Welcome to our weekly entrepreneur newsletter! If you are new and would like to check out any prior editions, click here! And feel free to reach out to us with any suggestions, questions, or feedback. On to today’s topic!
As a kid, I joined in a game one time where we were asked to walk along a line drawn in the grass that formed a large circle. The challenge was, however, that when it was our turn, we were blindfolded. Our goal was to walk in the circle as accurately as possible, and the person who most closely followed the line won the game. I was determined to win! I soon realized, though, how incredibly hard it was to follow a line that I couldn’t see and create a shape that I could easily envision in my mind, but was difficult to translate into real life.
I believe that the same challenge occurs quite often among entrepreneurs. Everyone starts a business with a dream or vision of what they want and hope to accomplish with their new creation. They can see what kind of lifestyle they want their business to enable them to live. We often (and should) dream very big. But how many of us are currently achieving that dream, or living that lifestyle that we envisioned when we started? Not enough. There are many things that can be done to help lead entrepreneurs along the right path toward building a thriving business, but we wanted to focus today on one of the most fundamental and also most important elements, essential to the foundation of every healthy business: defining our vision and living in harmony with our core values. In the “Pumpkin Plan” world, we also refer to core values as “Immutable Laws” or the rules of our lives. To quote a part of the Pumpkin Plan coaching resource guide we provide to our clients: “Immutable laws are the rules we have defined for ourselves, almost subconsciously, on what is right and what is wrong. What is acceptable and what is not. What makes you happy, and what doesn’t. They are with you for life and they barely ever change.”.
Have you ever known someone that is driven to succeed so much that they are willing to be anyone to anybody? They will accept any client, even if that client is difficult, rude, or dishonest. Or maybe you’ve had a co-worker or friend who is a work-a-holic, who sacrifices all their time, energy, and focus for their career and making money, leaving their family in the dust? On the other hand, how many people have we seen on their deathbed express that they wished they would have worked more or stayed longer in the office each day? I would guess it’s close to zero. I would also guess that most of us probably don’t start our business hoping that we will work 80+ hours per week. So why do so many of us end up there anyway? In our experience, we have come to realize that many entrepreneurs, in an effort to “save” their businesses, lose sight of the things that matter most to them, their why for being in business. In other words, their vision for who they wanted to be and what they wanted to achieve with their business got warped along the way. And as a result, they are inevitably not living in harmony with their core values, and are probably not even able to tell you what they are. We also believe this is one of the reasons so many businesses struggle to thrive.
We have found that when entrepreneurs work sincerely on identifying and articulating the vision they have for their life and business, and also defining and living in harmony with their core values or immutable laws, these entrepreneurs put themselves on a path to greater personal and professional success and fulfillment.
I recently found a real life example of how this can work when reading a blog post on the official Pumpkin Plan website. I think you would benefit from it as well. Click Here to access the post.
Why did you become an entrepreneur? We often hear the response, “To become rich” or “I want to become a millionaire”. While these are great goals, we want to dig deeper. We want to understand the real “why” for starting your business. What do you want to do in your life? What gives you meaning? What impact do you want to have on your friends, family, or the world? I believe it would be valuable to really ponder on these questions this week. These are the first steps to identifying and achieving your vision for your life and business (and these don’t have to be separate. Your business is an extension of you!).
Connected to part of our vision are our core values. There are many ways to identify and begin to articulate our unique core values (or immutable laws). As we know, these are part of us and they rarely ever change. The key here is identifying them and making them part of our conscious goals and habits. One of the most helpful and inspiring books we’ve read is “7 Habits of Highly Effective People“. This book focuses a great deal on helping us identify and live in harmony with our core values and shows how that contributes to living an effective life. If this isn’t on your reading list, we’d definitely recommend it!
In the Pumpkin Plan program, we often also take another approach to this. We encourage our clients to start paying attention to your emotions. Every time something triggers strong negative emotions (like anger), ignore what triggered it for a moment and think about what rule of yours has been broken. Similarly, when you feel strong positive emotion (like giddiness) think about why that incident made you feel good. Those inner thoughts and feelings are your Immutable Laws. Once you have been able to find your immutable laws, write them down, tell your team and clients about them, post them on your website, and most importantlymake them the rules your business lives by.
We have seen time and again that when we focus our life and business on our vision and core values, our overall effectiveness and success begins to increase. You will hire employees that align with our core values, who therefore provide the same level of care and quality to your clients as you would. You also start to attract clients who have similar values and see your value much more effectively. You will stop focusing on things that don’t really matter in the end and really just distract you from what does matter. You will feel energized and motivated every day because you are actively working toward your “why” for getting into business in the first place. The resulting growth will be explosive!
I hope this has given you something to think about over the next few days! If you have any questions or would like any support as you work on finding your vision and immutable laws, don’t hesitate to reach out via email or set up a call with us by clicking here!
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
Adam Litster
Certified Profit First Professional and Pumpkin Plan Strategist
(816) 500-5779
