First Action Best Action Gene Monterastelli

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With each passing day, going into my inbox feels more and more overwhelming.
There are messages that I love, like those from my current clients, people who want to hire me, and my loved ones. Then there are the messages from people pitching me to redo my website, create an app for my business, or telling me how they can fix my business.
To mitigate this feeling of overwhelm, I generally only look at my inbox a few times a day. (I will cover how to manage your inbox more effectively in a future episode.)
Even with the onslaught of so many messages, there is one person from whom I love receiving emails. Some days they send me as many as 20 emails and I always open them first.
You should also be receiving emails from this person!
This is how you can get them to email you regularly AND why you too will look forward to hearing from them.
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Recently, at the start of one of my client coaching calls, my client "Deborah" said, "I want you to look at my website. I want to know if I have finally gotten it right."
As a little background, for the previous three weeks we had been going back and forth via emails as she was updating her website.
She was really excited for me to see all the progress she had made. She finally felt ready to share the new website with her audience and with the wider world.
So it makes sense that she wanted to know if it was "right".
The reality is that when we are trying to make changes of any sort, whether in our business or in other areas of life, asking if something is "right" is probably the wrong question to ask.
Instead there is a better way to evaluate your progress that both evaluates what you've just done AND will guide you on what you should do next.
This is that approach...
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I am a huge fan of goals.
Goals serve two purposes. First, they give us a clear direction to shoot for. Second, they give us a way to measure our progress so we can recalibrate our actions and get to where we want to go.
A number years ago I started adding a phrase to the end of all my goal statements.
It is a simple phrase that has changed the way I work.
You can tell what the phrase is from the title of the episode, but I think it is also important to understand why it is such a useful phrase. Understanding the why behind the phrase will make it an even more powerful tool.
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My business partner and I were self-employed in our early twenties doing full time ministry work and making just enough to get by.
There were a number of occasions when people were amazingly supportive of the work we were doing. People would buy one of our $15 tshirts for $1000. (That really happened more than once.) Or they would shake our hands after a presentation and slip us a $100 bill.
I am now successful enough that I am able to do the same sorts of things to support the people in my life.
A few weeks ago I found out a friend wasn't starting the fall semester of her architecture degree because she was short of money. As I was trying to give her a gift to allow her to start the fall semester she said, "I can't do that. This is supposed to be hard!"
I'm guessing you are like my friend, thinking that you should have to "work really hard" to earn your way.
That isn't actually the case. Here is my reflection on what I think we should and, most importantly, should not do when trying to achieve success.
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My calls with one-on-one clients usually start with them sharing all of the details about what they are currently struggling with in their business or life. Where the problem is complex, this description can go on for a number of minutes. It includes details about what is going on, plans that aren't working out, confusion they are facing, and the emotions they are feeling.
One of the best parts of working with clients for a long period of time is watching them integrate the tools and techniques I am teaching them into their own process.
I have a handful of clients who, after going through a debriefing of their issues, will pause, take a deep breath, and then say, "And now you are going to ask me…" which is followed by a question.
And they are exactly right.
They know the precise question I am going to ask.
It is a simple question, but it is also powerful.
This one question will help you to clarify the problems you are facing AND most importantly help you to realize what you don't need to be worried about.
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One of my favorite albums (and yes I listened to it on vinyl) was the children's album "Free To Be You And Me". One of the songs was penned by poet and storyteller Shel Silverstein. It is called "Helping".
The final verse goes:
And some kind of help is the kind of help That helping's all about And some kind of help is the kind of help We all can do without
It speaks clearly to the idea that sometimes help is wonderful and sometimes other people's help actually gets in the way. I often refer to the latter variety as "kind-hearted incompetence".
In the mid-2010s there was an absolutely beautiful (and sadly short-run) television show called "Going Deep with David Rees". In each episode David tackled the best way to solve one simple problem, like how to make ice, swat a fly, tie a shoe, shake hands, or open a door.
Each episode was dedicated to only one of these topics.
David is a beautiful mix of curiosity, kindness, and obsessiveness. Because of this, each episode turned into a reflection on what it means to be human and to be kind. (So much so I bought the first season on DVD just to show my sister the episode on how to pet a dog.)
In the episode on how to wash dishes there is a long segment dedicated to how to load a dishwasher. In case you weren't aware (and I somehow doubt that), people have strong opinions on the best way to load a dishwasher and they are willing to let you know how they do it and why it is the best.
In the middle of this conversation David made the most beautiful statement about helping. The statement provides guidance on how to offer "the kind of help that helping is all about" and not "the kind of help that we can do without".
Understanding this concept will not only make you a better helper to the people in your life, but it will also teach you the best ways to ask for help so you can avoid kind-hearted incompetence barging into your life.
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