Monday morning, my daughter Noa – who is my heart, the light of my world, was in a very down mood. Beyond the usual eight year old stuff. I could see that her point of view was being filtered through a flavor of “its all going wrong.” Her younger brother who goes to a different school was off for the week, while she had to catch her bus and go. She couldn’t find her school bag. She felt like she was running out of time. The world was seemingly conspiring against her.
Naturally I wanted so strongly to shift this for her. And I tried. I really tried. I shared words of wisdom, I told her how it could be and would be a good day, etc. But guess what, it didn’t work. No matter what I said, or how much I wanted to help in this way, it just wouldn’t get the job done.
Finally, I paused and said calmly, “Honey, I understand. I really get it.” And I gave her a nice, slow, gentle but firm hug. She managed to wipe away a few tears and nod. In that moment she felt seen. She felt me as a real partner.
Where in your business are you not seeing your people? Your prospective clients and customers? Your current clients or customers? Your referral partners?
Now I want to normalize this. When we’re killing it, it’s easy to become enamored with ourselves. And when we feel up against the wall, it’s definitely easy to go into survival mode, become myopic, and get lost in a view point of “over here.”
But business is all about relationships. And regardless of whether we’re on the buy side or the sell side, both parties’ needs have to get met or the relationship will not be sustainable.
You can do this right now or make a note to think about it later, but I invite you to write down three things your people need.
It may be actual measurable results – profit margins, metrics, etc. And it may be conceptual – a feeling of security, of winning, getting a good deal, good value, or being heard, trusted, partnered with. You get the point.
Once you have these access points, use them. Check your feet. Am I creating these things for my people? My clients? My team? Myself?
It’s like the holy trinity. If something is slowing down – or *breaking* down – in your business. Look to these. If you need to shore up any or all of these, and you don’t – if you operate on top of those gaps – power, efficiency and success will surely slow down and elude you.
But if you do take them on, watch out.
You’ll get more than you can handle!
