Simple Is Better…(Eating Elephants Part 2)

My entire work life can be reduced to just three core responsibilities.

In part 1, we discovered that eating elephants isn’t possible when your plate is full. Sometimes the answer isn’t doing more—it’s doing less and simplifying things.

That’s why I’ve simplified my work down to three primary responsibilities:

1. Abide – keeping my faith and personal relationship with God at the center
2. Relate – spending time connecting with and adding value to people (through calls, texts, coffee, lunch, etc.)
3. Create – where I add the most value, feel energized, and find my highest fulfillment

I’ll cover the first two this week, and the third one next week. Note: please understand, I’m not suggesting these things will work for you. Rather, my hope is that you’ll draw inspiration to simplify things for yourself.

Let’s dive in.

#1 – Abide

I’ll keep this one short because it’s unique and personal. My relationship with God is central to my life. When I keep God at the center—including my work life—I operate from faith, hope, and trust rather than fear, cynicism, and doubt. There’s less frustration and anxiety too. Worry and anxiety are usually signs that I’m out of alignment with God. But this isn’t just a strategy to reduce worry, it’s a way of life.

#2 – Relate

You might find this odd, but I’ve systematized my most important relationships—both personal and professional. Seth Godin writes:

“We’re not very good at paying attention to invisible or gradual outputs. The trick is simple: If it’s important, make it visible.”

Let those words sink in: if it’s important make it visible.

If it’s important, make it visible. Seth Godin

This system was inspired by a podcast about business referrals. The guest shared a 5-star ranking system based on referral likelihood (not human worth). She suggested connecting with 5-star people monthly, 4-star people bi-monthly, 3-star people quarterly, and so on. For me, this isn’t about business transactions—it’s about genuine connection. I’ve simply made it part of my rhythm. With family and friends, it helps me prioritize and stay connected to those I care about most.

How do I implement this? I maintain a spreadsheet with different tabs for each group. Every Wednesday (credit to my friend Robert Fukui), I spend an hour reviewing the tabs to check when I last connected with each person. Then I reach out via text or schedule a Zoom call, phone call, coffee, or lunch.

Simple.

#3 – Create

When my sister sent me a video of her building a beautiful patio, it sparked a revelation: there’s a crucial difference between building and creating. While watching her work, I realized I’d rather create great ideas, get paid for them, and have someone else build the patio!

Management guru Peter Drucker once told Jim Collins (author of Good to Great), “You can either build a great company or great ideas, but you can’t build both.”

After spending twenty years building organizations, I’ve shifted my focus to creating ideas. Not just theoretical concepts, but practical insights drawn from real leadership experience—ideas tested in my own life and put to use in others’. While I still enjoy coaching leaders who are building things, it’s the creation of original content through writing and teaching that truly invigorates me.

This is where I add the most value, feel most energized, and find my highest fulfillment and contribution.

Simplify: Your Turn to Act

Simplify your work around what makes you uniquely effective, then build systems to support those strengths. Here are three questions to help you do that:

• What are your 2-3 core responsibilities that truly drive results in your work and life?

• How could you systematize your important relationships without losing the personal touch?

• Are you naturally a builder, creator, neither, or both? How could you restructure your work to spend more time in your zone of genius?

Leave a comment and let me know what you came up with!

Until next time,

 

 

PS – Enjoying my writing? Buy Me a Coffee so I can keep creating!

Sources

Godin, Seth, “The Pinocchio Protocol”

The Influential Personal Brand Podcast with Barb Betts

Photo by Valeria Lendel on Unsplash