Cleaning House and Other Designer Inspired Tips
My favorite interior designers posted a blog that made me think. Now before I talk about that blog. Lets spend a minute analyzing the irony of me writing that as an opening proposition. First, according to Cindy my sense of “design” was forfeited when I hung the Buffalo Head in the downstairs den. Of course, I did it while Cindy was away one weekend. Just sort of surprised her when she returned. Surprised me too when her reaction wasn’t all supportive and happy. But let’s be honest. Who among my close friends ever imagined that I would read blogs posted by designers? Is it not enough that I call them my friends? No, I actually read their designer talk stuff.
Well, these designer friends did rescue my Buffalo Head and find it a nice spot in our offices here at Jeremiah Consulting. I think Cindy paid them in unmarked bills to suggest that the Buffalo Head was better placed in my office space. Cindy’s den was rescued. Bribe allegations aside; let’s give the designers their due. They sure did a good job making our offices into that comfortable place we enjoy each and every workday.
Back to this blog that made me think. You can read it yourself if you link over to http://blog.kandrac-kole.com/?p=8524. So what was the inspiration in their blog? Everyone should take a walk through your home and open your eyes. Look for those things that are out of place and take away from the beauty of what you created. Get them out of there.
Isn’t that good advice for our businesses as well? What policies and procedures do we have because we paid some fancy consultant to write them up years ago? Or maybe we inherited them? Or maybe we personally created them? But regardless of how they came to us, we sit blind to their impact on our company because we haven’t walked through our company with our eyes open. If we really walked silently through our company, we could see and hear them screaming that they don’t work anymore. Have you ever tried to walk through your workday with your eyes wide open? You can’t speak. You have to look and listen. Walking slowly to see and hear what works and what doesn’t work? Listening for the buzz of harmony. Listening for the clank of broken. Have you ever really spent that quiet journey not talking, not defending . . . simply observing and maybe but only so long as you do it silently . . . asking “why”?
Hey, don’t stop at your business. Walk through your personal and your spiritual life as well. Why do you wake up at 5 a.m. to have some prayer time if you are going to sleep through it? Why do you go to the gym and run for an hour if you are going to the ice cream shop or the bar immediately after leaving the gym?
Oh Dale, you are a master of simplistic thinking. Yep, call me small-minded but in the stillness of that personal journey with your eyes wide open, hear my words of encouragement. And maybe you will encounter an even more simplistic finding. Something like, our policies are really working okay except for this one small tweak which will improve morale and boost earnings . . . hey, my fitness program is really working and the ice cream or a glass of wine is okay as long as I keep it to an occasional treat . . . and God is there at other hours beyond 5 a.m. and really all I need to do is talk with Him wherever and whenever but forever without the need for an appointment.
Of course, you are getting this advice from a man who confesses that he reads interior designer blogs. About now, I feel that we should have a legal disclaimer. Instead, I plead the 5th Amendment to any further questioning about what else I read.
Take that journey through your business, your personal life, your spiritual life . . . you might find something or someone you lost along the way that has been quietly waiting for you to return.