Priority vs Patience: The Balancing Act

In this episode of Business Owner Breakthrough with Pete Mohr, we delve deep into the art of balancing priority and patience in your business. Most business owners are caught in the tension of being both urgent and patient. The show reveals how you can effectively set your priorities without losing sight of long-term goals. Grab your notepad; it's time to elevate from being an operator to an owner.

Here are a few things Pete covers:

• The Eisenhower Urgent-Important Matrix: A tool for prioritizing your day-to-day tasks.
• The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule): Identify what really moves the needle in your business.
• The importance of avoiding burnout by balancing urgency and patience.
• The role of patience in achieving long-term business growth.
• Practical steps to align and assign accountability within your team.

It’s time to take action

Your action step after listening is to create your own Eisenhower Matrix. Prioritize your tasks and responsibilities, find out what's urgent and important, and then take action. It's time to align and assign accountability in your business.

Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024?  Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!

Transcript

Pete Mohr: 0:35

Priority and patience may seem like opposites at first glance, you know, priority is all around urgency about knowing what needs to be done at the right time right now. It's about directing your energy and focus towards the tasks that yield the greatest impact for your business and your life. On the flip side, patience is the quality of waiting commonly without complaints of understanding the good things that come to those that can wait. But how do you reconcile the two as a business owner? Can you be urgent and patient at the same time? Well, in my opinion, you can, in fact, the best business owners that I know know how to really balance the two. And that's what we're going to discuss today. So welcome back to another episode of the business owner breakthrough. I'm your host, Pete Moore. And today we're gonna dive into the second part of our 10 part series on purposeful leadership for small business owners. And the topic really at hand here is priority and patients, two core principles that are absolutely essential for anyone striving to move from being an operator to an owner within their business. Of course, that's what we talk about every week here, on the business owner breakthrough podcast, imagine this, you've got a to do list that's a mile long, and I don't think that's too far of a stretch for a lot of people listening here, there are fires to put out. And then there's the vision that you're trying to realize, for your company. If you only focus on those urgent things, you'll lose sight of the long term goals. But if you're only patient and wait for the good things to come, then you miss out on opportunities that are right in front of you, and you let the fires consume your business. It's this tricky balancing act, but it's one as the leader of your business, you have to continuously work on mastering, by setting the right priorities and learning the art of patience, you can really navigate the most hectic days and the most demanding challenges without losing sight of your bigger vision. And we're going to explore a little bit how to set priorities in this matter, and how to practice the kind of patience that leads to long term success. So let's kick things off a little bit here with priority. And listen, I get it running a business is like juggling, you've got products, you've got customers, you've got employees, and don't forget, you've got actually a life and a family probably outside of work that are demanding some attention, and probably more attention than you're giving them. But here's the deal. Not all balls, you're juggling are rubber, some are glass. And by that I mean, some tasks are more crucial than others, right? And think about a ball that's glass and a ball. That's Robert, you've probably heard of the Pareto Principle we've talked about here on the podcast in the past, do the 8020 rule. And essentially, it states that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. So your job as the leader is to find out what that 20% is. And really, these are your priorities. It might be customer retention, or perhaps maybe it's the sales funnel, maybe it's the marketing side of your business, maybe it's the operational side of the business, whatever it is zero in on it and focus. And why does this matter? Well, when you spread yourself too thin, and I see this so often, you're in the danger zone, everything seems urgent, but nothing gets done well. And the first step in moving from operative owners really narrowing your focus. So you can genuinely drive the business forward in the area that you can make the biggest impact, right, so grab your notepad and let's get started. If you're running a business, you probably feel like you're juggling these 20 balls in the air, you're not alone. The key is to know which of those balls is rubber and which ones are glass. And if you drop a rubber ball bounces back, you drop a class ball, it creates a bit of a mess. And to help with this, let's introduce an old principle. It's called the Eisenhower urgent, important matrix. And yes, it was President Eisenhower that first came up with this matrix. During the Second World War. Picture a big plus sign, you know, four quadrants on your piece of paper. So grab a piece of paper, on one axis you have urgent at the top and non urgent at the bottom. The other access is important on the right side and not important on left side. And that gives you those four boxes urgent and important. Your immediate crises and deadlines. And then your not urgent but important box is your long term strategies like planning and building relationships. The third box is urgent but not important. Think about interruptions and emails, meetings, all of these different things. And then number four is neither urgent or important. time wasters. Plain and simple. It's about time wasters. And I bet you probably have a lot in that box. And that's what we need to clean up right. And sort your tasks. If you list all of the tasks you're responsible for every day, sort them and then place Some into one of these four quadrants. And you'll find what really needs your immediate focus and what can wait and what can be handed off to someone else. As we align and assign accountability. We've talked about that in the past do, you'll be surprised how much clarity this brings to your day to day grind, and all the activities that you do. And after that activity, you want to jot down the answers to these two particular questions. First one is what's a task you've been neglecting? But it's actually in the important quadrant. If it's in the important quadrant, it's there for a reason you can't neglect it, right? Number two is, when will you take care of this task in the coming week, mark it in your calendar right now. This podcast is about taking action to better your business and better your life. And by taking this action, if it's in the important quadrant, and it's been there for a while, you need to get this done. You've got to set your priorities right, you know where you should be spending your time. But let's be honest, good things rarely happen overnight. And that's where patience enters the picture. Running a business is really a marathon, right? It's not a sprint, you have to sprint that times. But the long haul, you might have urgent tasks that demand immediate attention. But true growth and scaling. Well, that takes some time. And when you're building a brand, and a culture and a customer base, these things can't be rushed. You know what happens when you push too hard and too fast, right? Burnout. It's not just for you, but for your team to a lack of patience can create a real toxic environment and culture in your work environment as the leader if you're stemming, and never have patience around some of these things, and it's always that blend of the two. But you start to make impulsive decisions, maybe even lose sight of your long term vision, all because you want quick results. And we'll take another little activity here. But I want you to list out your big goals for the next one, three and five years. And next to each jot down what you can do this week, this month, this quarter as you inch closer to them. This practice really helps you balance immediate tasks with long term planning. Think about these questions with regards to this little worksheet that I'm asking you to do. What is the long term project that you've wanted to start? But you haven't? Why haven't you started it? And number three, what are some of the small steps that you can take to get that ball rolling. So there you have it priority and patience, two sides really of the same coin. mastering these aspects of your business and your leadership will help you focus on the critical parts of your business while having the grit to see the long term projects through. Sometimes it's hard but you got to work and think about this stuff. So if today's discussion sparked a light bulb moment for you, maybe thinking I got to work on this. And that's the idea here. Let's make it happen. Head over to speak to Pete and book an appointment with me if you'd like some help with it. Let's move you from being an operator buried in the daily grind to being an owner with a bird's eye view of your business from detail to dashboard like we talked about right? Until next time, keep balancing those priorities and practicing patience. It's not easy, but it's worth it. Fill out these two exercises. Take an hour after you listen to this episode and work on it. Now go and make it a great day.

Unknown: 9:08

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