No business plan in 2020 had Covid contingency plan on it. No one had a crystal ball that told us exactly what will happen and 2020 taught us that very quickly. Our ability to map a business future is possible, and we are looking back at 2020 at four key areas that affected a business trading success and how we can learn to map our future success.

• Preparedness

• Ability to act

• Agility to react, respond and pause.

• Limitations of a 12-month perspective

Dave Scott, a world-class Ironman champion and triathlon coach, was asked what the secret to winning the Ironman World Championship was, and he said, 'I wash my cottage cheese'

Did that give him a performance-enhancing edge in his performance? Most likely not, but in his head, it did. It was a level of meticulous planning and preparation that left no stone unturned and looked for minor differences in any areas of the races

Do you like me, sometimes find it harder to be candid than you might let on? We can all look back at crucial relationship moments at work or home where we did not quite say what we thought, felt, or meant to say. When we get this wrong, the effect on our people and teams is confusing, to put it the politest way possible. They feel frustrated with us; worse, it can build up over time. you could leave others feeling- Frustrated with you, the leader. Needing help determining where to focus their efforts. Believing they are doing a great job and might not be Waiting for more feedback Be troubled or unsettled at work. Could be looking around for other jobs

We reflect a lot in our business; it's critical. Critical because it develops our skills, competencies, failings, perspectives, and opportunities and identifies growth areas. Most importantly, reflection allows us to challenge and question how we add value.

We live and work by seasonal thinking and making decisions by our values.

This seasonal reflection creates change, iterations, tweaks, adjustments a steady evolution. It can positively affect your business, leadership style, success, and outcomes.

Our core product, the 24-month Framework, has evolved naturally from this thinking and action.

Assumption, bias, expectations, lack of boundaries.

How do these connect when we talk about leading and managing our teams and people? Even more, what's the difference between managing and leading? Is there any difference?[1] Aren’t they the same? This is purely (for us) how you choose to use semantics and also your business organisation is structured. One size does not fit all.

However, you chose definitions of managing and leading people. Making it simple is it starts with the individual

Or how to be your best self in any situation

Ever been in a situation when it’s all gone wrong? The sinking feeling you experience, the worry, fretting, the catastrophizing, and how we can truly feel like nothing is fixable. It really does feel like it’s a disaster. At some point, we’ve all been there

Firstly, let us explore why is this even a relevant question. Surely everyone sets up a business to grow it, don’t they? We have experienced that most people who set up, run (or take over) a business have the want and desire to be successful, yet usually, they have not even considered how it would grow; there is an expectancy that growth would just happen!

Is your mind in sensory overload? Did you know that in the 17th century, philosophers and great thinkers openly discussed the idea that we have an innate need to develop our minds?

Okay, let’s go straight for the values jugular- what are your values?

• Do you know?

• Have you paused and thought er…..

• What are the business values- your own or where you work?

• Do you know and can easily say them, and then if I asked why, can you give me a real reason why?

• Can you share examples of how you live them?

Values, as with mission statement and purpose, can become cliché and overall be a waste of time therefore values schmalues! Here’s some real feedback we have got over the years doing values workshops with businesses large and small

Do you ever get frustrated when you don't get understood? You know you've said what you needed to say, yet the other person doesn't get it? Do you blame them?

Or when you are explaining a task, you get told they understand what is needed and how to do it. Then, you check-up, review, or worse, get a complaint and find out that they didn't know what you were talking about?

We got reminded in a recent workshop how important the way we speak impacts all we do. So in the workshop, we got asked – “what is the most important thing we can do to get heard?

Goals fallacy we set them and then ignore them- do you do this?

“If we continue this pattern, setting goal after goal, we could end up spending our whole lives in a perpetual purgatory of unachieved ambitions”

— Jack Wiseman GB Basketball Coach

or 13 ways to create LIFE BALANCE

If we work to live, then we will never have balance. Big statement. As business owners, we have learned this and worked it out and share it with our clients. Life balance is a necessity for satisfaction, happiness, connection, and success.

Balance is variable, it goes up and down, ebbs and flows, supporting and managing. It’s an act of weighing scales take some here add there and back and forth it goes. If we focus on the adage of work first, then we don’t ever get a balance.

Well, not 99, 7 actually!

Using our RLC 7 Daily Leadership Principles, we share how a framework of principles can personalise your style and create the skill to be the best leader you can be. Have you ever been asked what leadership is? At RLC, we have been asked this many times in workshops and with Leadership teams worldwide, and we are amazed at some of the answers we collect. Here are a few of the worst ones

Or eleven ways to make hybrid working successful in your business.

Hybrid working is the way to go in our POV, and we are delighted to see it being flexed in many companies. This is an RLC bias, as we chose to work this way as a business for over a decade. And continuously see the benefits, we are now virtual, with no effect on the business- quite the contrary, we have grown by 35% over the last two years.

The oxymoron is that the global business community has had to accommodate a virtual workplace for over two years, throwing out the existing model of how most companies did business overnight.

We thought we would share ALL our thoughts about 2021 and that’s a lot of them! To help in this brain dump of noise and thought we have put it into sections! Don’t you just love an oxymoron of logic and creativity? Including The year 2021 reflections personal and professional

Permission, what does it mean to you? AT RLC, we coach the skills around asking permission in all we do. It is integral to our values and how we choose to connect with others. Let me explain. “Permission from the dictionary definition is authorisation granted to do something; formal consent.”— dictionary.com

So how does this translate into the real world, personally and professionally? Why is it so important? Finally, how to apply, change and transform relationships, understand, build perspectives and remove assumptions and judgements. This singular action is impactful neurologically, too, in how we acquire information to make decisions or share opinions

Do you lie? It’s not for me to judge or assume yet I can answer this that everyone lies. We’ve coached over the years hundreds, actually thousands of people if we review across 15 years of workshops, businesses, individuals and online programs to we have a lot of data that validates the lies we tell. We have experienced some momentous lies from clients and even our own team. Everybody lies. Everybody tells untruth

Answer this question, which one fits you best?

Do you watch? Do you see? Do you observe? Do you look?

The power of words in this context is essential. Do they all seem the same?

We have to call the BS that the word Inspiration can create. It is overused and undermines when real inspiration occurs. Let’s get real when you are inspired to do something, take action, something pretty good occurs. But how often does that actually happen? We can all easily overuse … "I was so inspired, or they inspired me"….. Look at when we watch or experience “inspirational speakers” telling us their stories; we leave the auditoriums (or virtual Ted talks, youtube etc) and say, "wow, I'm so inspired- YET- we do nothing different – so how can we be inspired?

In the past year, much has occurred in each of our lives through the lens of a global pandemic. Each of us has experienced something unique, and the one thing that keeps recurring to me is the power of words on every level.