Are you taking every opportunity to learn and grow?

When my son turned 16, he immediately went out and got a job.  You see, he had bought himself a car, and cars cost money for gas and insurance. (A shocking revelation every teenager gets to someday face!)  All by himself, with no smidge of input from me, he started as a cook for Pizza Hut. I was surprised to find out how much he absolutely LOVES it!  I just hope he takes every opportunity to learn and grow.  

AppSumo posted a blog today Lessons Learned from a McDonald’s Manager.  I thought it was brilliant. Maybe because I’m a mom. Maybe because I’m a small business owner. Maybe both! 

Not only are these four lessons great for my son to learn, I (and my clients) can all benefit from being reminder to:

1. Remove everything that’s non-essential. I am especially bad at this step myself because I like variety and I can find good uses for everything, but I also know that paying attention to the non-essential tasks is what throws me into overwhelm.
    
2. What matters gets measured.  And this goes for every area of life from the bathroom scale to revenue numbers. If you stop measuring, you’re telling yourself it doesn’t matter.  
    
3. Implement systems.  My favorite job in the world is implementing systems. 🙂 Truly! From implementing Infusionsoft to building websites to creating marketing systems to overseeing our TeamworkPM project management software. I love having steps to a process, and cutting out inefficiencies.
    
4. Learn from your customers.   Since the world is constantly changing, so is the feedback you’re getting from clients. This process is never done!  Our team meets on a weekly basis to improve our services based on feedback from our customers. We’re rolling out new programs and new services on a regular basis.

Throughout my career, I’d treated every job as though I were self-employed. If I wasn’t learning and growing, it was time to leave and take on a fresh challenge!  I’m still that way. I hope I can instill in my kids and my clients that we are all a continual work in progress. And that’s OK — as long as we keep improving! 

Adrianne Machina