You Don’t Have to Have Everything Sorted, Just The Things That Matter
In the game of life, there is always a new lesson to learn and an insight to discover. After all, to level up, you need to find the next productivity bonus, which means being open to discovering it. In a world where there is so much to be done, prioritising what matters is important.
When thinking about the things that matter, I am reminded of a finance lecture I developed several years ago. The lecture was for a group of directors of listed companies on the JSE’s Alt-X exchange. Many of the attendees were also directors of mainboard companies. The Alt-X exchange required them to attend a series of lectures, mostly on surveillance and JSE trading regulations. My finance lecture was a half-day session strapped on the end. The lecture series ran more than a dozen times over a year. After the first cohort, I realised that the course was a grudge purchase for the execs, and no one was interested in being there. I decided to make a few tweaks to my lecture to see if I could get the uninterested execs to look up from their newspapers. I introduced a theatrical piece on identifying the financial priorities in a business.
My theatre was more about getting attention than about teaching finance principles. In today’s marketing language, my theatre was designed to be a “hook” to grab attention. Once I had hooked them, I knew that they would be open to a good story.
I used several props for my stage act. The props included a handful of golf balls from my practice bag, a small bucket of bunker sand, a large clear container, and my driver (1 wood) from my golf bag. Arriving in the classroom to deliver a finance lecture with all these items in hand was enough to spike anyone’s curiosity.
The abridged version of my story was to fill the container with golf balls, sand, and water. The golf balls had to go in first and represented the important financial principles. The sand went in second; it filled the gaps between the golf balls and represented the business’s operations. The water, from the jug on the podium, went in last and represented the marketing. The water filled the remaining space between the sand and the golf balls.
The moral of the story is the important elements that matter have to go in first. These are BIG THINGS in life, and in the case of my in-class demonstration, the key financial metrics of business performance. If you try and put the sand and the water in first, the golf balls won’t fit.
There is a parallel to be drawn from my financial theatrics. There are so many tasks in business and life that make their way onto the to-do list. As soon as an item is complete, there is another to take its place. We all know about the importance of prioritisation. This story takes prioritisation a step further. It is about the framework in which you operate, not the order of operations. Take the time to develop a list of the things that matter in your life. Get those clear and dedicate your efforts to doing those well. In the end, it’s all connected. The financial metrics show the effectiveness of the operations and marketing.
What is your list of metrics that represent the performance of your life?
Justin Spencer-Young
