Make one decision. That is the piece of advice Ken gave a young gentleman who just sold a pretty sizable business. The 28-year-old man was about to give up with the challenges he was facing. Make one decision, and then manage the decision daily until successful. Every entrepreneur, every leader, or every manager that is a true visionary experiences the Shiny Penny Syndrome. They can operate a business at most seven years, then they start looking for the next adventure, especially when they’re not seeing results from the first one. Ken reminds us to ask ourselves to make one decision and manage that only for two work weeks and come out at the end of it determining the positives and the negatives of that decision with four questions for growth. Find out what those are in this episode.
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One Decision, Four Questions For Growth
I caught myself giving a piece of advice to a young man, 28 years old, who sold a pretty sizable business. He was referred to me because I’m in a men’s group with twelve people who have global businesses. This one gentleman was presenting at the EO in Denver and struck up a conversation with this young man. This young man mentioned he had built a website and sold it for a good amount of money. My buddy said, “You’ve got to talk to my friend, Ken Courtright, and tell him about your challenge,” because he was about to give up what my buddy, Brian, thought was a really good idea. We get on the phone and we just get to talking right away. I tell him a little bit about what we do. He tells me about what he’s done so far, what he’s working on and he’s sitting on an idea that he has launched through a website that is phenomenal to say the least.
Every entrepreneur, leader, or manager that is a true visionary has the Shiny Penny Syndrome. Click To Tweet
We get onto something and I hadn’t shown him my excitement at all about his project. He said, “Brian said for me to puke all over you of what I’m doing and then just ask you what one piece of advice would you give me.” I started laughing because I know why Brian told him to ask that. I jumped right in. I said, “I do have one piece of advice. It’s very simple. I’m pretty sure this is why Brian had you call me.” I asked him to get out a piece of paper. I said, “Write this down exactly the way I say it. Make one decision and then manage the decision daily until successful.” He writes it down and he’s like, “That’s a great idea, but what do you mean?” I said, “Did you or did you not just say that you’re considering giving up on this project?” He says, “Yes.” I said, “At some point, you made a great decision.” He goes, “How do I know this is a good decision?” I went off for ten to fifteen minutes on why he’s on to something massive, and he is. He said, “I had all those original thoughts in the beginning, but I’ve hit so many roadblocks.” I said, “Let me make this easier for you. I want you to go into a quiet room tonight with a piece of paper and write down every original idea why you thought this was a good idea.” He said he promised he would do it.
Then I said, “All I want you to do is make one decision, something like, ‘I’m going to start this backup and I’m going to manage this project.’ What I want you to do is manage that one decision daily for ten days. It’s two full work weeks. If it’s Monday to Monday, it would be Monday, Monday, Monday. On business day eleven, you’re going to ask yourself four questions. Number one, was it originally a good decision?” He’s probably going to say yes. “What positive has come out in the last two weeks about that decision because of the work he’s put in? What negative has come out in the last couple of weeks because of the work he’s put in on that one decision? Most importantly, number four, what new decision, if different, would be an extension of the original decision?” Then he’s going to manage that daily for ten days. When I walked him through this, the excitement in his voice was visceral. This is what he needed. What he has is what everybody has.
Every entrepreneur, every leader, every manager that is a true visionary where you can somewhat see around the corner of an industry, he has it. It’s called the Shiny Penny Syndrome. Most entrepreneurs can manage a business seven years max. Part of their course is, “What’s the next adventure?” He’s used to this. He’s already started and launch things, sold them successfully. He wants that next victory so bad. When he wasn’t seeing results from his first one, he wanted to consider moving on in a different direction. For everybody in the audience, I want you to go home in a quiet room. I want you to sit back with a blank piece of paper and ask yourself, “What is one decision that you know you should make, that you could write down and manage simply for ten work days, Monday through Friday, two weeks in a row?” Come back to that and say, “Was this a good decision? Yes or no? What positives came out of me working and managing this decision? What negatives came out of this and what new decision based on the number two and three questions can I make as an extension of the first and go from there?” Here’s to making great decisions. I hope this helps. Take care.
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