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Begin Again is for people in the second half of life who sense that the identity they've been carrying no longer fits. Host Winston Faircloth — spiritual director, daily poet, and fellow traveler — brings honest conversation, personal story, and original poetry to the journey of remembering, releasing, and returning to who God created you to be. Visit www.myreuniontour.com for more resources.
Hey there, it's Winston Faircloth, and welcome back to episode 54 of the Begin Again Leadership Podcast. We're back after a short break, and we're preparing for upcoming season number two, which is coming soon, by taking you behind the curtains on changes over here at winstonfaircloth.com. Now over this five part series, we've been sharing our emerging plan on how we're going to serve three types of business owners going forward. Leaders who either want, need or have teams to help them multiply their impact by creating, growing and keeping teams they love. We call this process for love of team.
Winston Faircloth:And over our last three episodes, I shared how taking a pause, otherwise known as refinement, helped give me the margin I needed to reset. We covered the four step refinement framework of unplug, unlearn, rest, and relearn. Just to remind you about these four critical steps, unplug is disconnecting from external resources temporarily, whether social media, or masterminds, or coaches that you follow. And then there's the season of unlearning, where we evaluate and challenge our existing ideas, beliefs and concepts. Then the third is the most important one.
Winston Faircloth:I love this this season of rest, finding and experimenting with understanding the ways you can deepen your physical rest, as well as your spiritual and mental rest. And then there's this new season of relearning, which incorporates new practices and beliefs to help set you on a new path. Next, we talked about the most important part of pivoting your business and life and I called it why power. You know, as leaders, we're skilled problem solvers. We focus on new initiatives and we focus on the what and the how.
Winston Faircloth:And while this can traditionally lead to smart goal planning, grinding and expectation setting, it's fine as far as it goes. But willpower is not the answer. Instead, why power is the recognition that ideas without purpose are not enough. And why power provides both the destination and a path of self discovery. And I shared in that episode a counterintuitive process of finding and committing to your why for the long term.
Winston Faircloth:And that was episode 52. And last time we talked about provision. And the biggest pushback I get when I bring up the concept of taking a refinement sabbatical is financial. We've got bills to pay and we cannot afford to leave the business even for a moment to sharpen our saw and renew our spirit. And I said last time that if we can't step away from our business to take care of our primary asset in the business, which is us, perhaps this is a signal we have some fundamentals to review and adjust in our business.
Winston Faircloth:Much more to digest back in episode 53. Today I want to share another hard truth gained during this season of refinement, the value of waiting. Now during refinement, there are so many life and business lessons to learn, but none as important as the season of waiting. Now people tend to think of surrender and waiting as passive. As type A's or maybe you're a high D, we're constantly in motion, taking massive action.
Winston Faircloth:That's the answer. That's the traditional answer so many people have to this problem. We have to take massive action. We have to get things done. And in our culture, we're conditioned for instant results.
Winston Faircloth:As recently as a generation ago, we had to go places. We had to go places to get in-depth information. I would go to the library. Today we've got Google. Food took time to prepare.
Winston Faircloth:We had slow cookers. Well, today we've got microwaves and shopping often required visiting multiple stores at a mall or several shopping centers. Hey, today we've got Amazon and we get next day delivery. It's incredible. Groceries delivered.
Winston Faircloth:Everything is instant. Now don't get me wrong, I love the convenience of all of these new options. But are we in a culture, and I think we are, where we are impatient, everything has to happen immediately. We cannot seem to wait. Results have to come quickly.
Winston Faircloth:And I wonder how much of this instant access is carrying over into our beliefs about how our business and life should be. Now going back to our life and business, we may see an opportunity in the marketplace, or we feel this pool of a call, a calling. And so we begin to take steps of faith and action to seize this opportunity. Day by day, week by week, month after month, we plant seeds and nothing seems to be happening. And the longer we go without our expected results, discouragement can begin to creep in.
Winston Faircloth:And it's exactly at these times we need to draw upon previous times in our life when waiting eventually pays off. How about that time you saved up some money before you made a big purchase? How incredible did that feel? Or the season when you lost a lot of weight and went on a dream vacation as your reward. That degree you earned after a rocky freshman year.
Winston Faircloth:Well, all three of those are part of my story. Worthwhile purposes takes time. This is so hard to realize and recognize. I'm eleven months now into leaving corporate and starting my business. And so I'm saying this as much for myself as I am for sharing it to you.
Winston Faircloth:So one of the things I did this weekend was I recall the early days of my eventual multimillion dollar business a decade or so ago. It took nearly a year before we lined up our very first customers. And there were so many dark nights of the soul wondering if this was ever going to happen. The roller coaster of hope and despair is real. One day you get a promising lead, the next day a postponement.
Winston Faircloth:You watch your cash flow begin to ebb away. And deep down, you know that this purpose, this calling, this opportunity will absolutely work. You see it clearly. You believe it. But facing daily doubt and uncertainty can certainly be discouraging.
Winston Faircloth:It's kind of like planting bamboo. You've probably heard the parable about this. I actually went to research the science behind it too. Yeah, with bamboo, the very the first few years, very little seems to be occurring above the surface. Yet underground, a massive root ecosystem is being developed.
