How Leaders Achieve Clarity in a Foggy World

Like driving a car through a heavy fog, the road ahead can elude us. In this episode (#54) of The Tech Leader's Toolbox podcast, Paul Simkins talks about four things you can do to attain and maintain greater clarity.

Plus, a great recipe for Grilled Brisket and Cheese Sandwich. And if you have a favorite outdoor cooking recipe you would like to share, send it to paul@BoldlyLead.com. If we put it in an episode we'll let you know and give you credit for it on the show.

You can get a copy of Paul's eBook 15 Innovative Ways to Show Employees You Care and Not Break the Bank by emailing him at paul@BoldlyLead.com.

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Transcript

Producer: 0:00

The tech leaders toolbox podcast is brought to you by Paul Simkins and the bully LEAD program, focusing on helping tech leaders like you, and the frustration of low performing teams, and losing excellent employees, so they can increase productivity by 50%. Go home on time, and sleep better at night.

Paul Simkins: 0:23

Hello, and welcome to the tech leaders toolbox. I'm Paul Simkins. And we're here because how you lead today determines how your team succeeds tomorrow. This is Episode 54 of the podcast. If you've ever driven a car, you have likely had the experience of driving through heavy fog. Now, down here in Florida, we get fog. And it's not as bad as it is in other places. But there's been days where there has been fog, especially in the middle and areas where the fog is so heavy that you can barely see 50 feet in front of you maybe even 10 feet in front of you. And when you're driving through that, it's hard to know where you're going. Have you ever felt like that with your business as well? Well, today, we're going to talk about some things to help you gain more clarity. Plus, I have a great outdoor recipe on tap is going to be a great grilled cheese recipe for meat lovers. Are you ready? Let's go. building a business, building a career, building a life can feel a lot like you're going through a fog. And in fact, that's precisely the problem for many people. They spend their time trying to navigate through fog, no examples, you have a businessman with no real direction, who leaps at the next new thing and offers to offer in hopes of profits to turn the business around. For the person who goes all in to the next guaranteed scheme that's going to make them millions instantly? How many people know somebody like that? Right? They're always jumping on this, oh, this is gonna get rich quick, this is gonna get me. You have the guy or girl who obsesses over the next person they meet that they think will truly make them happy. And that is one of the most dangerous ones because it creates dangerous relationships, and dangerous results when it doesn't pan out. See, many people will make decisions when things aren't going well. They look for relief in the despair of the valley. So this is you know, this is something I remember from one of my mentors, john C. Maxwell, he talks about this, that people look for relief in the despair of the valley, instead of waiting for the clarity that comes from being on the mountaintop. And when you're experiencing the darkness of the valley, it's always tempting to make changes that you hope will relieve the discomfort. In other words, when we are at our most discomfort, or highest levels of discomfort, we will sometimes go out of our way to try to become comfortable again, even to the point of making irrational Decisions, decisions that we would never even come close to making in any other kind of situation, but will make them during those moments of extreme discomfort in the hopes that we can become comfortable again. And what happens many times is that people try to navigate through heavy fog that we talked about, and in desperation, tend to do one of two things. They either do nothing. Or they sit there and think for example, if you're in a heavy fog, and you just stop your car on the highway, because the fog is so heavy and you do nothing. Well, as you might guess, that's not exactly a formula for success. It's not moving you forward. And in fact, it's putting you in great danger because you've got a good chance of getting run over. The other thing that people do as an alternative is instead of doing nothing, they'll simply leap at the first thing that seems to promise any kind of an immediate return. And when I think in the business world of this one of the biggest examples I've think of this is that during times of stress, and this happened back in the nut back in the 90s and early in 2000 when we had some economic laws that the first thing organizations do is they jump at layoffs making layoffs that because we're having a downtime and economic downtime, then the first thing to do is is trim the fat and for some reason They think the fat are the people that are actually doing the job and producing the product and serving the customers. And there's the ones who go, again, this happened around 2007 2006 are actually closer to 2010. I believe it was. Back in 2010. We're having an economic downturn and many, many organizations had large numbers of layoffs. A lot of smaller businesses look to get, you know, get rid of most of their staff, and overworked the ones that are there saying, hey, you're just going to have to double down and things just it just tumbled down like that. And it's the irrational decision that they jumped immediately at for immediate relief, thinking that layoffs were the solution. Now, now, don't get me wrong. There are times where layoffs can be unavoidable for a variety of reasons. But it's not our first option. And in fact, it's, it's typically should be our very last resort. And here's something else you need to know about layoffs. If you are in a situation where you need to have a layoff, and all likelihood, it is because the leaders made the mistake. Somewhere along the lines, we didn't see far enough ahead, to be able to prepare and navigate for it. Or we were so short sighted that we seek immediate relief from something instead of looking for ways we can seize the opportunity and maximize it. so successful, successful people have clarity in where they're going, clarity and what they want clarity in the path to move forward. And when that path becomes foggy, they've anticipated that and they are taking steps to navigate their way through the fog, avoiding making the irrational decisions. Knowing that somewhere along the way, the path is going to clear up for them. And they joyfully proceed on their journey. And the path they're following it may wind the hills may seem steep at times the road get rocky on occasion. And of course, fog will seep in every now and then. But they forge ahead with the determination because they can see where they're going. So how do you achieve this level of clarity in your business or in your life? I've noticed four key elements to the successful people that helped them achieve clarity and be able to forge ahead. And the first thing is that they know what their core values are. They know what they stand for. So when it comes to time to make decisions, everything they do, every decision they make every bit of planning. Everything revolves around those core values. Those core values are the one thing that they are not going to sacrifice, no matter what it's the non negotiables of their life or their organization. It's the very core and it factors into every decision they make everything they do. So honesty is a key core value integrity is a key core value. And if you want to integrate those kinds of values in everything you do, it makes your decisions easier. I've often used the quote before from actually Roy Disney who says making decisions are easy when you know what your values are. So successful people know what their core values are. The second thing is they define their purpose. What they are driven to do what they want to accomplish, where it is they want to end up, they always have a very strong vision of where they want to end up. The road to get there is not always clear. There are some things you just can't anticipate, no matter what nobody really anticipated, are getting hit with a virus so severe that it will upset the global economy

