Start with the end in mind!

Recently a good friend of mine asked me what I would see as the most influential personal development book I’ve read. Gee, that is a tough question, because there are so many great books out there.

Still after a moment’s hesitation I thought back to the “7 habits of highly effective people” by Dr. Steven Covey. There are many gems in that book and just by referring to some of the chapter headlines you remember those.

For instance is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” a classic for every consultant and coach.

How often do we all listen only with one ear? And while your client is still talking we form a response in our head thinking… “yep, I know exactly where this is heading, and here is my response…”.

And here is another classic one from Dr. Covey: “Start with the end in mind.

Today is the first day / first week of the new financial year.
 
Do you remember how stressed you were the last few days of last week?
Did you even work on the weekend to sort things out?
Did you say “good-bye” to your family four weeks ago, because EOFY means long hours and total stress each year?
 
How about you do not go back to business as usual and think about how you would like to end the financial year in June 2020?
 
Wouldn’t it be nice to sort things out now?
Wouldn’t it be nice to lay the foundation for this financial year now?
So that in June 2020 you just press a few buttons and the analysis of your sales, costs and profits is done automatically and stress-free!
 
On Thursday last week I was driving to a meeting and an acquaintance called me. We met more than five years ago at a polo match. He asked me whether I’d remember him and I quoted that very polo match. He then said “I was thinking of you for the last two years. I finally came to the conclusion that I need help. Instead of having time to analyse the data and taking action I am busy on a weekly or fortnightly basis to collect the data in the first place. It’s driving me crazy.”
 
He’s not alone. You would not believe in how many companies all around Australia highly paid managers are copying data from one spreadsheet to another or from one data-source into Excel so that they can have a dashboard with meaningful information at their fingertips.
 
Maybe you are one of them.
 
Now is the time to act.
 
Start the FY 2020 with the end in mind and let’s structure, systemise and automate your data with German precision now.
 
Call me and I can guarantee you that you will be very happy that you’ve taken action.
Here’s a link to my calendar

Looking forward to hearing from you so that we can sharpen your saw.