Change Doesn't Need a Date on the Calendar | Between The Builds

Chris Fay: Welcome to Built with Purpose. I am Chris Fay, and this is the show where vision meets execution and leadership leaves a legacy. From design studios to innovation hubs and product lines to skyline. We meet the people building more than great companies. They're creating culture, driving impact, and shaping what's next. These are the stories and strategies behind how the world gets built with purpose. Everybody, welcome to Built with Purpose. Today is another episode of Between the Builds. Just a really cool chance for us to kind of talk about a few things that are on my mind that have happened, you know, in the last week or two, ⁓ have taken a little bit of a hiatus kind of through the summertime, and now that we're kicking back off into fall. We've got some really awesome guests coming around the corner. Excited to share that ⁓ with you all. But you know, today I just want to talk a little bit about planning and vision and then and then calling yourself to action. I was able to attend and actually my wife and I hosted a meeting for our YPO chapter a couple weeks ago. ⁓ I had a had the honor of interviewing and doing a fireside chat with Jason Garrett, who is the former head football coach of the Dallas Cowboys. He was the backup. quarterback to Troy Aikman for three Super Bowl ⁓ rings. He's now on ⁓ on NBC's ⁓ NFL network and and just a just a super guy, man. We I got a chance to spend some time with him ⁓ after the fact and just kind of get to know him a lot better. And you know, a couple things that just stood out to me, you know, for a for a for a high impact ⁓ leader like himself that has done a significant amount in his ⁓ in his life is just the way that he carries himself. He always has a smile on his face. Even even when he has a level of intensity explaining a point, he still has a smile on his face. And so I identified with that because it was like this ⁓ inspirational leadership. You could just it just oozed out of him as somebody that you would want to follow and to be around. He was smart, he was very ⁓ to the point, he had his talk tracked down, you could you could tell that he he like he knew what he was trying to say and he had said it a bunch of times and he believed in what he was saying. And so it was a really cool experience, but yet every time he did that, he did this with this smile on his face. And it was so cool. He would look at me and he would make a point and he'd smile ⁓ at me at the end. And it was so neat. So I it's it's been funny. I've been watching him on some of the ⁓ the NFL games recently and have been seeing him. He does the exact same thing on stage. So Jason, I'm gonna try and get you on the ⁓ on the podcast coming up because I really enjoyed our conversation. But one of the things that he was talking about was leadership. He said, you know, the first word in leadership is to lead. And he we we had this conversation about what does it mean to lead and and where he kept coming back to was painting this vision. You know, every leader, every organization, every family, every football team has to have a vision, something, something higher and and bigger than ourselves to shoot for. And as long as you have that strong vision, then you can drive accountability and programs towards that vision. ⁓ but without that vision, nobody has this like rallying cry, this this thing to kind of sh strive for. you know, and and and what's gonna define our organization or ourself. And so I love that because, you know, we're coming down into Q four. ⁓ and and for our organization, we are a ⁓ we are a calendar year as our fiscal. So when we finish up on December 31st, January first starts a new ⁓ starts a new year. And there's something significant about planning season for us. I I love taking a step back to think about kind of where we've come from and to also think about where we're going. To define a clear vision and then to ultimately create kind of a tactical ⁓ plan ⁓ that we're gonna execute on next year. It's a really fun season ⁓ for me individually. I always look forward to it. And it's something that we're gonna be kicking off here in the next couple of weeks with our leadership team to start putting our plan in place. But as I was thinking about planning and thinking about this kind of vision setting, as as ⁓ Jason was talking about ⁓ when we when we were meeting, You know, I I started thinking about, you know, why do we always have to wait till January first? You know, what what is it what is it about January first? You think about New Year's resolutions. Why why do people wait until December 31st to execute on some change in their life on January first? Why why does it always have to be that? Why do we wait for this this annual milestone to occur? And then when that milestone occurs, We know that most people kind of fall off a lot of their ⁓ individual New Year's resolutions by like February timeframe. But obviously, businesses, you know, you're sitting there releasing a new plan and a new budget and new priorities or, you know, rocks that you're trying to accomplish. You know, for you in your life, you might be thinking about, I want to lose weights. That'll be my New Year's resolution for January first. But I just come back and I just wonder why do we always have to wait? And the reality is we don't. You know, why why do we make a New Year's resolution on January first? Why do we go check out a new product when it's on sale? Right? Why do we attend an event when we get a ⁓ only only when we get an invite? And it's because it's a call to action. You know, January first, New Year's resolutions, as they say, ⁓ sales for particular products, invites that pop out, things happening out there are calls to action. And oftentimes we sit back and we wait for a call to action to then move forward to make some sort of change in our life. Because all that that's all that call to action is. It's just, it's just a it's an opportunity to make some sort of change, to do something different. And so one of the things that's been successful for me, and the reason why it resonated strongly with me today for the for this between the builds, you know, if you've been following the pod for some time, you know that that that our business, my business, has been