My 4 F' Words In Business

In life, we all have ideas that we revolve our lives around.

Some people call them values, goals, or any other number of terms.

I have some of my own as well.

4 of them to be precise.

All of them are F words.

Before you freak out, none of mine are THE "F" word.

As interesting of a word as that may be, I don't revolve any aspect of my life around it.

Here are my 4 F' Words for Business, and for fun, I'll also throw in 3 more from a friend of mine.

Faith

Some people see "Faith" purely as a religious term.

If I am being honest, for me, there is indeed some religious connotations when I use it.

However, there are other meanings that I utilize for Faith as well.

I have Faith that most people are mostly good and desire to become better.

I have Faith that I, too, can continue to improve myself.

Though I may have challenges, failures, and shortcomings, I have Faith that I can rise back up and move forward from those.

I have Faith that people desire a better world and a better future.

I have Faith in YOU reading this right now.

Though I may not be able to see you, nor perhaps have we ever met, I do have Faith in who you are, and who you have the potential to become.

Family

Many people associate "Family" with "Blood", and there may be a reason for this with some individuals in our lives.

However, for me, Family is more about those you accept as meaningful in your life.

Of course, some of those individuals may have blood relations, but it can go beyond that.

I have many people in my life who I consider Family who have no blood relation to me in the slightest, but they have impacted me and helped me in life to meaningful levels.

Family is who we fight for, who we continue to work to become better for, and who we want to provide for (Monetarily, Mentally, Spiritually, Emotionally, or otherwise).

These are the people who are meaningful to us, who we would do everything we do for.

It is important to keep these individuals front of mind, especially in the most difficult of times.

As Leaders, it is also important to understand that everyone we work with has their own Family - this is a huge part of the reason they would choose to work with you.

If working with you works against their Family, they will not do their best work, and in worse case scenarios they will become actively disengaged (aka purposefully work against you).

Remember the Families of those who work with you.

Freedom

We all seek Freedom in our life.

Freedom to be able to do the things we enjoy, be with the people we want to be with, move the way we would like, and see the places that exist.

We must work toward obtaining this in our lives, and in the lives of those we call Family.

Working toward this gives us Hope in our lives.

What Freedom are you working toward?

What about your team?

What about your clients and customers?

Future

If we are able to manage to obtain Freedom for ourselves and our Families, we begin to have the ability to actually potentially change the Future.

If we have no Faith in a better Future, then it doesn't matter.

We can't really focus on the Future if our Family is currently struggling.

The Future means little if we don't have the Freedom within our own lives to act toward it.

However, the Future is important - we do need to take care of it.

We simply need to take care of other things first before we can truly impact it well.

Bonus: Flow

Flow States are essential to life.

It is where we do our best work, feel our best, and are more productive and more creative.

When we achieve these states, they feel absolutely amazing.

Further, the more we get into them, the more we want them.

The key to Flow is you want to achieve it in the activities that will produce the results you seek in your life.

What helps you toward aiding your Family, getting to Freedom, and impacting the Future?

Those are the activities you need Flow in.

Then, further, you want to achieve Group Flow.

In this way, your team also gets into Flow, and they further seek to get in Flow "with" you.

Bonus: Function

Results are important.

The things we do should have a specific Function, and that Function needs to lead to a specific Goal.

If you or anyone on your team is doing something that doesn't lead to an important Result, it is a waste of time.

It has no Function!

As a Leader, you have to ensure that everything you and your team does has a good Function.

Bonus: Form

However, Results aren't the ONLY thing that matters.

HOW we do things can be as important as the Results.

In fact, if HOW we do things doesn't have a good Form, it can actually work AGAINST results.

If you think of the body of an athlete, you see that top athletes have a similar Form and similar bodily motions they go through.

If they didn't, then they would risk their bodies getting injured.

The Form matters in how they move.

If an athlete's Form is wrong, it could potentially end their career (and has for many athletes).

This is also true in Business, if you have a bad Form, it could destroy your teams and business.