It may seem counter-intuitive based on appearances, but the easier something looks, the more time and experience that usually went in to getting it there.  Thinking about the amount of time an artist spends on her craft before mastering it can be daunting. And encouraging. And motivating (when it’s not busy being daunting).

What I find more palatable than trying to “master” something, is to think about everything as a practice. No matter where I am with anything, be it typing, designing clothes and journals, serving clients, writing articles, or giving speeches, there will always be room for improvement, and yet it’s always perfect for where I am right now. What’s important is to keep working on it with integrity, and the only place to go is…the next step. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing improvement. But I find that the more I’m able to accept the current situation with as little judgment or criticism as possible, them more fun I have.

And fun is what I want you to have reading this newsletter. So for goodness sake, Enjoy!  =)

Shawn Tuttle
Head Simplifier, Project Simplify
Co-editor, The Simplifier

"The loftier the building, the deeper the foundation must be laid.”

-Thomas Kempis

By Shawn Tuttle

Foreword: As part of my ongoing efforts to improve my public speaking, I’ve been digging into the recent and distant past for stories which illustrate important lessons in business and life. This new format serves to take the concepts beyond the theoretical and apply them to real life—or, more to the point, real lives!
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You probably know someone like “Simone”: She’s professional, friendly, and knowledgeable about her industry. I’ve been working with Simone for years, though "working" doesn’t fully capture our rich history. Over a decade ago, I learned bookkeeping and basic accounting skills from her when she served as an accountant for various non-profits. Some 3+ years ago, we began a mutually supportive co-coaching relationship. We’d talk once a week, sharing challenges and successes. It was through one of these sessions that I discovered my vision to become a professional speaker. A year or two after that, she became a trial client who helped me develop my simplification-over-the-phone service. We’d come a long way from our early accounting days. Simone has been a great friend, role model and inspiration.

All was nice in paradise, until that fateful day…

Just because everything looks honky, doesn’t mean  everything is dory. You have to consider the foundation. You’d have no way to know that a 10 ft. square section of floorboards in the bedroom had turned to dry rot until you pull the carpet up and take a look.

Your personal foundation structure is the network of processes, systems,  habits etc. that ensure your survival. Before you can venture off to make your way in the world or contemplate the nature of life, your food, shelter, and clothing need to be dependable enough that you aren’t worrying about their stability.

When I was providing Simone with simplification-over-the-phone services, I’d listen for painful areas that could be improved, and together we’d create systems that would alleviate or prevent that pain from recurring. While I wasn’t using the Natural Professional terminology at the time, looking back, it’s clear we  were working on her Foundation. We redid her filing, the desktop paper flow containers, client prep packages for her business, purging through previous business relics, and so on. We didn’t get into her bookkeeping because, as far as I was concerned, she wrote the book!

There are a set of systems that together create a foundation that  supports your productivity and quality of life. Activities that keep you running smoothly–such as managing your household, your schedule, your health,  your technology, and so on. If you don’t do basic maintenance on your car,  it’ll eventually break down. If you don’t track your appointments,  you’ll  likely miss commitments. When you don’t eat well, you feel  uncomfortable. When you don’t recharge your phone, it doesn’t work. And of  course, if you don’t pay your bills, the electricity gets shut off.

About a month ago, she said something that rocked my world. She was late making payment on her monthly line of credit payment. She said, "I didn’t have time to  pay my bills." I spluttered some inarticulate variation of "Wha–?" as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on my head. I then experienced a vacuous stretch of silence in which everything just… paused. I hung suspended in anti-gravity space for what felt like an eternity, though it was probably only a second or two. Everything I’d taken for granted in my world had just turned inside out.

Try to imagine the horror of watching the kitchen floor cave in to a sink hole. Little creaks had been easily dismissed, little shifts that went by almost unnoticeably. A floor disappearing into a void is almost inconceivable. But it has happened. The buyers of the house had no way of knowing about the old gold mine tunnel burrowing so close to the surface. What were those creaks and shifts trying to say that weren’t being heard?!

Simone–long time friend, client, and former accountant–didn’t pay her bills on time! Now, is this truly an earth-shattering situation? Of course not. Bills are paid late all the time. The result of a  missed payment is what usually? It ranges from zero ramification, to getting a "Second Notice, please pay" notice, to being charged a minor late fee, and on up to losing an introductory interest rate, right? It’s not like the heavens gape and swallow you up or that your loved ones get sucked into some alternate reality to be ruled by an evil warlord.

So why did it rock my world? Was it that a huge crack in her foundation had been discovered? As if we’d been re-modeling her house for three years and only now did I notice the huge wet patch on the ceiling where the upstairs shower had been leaking for the last couple of months…

We strive to spend as little time on the “boring” stuff as  possible. Naturally you have more interesting and important things to do than  to fuss over the front yard irrigation watering schedule!  Indeed, once  your foundation is established and maintained, then expression, expansion, and  exploration are free to play.

Was it simply a fluke to be shrugged off?  Or was it an aberration hinting at other horrendous monsters lurking under the surface?

When you push forward despite the status of our foundation, it’s  like running out to play before the work is done. When you ignore your  foundation, you allow your stability to crumble. As a result, you begin to  feel unsettled or unprepared. Your days might feel unpredictable and your  systems unreliable. It’s a lot like buying on credit–you get it easy now but  you will pay later (and at a much higher rate)!

I began questioning, striving to understand. If the occasional high-pitch in my voice and uneven pace speaking gave me away, she didn’t indicate. Slowly I came to understand that when she says, "pay my bills", she doesn’t mean simply "write checks". She means opening up QuickBooks, entering all the transactions that she’s made since the last time she did this, checking balances, entering the bills to be paid, and printing out the checks. All in all it’s at least an hour and a half long process. Between her current client load and being sick, that was a chunk of time she didn’t feel she had  to give. Thus, it didn’t happen.

Be aware of your foundation with all of its glorious strengths and  vulnerable weaknesses. Be honest. You don’t want to be standing on your porch  welcoming guests to your party when someone’s foot punches through the rotten wood and everyone falls through to the wet ground below! Nor do you want to be an inflexible drill-master who can’t roll with  the flow. Be compassionate.

With a more complete picture of the situation, our conversation veered to exploring solutions. She’s open to changing her system and naturally, doesn’t want her client work or credit score to suffer. One of the most valuable aspects of our weekly calls is the opportunity to experiment and tweak over time.

There’s no one set way to care for your foundation. You’ll have  periods of minimal attention required and you’ll have weeks where issues seem  to crawl out of the baseboards with a vengeance. While you can’t predict when  those times will be, you can certainly minimize their growth by regular,  routine maintenance. Taking care of your foundation is one of the nicest things you can do for yourself!

It’s wonderful to work with someone who doesn’t hide from challenges, and Simone steps right out to meet them. She wasn’t too phased by this whole situation, rather, she was ready to take it on, knowing that life on the other side would be a whole lot better.

Maybe you are like Simone; we all are to some extent. We have some things totally under control, and a few cracks in our foundation that could use patching. Stepping out to meet our challenges equipped with skills, tools, and an open mind just about guarantees success.

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Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.