Episode 59: Rethinking Capacity for Personal and Business Success
In Episode 59, Sam dives into why the accounting and and professional services industries need to rethink the way we approach our individual and collective capacity. Sam explores what ‘capacity’ is and why individual and business capacity matters for both individual and team success.
Sam touches on some things that may increase or decrease individual emotional and physical capacity, and why you have to treat your individual capacity as the most important of all.
Sam then discusses going beyond the hours-for-dollars mindset when thinking about capacity, how to become aware of what drives and depletes capacity, and what happens when you don’t control or protect it.
Finally Sam shares the Capacity Scale and some practical steps to get started understanding your own personal capacity and starting to increase it.
Listen to an excerpt
What we cover in this episode
Why your individual and business capacity matters for both individual and team success
What is business capacity and what is individual capacity
Things that may increase or decrease individual emotional and physical capacity
Why your individual capacity is the most important capacity
Going beyond the hours-for-dollars mindset when thinking about capacity
How to become aware of what drives and depletes individual and business capacity
What happens when you don’t control or protect your personal capacity
How Sam learned this lesson from being the primary earner at home and in business
What the benefits can be when you do protect and increase your personal capacity
Sam’s practical steps to get started understanding your own personal capacity
The Capacity Scale that Sam teaches to build awareness of ebbs and flows in your capacity
How to pay attention to what depletes your capacity
The growth mindset you need to cultivate in order to successfully shift your capacity
How to increase your capacity by picking just one thing or area to start with
Quotes
“No matter who you are and where you sit in your business or in your career, your individual capacity is the key to your [personal], and if you have them, businesses and team success.”
“Redefining the way we think about capacity, and taking care of our own capacity first can dramatically increase our successes and profits going forward. It actually drives efficiency up and stress levels down.”
“Usually, when we talk about our business's capacities, particularly professional services firms and accounting firms, it's how much can the team and I produce? And the usual formula that we use [is multiply] it by the expected productivity or hours available. Fairly simple stuff…But what we really missed is that there are people in there. What is their capacity to turn up and deal with things? Do they have everything they need to meet the capacity targets?”
“The most important capacity to understand is, of course, your own. Because if you can't get in tune to that, and you can't control that, and you can't protect it, you can't help anybody else.”
“I did learn it from being the primary earner for my household, and also for the business that I owned at that point. If I go down everyone goes down, so my capacity [is] actually the most important capacity. This is true of any business owner or any individual, because it's like the oxygen mask first: we have to take care of ourselves first.”
“I started looking at the other tasks in my business and getting other people to do them. And this seemed a bit of a silly thing to do because at that time, logically, capacity-wise, we couldn't afford it. But what that did is drove my capacity to do revenue based work through the roof. So suddenly our business doubled.”
“If you're at a zero capacity and you think your day [ahead] is going to actually bring it down, try to put something in that you know [will bring]…capacity back up a bit.”
“I can promise you if you start rethinking and becoming aware of what drives your own capacity, this will completely position you and (if you have one) your business and team, for success.”
Link mentioned
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