Akita Mani Yo.

Akita Mani Yo.

My good friend Robert Schepens, is part Native American and he often reminds me of the Native American saying “Akita Mani Yo.” This saying means “Observe everything as you walk your path (in life).”

Observing everything as we walk our path is hard to do. It requires both internal (our reactions, feeling and emotions) and external (our environment, others and our ecology) awareness. It requires seeing things we often pay no attention to.

It requires us to understand our life and the meaning of our life as defined by the contrast between ourselves and others. This contrast is what is observed. In this contrast lie the secrets we miss, the lost loves, the beautiful flowers that we ignore, the pain we inadvertently inflicted and the joy others experience. This observing shows us the pains of others that we missed, the opportunities lost, that opportunities missed, the opportunities we gained. It shows the joys that passed us by.

In NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) this is referred to as “Our perception is our reflection”. Stated another way, what we see and perceive is what we notice and what is reflected back to others.

If things are not what you want, shift your attention to notice the things you do want. What more customers? Shift your attention to being grateful for your existing customers. Want more love in your life, be a more loving person. Want more friends, be a better friend. Remember to Akita Mani Yo.

Ron Finklestein
Someone who is learning to be a better student.

ron@akris.net

330-990-0788

What is the Difference between Being Effective and Efficient?

I recently ran Business Mastery Advisory Boards for small business owners (www.rpfgroupinc.com) and this problem came up time and time again: owners not doing something because it takes to long.

You want an example? One business owner did not do billing because it took over one hour to create an invoice and he did 10 invoices a month. His total process should take 10 minutes per month.

The problem: he tried to force fit a tool that he used every day to do a task it was not designed for. He was using Outlook to do time and billing functions. He was over thinking it by trying to save money. As a result he did not do his billing until the end of the year and he let his clients use thousands of dollars of his money for free for almost a year. When we looked at his existing process, he came to the conclusion he could make this change in just a few hours.

If he focused on being effective, the right amount of efficiency would have been introduced. Since he focused on efficiency, his effectiveness was being compromised. Effective in this case was producing an invoice monthly in the fastest, more effective time frame possible.

Time is short. It is the only thing was have. Focus on the best use of your time, not the more efficient use of your time.

Ron Finklestein
www.rpfgroupinc.com
ron@akris.net
330-990-0788