Sometimes, even if you can't stop something, you can simplify it, he suggests. Ask yourself hard questions. Are we doing this in a complicated way? During this season, does this matter as much as it might matter during another season? Can I bring on help? What can I stop?
“Te one thing you can't stop are relationships,” Acuff says. “And the challenge with that is a lot of you didn't get into farming so you could manage people. However, you can’t ignore the people challenges.”
Tis is where empathy comes into the picture. “I know empathy is one of those soft sounding words, it sounds like a candle flavor at Bed, Bath and
Beyond...sandalwood and empathy,” he jokes. “But here's how I define it in the context of business. Empathy has two parts, understanding what someone needs and acting on it.”
He says if you want to ruin an employee or vendor or customer relationship, understand what people need and then don't do anything about it. Empathy is essential if you want to grow teams and grow what you are doing. So, how do we know what people care about? “Read less minds, ask more questions. What I've learned over the years is it's much better to meet a need than it is to invent a need,” Acuff says.
Make It Fun
Make it fun if you want it done. Te most surprising part of the research for Acuff was discovering that fun, joy, engagement, and fulfillment matter to all goals. “Most people think a goal has to be difficult or miserable to count,” he says.
In the study, researchers asked participants to make what they were doing fun. Te people that did had a 31 percent increase in satisfaction and felt more connected to the work, Acuff explains. Te research also showed they had a 46 percent increase in performance success. People actually performed better when they made their goals fun. “Like every job, every goal has difficult parts, whether you're going to lose weight or get your finances in order. So, don't hear me saying everything will be fun,” he says. It’s not necessarily about having fun, though. He says it’s about making your goals fun. Tere are two ways to do that: reward and fear.
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Jon Acuff says, “I love goals. Why? Because a goal is the
fastest path between where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow. Best of all, finishing a goal feels amazing.”
“Sometimes when we see the word fear, we think of the negative connotations only. When I say fear, I mean consequence. If you ever got something done on a Tursday, because you had a Friday deadline, you experience a positive motivation from fear,” he says.
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bethelfarms.com (863) 494-3057 67
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