Years ago I was fed up with some things that we were dealing with financially.

I laid out a plan, made a bunch of banking changes and announced it to Jess.

The plan fell flat because I put a plan in place that was only based on what I wanted.  She is part of my team and she gets a say so, she wasn’t part of the plan so she rightfully wasn’t on board.

If you haven’t read Jocko Willink’s book Extreme Ownership, I firmly believe it is a must read for most people regardless of what you do for a living and should be mandatory ready for high school students.

One of the concepts that really stuck with me was the concept of:

“REMEMBER: THE ENEMY GETS A VOTE”

He was explaining the concept from a battlefield perspective and how the plan and strategy they put together wasn’t set in stone.

It wasn’t set in stone because the second they left the compound the enemy got the option to react to their plan.

I’ve explained this concept to some people and they got hung up on the “enemy” part.  That isn’t what’s important

What’s important is for us to understand that the environment and the variables around us have a say so in the outcome.

They don’t dictate our outcomes but they get a say so for sure!

This has changed my perspective on a lot of things.  But mostly it has changed how I view expectations and how I manage my own expectations.

It use to be to WIN.

My only expectation now is to learn something and improve, even if only a fraction of a percent.

This is important because the world doesn’t’ care what our plan is or what our goals are.

 Every year we set goals. Every year things get in the way of those goals.

     Every time we set a business strategy in place the consumer gets to say yes or no.

     Every time we start a new training program, our body either responds well or collapses.

     When we have a well laid out plan for work and how we want it to go, other people have different ideas.

     When we want to will something to happen the people around us will participate or not.

Don’t be upset when things don’t go our way.

Don’t be upset if people don’t blindly agree to our goal or vision.

Don’t be shocked that people want us to fail or beat us in life, business or sport.

And most importantly we don’t have to like any of that.

We just have to understand how this game of life works.

The enemy does get a vote, but so do we!

Fern