Good systems don't take vacations

Photo by Ethan Robertson on Unsplash

the timing of side effects

Seth Godin feels like my business mom. Always nagging me with things I know I need to do, lol!

Read this blog post and was called out. I thought of the times I decided not to create a new systems video for my VSA, or not check-up on their work.

It feels like I get a break, and it feels like things are running smoothly, anyway.

But feelings lie. What it truly does is pull me out of "business owner" mode, and back into "glorified job" mode. It diminishes my company's value (and the value of a company derives from its ability to run profitably and smoothly without you), and the ability to enjoy life and innovate my company forward.

Don't mean to instill doom and gloom; but you've heard about deaths by a thousand cuts, by denial, by things you knew you should've done, and by things you didn't even know were killing you. Dean and I don't want that for you.

Hope this gets you thinking and back to doing deep work. Your VSAs and here to facilitate that.

Loosen the constraints on a system and the system will almost always do better in the short run.

That’s if we define "better" as the visible outputs of what the system does. And short run as, “the stuff that happens before we have to live with the side effects.”

So… if you remove environmental regulation from a factory, it will probably make more stuff faster. For awhile. But then the river is sludge and the workers are dead, so in the long run, not so much.

If you stop paying taxes, you’ll have more money today. But the civilization you depend on to enjoy that money will soon disappear.

If you stop taking medicine because you don’t like the stomach ache it gives you, you’ll definitely have a better day today. Until you stop having a better day, because of the illness that comes back because you stopped taking your medicine.

All side effects are more simply called “effects.” And getting clear about the time frame we live in is the first step to leaving things better than we found them.

action steps

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I've been using VSAs for years now. They've enabled me to: own/operate a chain of ten restaurants, generating $20 million in revenue // grow my consulting practice internationally // and write, podcast, direct a nonprofit, tinker with ideas, be with my family more, and enjoy all of what I do. 

To this day, I still believe that they are the smartest and most affordable way to grow. 

Myself and so many other business owners have used the service to offload lead generation, sales, customer service, bookkeeping, and anything you can think of (and we also share things you DIDN'T think of).

All it takes is a commitment of five minutes a day. We'll show you how. 

Visit www.prosulum.com or message me if you'd like to learn more.