281: Start Off the New Business Year with Purpose and Clarity

Melissa Henault:

Stacia, you have a question, my friend.

Stacia:

I do. I wanted your since you were talking about this, I wanted your, thoughts about alright. So I did not start my business. Right? My father did. I know the energy about that, but that was 49 years ago. So are your thoughts about because I believe that whole energy at the beginning, how was it established and all those things. So I'm curious about your thoughts on what perspective should I perhaps take that consideration from? Yeah. Should I take it from the consideration of when I took over the business? Should I take it from the consideration of the move of the business, which was essentially a reboot? Should you know what I'm saying?

Melissa Henault:

I fully believe that each year, I still approach each new business year with a fresh lens and, like, a blank canvas. That's why I say, really, you may this is gonna take some time to, again, look back over the last 40 plus years that the organization has been running and do the old classic pro and and pros and cons of what's really serving the company and what's not. What do you enjoy energetically? What do you not? Like and this is your chance to reboot. But I think that what's gonna help is taking a step further back from that and really getting clear on your intention next year. Right? A great book I go back to every year I take it with me on my little mountain retreat is Traction. And it's so funny because the 1st year I read that book, I remember looking at the org chart and building your mission and all these things and all the roles and responsibilities in your company, and it was like me and Jackie. And I was like, that'll never be me. I just buzzed through it.

Melissa Henault:

And now it's like my bible. So I think that it just gives really great foundation. And then for you, Stacia, I think the book Traction would be great for you to just go back and question everything because just because this is the way we always did it, doesn't mean this is the way we always have to. There's also Rocket Fuel, which is by the same author. Okay. Thank you. I think that, Stacia, it's a great chance to level set. Or we talked about their seasons in business too where sometimes this is where intention is important for the year.

Melissa Henault:

Right? 2 years ago, my intention was, I don't need to make another dollar right now. I need to really get re really recalibrate why I got into entrepreneurship in the first place. And so I was giving the analogy yesterday that it was more like I wanted to just stay at base camp that year. It and that was at base camp, I wanted to fine tune what I has was doing in my business, but I wasn't ready to climb the next mountain that year. That year was not about these huge audacious goals and, like, making radical changes and driving hard. Right? Whereas, this year has been very different. Right? We had we made radical changes and huge investments, and it was kind of a Mount Everest year of work. And I went into it with a 100% intention of that.

Melissa Henault:

And that's okay as long as you're okay with it. The the key is to make sure before you go into the year, you're really clear on purpose and vision and why and what you're doing, and then you can reverse engineer all of it. So do you really want them out Everest year that year? Or do you want a base camp year or something in between? What can happen is because we're entrepreneurs and we're innately as entrepreneurs, we're just sponges. Like, we innately just want to learn everything. Right? But the problem is if we don't have a practice to stop, process, and then move forward to come up with your own version of it. We're we're just constantly in action chasing what everybody's telling us to do without a concrete practice of stopping, getting still, and taking time, whatever that looks like for you to process, to journal, to think through all the cards that are on the table.