week 114: keeping it lean and clean
clarity
thank you to over 11,000 of you who read this weekly and share with your friends and family for behind the scenes on building a million a 5 million dollar business from scratch and beyond.
i also include a personal note in the end so i am grateful that you let me do that without judgement.
one of the biggest challenges and opportunities in entrepreneurship is to keep things lean and clean.
when things are good, we become over optimistic and hire.
when things go wrong, we become over pessimistic and fire.
i don’t know a single person who got this exactly right, all the time.
every entrepreneur or leader i talk to would say, i waited too long.
they would say, i should have made the change months if not years ago.
the issue is that there is no formula for it.
but here is how i have been thinking of making the business lean and clean:
identify the key people that are “must have” for the business to exist as a brand
instead of straight up hiring and firing at will, start on “contract to hire” - this way you can move fast and test instead of long interview process and fail
focus on clarity over certainty - no matter where you are in business, the thing that moves the needle is surprisingly not certainty… it’s clarity. it’s clarity of thoughts, priorities and bets that you are willing to take as a team that can change outcomes the most meaningful way possible.
in the last few months that’s exactly has been my personal pursuit.
we are far from perfect but i think by end of the year we will have a lean and clean team that has amazing people around us that can plug and play as needed and well compensated for instead of drowning the company in payroll wonderland.
on a personal note, my wife and i recently started to attend Wednesday session at out local Church on how to navigate turbulent teenagers!
well that topic should be a book title and everyone would buy it who knows what i am talking about :)
throughout the session, as i learned from the teacher of the class, he kept talking less about the kids and more about the parents.
you see, as a parent, i can very quickly open up a pity party booth and gather a crowd who will agree that teenage years are the most brutal years for parents.
but this class reminded me that i need to be a better parent.
i need to learn so much more about my kids before i could teach them anything.
i realize that the failure is actually on my end as the head of the family.
i actually have never taken the full responsibility for it but rather expected everyone to do their part and simply direct the actions.
i now know that i need to be not only an active participant but a leader.
leading with clarity requires unconditional love, grace and truth towards each other.
it has been our family mission statement but i have failed to follow it in the recent months.
so here i am going back to basics and the only way forward is to take full responsibility for it.
it’s a new beginning.
pray for me and my family.
leader point: in business and in life, clarity and taking full (not partial) responsibility for the situation is the only part forward to keeping it lean and clean.