The official release of Scott’s first book, Discover Your Sweet Spot – The 7 Steps to Create a Life of Success and Significance, is scheduled for January 8th, 2014. If you want to be part of the launch party click here.

Yes, this is another book that focuses a lot on leadership, but Scott provides 7 steps that will guide you along a path to success and significance in whatever lane you are travelling.

Scott is the Vice President of the John Maxwell Team and one of the team mentors.  A very successful businessman in the Landscaping business, Scott parallels the ideas of DESIGN, BUILD and MAINTAIN into whatever environment we find ourselves.

This will be the final of three posts taking us through the 7 steps that will teach us how to Design, Build and Maintain a life of success and significance.

PHASE 3: MAINTAIN YOUR LEADERSHIP ENVIRONMENT

STEP 5 – PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT: Poor Maintenance Costs You More In The Long Run

To maintain the success, or significance, that we have achieved will not sustain itself unless we commit to continual growth.  Scott suggests asking questions to keep us on top of our game.  Here are his Elite 8:

1. What do I do best?
2. How can I do it better?
3. Who can I best serve doing it?
4. Of the things I currently do, what should I do more?
5. Of the things I currently do, what should I do less?
6. Of the things I currently do, what should I stop?
7. What should I start doing?
8. What am I missing?

STEP 6 – MAINTAIN THE MAIN THING: Keep Your Vision within Sight at All Times

Scott describes the importance of vision and how, unless we keep it on the forefront, it will soon be lost.  Here are his “Five Lenses of Maintaining Vision”:

1. Define The Vision – If you can’t define the vision, you can’t achieve it.
2. Develop the Vision – Create a clear vision that represents the values behind it.
3. Drill the Vision – Include the entire team in casting the vision and create an environment of unity.
4. Distinguish the Vision – Your vision should set you apart from the rest.
5. Demonstrate the Vision – Very simple here – walk the talk!

STEP 7 – GIVE WHAT YOU CAN’T KEEP: Legacies are Maintained by Investing in Others

Those of you that have followed me for a while know how important legacy is to me.  Scott gives us a great quote from educator Elton Trueblood; “We have made at least a start in discovering the meaning in human life when we plant shade trees under which we know full well we will never sit.”

Investing in others and believing in them is the way we can leave our fingerprint on generations to come.  We can’t take anything with us, but we can clearly leave something behind.

I have reviewed numerous books and many have had a specific topic or targeted audience.  Discover Your Sweet Spot is for everyone.  We all have a Sweet Spot, but very few are living in it.  If you want to get there, do yourself a favor and pre-order this book.

Scott leaves us with this thought; “If you are enjoying any success in your life, it’s because someone has gone before you, sacrificed, and paid the price.”  

Today’s question: “What price are you paying today to create a legacy that will serve others after you are gone?”

• Click here to read Part 1 – The Design Phase
• Click here to read Part 2 – The Building Phase

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Help support us by clicking here and Liking our facebook page

Barry Smith    9/18/13   photo courtesy of Scott M Fay   © Building What Matters 2013

The post Discover Your Sweet Spot – Part 3: The Maintenance Phase appeared first on BUILDING WHAT MATTERS.COM.

Although the official release of Scott’s first book, Discover Your Sweet Spot – The 7 Steps to Create a Life of Success and Significance, is not scheduled until the first of the year, I have had the opportunity to be included in a group to receive an early release of the book.

Yes, this is another book that focuses a lot on leadership, but Scott provides 7 steps that will guide you along a path to success and significance in whatever lane you are travelling.

Scott is the Vice President of the John Maxwell Team and one of the team mentors.  A very successful businessman in the Landscaping business, Scott parallels the ideas of DESIGN, BUILD and MAINTAIN into whatever environment we find ourselves.

This will be the second of three posts taking us through the 7 steps that will teach us how to Design, Build and Maintain a life of success and significance.

PHASE 2: BUILD YOUR LEADERSHIP ENVIRONMENT

STEP 3 – Tear Out, Then Build Up

Pulling from his landscape background again, Scott creates a picture of pulling weeds when entering the building phase.  He presents a very thought provoking question – “Do your excuses serve your dream?”  In other words, the excuses that you use in life are the weeds preventing you from building your dream.

He provides a great three step process to eradicate these weeds, or “excuses,” that are in the way of construction.  This is crucial.  If the weeds are not removed during the build phase to allow the new “roots” to take hold, you will will be focusing on pulling weeds the rest of your life.

1. Identify your weeds.  Review your construction site, “your life,” and remove the weeds that will prevent you from building the life you desire.
2. Own your weeds.  You know what they are and no one is going to remove them but you.  You have to own those weeds and take responsibility in making sure that they are gone as you get ready to build.
3. Eradicate the weeds.  You have identified them.  You have owned them. Now eradicate them.  Don’t settle for some or most of them.  You are building your foundation and the rest of the product will only be as good as the foundation you build upon.

