All Things Are Created Twice
How to improve your creation process so that you can actually attain your vision
“All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.”
Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has had a profound impact on me throughout my adult life. I always seem to be reminded of Covey’s wisdom and lessons at precisely the right times. And it’s particularly during this time of year that I’m reminded of one of those lessons - that all things are created twice.
I’m reminded because it was during this time five years ago that I went through a pretty big turning point in my career. One that started with the sudden and devastating closure of my last business, but ultimately led to the creation of BE Lean.
Like many things, it’s hard to pin the creation of BE Lean to a singular moment in time. We often think of creation as the moment something physically manifests itself into the world. But according to Covey, that physical creation can only happen after a mental creation first.
I’m sure this concept of “design first, then build” isn’t foreign to you. But framing them as two separate and distinct creations is something that’s given me a good deal of perspective about what it takes to actually make a vision become real.
I know first hand what it’s like to have a vision of what you want your business to become, to work toward it tirelessly year after year, and still feel like you just haven’t gotten there.
BE Lean is the third business that I’ve grown, and I’ve learned from experience that having the right balance between the mental and physical creation is absolutely essential. In fact, overly focusing on one at the expense of the other was a fundamental cause of why my first two businesses failed.
In this article, I want to share with you how that imbalance played out in my first two businesses so that you don’t make the same mistakes. I’d also like to be so bold as to add to Covey’s quote. There is a first and second creation, but there’s also a third crucial step that comes after that. One that I’ve not only been implementing as I grow BE Lean, but also with my clients to help them make the vision they have for their business become real.
Getting paralyzed in the process of mental creation
My first business began in the classroom at the University of Maryland in the fall of 2007. A decade before bikes and scooters littered the streets of every major city in the US, we had seen the bike sharing programs of Europe and were inspired to bring an updated concept to our college campus. What started out as a short term project quickly grew beyond the classroom as we became excited about the prospect of creating the next generation of bike sharing.
weBike’s beta launch in 2009
We spent years in the mental creation phase before a single bike hit the streets with our weBike logo on it. After all, we came from a business school where we were bombarded with the ubiquitous message that the way to start a successful business is to create a successful business plan. You know, the 20 page business plan that promises to be the blueprint for the business and a magical formula that will attract customers, investors, and supporters.
Well, our business plan didn’t work. I know. You’re shocked.
The problem with the “business plan” mentality was that it made us believe that our business needed to be entirely and perfectly built on paper before it was allowed to go out into the world.
We thought and obsessed over every detail of our paper business. We worked on our logo and how to trademark our name. We considered dozens of price points and modeled them out financially. We created CAD models of bike stations, did countless hours of market research, and designed a website. But all of that thought and planning didn’t translate to a successful real world business.
While we ultimately launched a couple of systems - the first of their kind in the country - our business hardly got off the ground.
Thinking back on that time, I remember feeling like we were working tirelessly and getting nowhere. What we were actually doing was planning tirelessly. Fearful of committing to a choice. Wanting all our ducks in a row before we put our product out into the world. You may know this as analysis paralysis, and it killed our business before we even got off the launch pad.
Read more about what my first business taught me about failure.
Running off the rails with too much physical creation
Borrowing the goldilocks analogy, if weBike was cold porridge, my next business was undoubtedly hot porridge.
greeNEWit was an energy efficiency company just a year into business when I joined them as an early employee. Started by three twenty-somethings with dreams to change the world, the mindset of the company couldn’t have been any different than weBike’s.
The greeNEWit team in 2012
greeNEWit’s owners were young and exuberant idea factories. Never a day went by when there wasn’t a chance that the ground could shift completely beneath our feet. Those of us who joined the company in those early days shared their values, energy, and enthusiasm. But over time, it felt like we were in an endless chase without ever having arrived.
While weBike focused entirely too much on the mental creation, greeNEWit treated every idea like a springboard directly to the physical creation. Every new opportunity that arose was a yes. Each new strategy promised to be our breakthrough.
It was shiny object syndrome on steroids, and it was exhausting.
At the time, we prided ourselves with being scrappy, resourceful, and quite literally faking it until we made it. The problem was, when we finally had made it, the “faking it” part had left deep scars. It left us with a team that lacked organization and discipline. It left us with things we had built that we could no longer use or afford. And it quite literally left us with a pile of debt that crippled our growth and ultimately put us out of business.
Read more about how we should have done it.
Why finding the right balance is so hard
When I set out to start BE Lean, I had tasted the porridge that was too cold, and I tasted the one that was too hot. This one - my third business - I wanted to be juuuust right.
“To the extent to which we understand the principle of two creations and accept the responsibility for both, we act within and enlarge the borders of our Circle of Influence.”
I wanted to find that balance between planning and doing. Between possibilities and focus. But I’ll be honest, it’s been challenging, even overwhelming at times.
After all, building a business isn’t a straight line from idea to reality. It’s a series of mini creation cycles over time. It’s not the success or failure of a single idea that determines the outcome of a business. Rather, it’s how those mini creation cycles build upon each other consistently over time that ultimately get a business to the place it wants to be.
But here’s the thing I’ve noticed from my own experiences and from working with other founders, CEOs, and owners. We all know the importance of process in our business. But we don’t treat the creation process the same way.
The secret to having the right balance between the mental and physical creation is to have a process in place for creating and implementing new ideas.
Here’s what business owners do when there isn’t a process in place:
They hold the “grand plan” in their heads and struggle to communicate it to their team.
They delegate bits and pieces to others without sharing the larger context or goal.
They try to work on too many things at once and end up completing very little.
They focus on what’s next without stopping to learn from past efforts.
They prioritize new ideas above all else and create an environment of constant change and urgency.
Have you been guilty of any of these behaviors? If so, welcome to the club.
So why does this happen? There’s something interesting that happens in the mind of a business owner during the creation process that’s very different from all of the other processes that happen in a business. Creation is a very personal thing. It’s wrapped up in our egos and how we view our roles as leaders. It’s just hard for us to let go of things and trust the process.
What that means is that we become the biggest roadblock in the process of creation.
The Process of Creation
So what does it look like to have a process in place for creation? Here’s my three-step process.
Design with a Benchmark for Success
Don’t just envision what you want to create. Define a measurable outcome that will determine whether or not the project or strategy is successful.
Implement in Manageable Chunks
Break down the effort into discrete, manageable chunks. They should be small enough to have a clear picture of what needs to be done, but large enough to generate a measurable outcome.
Learn and Repeat
This is the most important step that Covey left out of his quote. Once the mental and physical creation are done, it’s important to take stock of what you created and determine whether it actually produced the results you expected.
You can’t shortcut this step. You have to make the time to do it. Based on what you’ve learned, take that learning and feed it into the next creation cycle. It will improve the outcome of your next effort.
I’ve used this process not only to build my own business, but to help my clients get more organized and disciplined about how they implement new ideas and strategies. The results have been transformational.
Analysis paralysis turns into getting sh*t done.
The shiny object monster calms down and teams actually produce results.
Having a process for creation truly does produce magic. Steadily over time, what was once just a vision becomes real.
Do you need a better process for how you implement new ideas and strategies in your business? Are you tired of trying to do it all yourself while you’re also running the business?