Island of Java – One ThingFRIDAY, MARCH 20TH, 2009
The following story comes out of the lore of the Island of Java. I’ve borrowed this story from Eric Butterworth’s book, Discover the Power Within You.
A young man spied a beautiful girl on the highroad and followed her for a mile. Finally she turned and demanded, "Why do you dog my footsteps?" He declared feverishly, "Because you are the loveliest thing I have ever seen and I have fallen madly in love with you at sight. Be mine!" The girl replied, "But you have merely to look behind you to see my young sister who is ten times more beautiful than I am." The gallant swain wheeled about and his gaze fell on as homely a girl as could be found in Java. "What mockery is this?" he demanded of the girl. "You lied to me!" "So did you," she replied. "If you were so madly in love with me, why did you turn around?"
In most cases determining our priorities is not so much a case that we don’t know what to do; it’s that we simply don’t do it. We’re like the young man who is intent on winning the beautiful girl, when something comes along to distract that we feel is more important, and off we go. How powerful are our intentions? What are our top priorities? Are we truly committed to them? In time management we provide a tool for you to use to determine your top priorities everyday immediately at the conclusion of your day, before going home, or immediately before you start your actual work day.
Time management is still important but as we’ve moved from the industrial age to the information age, now it is about brains, and using them to their fullest extent.
It is important to recognize that just determining what your priorities are alone will not get you the results you want. You have to devote time and attention to them as well. That means setting aside critical time when you are at your best and will be free from interruptions to concentrate fully on your number one priority.
Pat Lencioni in his book The Five Temptations of a CEO, observed that teamwork remains the ultimate competitive advantage, because it is so powerful and so rare. He points out that if you can get an organization rowing in the same direction you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time. Your job as CEO of your business is to define not only your top priority but the top priority for your business to concentrate on.
As Gazelles Coaches [Mastering the Rockefeller Habits] we recognize the value of having a vision and a strategy, yet without alignment and communication of that vision it has no power. In fact it’s about 1% vision and 99% alignment. Once the vision is agreed upon making it a priority throughout your organization provides the empowerment needed to do the right things right.
In the next several blogs I’m going to provide examples from my clients how identifying their ONE THING helped them achieve remarkable success. Continually the person and businesses that determine their top priorities and then concentrate their attention on achieving it eventually breakthrough and accomplish what they set their minds to.
It is my sincere hope that the stories that will follow on finding and achieving your ONE THING will motivate you to discover yours as well.
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