Detachment from Outcomes in Your Services Business

“Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.” (from “Ash Wednesday,” by T.S. Eliot)

“To be consistently effective, you must put a certain distance between yourself and what happens to you on the golf course. This is not indifference; it's detachment.” (Professional golfer Sam Snead)

What does it mean to care and not to care?

It’s caring deeply about your work while detaching yourself from unhealthy attachments to short-term outcomes. It’s caring about the quality of your work and delivering results for clients that transform their personal and professional lives. It’s finding joy in the process of what you do, whether it's the work itself, interacting with clients, engaging with prospects, or marketing your services.

Not caring is letting go of attachment to specific results in your business. It’s getting too married to the outcome of a sales call or the visible engagement you receive on the posts you’re making on LinkedIn.

The biggest problem most entrepreneurs have is not caring too little; it's caring too much.

Detachment doesn’t mean that you don’t care about whether you meet the goals you’ve set for your business. It doesn’t mean, if you’re working for a company, that you're not concerned about whether you meet this year's plan.

What it means is that you are not unnaturally tied to the “how” of reaching those goals. You don’t lighten up or relax when you’re on a streak of success, and you don’t fall into despair when you encounter setbacks.

Why is detachment important??

Detachment is vital for the reason Sam Snead alludes to in the quote above: your ability to distance yourself from outcomes, either positive or negative, determines your ability to remain consistently effective.

Sam Snead knew what he was talking about. “Slammin’ Sammy” was one of the world’s top professional golfers for many years. Snead held the record for most PGA Tour victories (82), a record that many thought would never be broken until Tiger Woods came along and tied the record.

Snead's longevity was remarkable. He contended in a major championship at age 62, when most pro golfers have long retired from professional competition. He consistently shot his age well into his 80s.?

Snead’s career is just one example of how consistency over time, whether in sports, business, or some other endeavor, yields extraordinary results. Snead attributed much of his success to his ability to remain detached, to forget the last shot, whether good or bad, and to focus on what was required of him for the next shot.?

How Caring Too Much Can Hurt You

Here are a few examples of how a lack of detachment shows up, and how it can hinder both you and your business:

• When you lose a client. You've worked with a client for many years, and for whatever reason, they decide to make a change. You may not think their reasoning is that sound, and you let their decision throw you into a deep funk. You fail to remember that client relationships have a natural life. Some are short, and some remain until (and even after) you retire or exit the business. You are so focused on the loss that you fail to appreciate the clients you have that you never thought would be with you as long as they have been. You allow this loss to eat at you, come home and yell at your significant other, and end up sleeping in the spare bedroom.
• When you don't land a prospect. You’ve had multiple meetings with a prospect, you’ve delivered and reviewed engagement options, and they’ve told you how much they are looking forward to working with you. Then they either ghost you or tell you they're going "in another direction." You'd already given this prospect a lot of space in your head, thinking about what you'd do for them, and you're crestfallen. You can't understand how they can't see the value in the outcomes they deliver. Maybe, in your frustration, you even tell them they're making a mistake. In your exasperation, you don't realize they may be procrastinating (yet again), which has nothing to do with you. It could be that it's your fault, because you didn't engage in an effective enough value conversation. Whatever the reason, you've soured a relationship and closed the door to any future work, referrals, or goodwill from that prospect.
• When a client doesn’t follow your advice. You've crafted what you believe to be an ideal solution to your client's needs, yet they pick it apart and don't follow your recommendations. You take it personally because of the work and care you've put into thinking about what's best for them. You don't take into account the possibility that their trust in you hasn't deepened enough to be able to share everything that's happening in their business or with them personally. Maybe they've got something going on that makes them too embarrassed to share with you, even though they fully trust you. You don't give consideration to any of these possibilities. Instead, you allow their decision to color your continued work with that client and maybe even other clients.

How to Cultivate Detachment

One overlooked way to cultivate detachment is to allow yourself to marinate in the value others see in the outcomes you deliver. It’s a concept I cover at length in my book, The Generosity Mindset . When you take the time to understand the value others perceive in your work, you come to realize a very powerful idea: that your clients invariably value your services more than you do yourself.

Why? It’s because you are typically so tightly focused on the tangible service you provide that you don’t widen your perspective to see the intangible value your prospects and clients realize from your work.

That intangible value shows up in the changed lifestyle you've fostered, the reduced stress they have in their daily lives, and the freedom of choices you've created for them. Your value is in all these intangibles and more, not just in the completed legal agreements, business analysis, the website and marketing plan you've crafted, or the consulting engagement you've completed.

When you internalize the idea that your work creates even more valuable outcomes than you see yourself, you become more comfortable and confident with your work overall and the business itself. Small, near-term reversals or mistakes don't rattle you nearly as much.

Further, you may be suffering from what I refer to in my book as the Mindset of Scarcity. You focus entirely on yourself because your recent losses, whether of a client, a prospect, or some other opportunity, causes you to embrace the idea that the world is a jungle with a fixed pie of opportunity. You are fearful and worried about what others will take from you.

When you apply what I call The Generosity Mindset? to your fear of scarcity, the value you dispense into the world encourages sharing, collaboration, and generosity in others. Your fear of scarcity naturally diminishes. You also find that your brand image is associated with generosity. Clients and strategic referral partners, overall, seek you out because they want to work with businesses that promote mutual growth in each other and in the community at large.

Detachment is Hard

The earlier you are in your business, the harder it is to maintain detachment from the inevitable day-to-day ebbs and flows of your business. Experience can be a leveler to anxiety or overexuberance over the valley and peaks you encounter. Even the most experienced service provider, however, can be unduly influenced by the short run.

That's why it's important to have a touchstone you can stay in touch with at all times. For me, that's The Generosity Mindset.

Whatever works for you, hold it tightly and cultivate it. You'll find it a source of long-term success in your business.

#detachment #outcomes #mindset #thegenerositymindset #pricevaluejourney

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Business consultant and coach, author, and podcaster John Ray advises solopreneurs and small professional services firms on their two most frustrating problems: pricing and business development. John is passionate about how changes in mindset, positioning, and pricing change the trajectory of a business and the lifestyle choices of a business owner. His clients are professionals who are selling their expertise, such as consultants, coaches, attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.

John is the author of the national bestselling book, The Generosity Mindset: A Journey to Business Success by Raising Your Confidence, Value, and Prices . The book covers topics like value and adopting a mindset of value, pricing your services more effectively, proposals, and essential elements of growing your business. The book is available at all major physical and online book retailers .