At
this point, one of the team members came to me with a crisis.
Apparently, someone had received some huge penalties and the team was
panicking about the financial impact. The “CEO” pulled us all together
and said, “We have to brainstorm a way to solve this problem.” The
entire team got sidelined from making money and focused instead on how
to solve the problem.
I
asked, “How much does this problem cost us?” No one knew the answer. We
tallied it up and the problem was going cost us about $300k.
Now,
here is the real kicker. All of our energy and focus was on solving a
problem that was worth ONLY $300k. We were NOT FOCUSED on the
opportunity that was worth over $5 million that would have made this
problem completely go away.
How many times have you missed opportunities in your business or life because you were consumed with how to fix a problem?
The
point is this. When you are worried, consumed and stuck by a problem,
you don’t have the energy or the time to focus on the opportunities.
You probably won’t even see them.
Did we win the game? Well,
luckily, I was able to redirect one of our team members to go resolve
the problem with as little impact as possible. But, the “CEO” and I
were able to get only one of the million dollar deals through in the
time we had left. We did not win the game.
Every member of our
team walked away with a valuable lesson. Always focus upwards towards
the big wins. The payoff will probably cancel out and make completely
insignificant the smaller problems. Here are a few questions to help
you determine where your focus needs to be.
* What does the problem cost compared to the opportunities on the table?
*
Will having this problem cause you to be unable to pursue the
opportunities (in other words, does it negatively impact your resources
or time?)
* What is the worst that could happen if you don’t resolve
it? Compare that to the positives of what would happen if the
opportunity is achieved.
* Would the problem cause long-lasting damage that you could not recover from?
* If you focus on creating a bigger opportunity, would it eliminate or mitigate the problem?
Sometimes
you don’t have to focus so much on solving problems. Use your creative
energy to create opportunities that are bigger than any of your
problems. One of my friends and mentors, Stephanie Frank, author of the
Accidental Millionaire, said something once that has always stuck with
me. “You can focus on the debt and stay in debt. Or you can focus on
creating the wealth that WILL easily eliminate the debt. I chose
focusing on wealth.”
Take a few minutes each day to do a “focus
check.” Are you focused on the problem or on the bigger picture?
Changing your focus is going to make a massive difference in your
results.
Article Source:
http://www.articlerich.com
About
the Coach: Melanie Benson Strick, The Entrepreneur’s Success Coach,
teaches entrepreneurs how to stop feeling overwhelmed so they can
create more money, more freedom and more prestige. If you’re ready to
stop working in your business and start working on your business, go to
www.virtualteambuildingsecrets.com to learn the secret to growing your company to a six and seven-figure success without employees or a 90-hour work week
