What Your Business Needs From Your Mistakes

This past week Susan, my assistant, let me know that several of our DIY Opening the Moneyflow participants were wondering where the audio was from our last Q&A call.

Hmmm…. What did happen? I did the call. I uploaded the audio… and that’s all I did. I didn’t let Susan know the audio had been uploaded, I didn’t provide the URL links, and so she never updated the page, and we never sent out the email letting folks know the audio was available.

Oops. Bummer. We just goofed on paying clients.

The Spiritual Nature of Mistakes

My Sufi sheikh, Sidi al Jamal, has written that God told humanity, “Oh My people, if you did not make mistakes, I would make another entirely different race who did make mistakes.” The reason, it turns out, is there is no other way to taste the aspect of the Divine that is the quality of Forgiveness.

My Sufi sheikh further writes that God further told the humanity “Through the gate of the mistake, most of My beloveds reach Me.”

It’s a profound understanding that mistakes don’t keep us from connecting to the Divine. It’s so easy to believe that mistakes somehow define us as innately broken, when that is just not true.

Each mistake we make is an opportunity to recognize the inherent goodness and beauty within us.

For more on the spiritual nature of mistakes, and how to work with them, you can go get the Cleaning Up Mistakes in Business workbook when you complete the Remembrance Challenge. (If you’ve completed the Remembrance Challenge and don’t have the workbook, just email us and we’ll get it to you.)

I actually want to dig into the nitty gritty of the practical side of how to deal with mistakes.

Is There a Checklist For That?

Any time you make a mistake, if you don’t get caught in the blame game, either blaming yourself or someone else, instead you can find two priceless opportunities. The first one is the opportunity to access enlightenment, as I was talking about above. Not a bad deal.

The second opportunity is to erase that mistake entirely from your business, and increase your reputation for impeccability moving into the future.

As you let go of the need to blame, and you no longer see it either as evidence of a personal failing, or as the result of overwhelm, you have the opportunity to see mistakes as a failure to have, or a failure to use, a system.

And by system, I mean simply a checklist.

With the missed audio URLs above, it gave both Susan and I an opportunity to create a checklist. A completely normal, and yet embarrasing for me mistake (there’s that word again), is that I hadn’t yet created a checklist for myself of what to do after I finish a call.

I hadn’t created the checklist because it’s very simple and I can keep it in my head. I save the audio. I place the audio markers for the tracks. I separate the tracks and click “save according to markers.” I add ID3 tags and upload the files. Then I email Susan the URLs.

If I had an assistant in my office I would have them do it, but frankly it takes me less than five minutes to do it all, and it would take longer than that to email a huge big audio file for Susan to handle.

Without the checklist, and the discipline to look at it, I didn’t see that I had skipped the last step- send an email to Susan with the URLs. Without a checklist, Susan didn’t know to look at the calendar, realize she should’ve received an email from me, and prodded me for it.

When both people have a checklist, that’s called “checks and balances.” If one person goofs, chances are the other person will catch it.

Creating a Checklist

It’s so easy, it’s so simple, it almost seems like a waste of your time. But it’s not. First, you need a place to store your checklists.

We use Evernote, creating a shared notebook, and we use a tag to identify all checklists- “checklist.” Simple enough.

I then go through each step needed to do something and write it down. Some helpful hints:

• In software, tell where to click. For instance, Click “Split according to Markers” under Sound menu in Amadeus Pro, and save as mp3 files.
• Explain it as if speaking to someone who has never done it before and who is unfamiliar with the terms. Make it super-clear.
• Catch every little step, even really obvious ones.

If you do these three things, you’ll have a checklist any operations manager would be proud of. If you do this often, you’ll have lots of checklists.

Which means that you’ll be on the verge of being able to hand off some of these tasks to other people, like assistants.

Hey, maybe you will be able to impact all of those people you want to reach without getting overwhelmed.

You just have to keep showing up with heart, giving the service you are meant to give. And keep creating the business, one checklist at a time.

p.s. Making Your Business Work Despite the Mistakes

As I wrote, mistakes are inevitable. Yet it can be really hard to move through the judgment and shame that comes up when mistakes do happen.

The Opening the Moneyflow six month program can help you move through the mistakes you inevitably make… and limit the number of mistakes you make in the first place.

Solid learning, spiritual healing, nitty-gritty business advice and coaching. Small groups, and additional profound support.

You have your choice of three levels. Until the groups fill up.

Five ambitious folks to work directly with me, six big-hearted ready to fly people each with Jason and Yollana. So only 17 spots in truly intimate groups.

Then only another 35 spots in the extremely affordable DIY version of the program, which still comes with a fair amount of support.

Some of those spots are already taken, by applications we’ve received already, and by folks from the first six months who are continuing.

It starts in July, and the program includes our full library of heart-centered content (some of our clients have been struck dumb upon seeing the full breadth and depth of it), as well as an in-depth assessment, a personalized business development plan, monthly spiritual teachings, and more, depending on the level of support you want.

No hype, no fluff. Just solid, heart-centered, spiritually-oriented, and practical-nitty gritty business support for the mature, discerning, small business owner: Opening the Moneyflow 2011, July-December.