Good Business Leadership Flow and the Making of Meaning: 10 Incredible Steps to Possibility

“What I want most right now is to experience being in ‘flow’ in my business and in my life: is that possible and can you show me how to get there?”

I hear this statement, question, and request every week in some different form. I hear this from everyone ranging from very successful business owners who have made it by every measure possible in business to people who are just starting out in their careers or in their new business venture.

“Am I the only one asking?”

I feel it is important to understand how normal this searching and questioning is. Part of the reason for the question and the request is to be reassured of the sanity and validity for making such a request or asking such a question. The answer is “Yes –it is more than normal, sane and valid – it is arguably part of being human to want this state of ‘flow’”. These are questions that tend to be marginalized in our mad rush to produce results; we tend to put the mad rush before ourselves – so we begin to feel marginalized ourselves.

Is it possible and can I show you how to get there?

The answer is again “Yes”, but there are several investments you must make:

1. There needs to be a more poetic approach to creating your mission and vision for both your life and business
2. This poetic approach must give you a compelling reason to put in the often-uncomfortable work of redesigning structures and systems to ensure ‘flow’
3. This poetic approach will require patience, dialogue, and testing – the testing is done very frequently to assess that the mission or vision you have is providing a guiding post for clearly selecting your short-term actions and outcomes. The frequent testing enables fine-tuning your mission or vision statement to concisely become your daily and moment-to-moment anchor especially in times of crisis – so your mission or vision statement becomes alive, useful, and vital
4. As you can tell, this work may not be for everyone. It requires a mature willingness and a determination to have a discipline that energizes and enlivens
5. This poetry must carry over to the practical strategy and tactical planning/scheduling
6. The strategy and tactical planning should be considered as part of the ecology of your life and business rather than a tolerated component – not separate from the vision or mission
7. The personal and business transformation will require the embracing of this entire ecology – poetry, mission, vision, strategy, tactical, structures, and systems.
8. Resistance to embracing all of these is normal and will require patience and discipline – trying to force change all of a sudden will not be effective
9. Prepare to be and feel stumped – this is the nature of breakthroughs; you will feel stuck and feel like giving up – but it is the act of pushing through this and staying in the dialogue that will enable insights, clarity, and breakthroughs
10. The path to breakthroughs will be strewn with failures

The frequent testing and dialogue will enable the quicker conversion of failures into lessons; lessons into corrections you are willing to make; course corrections will collectively become breakthroughs over time.

I have given you a pathway. The beauty is in the details. The details require dialogue.

Are you ready for this dialogue to create flow?

Contact me or follow me on Linkedin for more hot tips on how to create flow in your life and business.