Clear the Runway

The FAA requires a runway length of 7,500 feet for a 747 airplane to take-off and land. This length adds on considerable margin for slippery surfaces from poor weather or possibly malfunction. Have you ever noticed how exact air traffic control and schedules are? Your plane has an exact take-off time. It takes a few minutes to depart from the gate and taxi to the assigned runway strip. Then it stops, awaits permission from control, and then barrels down the runway lifting off into the great blue. There are so many great analogies and metaphors that speakers and writers have used over the years to compare this airplane take-off process to some process in our lives or businesses.  I was on a coaching call with Josh Melton in early November 2021 and he said this. "Ken, you need to learn how to clear the runway."

Let me explain the issue first. I had booked a month-long trip to Florida over the summer and had 6 months to accomplish a significant goal. This is explained full in "A New Freedom Vision".  Essentially, I had to add 5 new buildings in my commercial cleaning company and delegate them to 5 new team members. But I would need to delegate and develop systems as a foundation for this all to stay together while I was gone. This seemed very doable once Coach Josh started guiding me. I was taxiing onto the runway and ready to take off. There were just a few giant obstacles blocking my take-off.

• I had agreed to a major undertaking in the Royal Rangers with my son Kenny. He was going for National Scout and needed to earn his Wilderness in the Frontiersman Camping Fellowship (FCF). I decided to do it with him. This required a 24-hour survival vigil in the woods, building our own shelter, cooking our own food, and staying awake the whole time with no talking. And that was just one part of the testing for Wilderness. There were several other skills we had to learn like black powder muzzle-loader shooting, flint & steel, knife & hawk throwing, primitive navigation, assembling our frontier outfits, and much more. This took Kenny and I all August, September, and early October to accomplish. The Wilderness Vigil was on October 16th, 2021. We both earned Wilderness and Kenny was elected as the National Scout, one of 8 in the whole country and the highest Royal Ranger level of leadership for Rangers under 18. It was worth it. But it took a ton of time and I was not able to devote the time needed toward my cleaning business during that time. Tick-tock...
• I was trying to help my uncle close the estate of my grandparents. We had to sell the family house that my manic father was refusing to leave.  We had to initiate a lawsuit, deal with the lawyers, and try to formulate a plan with the realtor all at the same time. Meanwhile, I had a father who was a threat to himself and others. This made the summer and early fall of 2021 extremely tough. I took multiple personal days away from work to deal with the following: meetings with the lawyer and realtor, helping my brother move out of the family house, taking my dad to the ER to clear him for drug rehab (once he was ready for help in October), coordinating the moving company to empty out the family house, and sell the house. It took a lot of time, but my uncle and I sold the family house on October 20th, which would have been the 65th wedding anniversary of my grandparents. My dad went away for a month, which bought my uncle and I the time to do the "business end" of the estate. I prioritized this and the cleaning business slipped. Tick-tock...
• I took on more leadership in the Royal Rangers in August 2021 as I assumed the Outpost Coordinator volunteer position. This is a position I've been putting off accepting for 3 years so I could build my cleaning business from 2018 - 2021. I would have continued to put it off until after Florida except for one issue. Our Rangers outpost needed fresh vision and excitement in the post-pandemic era. We needed to get boys excited to come to Rangers and I knew it needed to be me. This leadership position is a significant increase in responsibility that I willingly accepted over the summer while Kenny and I were in the midst of Wilderness training. Oh, add this into the mix. We had potentially 9 high school boys including my son without an Expedition Rangers to plug into. Myself and a fellow Rangers commander from another church decided to start Expedition Rangers so those boys weren't left behind. We started planning and meeting monthly in September 2021, where we've been building frontier style (FCF) chairs in the other commander's workshop, eating a ton, and doing devotions by the fire. All of this stole valuable time from my cleaning business. Tick-tock...
• I run this podcast, the Smart Cleaning School, as my second business. This takes time each week. And so do my weekly Tribe calls and other promises I've made to cleaning company owners that I help. Tick-tock...
• Did I mention that I'm also a husband and father to 5? We homeschool and the other 6 members of my family want time with me too. Do you know the strain I felt in the fall as I tried to navigate through all of this. I need time for my family!!!! Tick-tock...
• Lastly, I was dealing with the fear of success, the lack of experience in building systems to hold the business that needed to be built, and my own perfectionist tendencies. Tick-tock...

I was operating under this assumption. I would complete all of these major life events and drains on my time. Then I would go all-in on building and delegating my cleaning business. I assumed that I'd have the time. Josh didn't like this plan. He 100% supported all of my priorities and for the reasons I've stated. He just didn't like my procrastinating plan. I was using this stuff as my excuse for my lack of cleaning business success toward the plan and goal of Florida.

Josh addressed all of my worry and concerns with the metaphor of the airplane on the runway. He simply said this. "Ken, a plane needs 7,500 feet to take-off. It needs the runway to be clear of debris, snow, or ice. Not to mention, the airplane itself needs to fully inspected, fully fueled, safe, and operational. Your airplane is not ready yet and your runway is blocked with all of the things going on in your life. You feel like you need to wait until the runway is clear before you can take off. The truth is this. The runway will never be totally cleared. Something else will always find a way to block your flight plan.  Just when you think you're 2 weeks away from having time, something else pops us. Murphy's Law states that if something bad can happen, it will happen. Parkinson's Law states that the scope of a project always expands to the time you have to fill it. Ken, you are distracted. There will never be a perfect time to take off. Successful people learn how to always clear the runway so they can do the most important things at the time. You have to learn how to clear the runway yourself, every day!"
​
What is on your runway right now that's holding you back from your number one goal? Do you want to talk about that? Make sure to check out the many free & paid resources available at the Smart Cleaning School website. Also, do you have questions for me? Book a free coaching call on my website!