Every business requires the audacious; persons who are willing to put it all on the line, to take those bold risks. Risks which can catapult your business into market positions you never thought possible. It takes a certain type of person who is willing to step over the edge, but it also requires business leaders who know what it takes to make audacious work, and to support them in their quests. 

 

Active Knowledge Question:

Is audacious even in your business’s vocabulary?

 

Follower Or Leader

Audacious is not reckless, careless, negligent or prideful. It is thoughtful, committed and relentless. It is certainly purposeful with clear outcomes sought. 

It does start with ‘wouldn’t it be amazing if we could achieve this’, and then creativity kicks in to build the image of what this new future would be like. The quest is painted, and the details will be discovered on the journey.

Audacious is not the playing field for followers. It is the domain of market leaders; businesses which have carved out a space for achievers to live and thrive. These mavericks do not accept the norm, the status quo, nor a bureaucracy that stifles bold actions.

These achievers are creative at heart, leaders within their own lives and champions of success in every person whom they meet. Their energy permeates and creates a passion and enthusiasm throughout a business.

They are a unique endangered species in many businesses. Some leaders despise them as they cannot be readily drawn under their personal banners where they may steal their glory. If you do not protect them, they will simply leave and find somewhere else to flourish. 

They are their own person which is why they can be audacious and not disempowered through fear. In stepping forward, they firstly place their own reputation and prosperity on the line. They do this not for financial self-gain but for the achievement of the quest.

If a business honestly wants to grow to fill and step beyond its current potential, it needs people who are willing to be audacious.  

 

Guiding Principles

Audacious is often seen as big, bold and immediate. And while big and bold are likely correct, immediate is not. To deliver on the audacious will take time to compound the steps that achieving the quest will likely take. 

There are key principles that should be recognised in supporting those that seek to deliver on the audacious, and carving out a space that will allow them to flourish:

1. Small Steps: Audacious goals are achieved in small steps. They require a narrowing of your focus, identifying the next important thing that must be done, and stepping forward, one step at a time. 
2. Replenishment: To achieve the audacious also requires replenishment. You and anyone who may work with you has limited reserves on any day. Yes, it is about health, physical strength and emotional engagement – but it is also about willpower. Willpower is the ability to sustain a creative focus on what is most important and to get that done to the best of your ability. In any single day, you only have so much willpower and once that is depleted, well, so too will be your output.
3. Motive: The third key aspect of achieving the audacious is motive. Motive is the fuel that renews and restores every morning. I need it, and I want to be surrounded by it in all my colleagues. Motive will re-charge willpower and provide you with the energy to focus and push forward. As an individual or as a leader, you must set the right motive to produce this fuel on a sustainable basis. I find that motive lies in a righteous cause and not self-interest.
4. Success: The type of person who can deliver on the audacious is what I describe as an Achiever. They are persons who know what it takes to achieve enduring success in their life, and they do this through being very conscious of:

• What success looks like?
• What it takes to achieve that success?
• What is the antitheses of success?

And they live these principles in their personal lives and then inject them into their business quests.

 

Being Audacious

There are nine basic rules that can guide you to achieve the audacious and these should be followed relentlessly.

1. Extraordinary results do not come about by accident or luck; they are directly proportional to your degree of focus. The more-narrow your focus, the more extraordinary your results will be.
2. Focus must be built and refined. It starts in a simple linear fashion with one focus. Then stepping forward, one foot after the other, on a straight path sequentially, compounding each step on the way. Then, and only then, does it begin to take a geometric form from the cornerstone that has been built.
3. It starts with one thing. What is the one thing that must be done now before all else can proceed, which will enable all else to follow? Then, once that one thing is done, what is the next step? Absolute focus, sequentially.
4. Focus, strength, endurance, discipline and courage are all limited resources, which will wear thin as the day, week or month drains this reserve. Apply this reserve where it needs to be, where is most important, to your ‘one thing’, first. Then and only then, apply it to what else may be necessary. Consider the 80/20 rule in applying your reserves to your one thing and don’t become distracted.
5. Create space to replenish your reserves. Create patterns and habits in your life to sustain your reserves. One habit at a time. Create it. Lock it away. Then, find the next important task that can become a habit.
6. Surround and immerse yourself with people who build and lift you up and make you be the best you can be. A tribe that fuels itself with the right energy.
7. Think big. Think the impossible. Create a massive space to grow into with limits no one ever thought possible. You won’t know what’s possible if you create limits.
8. Your motive must be righteous to achieve the extraordinary. Greed won’t get you there. Only humility and gratitude can seed your motive.
9. The audacious is about the needs of others and creating a world in which they thrive to an entirely new level. 

 

There will be audacious people who will travel through your business all the time. As a leader, your challenge is to create an environment which will encourage them and allow them to stay awhile. You need to understand and protect them, and you need to allow them to be who they are in their heart. The competitive engine in your business will create this environment and therefore start by turning your attention to this engine. 

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All the best in the success of your business,

Richard Shrapnel