The drawing above is the ultimate ten-year plan, from the great Steve Chapman. A copy sits on the wall behind me and you can see it anytime you have a zoom call with me 😉
For me though, my current focus on forward planning is somewhat less high-level, and feels more iterative. In learning, the term iteration can be defined as :
the act of conducting an activity, evaluating how it went, improving it, and doing the activity again until you are ready to move on to a different activity.
In my case, my “activity” is what I offer through my work. I love what I do and will continue it, so “what comes next?” for me is simply to take time to look at where I can iterate this, to evaluate and improve, and then to add or edit my portfolio of what I offer.
So what is my work?
- At a Purpose level, it is about #MakingPotentialPossible for leaders, their businesses, as well as living into my own potential to add value for others.
- At a Product level, my core client for several years has been 1:1 work with leaders as their sounding board. As my home page says, it is working with leaders seeking to make a Massive Impact, providing Actionable Insight through our process together, leading to Elevating Leadership.
- Around that work, though, I seek to add value through connecting to people and ideas, including these daily posts (over 1750 so far), weekly podcasts (( will soon hit the 100 podcast milestone), mentoring, meetings, and generally being open to connecting to see where I can help and add value.
Today, though, I feel like it is time to iterate. I took a very relaxing 10 days off, travelling overseas and, a rare event, pausing my daily blog posts. I come off that break with a very definite feeling that I want to take some time to focus on what that iteration may look like.
It could be to stop doing one or more things, to start something totally fresh, or perhaps to restart something I haven’t focussed on for a while. I’m not clear yet on what that all may look like, and at the same time I am comfortable sitting with that, along with one next step which is to model my belief in coaching by talking to several trusted advisors and asking them to listen to my thoughts and coach me around my own “what comes next”.
For now, my thoughts go right away to two areas of work I used to do and enjoy and where I may reconnect to that in a form relevant for where I am now and where my clients and the world and economy are.
- One of those areas is speaking, whether to large groups or, as I am currently planning one event of this form, a small group event that is highly interactive and allows me to blend speaking and sharing my own ideas and insights with drawing out those from the audience.
- Another area I love and used to specialise in is facilitating leadership teams at offsite meetings to focus on vision and strategy for the next year and beyond. This time of year is a perfect time to be thinking about 2023 and beyond, so I’d love to be engaged to support that work for a few clients in the coming months.
If you are a regular reader of my posts, a listener to my podcasts and feel I could add value to you and your business through speaking at an event or facilitating for your leadership team, I’d love to talk this through with you.
Meanwhile, as always, I recommend you do take time regularly to consider “what comes next?” for yourself and your business.