week 68: think assignments not punishments

work and life are more fulfilling when we have assignments

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 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.

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too much of work can sometimes feel like punishment.

admittedly, I had a day last week, when I had about 10 sales calls. 

that excluded other meetings.

as we are in the early stage business, everyone on the team is insanely dedicated to doing the best work of our lives but also on speed and scale that is required at this stage of the business.

i often say, startups don’t run out of ideas.

they run out of money.

so back to 10 meetings a day, last week, i woke up anxious but by the end of the day, i felt energized.

we closed some deals and the team looked at my schedule and took on few of the calls off my calendar.

that just lightened the load when you know you team got your back. 

what i realized was that i want to do and think is in assignments that don’t feel like punishments.

example:

- instead of telling someone, be on customer slack daily (punishment), I need to say what ways do you think you can engage more directly with customers and is slack one of those? (assignment)

- instead of saying let’s look at your projects and prioritize (punishment), I need to ask how many projects can you do using AI tools or what resources you need to do the best work of your lives? (assignment)

- instead of saying we need a million dollar with this product (punishment), how do we make a million dollars with the current set of products? (assignment)

candidly, that’s not my natural response but i am working on it and some days when I do it, the conversations are so much better.

think in assignments.

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on a personal note, we see a lot of good in our kids that has been amazing to watch as they grow in their faith and life.

at the same time, like any other household, we sometimes have teenager moments that are leading to some (unintentional though) dishonorable conversations and word choices at home.

now i can handle any words to me but not to my wife, even if it’s from my kids.

that’s a trigger for me.

so when such unwholesome words happened last week, i had a choice to make.

do i give a punishment (no tech, no tennis, grounded) or do i give him an assignment or do i completely ignore it and let it go as a “teenager moment”.

i found myself simply praying and sitting for 30 mins outside before the Holy Spirit led me to an idea.

i was around some rocks and i was reminded of the text from the book of  Ezekiel 11:14-21 - i will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

so i asked my son to take a small rock and write “stone” on one side and “flesh” on the other side. 

i committed for the next few months that I will pray with him every night together and pray for his tongue to be wholesome, life giving and for his heart to mature and become more tender towards his sister and mom.

i am no stranger to this. i did all this and much more when i was a kid.

God knows that i need to pray this for myself even now. i need to raise my own standards.

last night, we both have started to verbalize this prayer, and plan to do it every night, together as the men of the house - to honor and love our family with words and actions.

my hope is that this assignment is towards restoring relationship (long-term) and not punishing (short term) bad behavior.

the goal is always to get closer to each other and moments like this are a reminder that we all need to learn the Jesus way of loving others - which is first sacrificial and second, just.

leader point: think in assignments and not punishments.