Necessary Endings in Life and Business
The only thing we hate more in life than change is pruning. It’s true. Change is uncomfortable but pruning is, well, just down right painful. But pruning is necessary, natural, and beneficial for anything that is alive. That’s true for rosebushes and true for our relationships and in business.
In another great book by Dr. Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings, he uses the rosebush as a metaphor for the pruning that is necessary and too often avoided in life — to our detriment. Pruning enables rosebushes to realize full potential. Without it, they are just average at best and far less than they were designed to be. The same goes for life and business.
Henry says in there are 3 types of pruning necessary: 1) Things that are good but are siphoning resources from the better, 2) Things that are sick and dying and 3) Things that are dead.
In business and in life, executing the three types of necessary ending (i.e. pruning) is what characterizes people who get results. 1) if an initiative is siphoning off resources that go to something with more potential, it is pruned. 2) if an endeavor is sick and is not going to get well, it is pruned. 3) If it is clear that something is already dead, it is pruned. This is a threefold formula for doing well in almost every area of life.
The areas of your business and life that require your limited resources — your time, energy, talent, emotions, money — but are not achieving the vision you have for them should be pruned. Just like an unpruned rosebush, your endeavors will be merely average without pruning. We need it when things are going well and when things are not going well; it is a natural part of life’s seasons and a requirement for real growth.
So the question is: Are you only achieving average results at best in relation to where you or your business or team is supposed to be? Are you reaching full potential or just average? Let the pruning begin and don’t delay. Your full potential awaits.
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About Jason Young. Author, speaker and consultant. Jason Young has been called a “rare breed” when it comes to developing leaders, teams and customer service initiatives. As a former senior-level manager at Southwest Airlines, Jason learned the value of a successful workplace culture. During his 10-years with the airline consistently rated No. 1 in customer service and employee satisfaction, he was a key driver in creating and developing the company’s innovative training programs for its successful leadership and customer service culture that have become renowned in the business world. Today, Jason shares his vision in developing successful corporate cultures and workplace environments with forward-thinking companies, including Starbucks, Coca Cola, Radio Shack and Tyson Foods, to name a few. He has even captured his philosophy of creating high performance cultures in his new book, The Culturetopia Effect. Find out more at www.culturetopia.com