Let me introduce you to three of the most powerful words in our entrepreneur’s language.
Think.
Tank.
Time.
For the overworked, overloaded, and overstretched reading this, I can guess you are shaking your heads and saying, “Ha…has she seen my calendar. Does she get what my life is like?”
And, my answer is yes. If given the opportunity, between clients, kids and commitments my calendar would become a 40 hour a day spot where I would never find room to breathe.
I’ve been there.
I’ve done it.
I have the t-shirt and the sleepless night to prove it.
And, a few years ago I had to make a choice to set serious boundaries because my work life had overwhelmed my life, seeping into my evenings, my dinners, my breakfasts, my Sunday mornings, until it felt like a vine that was strangling every ounce of joy.
I thought I had overcome this little problem until the last few weeks hit.
You see, a lot has happened.
We’ve sold a business.
We’re opening a new business {across the country, because I believe in making everything very simple}.
We’re moving our current businesses to another epically incredible level.
And, this little part-time consulting practice? Well, it’s grown…fast.
Truth be told, the consulting part gives me amazing joy because I’m working with clients one-on-one and the results have been incredible. A few weeks in people are doubling their revenues, hiring the staff they’ve needed for years and taking control over their businesses. A few months in and I don’t recognize my clients—their lives and their businesses are totally different.
And, these kinds of results make me passionately dive in to see how we can make it better, grow it and help even more people.
This has meant growing a new and extremely talented team to provide incredible support for our customers.
This has meant months of training to make sure that we can see and use every person’s specific zone of genius {Total Fact—I have many team members that are far more talented than I am—we make sure to work in the areas that we are great at, which means our clients get the best results}.
This has meant lots of new technology implementation, headaches and processes.
Add all of these projects together, and, this has meant a lot of meetings, not all of which I needed to be on. Let’s face it, I was excited and I wanted to hear about everything {hello, type A, a role I had gleefully given up}
Meetings are lovely. So are bookkeeping, graphic design, Facebook page management, SEO research and website maintenance.
The problem is that they can remove any time to actually focus on deep diving into our business. And, as an entrepreneur, these aren’t necessarily the roles, I’m now called to fill in my business.
We feel busy so we must be doing something right. But, in reality, it’s the wrong kind of busy. It’s the busy that stagnates businesses and prevents long term growth.
Why? These roles are not directly producing revenue, growing my company, and building my client base. They are better served by a contractor who is focused on them at a much lower hourly rate than I currently charge.
And, I need to be doing things like:
- Analyzing this month’s numbers and looking for trends in what’s going right and what could use a tweak.
- Sitting down with my team for intensive training {and let’s not forget having the time to analyze who might need to be hired next to fill a crucial void, putting together the hire and training a new team member }.
- Developing the plan for the next stage of our company.
- Having time to actually connect with former clients and re-establish a relationship with them.
- Having time to meet with new clients and establish relationships with them.
- Planning out our goals {and the exact action steps on how to reach them} so I’m never just busy…every single action step has a purpose that keeps my business moving forward.
See where I’m going?
To do those things, I need actual white space—unscheduled, quiet time to move forward.
Enter Think Tank Time.
I didn’t invent this. In fact, thanks to a little bit of luck, I just realized it was what I’d been looking for.
My husband is currently an advisor to an amazing man, with a schedule that makes mine look like it has nothing on it. I called a few weeks ago when I was planning a surprise trip for Dan and wanted to make sure that I could pick him up half an hour early to get to the airport in time for our flights.
The response: “Don’t worry, it’s a TTT day.”
Me: “TTT?”
Response: “Think Tank Time—It would be hard to get much done if he didn’t have time to actually move forward on crucial projects. When we open up space on his calendar it’s filled right away, so we leave these pockets for our big projects.”
{Light bulb Moment}
So here’s my question—I’m just learning how to make Think Tank Time work for me in this new phase of my business. How can you make it work for you? Email us at support@lisekuecker.com and share your stories. I’m looking for a little inspiration and can’t wait to learn from you!
