Speed is the Key – Personal/Self

This is a transcription of the Speed is the Key podcast that can be listened to here. Scroll down to watch the video presentation!

Greetings all. This is Scott MacKenzie with Industrial Talk. We're going to talk about all the stuff that goes on with the industrial profession, from labor to craftsman, to anything that we can talk about. For this report, we're focusing on Speed is the Key. This is a series of how living in the NOW is so important.

I'm glad that you're here and participating in this podcast. There's a video log as well regarding Speed is the Key. I know for me, personally, every time I've run businesses there’s always a sense of urgency, a sense of doing what we can, as fast as we can, and as effective as we can, using certain tools and techniques that are proven over time. We're going to be living in the NOW: trying to respect your time while moving forward, and hopefully, you can gain a couple of things out of this whole conversation.

The simple way: I’m showing you simple ways to cover more distance in your business or profession, that's what we want. We want more time for what we want to do and then make sure that our business is operating as effectively and as efficiently as possible.

A little bit about myself, I'm a husband, father, love my kids, and my wonderful wife. I've had humble beginnings. I started out as a lathing contractor and hod carrier. That's right. That's what it was, a hod carrier and then became a Journeyman Lineman/splicer. Went to school at night to finish my undergrad as well as Masters in business. I've had the privilege of leading a team and company onto the NASDAQ. I'm so passionate about developing marketing and sales solutions for companies to truly expand their business. That's what I'm all about. I think if you're generating revenue for your business, everything is good. That's where I'm always focused, and Speed is the Key! I will make sure that this training is quick, to the point, and definitely actionable.

Speed is the most important thing, from my perspective, when it comes to business and how quickly we can execute these strategies and tactical steps on a day to day basis. It's all about moving your business or profession forward. Speed is about action. We don't sit on our hands. We don't wait. We talk about it and we move forward right off the bat.

It's about optimizing and leveraging time because time is something that is always gone. Once it's there, it's gone. We can definitely have tools and techniques to bring about optimizing and leverage of time.

It is about moving, removing distractions, and focusing on what moves your business and career forward. That's the distance. I know, for me, personally, sometimes I get distracted, just like everybody else, but it's important to be very sensitive and aware of all of the distractions that can take place on a day to day business. Focus on what moves your business forward.

It's about removing those speed bumps. I always look at a parking lot with speed bumps, and if I want to go fast, I can't, because, well, there's speed bumps there. What we want to do is remove those speed bumps in your day to day, and help you gain more progress on a daily basis.

Number One: Be a no-fluff person. That's definitely what I'm about. No fluff, get to the point, direct, and get the stuff done. Let's execute. Let's execute today. No more waiting. We don't want to wait, we want to get going. We want to make sure that we execute. There's got to be a sense of urgency. When there's a sense of urgency, you definitely make progress.

Let's talk about distance. Now, we all know that speed is equal to distance over time. Time is the real driver, here, because, well, you can never get it back. I always look at my day as sort of a race. A race with a sense of urgency. For example, I'll travel. I remember going to Orlando, and going to a specific theme park there. I drive, and I drive, and I drive, and I realize that I'm getting more anxious because I can't go faster. So, what I do is I go a little bit faster. I push the pedal a little bit more because I want to cover more distance and get there quicker. That's all we're trying to do from a business point of view, is to go a little bit faster, cover more distance, and use a little less time in doing so.

Now, we live in a world of bullets. I know I do. I cut to the chase. Tell me what the bottom line is so that we can make some decisions and we can move forward, and we can take care of business ASAP. With that understanding, this presentation itself is specifically about bullets. I don't have to time to read all the books that are out there, but there are a lot of good ones out there. I always like the Cliff Note version of that. Tell me, tell me what the salient points are.

Number Two: Attention span. I was listening to somebody talk a little bit about the attention span back in 1990. You had 12 minutes, 12 minutes to be able to catch that individual's attention on what you're trying to do, and where you're trying to go, and what you're trying to tell them. Today it's down to seven. As we can definitely imagine, it's now seven because we've got just tons, and tons, and tons, of information out there that we've got to process, and we've got to process quickly. Just the world we live in is a matter of speed.

When I look at a diet, this is just a general example. There are tons of books out there that are diet books. Eat this way, do that. Anyway, I find out that diet books come down to two simple points. One, eat less. That's right. Eat less. Don't consume too many calories. I've been on the no-carb kick, which has been very good for me, but primarily, it's eating less. Then, the other element of that equation is, move more. In our day to day lives, we tend to try to make things very complicated. When you get right down to it, a sense of speed is to try to simplify as much as we possibly can. So, for the diet book, I'm going to eat less and I'm going to move more. That's really all I need, but I can't really sell many books that way.

The components of business speed are broken up into four categories.

