In looking for a successful 2024, here's a list of my top strategies ... or seeds to plant ... to help each of us become more successful business people. It may be no surprise that they will also help us be more thoughtful and caring humans.
#1 Prioritize mental healthcare in your life and for your team.
The single largest productivity gain staring us in the face is not technology, robots, layoffs, or new manufacturing methods. It is improving the mental health of ourselves and our workforce. Do this, and you can, and will, unleash a massive productivity gain. Smart business is built in a mentally healthy environment and in collaboration with every single member of your team. When your team excels, the company excels. That’s real business innovation.
For more, read my blog, “The Largest Productivity Gain Most Companies are Missing,” and watch my Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit keynote address, “Creating Value by Prioritizing Mental Health at Work.”
#2 Know what YOU need and get it.
Map out your life and your schedule, and how you spend your time on your terms. If alone time is what fills your cup, then create, actually demand, that alone time. If there is someone or something that is sapping your energy when you are around them, or even not around them, then damn it, make the change, learn the polite but hardcore “no,” and jettison them, or it, from your life. You will create a world that fulfills you without all the excess that doesn’t. Cut out, delete, minimize the useless stuff and focus on YOUR “All,” what matters most to you.
More details on how I work to manage my time so I can have my “All” at “Creating Your Own Personal Productivity Map” and “Go Your Way.”
#3 Learn to listen more and talk less.
Most entrepreneurs can work on their listening capacity. If you are one of those people who interrupts all the time… or feels anxious/impatient when others are talking, just waiting to get your point made… you are likely a poor listener and what I call an “expert responder.” Essentially, you are hearing what is being said while preparing your response. Listen to listen instead of listening to respond. If you think you’re a great multi-tasker who is deeply listening and simultaneously formulating a brilliant response, you are wrong, and you are missing the value created when you truly listen to listen, and absorb, and only after that, determining if a response is warranted and value-added.
Consider how you can work on your listening skills by reading “Develop the Capacity to Listen, Not Just Hear” and “An Argument Against Multi-Tasking: The Jog That Restructured Our Company.”
#4 Love.
In my business, the people who continue to succeed, the ones who can move through even the trickiest quicksand and keep going and growing, have a common capability that isn’t grit, resilience, work ethic, or talent. It’s the ability to love and be loved. Sure, I know there are winners in business who love no one but themselves and are substantially dysfunctional with relationships, but these folks are the exception not the rule. So, I’d theorize to ignore the Musk’s and Trump’s of the business world and know that the data tells us those who can lead with a balance of head and heart are more likely to win long term.
Explore more at “What Predicts Success?”
#5 Do the work and tell the truth.
An opposing and wiser view to the typical fake it till you make it biz paradigm. The real key to creating winning, impressive careers for yourself and your team is to stop faking anything. Dig deep. Do the work, which includes leaning into the pain and hardship when you make mistakes or aren’t good enough. Don’t try to fool yourself or those around you. Be honest with yourself and others and strive to be better. Every single day.
Read a smidge more on my blog, “Fake It Till You Make It: Worst Idea Ever.”
#6 Become a more conscious capitalist.
It is NOT all about the Benjamins. When profit is your sole stakeholder, your north star, your moral code, you run the risk of destroying yourself, your career, and your profit.
For the how and why, check out “The Capitalist’s Journey to Consciousness: Lessons from the Yellow Brick Road.”
#7 And yes, ‘f-in UNPLUG from all the devices that buzz, vibrate, and bleep at you, including your Apple watch.
This also means removing them from your view. Even facedown, your phone is calling for your attention. YOU decide when to check for emails, texts, and voicemails. Everyone needs to have a plan, a personal system, to manage their smartphone use.
Read more about how to break up with your phone or at least reduce your phone addiction/compulsion at my blogs, “Who’s the Tool? You or Your Smartphone” and “Nine Steps to Making Your Smartphone Your Tool… Not the Other Way Around.”