By David Lund
What are you believing and why? Do you believe the numbers are the hard part of hospitality? Do you believe you were in the wrong line at birth and just did not get the right tools? Well, I invite you to open your mind and think again about what you believe. If you do, you can open a brand-new door that will pay off in spades.
This is an article about how people see things, how they think. Because we’re human we have the highest power in the universe and that’s an imagination. Because we have an imagination we “feel” our thinking. In hospitality, there is a lot of misuse of our imagination and I will examine how this negatively affects financial leadership.
The problem with feeling our thinking and having an imagination is four-fold:
- Often, we use our imagination the wrong way, we use it to scare ourselves.
- Often, we believe what we think is real, what we imagine is real, right?
- Often, we get hung up on these scary imaginations and they preclude us from being productive.
- We think the world is happening outside of us when it’s all an inside job, it’s our imagination.
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
― Albert Einstein
Imagination is our greatest gift as human beings. We are the only creatures that have one. Your dog is not sitting at home planning his retirement. The dog, like all other creatures, operates on fight or flight and some instincts. Same goes for all other creatures in our world. They all have an operating system that does not include an imagination.
At the very foundation of our beings is the 1,2,3 concept of mind, then thought and finally our consciousness. Another way to express this 1,2,3 is our brains, our thinking and our outlook on life.
Let’s first look at the brain—our mind
It operates the body and it is the most sophisticated thing on earth. We do not need to tell it how to process our oxygen, manage our waste or to remember to grow our hair. It operates our body without our thinking or intervention. We can think about holding our breath or needing to pee or getting a haircut, but the brain and our minds just go about managing things for us. This is a wonderful thing.
The second part is thought—our thinking
We have thousands and thousands of thoughts every day and most of these we are not even aware of. As much as 95 percent of our thinking goes on without us even being aware of what those thoughts are. This is described as habitual thinking and quite often a large percent of this thinking is negative.
Much of this thinking comes from our upbringing, our past. This is nothing to get worried about because there is nothing we can do about it. So, no solution, therefore, there is no problem.
The third part is consciousness—our active thinking
Put another way, it is our outlook on life. This is where things get put together. This is where we get fooled. This is where we see how our world and the people, places and things seemingly affect us. We believe that this is our reality. My life and the people in it, the conditions I live with, the job I have, my relationships, my prosperity, my image of myself, my happiness. This is where we take all the stuff that is happening to us and we make up our story. We see the world as outside in and the truth is it is the opposite. Our reality is made up of our imagination combined with the thoughts we have. This all happens inside our consciousness not outside. This is “the great illusion”.
Now stick with me here because this is where we will expose the illusion for what it really is.
As human beings we are well advised to realize—we do not need to believe—what we think. We are much better off if we do not believe what we think, especially the negative thoughts. We have thousands of thoughts a day. Most we do not even realize. The ones that we do realize we believe or better still we “believe them” because we “feel” the thinking. We have a negative thought about our finances and we feel bad. We have a negative thought about a relationship and we feel bad. Before you know it we are feeling really bad. But it is all an illusion and it comes from inside our consciousness where thought and imagination get mixed together.
What we need to do is not believe it. Do not believe any of it.
Thoughts are like a perpetual fountain of crap that spews into our consciousness. It never stops spewing. Our job is to look the other way until a good thought happens along and then we play with that one. The same way we pick the things we like in other parts of our lives. We have the choice to pick the things we think about, believe and like. Thoughts both bad and good will pass, like a cloudy day. However, the thoughts we hold onto are going to shape our consciousness. Hold onto bad thoughts and see where that gets you. Play with and nurture positive thoughts and life looks much better. Things will naturally move in a good direction.
Now back to financial leadership
It is simple. What are you believing and how is it making you feel and what direction are you heading in?
Do you believe that you were born without the numbers gene? Do you imagine how embarrassed you will be at the department head meeting when you cannot explain why your payroll is more than the forecast? Do you panic when you look at the statement and none of it makes any sense? Do you feel a sense of dread about the numbers?
Or:
Do you believe that the numbers are just another part of the business and that with a little practice you can learn how to manage? Do you imagine that soon you will be able to do your forecast, track your revenues, adjust your monthly expenses and payroll based on the volume of business, review your month end P&L and GL for accuracy and finally write your departmental business commentary? Do you imagine that others have crossed the same bridge of knowledge and ability successfully and you can too? Can you imagine how good it will be to manage your department’s finances?
Financial leadership is about your imagination and believing you can build your muscles and the desire to feel good about your abilities and yourself.
Don’t get fooled by the illusion.
