Happy Sunday Everyone:
Weird thing happened on Friday Morning. I woke up a little late, had my virtual trainer scheduled for 6:30, and as I was looking at my calendar, I realized I hadn’t prepared for some things I needed to prepare for. In a weak frame of mind, I cancelled the trainer and started working on some of the tasks needing completion. To make myself feel better, I emailed the trainer saying, “I’ll run 5 miles tonight or I’ll Venmo you $50”. After I sent it, I started my tasks, one of which was preparing for our first book club as a division, also Friday Morning. I’ve read the book 3 times now “Unreasonable Hospitality” so didn’t think I needed to prep on the first 3 chapters but if hosting the call, I should be more prepared than winging it. As I’m reviewing previous highlights in the book, I saw “What would you attempt do if you knew you could not fail”. What I hadn’t highlighted was the next sentence “I wrote, we will be the #1 restaurant in the world on a cocktail napkin”. Book club went great (not my point today).
Fast forward to 11:00, zoom call with just our internal branch’s loan officers. I came in pretty hot, one person wasn’t on video, one person was late, I suggested, and believe, I’m currently failing them as their leader. As the saying goes, they’re getting the rest of me, not the best of me, and I owe them more than that, which includes some tough love on how I think we’re all doing individually, and as a team. We had a good call, they finished with each one of them announcing to the rest of the team what they will have accomplished by the end of the day.
While the day was going, and going well, I kept thinking “5 miles or $50”. The $50 was the easy route, but I at least could live with myself for announcing it and sending it to him. I kept thinking how am I going to feel when I wake up Saturday Morning. I had already pushed the can down the road, causing me to miss the trainer, and now I’m going to make myself feel better by paying this small penalty? With that final thought I went to the gym, I polished off exactly 5 miles, took a picture of the screen and sent it to him, and felt great. Not trying to make this too dramatic but I was lying in bed thinking about how good the day went, and why? Had I said to myself, in my own head, “I’ll run 5 miles tonight”, the odds of it having happened are much less. I hate to admit it but it’s the truth, I knew how I felt at 5:00, a glass of wine sounded a hell of a lot better than a 5-mile run. Had I not called our loan officers out on announcing things that they had to get done by end of day, they wouldn’t have done it. It all went back to book club. Writing on the napkin that they would have the #1 restaurant in the world is very different than thinking it in their own heads. The shift in accountability that takes place when you write something down, or you tell someone else you need to do something is categorically different than whispering it to yourself.
Your word is a muscle, I believe this to be true. When you honor it, it grows; when you do not, it shrinks. Honoring your word to yourself is primary. I finished my day honoring my word to myself, primarily, my trainer, secondarily, and it felt great. Our team members honored their word to themselves, primarily, and to our team, secondarily. When they were emailing everyone at the end of the day that they had completed their calls and their assignments, they felt great. It was a celebration of honoring our words, and we will all be hitting Monday Morning with a little more pep in our step because of it. No better way to create internal confidence to yourself than honoring your word to you, no better way to create confidence in others than honoring your word to them.
Enjoy your Sunday!