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Better Business, Better Life – Issue 44
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As we head into another week, I take great pleasure in sharing my curated articles, tips & tools in a short read that will hopefully give you a few ‘aha’ moments as well as some laughter or joy. Most of all I hope it gives you pragmatic inspiration & helps you on your journey to doing what you love, with people you love, making a huge difference, being compensated appropriately with time to pursue other passions – #TheEOSLife.
Here’s this week’s business tip, life hack & find of the week… Some of them are original, most are things I have come across in my weekly pursuit of self-improvement & living a better life, through creating a better business. And don’t forget the inspirational quote, which you can download as a wallpaper or lock screen for your phone.
As always, if you find great things that you’d like to share then feel free to email me for inclusion in one of my weekly newsletters. I’m always looking for new & exciting things to share each week. And if you think someone else would like to receive the newsletter in their inbox, directly from my inbox (no newsletter apps used here!) then please let me know – debra@debrachantry-taylor.com
BETTER BUSINESS
What’s your Working Genius?
I am a MASSIVE Patrick Lencioni fangirl.
So when I heard he was going to be our guest speaker at the EOS Annual Conference for EOS Implementers, to say I was excited was an understatement.
And I was not disappointed. 2 hours of this genius man talking about organisational psychology, team work, & introducing his new Working Genius book & profiling tool, was pure GOLD. I have not laughed as much in ages plus the gems that I take from it will be with me for a long, long time.
The new Working Genius profiling tool, not surprisingly given its name, is about helping you to understand where your working genius lies.
I was listening to one of Dan Sullivan’s latest books, ‘Who not How’ & they shared a quote – “It’s not how many hours you spend doing what you live but how many hours you spend doing what you don’t love that matters”. Can’t remember who said that, but it resonated.
It’s because it’s this stuff that saps the energy out of you & makes your life a misery.
That’s why Dan says to find people (the Who) to do these things. Leaving you to focus on your genius or unique ability.
But first you need to know what your gifts are & then you need to make sure that you have a team that fills all the gaps.
Which is why this latest piece of work from Patrick Lencioni is so powerful – it helps you to understand what those gifts (Your working genius’) are.
“If you want to be successful and fulfilled in your work, you must tap into your gifts. That can’t happen if you don’t know what those gifts are.” –PATRICK LENCIONI, AUTHOR AND CREATOR OF THE SIX TYPES OF WORKING GENIUS
“Far too many people in the world suffer needlessly because they don’t understand their personal areas of working genius. As a result, they don’t do the kind of work that gives them joy and energy, and they end up in jobs and projects that are draining and demoralizing. This is a grave tragedy on two levels.
First, it leads those people to lose confidence in themselves and enthusiasm for life, which is devastating for them, their families and friends, and society as a whole. That alone is heart-breaking.
Second, organizations and teams–even families–that don’t tap into the true genius of their members can’t come close to realizing their potential. They are left puzzled by their inability to achieve their goals. This often leads them to make inaccurate and hurtful judgments about one another, and to feel unnecessarily guilty about their own shortcomings.
What makes all of this particularly tragic is that it is avoidable. The solution is for everyone–employees, managers, students and spouses–to identify their areas of working genius, as well as their areas of life-draining weakness, and to put themselves in a position to tap into their genius more and engage in their weakness less.
That is what this assessment is all about.”
Visit the website to undertake your assessment & if you’re up for it, get your team to do it too…
PS: Patrick is also speaking at the EOS conference for companies running on EOS, so if you get a chance I would highly recommend coming along, for that alone!
BETTER LIFE
Wine without the calories?
Those of you who know me, will know that I love a wine or two. In fact the saying on my workshop space wall is “Life is too short for shitty wine, shitty water or shitty coffee!”.
However, throughout the almost 300 days of lockdown in Auckland, wine became a closer friend than usual. In fact, you could say that we became a little but too familiar with each other.
What used to be an enjoyable glass of wine or two, became a regular daily event & that one or two glasses became 3, 4 or 5 & it became every night.
