Patrick Lowe Enterprises, Your Success Experience

The Right Team

Success is available to anyone who knows its secrets and applies them.
Anything is possible, If you have the right team.

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit."
Andrew Carnegie, Steel Mogul

Andrew Carnegie knew the importance of having the right team. Building a home is a huge undertaking that typically required 6-9 months to complete. Televisions Extreme Home Make Over uses the power of the team to tear down an old house and build a new, larger home in its place, in less than a week. They recently visited our home town and did just that. They demolished the house on Thursday and by the next Thursday they had framed, plumbed, provided electricity, television cable, and computer wiring. They had also hung and finished all of the drywall, painted the walls, installed all of the flooring, provided new appliances and furniture and provided custom interior design in the period of one week. Builders across the country would find this impossible because they don't have the right team.

The show finds companies to finance the endeavor, donate materials and skilled labor. They use leaders in each of the specialties to organize large teams of volunteers to do the work. They promote it as a community event. Through all of this they hold everyone accountable for the work they agreed to perform. They accomplish the IMPOSSIBLE!

You are the leader of your life. Nothing is impossible if you have the right team.

Leaders often find themselves trying to carry the entire load, hoping their team would help, yet failing to give up the reins for real help to occur. As a leader, your job is to train and equip everyone on your team to carry their share of the load. The challenge is giving up enough control to let team members flourish while keeping them accountable for doing what you expect them to do. This is accomplished by having clear expectations and regular check points to "Inspect what you Expect." President Ronald Reagan once said, "Trust yet verify."
Action Steps:

1) Make a list of the Big Success Experience you are working toward.

2) Make a list of all of the people who will be required to achieve your Success Experience.

3) Build your team and clearly communicate your expectations.

4) Mark your calendar to "inspect what you expect" on a quarterly basis for long term goals, more frequently for short term.

Build the right team and Nothing is Impossible.
Follow these guidelines and Your next big Success Experience will be here before you know it.

Copyright 2007 Patrick Lowe D.C., www.patricklowe.com

Get Rid of Your Goals!

Get Rid of Your Goals! That's right, I said "Get rid of your goals." The first of every year people assess their progress in life. We then make resolutions and goals. I have done this for years, setting daily, weekly and monthly goals, along with long term goals.

A couple of years ago I had a goal to run the mini-marathon in our town. I accomplished my goal and finished faster than I did the previous year. After the race was over I suffered from the "Now Whats?" I've finished that goal, now what? I took some time off from running because I was sore and tired. It took me several months to realize that I had quit running!

Highly successful runners don't set a goal to run this race or that race; they see themselves running 3 - 6 times a week, every week, all of their lives. They have a vision for their lives which includes running. They run the races using them as progress check points, adapting their weekly runs to keep on track.

Vision

With normal eyesight, you can read letters from 20 feet away; you can see large objects for hundreds sometimes thousands of yards. Every step you take toward a large object the clearer it becomes and the more details you can see around it. As you get closer to your vision, you can also see further past it to your next vision or big check point.

There are times in our lives when we can't see very far. We are heading up hill. We are facing some challenges. That's OK, go as far as you can see and more will come into view. "If you can see there you can be there."

Visions change and grow with you. Goals, on the other hand, are often seen as a stopping point. The term "goal" is most commonly used in sports. In sports, as soon as you reach a goal, you turn around and go on defense. When on defense, you are not heading toward your goals at all!

When I don't reach a goal, it is easy to lose focus on the big picture and feel like a failure. A vision with check points keeps us focused on the big picture. It allows us to develop as we make progress and other opportunities come into view. Finally, it prevents us from turning around and heading in the wrong direction.

Planning is a huge part of your success experiences. Stop looking for goals and focus on the big picture with a vision. Get together your vision for 2008 and add check points along the way.

What is your vision for the end of 2008?

What checkpoints will you have hit toward your life vision?

copyright 2008 Patrick Lowe D.C. www.patricklowe.com