Who doesn’t enjoy at least one or two of those mythological creatures from ancient Greek culture? I’m personally intrigued by the Phoenix, the bird-like creature that is continually reborn and receives new life from the ashes of its former self. Maybe I’m drawn to the Phoenix because its existence seems to align so closely with the personal journey of my professional life as an employee as well as a business owner.
Starting off as a young aggressive “bird” (mostly turkey at the time) running a landscaping company in the summers from the age of 13 and working for a large copier sales and supply company in the off-season, I learned many critical things about business, people and money that I would need in my “next life.”
In my mid-twenties, after growing a landscaping business to over $1.5 million in annual sales with a team of around 50 employees; my over-aggressive, risk-tolerant attitude and overly-optimistic world view would take it’s toll (you know what they say about pride). I tried to push the business to the next level and negotiated a deal with another landscaping organization that wanted to sell. Structuring what I thought was a great investment and borrowing significant money from banks and personal friends, we signed the deal and went to the races. What happened next is where the Phoenix begins it’s initial transformation.
Implosion, crash and burn, up-in-flames… call it what you will, but the ashes left in my personal and professional life after going for broke were painful and plentiful. Thankfully, I believe we as humans have been given a significant gift from our Creator. It’s called the power of change. While we are often creatures of habit, we have been given a unique perspective in life that is deeper and more meaningful than what the animal kingdom of this world can experience. I believe we have a soul. That part of us that is the innermost being that intuitively knows right from wrong but can be tempered and calloused over time to that reality. With our soul, or “mind’s eye” as some may call it, we can exercise introspection. We can think critically about who we are and who we want to be as though we are outside of ourselves. This aspect of our being can bring great hope, or if we aren’t careful, can also bring great despair depending on how we interpret our circumstances; this is largely based on our belief systems about purpose and meaning. Really, it boils down to our world view.
My world view as a young aggressive business man had become increasingly warped and skewed by success. I was on that treadmill and kept hitting the “speed-up” button because I liked the humming sound of the rotating belt and the look of my legs (as short as they are) moving faster and faster in the mirror. It all looks and sounds neat until you have that one misstep. Yea, I was THAT guy!
Needless to say, this experience was humbling and yet was precisely what I needed in my life. After a bout of depression brought on by the guilt of unmet dreams I had sold my best friends and family, I spent the next decade analyzing and studying everything I could about organizational management and growth. I tried to understand what I had done wrong. I wanted to learn from my failure. I devoured every leadership, management and marketing book or podcast I could find. During my “day job” I tried applying the ideas and concepts I was learning and it helped that my employment at the time happened to be in the non-profit sector. This experience gave me an even deeper understanding of how organizations function (or in some cases how they fail to function).
My personal successes, but frankly, even more so, my failures have taught me valuable lessons about myself, life and organizational leadership and management. This is why I’m so passionate about New Vision Custom Solutions! As we rise from the ashes and our wings become established, our desire is to learn how to soar together with other small business owners and non-profit managers/leaders. We are focused on helping our clients get clarity around their vision and mission and then to organize resources in a way that increases the effectiveness of fulfilling their stated mission.
As we embark on this flight, we invite you to join us in this journey. We will be regularly updating resources as well as news and events that can allow you to stay connected and not only get a birds-eye view of what we see everyday, but also we’d love for you to join us at the “Phoenix nest” via our website and social media activity. God bless and happy flying!
It is our passion to help bring your small business or non-profit vision and mission into focus.
In the same way that every pair of glasses have similarities (they all have lenses and nose buds, etc.), some of the custom solutions we recommend will have similar components. There are companies out there that provide out of the box “solutions” but try picking up glasses that belong to someone else and see how well they help you focus. Usually it’s more trouble than help, right?
New Vision Custom Solutions doesn’t offer a “one-size” fits all approach. We love the process of sitting down with you and fully understanding what your dream and vision for your small business or non-profit happens to be. Why did you choose your particular field, what motivates you and your employees day-in and day-out? We start by listening, not telling. Our goal is to help understand how we might be able to support the fulfillment of your vision and mission, not change it.
Some client’s just need a few tweaks and confirmation that their heading in the right direction, while others need some significant lens adjustments, but actual vision is a funny thing in life. As humans we are prone to build our view of reality from our own experiences. Which make sense to some degree, but can also lead us to deep-rooted belief systems that may create unnecessary pain and stress in our lives.
Here’s what we mean. Unless you have a significant injury or event that impacts your eye-sight and creates poor vision quickly then it’s very likely you have become accustomed to your current vision capacity. Since vision impairment is more often than not a slow progressive loss of detail, we don’t tend to notice just how skewed our vision has become over time. The powerpoint presentation, the road signs, or the computer screen, their just not as clear but we tend to think everyone needs to be 25 feet from the exit sign before they can read it, that’s just normal.
It’s only after you take the time to go to an eye exam and have a trained professional with the right equipment and after asking a lot of “how bout now?” questions that you begin to see what you’ve been missing. When you leave with the right fitted glasses with the right lenses, it’s like a whole new world out there. You can actually order your Dairy Queen Blizzard flavor without getting out of the car and walking up to the drive-thru menu!
This process of having a new-found appreciation of the world around you and seeing things in from a clearer and more realistic perspective starts with you. No one is going to force you to sit in that exam room and answer those questions and look through the equipment.
However, as a business owner or non-profit manager, if you’ve ever wondered whether you have great vision or if you have just learned how to live your life with skewed vision, we would love to meet you and perform a free “exam”. The NV Optics Exam is uniquely designed to walk you through multiple questions to understand your current level of vision and clarity about the organization for which you are responsible. The end result is a complete prescription (a custom proposal with pricing for services) for your lenses and a whole room full of stylish frames for you to choose from (the marketing and creative development side of what we do at NV).
If you are interested in finding out more or would like to set-up an exam, please don’t hesitate to call our office at 207-467-3178, email us or fill out the form below. Have a great day!