Drinking with such regularity is probably (ok, definitely!) not good for your health but combine this with my time in life/age & the extra eating that accompanied it, was not good for my waistline either – I think each week equated to a ~0.35kg addition ☹
I finally decided I needed to do something about it, now that we are back to just a ‘phantom’ lockdown.
I’m a food scientist & biochemist by trade so I know what I need to do, but actually doing it is something else!
So, I started researching… I didn’t want to give up wine completely but there had to be a better way? I had already tried switching it for spirits but the mixers mean you have just as many calories & who really enjoys the taste of sweeteners??
Did you know that one glass of wine has 627kJ and that’s for a standard pour (150ml) & if you’re like me my ‘standard’ pour is probably half of that again, then that’s almost 1,000kJ per glass. Take that up to even just 2-3 glasses & I’ve gone through half of my available kJ for the day… Before any food goes into my mouth!
I had tried alcohol free wine in the past but it was effectively sweet grape juice with none of the flavour, none of the effects of alcohol & just as much sugar (ie: kJ).
But now they have alcohol removed wine & my sister-in-law had recommended one for me to try, called ‘Plus and Minus’.
I bought some from online & gave it a try…. And I was pleasantly surprised.
It actually tastes like wine & it’s not as sweet as I had imagined it would be.
And so now I am on a mission to try them all & see how they are. Whilst I was in Whangarei this week I tried a Giesen 0% alcohol Sauvignon Blanc – it was actually pretty good. I drank the whole bottle 😊
I can’t imagine I will give up wine altogether but I really do think that much of it is just a habit – having that wine glass in hand so if I can switch to this for 5 or 6 days per week, I’m sure it will make a huge difference to my waistline, my health & my quality of sleep.
Here is where I bought my Plus and Minus from but they are stocked in a variety of places – just do a google search:
I haven’t tried the reds yet, but the rosé, the pinot grigio & the sparkling were all pretty drinkable.
I’ll let you know how the others go if you’re interested – just drop me an email & share.
FIND OF THE WEEK
Do you dream of work?
And if so, is it a wake up in a blind panic type of dream or is it more of a ‘how do I get better at what I do?’ sort of dream?
I have to be upfront & say that I have definitely had both. There were times when one of my businesses was failing when almost every night I would wake up & be unable to get back to sleep.
Fortunately these days I seem to have dream about how I can do my job better, what I can do for clients & just general, “Wouldn’t it be cool if?” type dreams.
So when I heard about the Movies, ‘Jiro dreams of Sushi’ & read its synopsis on Wikipedia, I was keen to watch it & I managed to convince Steve it was a good idea.
“Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a 2011 Japanese-language American documentary film directed by David Gelb.[2] The film follows Jiro Ono (小野 二郎, Ono Jirō), an 85-year-old sushi master and owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, previously a Michelin three-star restaurant. Sukiyabashi Jiro is a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant located in a Tokyo subway station. As of 2014, Jiro Ono serves a tasting menu of roughly 20 courses, for a minimum of ¥30,000 (US$270).[4]
The film also profiles Jiro’s two sons, both of whom are also sushi chefs. The younger son, Takashi (隆士), left Sukiyabashi Jiro to open a mirror image of his father’s restaurant in Roppongi Hills. The 50-year-old elder son, Yoshikazu (禎一), obliged to succeed his father, still works for Jiro and is faced with the prospect of one day taking over the flagship restaurant.
Despite being in Japanese with English subtitles & despite being a movie about work (which Steve is not as obsessed about as I am) – we both thoroughly enjoyed it!
And yes, I googled & Jiro is still alive & still working in the restaurant 😊
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE
“Choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius
You can download this wallpaper or lock screen for your phone.
NEED HELP?
If you’d like to learn more about any of these tools or would like to find out how I can help you achieve a better life through creating a better business, then book a free Discovery Call with me.
We’ll talk about what you want to get from your business & your life & come up with a plan to do that!
Debra Chantry-Taylor
Certified EOS Implementer | Accredited Family Business Advisor | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Speaker & Workshop Facilitator