Letting Go of Security

My team members and I are working through the process of implementing EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) in our organization, and executing the vision meetings to build our foundation. In the beginning, I was very attached to using the Core 4 Principles as the foundation of the values of Refined Completions. But I knew that was driven by my own need for the security of something familiar, so I decided to trust the EOS process.

You see, I wanted to hang on to the security of the work already done in that area. I had already written a book based on those principles, and then expanded it into a guide. But then I realized that it was mine, and it would always be mine—it would never belong to our team as a whole. If we made something new, we would own it together. So I gave up control, and we came up with the acronym TIPS to encompass all the things all of us wanted to include.

The T stands for Trust. That one wasn’t such a surprise, as trust is always the foundation for relationships. What I wasn’t prepared for was the second one, I. We started talking about how we wanted to be a company that seeks to understand, then be understood. That led us to realize that we use problem solving to understand, and then innovation serve our customers. Our value is in innovation and being problem solvers, so Innovation became the I.

Next, we started talking about the golden rule, but weren’t sure what to call it. How do you find one single word that conveys that concept? After much discussion, we landed on P, Purposeful, based on the conscious decision to exhibit high moral character, patience, and kindness to others.

The last one, S, stands for Stewardship. We commit to being good stewards of the technology and knowledge we’ve been given, and the trust and resources our customers provide, and of course, all of our team members. Good stewards are not only responsible, they’re safe. Stewardship is a profit-first mindset, honoring the time, effort, and energy of all the people involved in our company.

That’s how TIPS ended up being our internal guide, while we still implement the Ten Rules as a company-wide purpose. In the end, it’s clear to me that TIPS is a much more concise way to speak to our internal values, and I realized it didn’t diminish the ten rules, it enhanced them. All ten rules are about trust—they’re about our purpose because they’re about how we treat each other and respect one another’s contributions.

In going through the EOS process, I’ve had to give up the security of being in control—but I’m gaining freedom as the owner of a business that has a capable team who can run it for me, so I can fulfill my role as a visionary and live in my working genius. It also fulfills my goal of being a trust and inspire leader instead of being in control all the time.

It’s a very uncomfortable process, but I’ve learned that we identify comfort as security, when really it can be a loss of freedom. Many times we seek security after trauma, and hurt. We believe it will prevent future hurt if we pursue security.

For example, if your hurt is based on a financial situation that happened, you’ll believe financial success is the key to never having to endure being hurt, but that’s not true. Because once you gain financial success, your stress will just transform into worrying about hanging on to what you have and not enduring losses in your business transactions. You’ll have to then pursue more resources so that losing some of them wouldn’t be as traumatic. And then when you have all that financial security, wealth in abundance, you will worry about people wanting to take it from you intentionally. And on and on and on.

That security you’re seeking will never come because you’re trying to find a way to control events in your life, and that’s not possible. The only person in control of anything is God. And if you believe that He directs your life, you’ll know that true security comes from the freedom of trusting Him.