See the world through the systems lens

When I first heard about the concept of systems and systems thinking, I was building a small business. I read an article that discussed the difference between successful and unsuccessful businesses.

The theme of the article centered on the ability of the successful small business owner to transition from doing everything to creating systems for everything. They relied on systems to run the business.

The benefit to this was that the owner can now hire employees to run the business. As each task became a process, he or she could hire someone to take over that process.

The more I read, the more intrigued I became. I started to look at my own business as a system. I realized why I struggled to get new clients. I didn’t have a great sales system and would rely on a different process every time I received an inquiry. So I built a sales system.

The more I started to shift tasks in my business to systems, the more I started to see all businesses in a new light. It gave clarity around business. It helped me identify the weak systems in my own business and replace them with better processes.

Over time, I started to become obsessed with systems thinking. As I did, I started to realize that this way of improving mirrors the way many experts used habits in our personal life. But habits are just personal systems. They share the same set of principles and can be adjusted in similar ways.

I started to apply those same systematic improvement concepts to my personal life. The response was immediate. I started to finally gain control of several areas of my life that were headed in the wrong direction.

In the past 15 or so years since that moment, I have honed my knowledge of systems thinking and how to use it to improve. The more I learn, the more value I get. The more I see the world through the systems lens, the more I can make sense of the chaos in life.

In 2009, I started writing my first book, You Can’t Surf from the Shore. At the time, I wanted to share what I learned about the ability to use systems to improve. However, I didn’t have any experience writing and didn’t know how to explain many of these principles.

Last year I found an old copy of the book and started to read it. I realized that the book was dated and didn’t give enough insight into how to use systems and habits to improve. I knew I had to change the book to create a resource that can help people apply systems to their life to grow and improve.

That started a process of editing, rewriting, editing some more, rewriting more etc. In the end, I rewrote about 90% of the book. Last week I finally released this new and improved second edition on Amazon.com.

This book will help you see through the systems lens. It will explain many of the foundational principles of the systems and habits approach to improvement but does so through storytelling and easy to follow examples.

Seeing the world through the systems lens has improved my life. The principles behind it are basic, yet most ignore them and focus solely on the outcomes they receive, not the process they took to get there. They focus on the destination more than the journey. But the journey you take is what determines the outcome.

If you have enjoyed many of the articles I post weekly on my website, check out Amazon.com for You Can’t Surf from the Shore: An Introduction to the Systems and Habits Approach to Improvement. It encapsulates the information here in an easy-to-read book format to help consolidate the information and help you on your journey of systematic improvement.