going through a fundamental ⁓ shift and change. ⁓ we've been restructuring, we've sold some some businesses, we bought a business, really kind of re-looking at where we're gonna be growing the company. And so, you know, I've been in the weeds of those transactions just like day after day, week after week, month after month. And we've talked about, you know, when you're going through hard times, you know, really the value of just putting one foot in front of the other. That's all you need to do. And at some point, if you keep doing that with enough faith and conviction, you'll ultimately reach the milestone that you're that you're ⁓ shooting for. Well, now those challenging times are behind me, right? At least at least the that season. And now I'm in the new norm, right? So I'm sitting here, I'm looking at planning season. I'm talking about, all right, we got planning season coming up. What do we want to do next year? But man, I got I got three months left in the year. Why why am I waiting till January first to think about substantial change in our business? Why am I not taking action on that now? And so what I've had success on in the past is to create my own calls to action. You know, we talked about calls to action, those those moments, those opportunities to drive change. We don't have to wait till January first. We don't have to wait till the end of a month. You know, we don't have to wait till something significant happens in the business. We can create calls to action to drive change at any point in our life. And sometimes I think we'll reflect back. You think about ⁓ man, I want to be a better leader and I want to hold my team accountable ⁓ today, ⁓ unlike I was doing it yesterday. And there's this like trepidation. Well, gosh, if I if I all of a sudden try and hold them accountable today versus ⁓ last week, you know, they're maybe they're not gonna maybe they're not gonna follow suit because I've kind of built these habits over the past and you know, maybe they're not used to that. ⁓ so maybe I'm not gonna drive that change. Or, you know, I need to I need to make some changes in my calendar and my schedule, but you know, I've got all these things already kind of planned and booked. And I would just say you have the freedom and the ability to create. call to action to make change in your life at any moment and any day. And it actually it actually feels like it has more gravity when you when you put a milestone or a date around it. Right. So so for me, one of the things that I wanted to do a couple weeks ago when we finished all this all this stuff is I was like, I got to get my calendar in lock because it is an absolute mess. and what I've got is I've got to figure out our our our rhythm priorities for the next quarter. ⁓ I've got to make sure I've got to get my meetings and my team done. I need to set a new vision and a tone for kind of the organization as we enter into planning season. And so for me, I kind of backed up, because this happened in the middle of September, and I said, you know what? October 1st is going to be a new day. And I'm going to back up from that this Monday, whatever it was, September or whatever, this is going to be a new day for us. And I'm going to take this Monday. as an opportunity to inject change in the business with an expectation that we're gonna implement this this like major changes ⁓ on October first, get really good at those, and then we are gonna be off to the races when we get first part of next year. So I created this compelling call to action. I'm like, it's Monday. I'm gonna make change on Monday. That's tomorrow. You know, that Monday I'm gonna make change. And so I came in, I spent a little bit of time prepping. I kind of got my mind right. I looked at my calendar. I made some changes. And then I've just walked in on Monday to our leadership team meeting. I said, today's a new day. We are now gonna begin operating as a different organization from what we did yesterday. So I think about that in your life. What what what is what is that? Is that a relationship that you have ⁓ that might be struggling? Is it your own individual health? We've talked a lot about health in on the on this ⁓ this podcast. ⁓ we've talked about planning. Is it something in your business? Is it a is an issue with a with an employee inside of your company that you might keep you might keep pushing off? You're waiting for another day. You're waiting for January first. Why are you waiting for your New Year's resolution to drive change inside of your life? Create that compelling call to action today. So I'm recording this on a Monday. It's going to go out on a Tuesday. So the challenge for you is if you if you hear this this week, what's that one change that you can put in place? You know, is it cleaning up your calendar? Is it establishing a new habit for the future? Is it maybe booking a time to do a planning session with your family or your business or your team? That you that you coach. What's that one thing that you can create an artificial call to action to drive change in your life on Monday? And I guarantee you, if you look, if you if you don't wait for these calls to action, if you create them, you'll find yourself being more inspired to create change on those dates. You'll find that things are gonna be moving a lot faster in your life, and you're not waiting for these major milestones to occur. Instead, you're grabbing the bull by the horns and taking action. So that's your challenge as you think about being built with purpose over the next week. What's that one thing that you can put into action that makes a s a significant change, create that call to action in your life next Monday? And then I would just say buckle up because we got some fun, ⁓ fun conversations coming around the corner. Would love to continue to hear from you all. Please continue to post and ⁓ and email us with ideas and connect. Really appreciate everybody and with that continue to go with purpose. Okay, thanks for joining me on Built with Purpose. If you have enjoyed today's episode, subscribe, share, and leave us a review. It helps more bold leaders find the show. For resources and show notes, visit our website and connect with me, Chris Fay, on LinkedIn. Until next time, keep building great companies, cultures, and legacies with purpose.