I love the word strategery. If you missed it, this came into the consciousness of America through a Saturday Night Live skit featuring Will Ferrell as President George Bush. This was inspired by Bushisms which are basically humorous statements when Bush misspoke. What’s even better than strategery is strategy. It is a real word that has real value. Strategy can be defined as the art of devising or employing plans toward a goal. Strategery can be defined as one way Will Ferrell made bank at someone else’s expense.

I believe most everyone sees the value of setting goals. Having a goal is great. Attaining the goal is the best. We can set awe-inspiring goals all day and all night, but if there is not actionable steps to make the goals reality then we might as well get some sleep. A goal without a plan is just as useless as a car without gas. It’s not going anywhere.

To interject some reality here, I’ve not always been a big goal setter. Sure I had some ethereal dreams and general ideas of where I wanted to go. More than likely this comes from the fact that I wasn’t willing to get a plan together. Setting a goal — easy. Implementing a plan — hard. As I’ve matured (code for become an old guy) I’ve realized the necessity of goals and planning, and more so for the latter.

In marketing terms, strategy is the mid range goal of your company. This can be three to five years of implementing your plan to achieve success in the area you projected. How does this happen? The strategy must be broke up year by year, month by month, week by week. These are tactics which can be defined as a device for accomplishing an end. Tactics can be described as your short range goals. A goal is to increase sales. A strategy is to have a productive sales staff. A tactic is to equip them with ongoing training.

It’s important that our strategy and tactics are well thought out and planned. The book Marketing Plans explains that companies with bad tactics and bad strategy will die slowly. One with bad tactics and good strategy will survive. Great tactics and bad strategy will suffer a quick death, and those that do both well will thrive. One of my favorite quotes from this book:

Any organization doing the wrong things more efficiently is destined to die more quickly than their less efficient counterparts. It is a bit like making a stupid manager work harder, thus doubling the chaos and probably offending twice as many customers.

The goal is to thrive. This will include having a firm grasp on the day to day as well as the years to come. Maybe you have some incredible goals that you want to achieve, but don’t know how to get there. It won’t happen in one fell swoop. (Free knowledge: Did you know that “one fell swoop” was either originated or was popularized in Shakespeare’s Macbeth? I did not until I wrote it in this blog.) Get out the pen and paper if you still have them and begin to write your actionable plan.

Start with the big work down to the small. If you don’t know the big plan it will be very difficult to have tactics that produce the final result desired.

People may never see the strategy that you formulated for success, but the tactics will be evident everyday as your goals are achieved incrementally. Sun Tzu said, “All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”

I’m thinking I have to get this idea out of my head and into a post. Aaah, the power of the mind … we may never fully understand it’s capabilities. In case you didn’t know, our thoughts originate from our brain. Also, to inspire some confidence, your brain uses the amount of energy contained in two large bananas. There you have it — actual scientific evidence that “going bananas” is a real thing.

Here’s another neat-o fact about your melon from the TimesOnline, “Curiously, even though the brain is very efficient, it’s an energy hog. It is only 3 per cent of the body’s weight, but consumes 1/6 (17 per cent) of the body’s total energy. Most of its energy costs go into maintenance; the added cost of thinking hard is barely noticeable.”

So, you’ve got no excuses. Using your brain is green, and thinking will not destroy the rain forests. I know this is a load off shoulders (PUN ALERT! PUN ALERT!) for many of you and you can now resume using your brain at full capacity.

In actuality, thoughts come easily enough. The challenge is having the right thoughts. Now, I’m not going all mystical pie in the sky here, but bad actions are borne out of bad thoughts. No one walks around indiscriminately punching people in the face with no forethought. (If you do that after deep introspection, I suggest you seek immediate help.) That was a violent example. On the beautiful side of life, no guy brings home a dozen roses to his lady without first having the thought. In both cases a choice was made. We choose to dwell on the ugly or the beautiful.

The longer we think something the more likely we are to say it. Once we’ve said something we begin to believe it’s veracity. I believe in unicorns … that is all. I kid, but how many times do we talk ourselves in or out of believing something or doing something? It always starts with a thought.

We give validity to thoughts when we speak them out. A random thought may barrel through our mind, “I’m good for nothing.” This is the moment of choice. If we latch on to that it will eventually come out in our conversation in some form. And at some point we will actually become somewhat useless. But, if we realize that, “I am good for something,” and then operate with that truth, it will also take shape in our lives.

The Bible talks about the importance of thinking correctly, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” That is a great thinking list to start with. If we can filter our thought process with those criteria, we can avoid a lot of trouble that often comes with bad thinking.

Like the Stuart Smalley video below self talk is often joked about, but truth be told there is real value in thinking and speaking the right way. It will lead to acting in the right way, and that, my friends, will lead to a smile on your face. Score!