A Letter from Chris Suarez
A STORM IS BUILDING
This week I felt some pressure to move faster, to build more quickly, to “get there” sooner, and to accomplish more rapidly.
Some of this pressure came from external sources - people, partners, public.
Some of this pressure came from internal sources - competition, expectation, accomplishment.
First, external pressure is a positive thing. Its a necessary thing. We all need those around us to push us. The best business partners and life partners push us. That’s what accountability ultimately is. We have external sources or people applying pressure on us to keep moving forward. To challenge us.
Internal pressure can be a positive thing as well. Competing with yourself and even those around you is healthy. If you’ve ever run a marathon or a “competitive” race, even if you aren't running for first place, the fact that you are running with a group and around others quickens your pace slightly, or in the very least keeps your energy and adrenaline high. Having high expectations of yourself is necessary. After all, without high personal expectations, where would that leave your expectations of others around you? And wanting to be accomplished at anything you are doing is the basis of excellence.
The key is to not allow external high pressure to move fast to cause you to become impatient, go too fast, skip critical growth steps, or worse, deliver inferior products or service. Its also key to not allow external high pressure to become internal high pressure. It will be exhausting and also cause us to respond in ways we regret later.
We can take a lesson from nature. This year, parts of the country have been ravaged by tropical storms. Storms are created when a center of low pressure develops with the system of high pressure surrounding it.
The high pressure is necessary for that storm to build. But a powerful storm is not formed if that center of low pressure isn’t there. Staying grounded, staying consistent, staying calm, staying centered, will bring power to your business. As terrible as a tropical storm is in nature, we want our business to be as powerful as a category 5. Those storms can create wind gusts in excess of 200 miles per hour and dump 4 or 5 inches of rain per hour. In nature, pure devastation. In business, incredible traction.
We can’t allow high pressure situations to overly affect us however. Often we run from pressure, moving away from it as quickly as possible. If we do that, the storm will fizzle out, or worse, never form. Keep your locus of control strong. Maintain that low pressure system in your business while it grows and builds with the high pressure surrounding it.
Also of note, big storms start out as small storms. Those storms become exponentially more powerful as they go slow, applying more heat and more water to the same area. That slow movement leads to a broad and powerful foundation. You want your business to grow from a Category 1, to a Category 2, to a Category 3, to a Category 4, to a Category 5. This only happens over time. It feels painfully slow and it always happens sequentially. It happens with patience. It happens with consistency. In effect, your business compounds as the high pressure systems around you continue.
Keep your eye focused. Surprisingly, the eye of the storm is the only peaceful part of the hurricane. The barometric pressure is often 15 degrees lower at the eye than anywhere else in the entire storm system. Just outside of the eyewall however, the winds are incredibly dangerous and most severe.
At times we may feel like we are not moving as quickly as we’d like to be moving. In the moment it feels like you are standing still. It feels like you should be moving faster. It feels like you should be further along. But those are all feelings. In that moment, understand the strength of your business is building. Maintaining control of your center of low pressure is critical.
A storm is building. This is a Category 5 that we want.
Chris