Winston Faircloth:And then one growing season, a few years later, the bamboo takes off and growing at height each hour. You could almost see it grow, sometimes reaching over 30 feet tall, some species 90 feet tall. Now during this waiting season, our first business was just like this. Massive root systems were being developed beneath the surface. And here's how it worked.
Winston Faircloth:All of these prospect conversations we were having, all these no's and yes's and delays and twists and turns in the stories, we're refining our service in the heat of these no's. By talking to folks, we were learning what would delight them and what would not. We just kept tweaking and adjusting and learning like the little engine that could, we just kept going. And then one day, a shoot poked through the soil when we had our very first yes, which was quickly followed by five more yeses. Man, we thought we had hit pay dirt that we were off and running.
Winston Faircloth:We kept tweaking, adjusting to the new customer feedback with this initial cadre of clients. Our little baby bamboo was coming to life. But just like with the bamboo, it took several more years before our big growth spurt. This was a season that was really, it was fun. We were working with some clients, we were getting to know them and they were getting to know us, but it was also kind of frustrating.
Winston Faircloth:Why weren't we getting traction with others? Well, looking back, it was really a season of refining, building, but it's also a season of pruning and waiting. It was four plus years later that our big breakthrough occurred. When we got the call from one of our largest prospects in our industry. It was a little bit of a surprise.
Winston Faircloth:We were kind of a nice little cohesive group and we were seeking to serve others, but we really hadn't had much conversation with the largest of the large organizations in our sector. Now they were using a similar setup to our tech stack. But they experienced some very significant performance issues and they couldn't figure out why. So we provided some free consulting assistance that solved their issue quickly and promptly forgot about the favor. Six months later, they called us back and asked us for a quote.
Winston Faircloth:That contract, that moment, now many years later, fundamentally changed our fortunes. Not only did it give us that boost of revenue and growth trajectory, it cemented our reputation as a provider who could help the largest of the large. Well, turning to the Bible for a minute, the Bible also gives us many stories of how waiting turns into a season of preparation. Just two two stories here today. David the shepherd boy.
Winston Faircloth:He was 15 when he defeated the the giant Goliath and was anointed king. But did he ascend to the throne? No. Fifteen more years. Double his life.
Winston Faircloth:He finally became king. And then probably the most famous season of preparation in the Bible is is Jesus. He spent his first thirty years on the earth preparing for three world changing years of ministry. So waiting is a season when things may not be easy. Yet it's a season when we're being prepared for everything that lies ahead as we step into our purpose, step into these opportunities.
Winston Faircloth:We're putting down strong and deep roots. It's hard to remember this when you're in the middle of this waiting season. And particularly in our culture, where everything seems to happen very quickly. And we also have the challenge of comparison to others. We see others in our industry, our sector that just seem to be hitting every stride, making all these pieces of progress.
Winston Faircloth:What we don't often see is their season of preparation and waiting many years ahead of us. And so it's one reason that, you know, we're on our path. We don't compare ourselves to others because all it does is frustrate us and get us into a bad mindset, right? So just like that fruit tree, we don't plant it today and harvest delicious apples tomorrow. Boy, I'd love to have that happen, But that's not how it works.
Winston Faircloth:Let's be thankful for this season of waiting. Let's be curious. Let's talk to people and find out more. And in so doing, we're putting down deep roots. We're finding out what works and what doesn't work.
Winston Faircloth:And we're getting stronger and better if we don't give up hope. Finally, I couldn't help but this this really prompted this episode this morning during my quiet time. I came across a quote from Susie Kassum. I hope I'm saying her last name right. Her quote was, doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.
Winston Faircloth:Let's say that again. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Think about that. But realize that waiting is your superpower of perseverance and persistence. There's purpose in waiting.
Winston Faircloth:We need to draw from our own experience, the experience of others and take the next right step. And in some cases, it's being patient and waiting and working without expectation to find that next path. That bamboo is growing beneath the surface. The root system's getting stronger. That's a lot of times that's how business and life works.
Winston Faircloth:We don't see what's going on beneath the surface. But we are being prepared for our time. So in our business, we've been in a season of waiting. And we've been working with our initial cadre of clients to learn more about how we can be of service. And what we're learning is that we'd love teams, teams that unlock and multiply your impact.
Winston Faircloth:And we also value long term relationships. We strive to be a strategic partner to our clients. And we're developing a series of services to meet you along the way, wherever you are in this journey of building a team that you love, through a series of seminars, through intensive mentorship and community, and a very unique approach to unlocking team innovation. And we're just getting started. You're not going to see this on our website, because we're working with this initial cohort of business clients across this want, need and have a team you love spectrum.
Winston Faircloth:And over the coming weeks, you'll see that shift in this podcast and in our online presence. So I invite you to catch our next episode next Monday morning. And the best way to do that is to subscribe in Apple Podcasts or any of your favorite podcast players so you don't miss a single episode. And if you'll check out our show notes, we have a special thank you for you when you leave a positive review. This helps us reach more people with this message of, refinement and for love of team.
Winston Faircloth:Finally, as we've shared in every episode, remember, the biggest breakthroughs in life and business occur the moment you decide to begin again. We'll catch you on the next episode.