Committed to activate

Otto Wanders
4 min readMay 14, 2021

Weekly Report CW 19

Activate partners

On Tuesday's weekly check-ins, one of my partners admitted he isn’t ready to go into the project part on the StrategyGuide. He is in the last part of his master's degree and want’s first to finish it. It’s a great choice, rather than trying to do too many things at once.

He told me he still wants to check in weekly. The accountability partnership helps him to stay active. We decided to do it the Phase-B-way. So he can do his best for the master's degree.

At OnSaPa, we first check a partner's core values before we work together. This happens in the personal part of Phase A. When we are a good fit and want to commit for the long term, then the second part of Phase A is developed: The project part. After three months, Phase A is done, and it goes over into long-term guidance. Simplified, the process looks like this:

  • Phase A
    Developing the personal part with a matching project (3 months)
  • Phase B
    Follow through on the project (21 month+)

The importance of phase B is the structure and consistent check-ins OnSaPa provides. It’s the place where partners and founders honestly admit what goes well and what doesn’t. They want to improve behavior and make long-term changes. It’s not just a place about the project itself. It’s also a place where personal development and challenges are discussed—a place to zoom out weekly and have a change of perspective with a trusted partner.

Phase B activates best intentions. And I’m always driven to improve OnSaPa’s systems and processes to help our partners to achieve more. If partners achieve more, then we achieve more altogether.

Committed to three partners.

OnSaPa’s first partner already has a running small business—currently improving sales and branding. Our second partner is working through the StrategyGuide, and we just started developing the project part. The third partner switched to his master’s degree—we’ll go into project mode by the end of July.

I’m grateful that all partners are highly committed and every Tuesday is a highlight for me to check in with them.

20 miles to zoom out—committed to running.

On Wednesday, I went for the longest run so far. I listened to the audiobook Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith. It helped me to zoom out from myself and all the projects. I feel super relaxed since then. The last miles were very challenging. Everything looked like a great opportunity to stop—every bench like an invitation to sit down. I love challenges like this—where it’s all in mind. Of course, the legs and knees started hurting, but before we don’t physically break, it’s still a choice of our minds to keep our bodies going. So I kept going.

Today, I’m on a run streak of 858 days, unbroken. It’s actually a simple rule that makes me stick to it: At least 10 minutes of running, no matter what. And I do limit it to a maximum of an hour. This framing keeps my legs healthy, even if I go for a run every day. Short and slower runs are to recover from longer and faster ones. Most of the time, I'm running down a river, and when I decide it’s halftime, I run back on the other side. For that, I have to cross a bridge. Once a quarter, I want to accomplish a new longest run. I do it by just going one bridge further than on the previous longest run. This time, it was 2.5 miles more than on the last quarter. At some point, I’ll do a marathon this way. To recover, I went on Thursday, and today, for ~15 minutes. I don’t have any aching or pains today. I had a little bit yesterday. This whole running project enhanced my commitment to life and is a great opportunity to zoom out every day.

Don’t hesitate to hit me up if you’re curious about this long-term challenge.

The Five Friday Questions (CW19)

I end every week with a Friday Report and five questions, as we implemented it at OnSaPa GmbH to keep a consistent feedback relation.

What was good?

  • Received payments at OnSaPa
  • Finally started on neglected admin work at OnSaPa
  • Activated my partner to achieve more on his master’s degree
  • I did my longest run on Wednesday, 20 miles in 3.25 hours
  • I listened to the book Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith
  • Making progress with OnSaPa partners
  • Handed over the 3D-Zerolens-Project to the client

What to look at in the future?

What was shitty?

  • My inner “Technician/Doer” rebelled against the Manager’s hat and stopped “doing” the assigned tasks.

What should stay as it is?

  • Feeling relaxed (the run was excellent)

What was neglected?

  • I could have done better on admin tasks.
  • Too much procrastination.

That’s it for post #7— I will be back next week.

Enjoy a wonderful weekend!
Otto

--

--