Don't Let Speed Become Your God

Speed looks attractive.

Fast growth. Fast money. Fast results. Fast recognition. Fast answers. Everything about the way we do business right now says the one who gets there first wins, and if you're behind you'd better be running.

And I've had to preach this to myself more than once, y'all. Fast is not always faithful. Fast is not always wise. Fast is not always sustainable.

Some things need time because the process is part of the protection. Some things need time because your character has to catch up to your capacity. Some things need time because shortcuts can get you there before you're ready to stay there.

Read that last one again. Before you're ready to stay there.

You can't cram on a farm

Stephen Covey said a thing about a farm I've never been able to shake. You can't cram on a farm. You can't skip the planting in the spring, play all summer, then hit it hard in October because you finally got serious, and expect a harvest to show up on account of your effort. The ground doesn't negotiate. It never has.

You can cram for a test. You can cram for a presentation. I've done it, you've done it, and it WERKED, because a test is a system people made up and the ground isn't.

A harvest runs on its own clock. So does a marriage. So does a reputation, and so does trust, and those last two are the ones you'd trade the whole business to keep.

And your business is a lot more farm than it is final exam. Right?

Your character has to catch up to your capacity

Here's what I do know after twenty years of this. You can build capacity a whole lot faster than you can build character, and that gap is where good people get hurt.

Capacity is the calendar filling up and the revenue climbing and the room getting bigger, and all of that is good, all of that is answered prayer. Character is who you are while it's happening. Those two don't grow on the same clock, and nobody hands you a warning on the day they come apart.

Now hear me, because this is the good part and I don't want you to skip past it.

You've been building that character for years and nobody clapped for you while you did it. Every hard conversation you didn't dodge. Every invoice you sent honest when you could've padded it and nobody would've known. Every time you did exactly what you said you'd do at the hour you said you'd do it, with nobody in the room to notice and no reason to except that you'd said it. That's the WERK. That's the foundation, and you've been pouring it the whole time you thought you were just getting through the week.

The house is further along than you think it is.

The call I get every time

Somebody lands the clientele they've been praying about, and then they call me scared of it.

I'll ask them, what's breaking? And they say everything. The systems aren't there. The team isn't there. The pricing was set for who they used to be three years ago and they've been meaning to fix it. Six months in they're worse off than they were before the answered prayer showed up, and they're sitting there wondering what they did wrong.

They didn't do anything wrong. They got there, and the foundation underneath them was built for a smaller house.

That's the whole thing. That's what all of this is about.

Now the other half, and some of y'all need this half more

I want to be careful here, because this gets preached badly and people walk away with permission to keep doing exactly what they've been doing.

So let me say the other side plainly. You might not be rushing anything at all. You might have been getting ready for three years. There's a rate you won't raise, a call you won't make, a thing you won't launch, and some of us have been calling that wisdom. It's fear, y'all. Fear will dress itself up nice and sit in your office for three years and never once tell you its real name.

Coach Wooden gave us the line for this and he built a dynasty on it. Be quick, but don't hurry. Quick is a decision you already made. Hurried is what happens when you haven't decided and you're moving anyway, and you can feel which one you're doing right in your chest.

So move with urgency, yes. Execute with discipline, absolutely. Those two aren't in a fight with each other, and a lot of us treat them like they are. One is about how soon you start. The other is about what you've put underneath it before you go.

And here's the question I'd leave with you, the same one I've been sitting with myself. Where are you rushing something that may need to be built with more patience and wisdom?

What I'm not going to tell you about your season

If it's taking longer than you wanted, I'm not going to stand here and tell you what God is doing in your season. I don't know. Anybody who tells you they know for certain is selling you something.

What I'll tell you is that you can be waiting and be held at the same time. God's divine timing is real and I've watched it do WERK in my own life that I couldn't have done for myself.

And I'll give you the other half of that too, because you deserve both halves. A delay is worth examining before it's worth accepting. Sometimes the slow season is a season. Sometimes it's a price you set in 2023, or an offer nobody can explain back to you, or a pipeline you have never actually built. Faith doesn't excuse any of us from the diagnosis. Faith is what keeps you steady while you do it.

"The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty." Proverbs 21:5

Diligent and hasty are both moving. Both of them are up early. One of them is putting something down that'll still be standing in ten years.

Start with prayer. Start with God's word. Start with believing. That's where I start, every time. Then we get to the business side.

The assignment this week

One thing. Name the one thing you're rushing.

Write down what you'd have to build underneath it for it to hold at twice the size. The systems, the team, the pricing, the clientele you'd be taking care of at that size, and the people you'd need pouring into you to carry it.

Then go back through that list and mark everything that's already done, because more of it is done than you think it is. That's the part most owners skip and it's the part that'll surprise you.

Then name the one thing on that list that needs more patience than you've been giving it.

Sitting with it is WERK, y'all. It's the diligent kind, and it counts.

The goal is to arrive whole. Arrive ready. Arrive able to take care of what you were handed when you get there.

And if you want somebody to go through that list with you, book a Strategy Discovery Call. That's the whole call. You bring what you're building, we'll look at what's underneath it. You can see how we work with owners inside our programs, or read more about who we are.

God Loves you, I love you, and there's nothing you can do about it. Don't be average, be world renowned.

Sources

1. Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Part One: Paradigms and Principles ("Inside-Out"). The farm passage is paraphrased above.

2. John Wooden, "Be quick, but don't hurry." Quoted in Seth Davis, Wooden: A Coach's Life (2014), and in Wooden's A Game Plan for Life (2009).

3. Proverbs 21:5, New International Version.