How Do You Want Your Circle?

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a podcast with a longevity expert, and he was explaining his framework - something like “Five Focuses to be Healthy to One Hundred” - and he gave tips on optimizing your health through optimized diet, regular exercise, spirituality (especially regular meditation and/or prayer), pursuing a life vision, and building strong relationships.  

Seems pretty practical to me, and when I hear something like this I almost immediately begin to visualize - like I’m on a white board in my head - and I imagined how strong each 20% wedge is in my “Healthy to One Hundred” circle.  I’m going to walk through that thought exercise a bit in today’s blog, and mix in some learnings from a Founded in FOCO talk from a similar perspective, and hopefully leave you with some ABC’s and 123’s to help round out your circles in life.

But first, back to me, and my self-evaluation for health and longevity.  Diet - hmmm - maybe 70% optimized - lean meats, lots of salads, few grains, very little sugar - except what I get in my alcohol, too much coffee.  Exercise - let’s call it irregular - some weeks 3x in the gym plus some walking and biking - and some weeks I miss the gym altogether but I always get lots of steps - we’ll call it 60% optimized.  

Spirituality - I’ve slipped a bit here TBH - In the past, I’ve used guided and non-guided meditations to help get to sleep, but my habit now is to play a podcast with a monotonous voice like Lex Fridman or Jonathan Pageau.  I do take at least 5 minutes for reflections on my day each morning, ending with a prayer, and we go to church (some), and do First 5 devotions a few times a week - let’s call it 55% optimized. Room to grow.  Life Vision - I think, pretty strong - at least as it pertains to LoCo Think Tank - and Jill and I spend time annually planning for the year ahead and beyond - maybe 75% optimized?  

Strong Relationships - hmmm - this is an interesting one to gauge.  I’ve got a strong core, with a 20+ year marriage and family nearby, and close long-term friends and neighbors, and I think strong relationships with my HQ team and facilitators.  And - I’ve got LOTS of relationships - between LoCo members and past podcast guests and Rotary and Chamber and Realities for Children and all my other contacts in the community there are hundreds and hundreds of relationships in my life.  But/and - too many of them feel neglected, and I don’t have an organized system of staying in touch with them - even those that pay a monthly membership fee.  I have a system that could organize my outreach - but I don’t use it well.  Let’s call it 70% on the strong relationships measure.  

So, on the average, I’m floating in the mid-60% range in my self evaluation, and this reminds me of our recent work implementing EOS - the Entrepreneur’s Operating System.  Similarly to my imagined circle with five wedges, the EOS Model is visualized as a circle, with your business being at the center, and six wedges instead of 5.  At the top is Vision, and then Data, Process, Traction, Issues, and People.  If a business is operating in the 80% percentile or above in each category, so the theory goes, you will soon find yourself in the top 5% of operating businesses as far as results and profitability are concerned - at least for your industry.  The exercises and hard work of making progress in each category are built into the EOS framework - so if you do the work - and you’ve got the right people - you’ll make progress toward your goals.  

But what do you do when there is no framework?  

Well, I’m sure you can find one if you like.  There are thousands of self-help book titles out there in the cosmos, many of which will provide at least some level of framework, but I’d like to pass along a psychological hack that I snared from a talk at Founded in FOCO.  Brad Cooper is a PhD with multiple supporting degrees, and he’s both a high performance athlete as well as a coach for athletes and CEO’s looking to maximize their performance.  In his recent talk, he spoke about the need to reserve your resiliency and mental toughness for the actually hard challenges, and to do so through the use of ABC’s - Automatic Better Choices.  

To apply this to my self-evaluation from earlier, all we have to do is make decisions - and then stick to them!  On the diet front, if I decide that I never have more than two cups of coffee in the morning, and never drink coffee after 2 pm - I don’t have to decide about that third cup of coffee, or the 4 o’clock cup - I don’t do that!  If I decide that I always go to the gym at 6 am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays - I don’t have to decide whether or not to go to the gym on Friday morning - I go!  And I don’t have to decide whether to go to the gym on Tuesday morning either - that’s an off day!  If I decide to get back into gratitude journaling as part of my spiritual development, and I reserve time to do that on Tuesday and Thursday mornings - I don’t have to decide whether or not to write those mornings, the choice has been made and the action is automatic!  

Now mind you, I haven’t implemented this ABC system yet, at least not much, I’m just kinda noodling it with you today.  But I do see the merit in taking some of the decisions off my plate on a daily and weekly basis.  It’s the same logic that Steve Jobs used when choosing his outfit each morning - he didn’t!  He wore a black mock turtleneck and blue jeans.  Done and done, no thinking necessary!  

But Curt - sometimes I make decisions about my life, or my business, and then I don’t do them because it’s hard or I’m scared to change!  Yeah - me too.  But we got an app for that also, it’s called positive peer pressure - and that’s where I’m dropping in my 123’s with my ABC’s.  The 123’s is in reference to our process for joining a LoCo Think Tank peer advisory chapter - we call it “3 Thumbs Up”.  

First, prospective members connect with me to learn more about the experience, and share with me about their business history, plans for the future, and an honest self-assessment of the owner’s strengths and weaknesses as a business leader, and what they’d be looking to get out of chapter membership.  If we’re still headed in the same direction, (the first thumbs up) the prospect and I decide on a target chapter, and I forward the prospect application to the facilitator of that chapter.  The prospect and facilitator connect from there, learn more about one another and the chapter members at the table, and if we’re still moving forward (the second thumbs up), the facilitator invites the prospect to visit a chapter meeting.  

At LoCo, we say the chapter owns the chapter, and so that third thumbs up must come from the existing chapter members. Once they’ve met the prospect and had a chance to vet them for business acumen and culture fit - the chapter grants the thumbs up and invitation to join (if unanimous), and if they accept the prospect becomes a full member of the chapter at the next meeting.  

And then what?

Well, they work out their challenges and process their opportunities within a larger circle of trust, which carries more brainpower and perspective than the individual self-evaluation and optimization circles we started with.  At LoCo, each circle of trust (chapter) we build has its own character, and though we offer chapters for solo operators all the way up to middle market CEO’s, the promises to our members are always the same.

Your facilitator will be passionate about business and community, and will have a track record in business that represents a successful journey to the members of the chapter.  Your fellow members will be operators of non-competing businesses of similar scale and complexity.  There will be a diversity of perspective and personality and experience in the room, and each member will bring and share their special sauce in the chapter meetings.  You can expect objective and confidential feedback from your chapter, and will come to understand yourself and your business at a whole new level over time.  

And so - how do you want your circle?  How big and how round, and what is your target optimization percentage for each of your wedges?  What is your vision for your business growth and development, and how does that play into your life vision, and does it also impact your diet and exercise habits?  So many questions and decisions in the life of an entrepreneur, but each can be made easier if you apply the ABC’s and 123’s.  

Curious to learn more - look me up! - and thanks for reading.