Unknown: 9:52

for a year

Paul Simkins: 9:55

will result in 1000s 10s hundreds of 1000s of deaths. Maybe I think actually millions of deaths around the world. Nobody anticipated that. Know what you're driven to do know what you want to accomplish. Successful people know their purpose. They also visualize the end of the road again, they see where it is that they're trying to go. Sometimes when you're in that fog, all you can think about is the next 10 feet in front of you. But you know that you're on the road, because you're trying to go somewhere, you have to know where that end of the road leads. And finally, they keep an eye on the path in front of them. Because this is where you're going to encounter those rocky roads. It's where you're going to spend all your time looking ahead, the roadblocks in front of you may stop you before you can get there, if you're not paying attention. So just remember, overall, it's not the problems that make your life so special. It's the clarity you get when you are determined to see your way through it. We'll be back in a moment.

Producer: 11:12

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Paul Simkins: 11:41

All right, so again, this part of the show I always like to share because of my love for outdoor cooking. I love it so much do smoker I have a grill, I have Dutch ovens and I do a lot of cooking over open fire. I love to do that kind of stuff. And I love it so much. I actually created a Facebook group called smoke indash. And me and all my friends we hang out there and we invite you to come and join us as well whether you're whether you're an experienced outdoor cooker, or it's just something that interests you or you're new or you just like hearing about recipes, come out and join us on the smoking dash Facebook group. And during the show here I always like to share an outdoor cooking recipe. Most of them are something that I've tried before and had success with. And, and so a lot of the recipes that I share if you're not into outdoor cooking well that's okay, you can do this inside as well on a stove or in an oven. And this one today I think you're really going to enjoy. This is a grilled brisket and cheese recipe. Oh, this is just so good. And so for what you're going to need for this of course, is you're going to need a barbecue brisket. So it needs to be already cooked barbecued brisket, it can be sliced or it can be shredded either way. And you want some thick sliced bread. You know again, don't get your standard, buy it in the store, you know, like Wonder Bread or anything like that you want something a little thicker sliced. And then you're going to want some kind of a sweet savory spread. I like bacon jam. That's something new for me I got introduced to it actually, I wasn't even didn't even know it was a thing and my daughter gave me a jar of it for as a Christmas present. Bacon jam and Oh, that's good. It's got again, that combination of sweet and savory to it. And you're going to want some of that. And then you're going to want sliced cheddar cheese and sliced grilled cheese. And then I like for this if Do you like to use spreadable butter. So the first thing you want to do is again, you want to take your smoked brisket and you need to be if it's not already sliced or shredded, you're going to cut it into half inch slices. If it's tender yet still firm enough to cut otherwise just shred the meat. Then using a spreader knife, you're going to put a layer of the sweet savory spread bacon jam or whatever. Put that on one side of two slices of bread for each serving that you're going to do. Then you're going to put one slice of cheddar on one piece of bread slices graer on the other. You're going to put two to three slices of the brisket on top of the cheese on one slice of the bread. Place the other one on top of course where you're making a sandwich right and then spread butter, a thin layer of butter on one side of the of the sandwich mmediately placed that on the grill with the butter side down. Butter the other side while you're waiting about you want your grill to be at about medium high heat. And again, you're going to grill on the one side until it gets a nice brown crust usually about three minutes. Then you're gonna flip it over. Do the other side for about three minutes or so or until the cheese is melted. And oh, you would just like in combination with the spread the two different kinds of cheeses and of course, the smokiness of the brisket is just a thoroughly enjoyable sandwich, grilled brisket and cheese. And if you're interested in that recipe, I put all these recipes out on the smoke indash Facebook group, you can come out to facebook and join us there and have access to that recipe and more. If you're not a big Facebook, or that's okay, you can just send an email to me at Paul at boldly lead.com. And I'll be glad to send you a copy of the recipe. Alright, so this week, we talked about how to see your way through the fog, making sure that you know what your values are, and live by your core values, know your purpose, see the end of the road, while keeping an eye on the path in front of you. We'll have more for you next week. In the meantime, if you really like what you're hearing here, I want to ask you to do me a favor. I do this again, because I am looking to serve and add value to you the best way I can I make no money off of any of this. And what I'd like you to ask, like to ask you to do for me is if you're listening to this podcast on any kind of a podcast directory like Apple podcast or Google podcast or anything like that, be sure to subscribe and leave me a five star review. Because that attracts attention to other people and also recommend us to other people as well help me grow my audience here. I want to reach as many people as I can in them. And I depend on you to do that. So help me reach out, leave us a five star review. share this with your friends so that we can continue to bring more people here to the tech leaders toolbox. Well, that's all we have time for this week. Until next time, go out and be the leader. You were meant to be