost was a day’s worth of work. I expected to come into the office, when I came in, and have a list of actionable items that I could task out and delegate to my team.
Now fast forward to today, and I actually had one of my business partners left me a voice note. He was complaining because he said, “Hey Doug, one of our staff members, I asked them to do a task and they didn’t do it.” I thought, “Wow, that’s unusual for them.” I said, “Well, shoot me over the email, and I’ll meet with them, and I can take care of it,” I said, “I have little more experience with this. You calm down, you’re a little hotheaded, and I’ll take care of it.”
When I read the email, I couldn’t do anything but chuckle because I had done the same thing, right? I had done it. So what he said is, “Hey, go over to LinkedIn, I want you to modify my profile so it speaks more to our ideal client.” Now we have three ideal clients within our avatar list for this particular business model. What was funny was the person who was asking had no idea what he was talking about. Yet he got upset. He wanted a specific verbiage to be on his LinkedIn profile to speak to somebody, yet never communicated exactly how he wanted to say it or what he wanted to say. Now I started laughing because one, I have done it. Two is how many other times in my life have I miscommunicated or not gotten clarity to somebody, given them clarity? Now this also applies to other areas of my life as it often does because where we do one thing, we do all things, right?
So where else in my five to thrive was I not getting clarity? Was I got getting clarity about a goal that I had? A purpose, a vision, or an outcome? And now not only was I not communicating this to other people, but in other areas what I was noticing was maybe I wasn’t getting enough clarity for myself. You know, for example, as somebody that’s been in the fitness industry for over 20 years, a lot of times you see people say, “Hey, I just want to lose weight,” and they never quite hit their goal because there is no goal called lose weight. You can’t actually look at it, establishing a solid number, something you could look at and argue, “Did you do it? Or didn’t you?” Adds clarity, and that clarity adds focus, and that focus gets you to your goal quicker because it gives you more continuity.
Now it’s the same thing with communication, right? In the area of relationships and business, we can apply this. I don’t know about you, but I know for me the more clear I am, the more time I take to make sure that my message lands to whoever I’m communicating, with the better. So here are a couple of things you can do just in the area of communication.
One is when you’re communicating with someone, ask them to repeat back what they heard and understood. I think you’ll be surprised at how often that people hear from their own lenses is not exactly what we intend. And this miscommunication can cause of a lot of problems in relationships and in the area of business. Step one is ask them just like, “Hey, can you just simply repeat back what you heard? I want to make sure that we’re on the right page.” I do this with my team often. Now sometimes in emails, I don’t do it as well as I should, but I do do it often. What it does is really gets us on the same page, gets clarity in the communication. Over time, a lot of my staff can just read my mind because they know what I’m thinking when we communicate because we’ve gone back and forth so often.
Another thing you can do is grab your journal and look at your goals. Write out your goals for your five to thrive. Sometimes I include fun, wealth, and growth, so there’s actually eight when I do a deep dive with a client. And then look at your goals. Now is there clarity around them? In other words, what I mean by that is, “Are there any questions around the goal?” Like the goal, like lose weight. What does lose weight mean, right? If you were to gain some muscle mass but lose body fat, would you be happy? And most people would say, “Yeah, Doug, I would be happy.” Well, then lose weight isn’t your goal, right? Be very clear, crystal clear. I often say, “So clear that a 10-year-old could look at that and understand exactly what it is.” This will give you clarity and, again, project you into your future and on the path to being the author of your own story, and that’s what this is all about.
You know, so often I hear from so many of you, telling me reasons or struggles—and I appreciate that—and reasons that you’re author of your own story, your journey, it is stopped or it’s hindered for some reason particular reason. Well, oftentimes clarity can help you, right? Clarity can even help you kind of sift through the BS and actually look at really what you want out of life and go for it, go for it with gusto. And I want to help you do that.
The first step to doing that, also, is making sure you’re on the Author of Your Own Story newsletter. Make sure you get it. Of course, you could always unsubscribe if you’re not getting the value that I think you’ll get from it. Second step, make sure you’re going over to our Author of Your Own Story private community and introducing yourself and sharing what’s going on for you. And the third step is sharing this with a few people that you know, that you think would enjoy having conversations like this that matter.
That’s it for me today. I will see you tomorrow. As always, go out and inspire someone simply by being the Author of Your Own Story.
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