1. The category we're going to talk about today is really our self and personal. There's plenty of books out there, but it's really a focus and a drive to education.
2. Time, and, of course, we're going to talk about that next week. It's an impact on time you accomplish. It's one of those tactical and strategic objectives.
3. Business, this is where the real rubber meets the road. This is where the analytics really take over, and you start to really evaluate businesses and opportunities from a purely financial and operational point of view. How you can quickly do so using tools and techniques.
4. Leverage. Once we find out how we can leverage our time, we can get, definitely, a lot more done. We're going to talk a little bit more about that. Those are the components of speed.

From a self and personal perspective, I cannot emphasize enough the necessity to educate. There are tons of books out there. There are tons of … The World Wide Web, shall we say, of information that can definitely help you. You've got to be a student and educate. The other item, here, is fortitude of hope. That means grit. That means you're not going to give up. That means you're going to strive, you're going to drive, you're going to commit to what you have made a decision to commit to. Like I said, there are many books out there, and I would highly recommend the necessity to pick up some good books. I'd be more than happy to make some recommendations of books that have definitely changed my life and have directed me in a path that I feel is meaningful.

Persistence. You just can't give up. Life is challenging. Things come at you real fast, but because you are persistent, you just never give up. When you do give up, that's a permanent decision to a temporary situation. Never, ever, and this is also in your mind, you just will never give up.

One of the most important things that I've ever come across, in my profession, would be the sense of purpose. I have a story to relay. There was a point where I just didn't have a purpose, and there I was, sitting there in a beautiful office overlooking a river, and I realized I wasn't contributing anything. Anyway, there are some great individuals out there that really look at purpose. I highly recommend that you really focus on understanding your purpose in life, because it does help out. It does give you that desire to move faster because you're trying to fulfill that purpose.

What I try to do, on a daily basis, and I do, because it's so important, is I do a morning reflection or reading to get my day started, to focus myself in a way that supports my purpose. There's once again plenty of material out there. I would recommend that, once again, go out, pursue it, but you got to get up early. Get up early and start your day out right.

I have a team of individuals that keep me directed down the right path. I would also recommend that. Finding that team is critical because they're the ones that will tell you the truth. They're the ones that will say, “Hey, that didn't work out real well.” Bottom line, you need to find that team of trusted individuals. It could be one, it could be two, it could be three. It doesn't really matter, but I would recommend that you find those individuals.

For me, personally, along with my morning routine of reflection, and reading, and sort of getting my mind right in the morning, I also go to the gym. I started out with about just a ten-minute rule. What that means is that I get up, I'm not in the best shape, or I don't have the best mood, or whatever it might be, I always tell myself, “Just ten minutes.” I get on that machine, ten minutes, and then it always turns out to be more than that, about a half hour or so, 45 minutes, and then all of a sudden you're just this exercise person that you just want to continue to exercise. What it does is it really drives blood to the brain and gets you really thinking and reflecting upon what you need to accomplish to fulfill that purpose.

Once again, I can't stress upon the need for simplicity. We have a tendency to make things very difficult. Then, once they get very difficult, they get very convoluted. Then, they start to really impact the speed, and your desire to try to do what you can as quickly as you can, in gaining that ground.

Then, the bottom one, the last one, is the truth. That's where your team comes into play. That's where you've got to come into play and be painfully honest and truthful. Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's going to have any issues. The bottom line is that you definitely need to be truthful about where you want to go, what that purpose is, how to be persistent, are you running out of gas. That's where your team is.

Once again, from the self and personal perspective, which is vitally important, because you want to educate, you want to continue to grow, that's something that is in your mind that cannot be diminished enough. I don't care what it is. If you got the best operations, if you're not grounded with some good education, with a desire to learn, you will always have challenges.

In the next week or so we're going to discuss a little bit about time, and we're going to talk about the time, and business, and so on, and leverage. These are going to be upcoming programs. I have plenty of information associated with all three of those other items, too, as well as that they're out there. Once again, because we're desiring speed, and we're desiring to execute as quickly as we possibly can, I recommend that you really focus on yourself and personal. Establish those characteristics of getting up the morning, doing that reflection, finding your team, being persistent, and understand that your mind's going to be playing some games on you, but you're going to prevail. You're going to go and power on through.

If you like what you hear, if you like what you see, we've got a lot of other information out there. As you can see, we've got your typical website, and Facebook, and Twitter, and LinkedIn, all of that has that information. My podcast's out there, too, as well. Also, some really great templates that can be used right now for your business, to evaluate your business.

I hope everybody enjoyed it. I hope I didn't waste your time. I truly appreciate the fact that I get this opportunity to just at least share with you some stuff. Go out there. Get information. Get educated. I'll see you back next week. Thank you.