And I knew I had to figure out just why that was.
As usual, the answers came to me during one of the daily hikes I take in the high desert mountains behind my house.
These hikes generally last somewhere around 2 hours, the 1st hour composed of a fairly arduous climb up an ascent that most likely tops out at somewhere around 1000 maybe 1200 feet or so, and so the climb is sufficiently aerobic for both sweat and deep thinking.
And I am alone; my company for the hikes are my 2 dogs, only very rarely do I have human company...
like once per year.
It is during these times that I can figure out feelings that make no sense; such as wishing for time to organize, train, develop systems and then feeling bummed when I get the time due to alull in orders, to get the time to do what I knew had to be done.
I realized that the lure of frantic or frenetic activity lies in its very nature: When we are frantically busy, we tend to slip into a more or less automatic mode- one that I call brainless.
The reason that it is seductive is that it's comfortable- we don't need to think.
Weonly have to keep going, doing, producing whatever we have trained ourselves to do...
like the energizer bunny.
But when we stop, we are forced to get re-acquainted with ourselves.
And to ask questions which may be uncomfortable.
Dangerous questions like these:
- Is this what I really want to be doing?
- Is this the work that I choose to do?
- Where do I need to improve?
- What are the current flaws in our systems?
- How can I make them better?
- How adequate is the training program for my team members?
- How can I deliver more value to my customer?
If we don't stop and spend our precious time on these questions and many others like them, we'll not be in business next year or the next.