TFC #07 - From Overwhelmed to Thriving: Lessons From Genesis 1

It's a scene all too familiar for small business owners: endless hours spent buried in the day-to-day operations of their company, leaving little time to envision new possibilities or effectively communicate their ideas.

The harsh truth is that many owners are working themselves to the bone, sacrificing their personal lives and creative potential in exchange for fleeting moments of success that may or may not happen.

It's time to break free from the shackles of working in your business and start working on your business.

Note: This is not in my typical type of content but I have been having a lot of conversations on this lately and so I dug in to this topic last week and wanted to share it with you.

The Source of Truth

Genesis 1 is a powerful chapter. It contains the first thing God tells us about himself.

He is a Creator.

We know He is all-powerful, sovereign, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. However, He didn't tell us that first.

He told us he is a Creator that likes to create things and be creative.

What does that mean for us?

He made us in His image. Image doesn't necessarily mean the physical image but rather the reality of Him.

We are much more than a creation or a creature. He did all of those things first, he created the heavens, the earth, the animals, and the rest of creation.

When he got to us, He created us in His image, as creators.

I recently heard someone define their purpose this way.

My creative space could be leading, teaching, business operation, problem solving and many other things.

So when I see the verse in Genesis 1:28 telling me to be fruitful, I want to do the best I can to make use of my creative skillset and serve others with it.

A lot of you reading this are business owners or managing people in some form or other. God has given you a unique calling to serve people with your business and lead others.

So the question is, are you fruitful?

If not.

What can we do?

Practical Steps

Look at Genesis 1:26 here:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

This is a lot different then "let there be light, and there was light".

He listed out the process for us to learn from practically.

1. Vision/Imagination

2. Communication/Teaching

3. Unification/Management

4. Implementation/Doing the work

God said Let us make man, in verse 26, but He didn't actually form man from dust until Genesis 2:7.

In other words, God had the vision for man, he communicated that vision, he unified in saying let US make man, and then finally he implemented his idea by forming man.

So how is this practical or what does this mean?

First off, I will say this to illustrate my point further, I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of cabinetshop owners through my work with Cabentry software and helping shops with Cabinet Vision and CNC machines.

Out of all of the shops I have met, only a handful stand out to me as truly thriving and profitable businesses.

The huge majority have stressed out owners that are frantically going through each day doing "implementation" work. They are so busy with this work that they don't have time to imagine and put out a vision for the company. The don't have time to improve the business systems and look for new opportunities to grow the business.

Worst of all, they work really really hard and are not as profitable as other business owners.

It is our tendency to just rush in and worker harder. Hence, the reason most of us work long days and feel like we have accomplished nothing.

We are trying to work in the wrong order. We can't start with implementation.

Another reason some of us do this is because we feel guilty if we are not working every hour of the day and we are worried our employees will not want to work for us.

Of these 4 steps, the top 3 are the ones that require highly valuable skills. You don't need to feel guilty for stepping back and allowing time for you to work on improving the business.

1. Vision/Imagination

2. Communication/Teaching

3. Unification/Management

4. Implementation/Doing the work

If you can relate with being overran with day to day tasks, and want to get back in control of your business's future, I want to give you a simple challenge to get started.

1. Delegate one simple task you do on a regular basis to one of your employees.

2. Block time off in your calendar to focus specifically on vision and communication. (try 1 full undistracted hour per week at a minimum to get started)

3. Keep a physical notepad of ideas you come up.

That might seem like a weird thing to do, but you will be amazed at what can happen when you invest time into to finding creative ways to your business better.

So what kind of ideas should I be coming up with?

Each person will have their own ideas, but here are a couple of questions to get started.

• What is my goal this year? (more time, more profit, more output)

• What are things I can do to reach that goal? (find new customers, launch new product line, increase efficiency, better incentivize employees)

• Are there any repetitious tasks that could be automated? (marketing, sales, accounting, manufacturing)

• What do I see other shops doing? Can I learn anything from them?

• What exactly does my business provide for the marketplace and what makes us unique?

• Are there any creative ways I can use my manufacturing facility to add additional revenue?

You're probably going to start at a blank piece of paper for awhile and start thinking you are not a creative person, but I encourage you to write down your ideas, even the ones that seems unrelated, impossible or out of reach.

In a few weeks time, you will have an actionable set of ideas to work with to help you hone in on exactly how you can improve your business. I believe you will also recognize the importance of it and start setting aside more time for this as time goes on.

I used to think I was not creative and that I was best at just working behind the scenes and getting things done. Crazy thing is, I started writing, documenting my thoughts, and making videos, and you know what... My first few pieces of content were admittingly not great, but I'm getting better with everything that I create because I am able to recognize the creative nature God put inside of me to help serve other people.

Creativity comes out in unique ways for each of us. So don't think you're not creative because your thoughts don't match with what someone else is doing.

We must recognize the importance of working on their business instead of solely working in it. As business owners, we were created to be creative and make the world a better place.

However, we can only do that if we take the time to imagine new possibilities, effectively communicate our ideas, and implement a vision.

So let's step out, be creative, and lead our businesses towards success.