Isn't It Time Your Business had a Simple Strategy?

Woosley Coaching

Helping You Build Your Business Roadmap

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BLUF: Compass and Roadmap

My friend and fellow Free Agent Academy Professor Justin Lukasavige offered an intriguing post last week that I just can’t get out of my head. Is it more important to have a compass or a map? As the FAA Professor for the Roadmap Group, I just couldn’t resist a hearty response. The comments on Justin’s post have been flying, and here’s my thoughts:

Bottom Line Up Front: You need both!

A compass is great for giving you an orientation to a fixed point. A physical compass always points north, which means you can always chart a course in any direction (east, west, south, etc.). In life and business, to me a compass represents your belief system and the principles you live your life by. My compass tells allows me to look at a situation or opportunity and decide it if fits who I am and who I want to be. It makes the decision to go forward or go back easier.

But a map…I love a good map! Not only can it show you where you’re at, but where you’ve been and where you could be. It shows you what’s over the hill and around the bend. The wisdom of those who’ve been there before drip off the edges of the map. Maps allow you to plot a course to where you want to be…helping you to see the biggest obstacles and sites before you get there.

Even more powerful is when you make your own map (read Seth Godin’s latest book Linchpin if you really want to understand the power in this concept). By plotting your journey–past, present and future–you create what only you can create. It’s personal and it’s experiential. It’s yours, and you own every wrong turn and successful breakthrough.

So if all you have is a compass, pick a direction and go forth! Just be sure to make your roadmap as you go. It makes everything more powerful!

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Do ONE Thing

It’s not enough to have a good idea. You must be able to implement your idea to make it real. You must take action or it will die from starvation and lack of attention.

Planning and strategy can seem daunting, but plans don’t have to be complicated to be effective. In fact, simple plans are often more powerful because they are more tangible.

What’s ONE thing you can do today to move your business forward? To help you achieve a big goal? To make your dreams a reality?

Define the ONE thing…and then do it.

Do ONE thing each day…and after a year you’ve done 365 things.

I guarantee you’ll see progress looking back a year. And probably every day as well.

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A New Strategy

There are two extremes people fall into when making plans: not doing it and overdoing it!

For those who don’t plan, I’m not talking about the apathetic but the action oriented. These are people who are so eager to execute their ideas that they simply go, go go! This approach can be great for small tasks and surge efforts, but typically results in a lot of errors and backtracking.

Those who overdo it don’t have that problem. They simply plan and plan and plan, never getting around to execution. Eventually the planning effort kills their idea before it even gets started.

I have to admit I lean toward the overdoing it crowd. I want things to be perfect, and that can be paralyzing. So I force myself to plan and execute, even when I’m not quite ready.

Welcome to my new site and my new strategy regarding strategy. It’s a work in process and probably always will be.

This journey is too complicated to explain in a short post. It involves hours of study, prayer, anger and frustration…birthing pains for something new. It involves visits to Dan Miller’s home in Tennessee, intensive retreats in Colorado and even a brief stop in Jamaica and Key West (more on that later)! And involves the investment of great friends, mentors and coaches who saw the diamonds in me that I had overlooked as simple rocks.

In Seth Godin’s incredible new book Linchpin, he describes superheroes explaining their powers. And in an instant, I discovered my superpower: seeing order in chaos and helping people make realistic plans to achieve incredible things.

I’ll skip the tights and cape for now.

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Change and Frequency

My readers deserve an update. Here goes: change is coming!

But don’t be scared! It’s good change.

The process of building and growing a business is not easy or instantaneous. It’s an arduous journey that requires frequent backtracking and rework.

Now, I’m about to set off in a new and exciting direction.

A direction that matches my passions and my strengths more specifically than I’ve been doing so far. I’ve been close. I’ve learned. And soon I’ll be in my sweet spot.

There may not be very frequent posts for the next few weeks. And I expect a site redesign is about to begin. A new strategy and approach for everything I do.

But the results…for me and for you…will be powerful!

Stay tuned…

James

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