Word for the Year

A couple of years ago, my wife saw an awesome way to start out a new year: choose a “word,” instead of a resolution, to keep your focus on the year ahead.  We spend time thinking about what our focus should be for the year, and we pick an appropriate word.

My word for the year is “Focus.”  I really have trouble reigning in my thoughts on new innovation in our industry, and I want to typically try everything!  My wife, my business coach, my marketing Guild group and my staff constantly keep me in line.  But this year, I want to “focus” on building the foundational business offerings that we have and stop adding new things (this will probably make our staff very happy).  New things cost more money, and that is something I want to save a lot of this year.  Furthermore, I really want this “focus” to last for 4 or 5 years.  The next 4 or 5 years for our firm will probably be BIG, if I can keep my “focus” on our foundational offerings, improve our process on how we serve and move our firm into more national-level service (which is already happening).  Pretty exciting… if I can keep my “focus.”

If you had to choose, what would your word be for the year?

In an effort to keep my “focus,” I want to combine this “focus” post with an explanation of the four words found in the THRIVEal header above:

THINK.     RESPOND.     GROW.     THRIVE.

These four words in sequence describe the upward process we often see in successful businesses.  There are many processes that can be seen and documented in many aspects of life, but these four words are our attempt to explain a process we have noticed over time.  And in an effort to better organizer our blog, the writer who is helping create a summary of our 2009 blog posts (an exciting new book that is soon to be released!), suggested that we organize all posts according to our belief in the THINK, RESPOND, GROW, THRIVE process.  Each post will be tagged under one of these four categories.  Some are easy in my opinion, while I don’t believe many posts are that straight forward.  Some posts call you to action (RESPOND) while others simply provide valuable business information (THINK).  And I don’t anticipate many posts will be tagged under the THRIVE category.  We’ll see how the process goes throughout the year.  Any thoughts on this process?

Here is our attempt to segregate which post goes in which category…

THINK – All processes start with deep thought.  Sometimes that thought entails a little questioning of your industry, dispelling myths as to why you do what you do, or simply reading the latest thought on topics close to your business model.  Great things don’t happen without great thought.  For example, we challenge our clients to THINK with Monday Morning Messages.

RESPOND – A response is required after deep thought.  We don’t preach thinking without pushing the response.  And this doesn’t always go very well.  It can actually lead our firm and a potential new client NOT to do business together.  That’s okay.  Everyone is ultimately benefited from proper responses to solid teaching and consulting, even if it challenges them beyond their comfort zone.

GROW – This is the third part of the process, after deep thought and a proper response.  Growing is not really something our clients do, but rather experience after going through the first two stages in the THRIVEal process.  Growth happens.  Maybe that growth is in their family, their business, their church or their relationships.  Or maybe a business owner will close their business, and start a new business (which is a different kind of growth)… but only after they think through that process and respond to what they have learned.

THRIVE – Growth is movement, while Thriving is arriving.  You are getting there once growth begins to happen.  I can’t say it will always be easy to distinguish between growth and thriving, but there comes a time when a person, a process, a relationship, and a business matures.  This is thriving and it is gained through the process of thinking, responding to that thought and ultimately growing into maturation.  What an awesome thing to see happen.  That state is THRIVEal.

I hope that at the end of my 4 or 5 year focus on my business, that I can say we are thriving…  coming to a state of THRIVEal.

Thanks for reading,

Jason M. Blumer

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