For more than two years Scott Fay has been my coach, mentor, and most importantly, my friend. When I was trying to separate who I was from what I did, and come up with a plan for the rest of my life, Scott believed in me and pushed me in the right direction.

Yes, this is another book that focuses a lot on leadership, but Scott provides 7 steps, built around the idea of Design, Build & Maintain, that will guide you along a path to success and significance in whatever lane you are travelling.

PHASE 1: DESIGN YOUR LEADERSHIP ENVIRONMENT

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

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.

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.  Scott gives us the infamous five that seem to show up the most often.

1. Poor Drainage
2. Context Confusion
3. High Traffic
4. Aesthetic Misfit
5. Short-Sighted Plan

PHASE 2: BUILD YOUR LEADERSHIP ENVIRONMENT

STEP 3 – Tear Out, Then Build Up

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.
2. Own your weeds.
3. Eradicate the weeds.

STEP 4 – Build Midcourse Corrections

Scott gives us four things to consider regarding course corrections:

1. Intersect the issue.
2. Correct the problem.
3. Protect the goal.
4. Reflect the outcome.

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 
2. Develop the Vision 
3. Drill the Vision
4. Distinguish the Vision 
5. Demonstrate the Vision 

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

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. (Tweet This / Share on Facebook / Post to LinkedIn)

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.

Today’s challenge: Click Here and join us on a call that will help you on your way to living in your Sweet Spot

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Barry Smith    1/6/14   photo courtesy of Scott M Fay   © Building What Matters 2014

The post Isn’t It About Time You Start Living In Your Sweet Spot? 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!

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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.

I was not directly impacted by either of these events, and I will not begin to suggest I know what the victims are going through, but these events both remind me of how little control we have over the time we get here on earth.

Everyone deserves a chance to live out what they are passionate about. I don’t know much about the one’s that were taken from us this week. Only the stories shared through the media have given me a glimpse into what made up their lives.

This I do know however, everyone on this planet is passionate about something and the days we are blessed to be here should be spent living out that passion.

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.   –  Nelson Mandela

We don’t know when that day will come and I think so many of us play way to small. We play like the game will go on as long as we like.  We play like we can make a comeback in the 4th quarter or get the hit we need to win in the 9th inning.

I recently listened to ESPN analyst and National Champion Coach Lou Holtz talk about winning.  I will be honest, I have never been a big Lou Holtz fan.  Nothing really bad to say, I just prefer some over others, but as I listened to him speak for about an hour, his passion for what he believed in really impressed me.

His ideas about winning were not about the final score.  They were about how you play the game.  Now I know that is a little cliche, but the passion he described was about the journey and not the destination.  His idea of a win was about “What’s Important Now.”

Holtz went on to describe his three laws for life:

1. Do what’s right
2. Do everything to the best of your ability with the time allotted.
3. Show people you care.

I don’t think you can do these things without passion.  He also talked about dreams. For me, dreams, passion and purpose are so closely related that sometimes it is hard for me to think any of them can exist without the other two.  Holtz suggested that dreams are related to the following:

• Something to do
• Someone to love
• Someone to believe in
• Something to hope for

Again, how do we accomplish living the dream without being passionate about living it? Being passionate about something is thinking big.  I think I spent too much of my life playing small.  In fact, I think there were times when I didn’t even know what game I was playing.

But now I know what I am passionate about, I know my purpose and most importantly, I am living out my dream.  Now I’m playing big and as long as I am here on this earth and am able, I will continue to fulfill my purpose of building what matters – people!

Holtz caught my attention right away with this question that I leave you with to consider.  Wherever you are and whatever you do, “if you didn’t show up tomorrow, who would miss you and why?”

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Barry Smith www.buildingwhatmatters.com 4/19/13 photo by author

The post Finding Your Passion – Don’t Die With Your Music Still Inside Of You! appeared first on BUILDING WHAT MATTERS.COM.