STEP 4 – Build Midcourse Corrections

Things happen along the way that may require course corrections.  You may run into some unforseen conditions – something you could not have predicted.  Or maybe you simply want to change the design because you are beginning to see the finish product and can make it better.  Scott gives us four things to consider regarding course corrections:

1. Intersect the issue.  When the issue is identified, take aggressive moves to address it.  Don’t assume that it won’t be an important piece of the final product.  Remember the design devils, the small details matter.
2. Correct the problem.  Fix it!  Evaluate your options and choose the most logical correction moving forward.
3. Protect the goal.  Don’t lose sight of the desired outcome.  All the details are important, but if you get stuck on one thing, the schedule will suffer. Course corrections are changes in direction but still provide forward motion.
4. Reflect the outcome.  Certainly you desire that masterpiece when complete.  The end product will be a reflection of the process.  The quality of effort you put in through the process, will determine the quality of the end product.

I have reviewed numerous books and many have had a specific topic or targeted audience.  Discover Your Sweet Spot is for everyone.  We all have a Sweet Spot, but very few are living in it.  If you want to get there, do yourself a favor and pre-order this book.

Creating an environment that is conducive to success means confronting your current one.  If you want to change the design, you must first be willing to change yourself.  It starts from within.

Today’s question: “What are the weeds in your life that need to be pulled?”  If you are serious about building a better life, your weeds need to be pulled!

Click here to read Part 1 – The Design Phase

***********************************************************************

Don’t miss a single post from Building What Matters by subscribing at the top left of this page. 

Help support us by clicking here and Liking our facebook page

Barry Smith    9/18/13   photo courtesy of Scott M Fay   © Building What Matters 2013

The post Discover Your Sweet Spot – Part 2: The Building Phase appeared first on BUILDING WHAT MATTERS.COM.

Although the official release of Scott’s first book, Discover Your Sweet Spot – The 7 Steps to Create a Life of Success and Significance, is not scheduled until the first of the year, I have had the opportunity to be included in a group to receive an early release of the book.

Yes, this is another book that focuses a lot on leadership, but Scott provides 7 steps that will guide you along a path to success and significance in whatever lane you are travelling.

Scott is the Vice President of the John Maxwell Team and one of the team mentors.  A very successful businessman in the Landscaping business, Scott parallels the ideas of DESIGN, BUILD and MAINTAIN into whatever environment we find ourselves.

This will be the first of three posts taking us through the 7 steps that will teach us how to Design, Build and Maintain a life of success and significance.

PHASE 1: DESIGN YOUR LEADERSHIP ENVIRONMENT

STEP 1 – Discover Your Sweet Spot – Design with the End in Mind

For the last 30 years I have spent countless hours reviewing construction drawings.  Without fail, the better the design, the better the project and more importantly, the fewer problems along the way.

It has been right in front of me most of my life and I never got it, not until Scott showed me how just as a good design can produce a great project, it can produce the same in your life or leadership ability as well.

That design, when done correctly, will land in your Sweet Spot.  Scott breaks down your sweet spot like this; “The convergence of three things: Purpose, Passion, and Plan.”

• Purpose is who you are designed to be.
• Passion is what you love to do.
• Plan is the strategic convergence of being and doing.

As Scott puts it; “Living and working from our Sweet Spot results from intentional design, not accidental disorder.”  I love that!  Are you living by design or disorder?

STEP 2 – Sweat the Small Stuff – The Devils are in the Design

This is a great step.  Scott describes the importance of ALL the details, especially the small ones because they really represent the minor adjustments that can make a major difference.

These “Design Devils” come in many different forms and again pulling from his years in the landscape business Scott gives us the infamous five that seem to show up the most often.

POOR DRAINAGE – The people that we bring into our personal or professional life need to be intentional and not accidental.  The people you surround yourself with are going to create the environment in which you wish to grow.  this will determine the flow of your life.  How conducive is your environment to success?

CONTEXT CONFUSION – When you add something to your life, a relationship, a new toy, a bigger house and so on, have you really considered how critical it is to your plan or purpose?  It’s kind of like the shiny squirrel syndrome – we get attracted to something because it looks good, but in reality it may not serve our overall design.

HIGH TRAFFIC – There are clearly areas of our life that receive more traffic than others such as our health.  Face it, everything we do consumes our energy.  If the design does not allow us to refuel, eventually we will run out and … well, you fill in the blank.

AESTHETIC MISFIT – Teamwork makes the dream work, right?  We have got to surround ourselves with those that as Scott puts it; “believe like we believe, but who think different thoughts.”  If you don’t have a shared value system and seek the same desired outcome, it simply won’t work.

SHORT-SIGHTED PLAN – We have to design with the end in mind.  Being short-sighted will result in one of two things:

1. We assume something will stay the same when, really, it’s designed to change.  Or
2. We assume something will change when, really, it’s designed to stay the same.

I have reviewed numerous books and many have had a specific topic or targeted audience.  Discover Your Sweet Spot is for everyone.  We all have a Sweet Spot, but very few are living in it.  If you want to get there, do yourself a favor and pre-order this book.

In the mean time, I leave you with these three questions from John Maxwell referenced by Scott in the book:

• What is required of me?
• What yields the highest return?
• What creates the greatest reward?

When you discover the same answer to all three of these questions, you have Discovered Your Sweet Spot!

***********************************************************************

Don’t miss a single post from Building What Matters by subscribing at the top left of this page. 

Help support us by clicking here and Liking our facebook page

Barry Smith    9/11/13   photo courtesy of Scott M Fay   © Building What Matters 2013

The post Discover Your Sweet Spot – Part 1: Creating The Design appeared first on BUILDING WHAT MATTERS.COM.