Daddy, will you read me a story?

It was late, and I was exhausted.

It had been a long day. 

I made breakfast, packed lunches, worked, exercised, dropped off and pick up for dance and gymnastics, made supper, cleaned dishes, picked up EVERYTHING off the floor, etc. 

Now Lilly looked up at me with her big brown eyes and asked for one more thing, “Daddy, will you read me a story?”

Ugh.  Yep.  One more thing.

I was very tempted to tell her I would tomorrow night, because Daddy just couldn’t tonight.

But, my wife and I had made a commitment to read a story to the children every night with very few exceptions.

So I put on a weary grin and said, “Of course pumpkin.  How about Llama Llama Red Pajama?”  I knew it was a short book.

She was thrilled and it only took 5 minutes.

This is a priority in my family. 

A keystone priority.

But why? 

It’s not like reading a short book each night will be life-changing, right? 

Because we feel like reading to our children at bedtime makes a difference.

While I would like to pretend to be the perfect Dad, I’m not close. 

My nerves get shot, I get impatient, and sometimes I really don’t want to pretend to be excited because Lane drew a picture of the dog…again.

However, a book each night, lets us end the day on a good note, no matter what happened that day. 

This priority makes sure they go to bed happy, which means they wake up happy.  Not to mention this priority makes sure we spend one-on-one with them with the educational benefits.

As a result, we have happier children that read a grade level above most kids.

So what does a Llama in pajamas have to do with your business?

The really successful business owners I work with, know that having just a few keystone priorities in their business is what really matters.

Throughout each day you have your own version of things that make you exhausted.

Emails, upset customers, missing employees, late shipments, marketing, networking events, sending invoices, collecting late payments, etc.

With all of that, do you have one or two keystone priorities that you really focus on? 

Are there one or two keystone priorities that will make everything else work, regardless of the trivial events of the day?

Take Alcoa for example (from The Power of Habit):

When Paul O’Neill took over Alcoa in 1987, he shocked investors and the board of directors with his decision to focus on one keystone priority - safety.  Not a new product line and not implementing Six Sigma.  Just safety.

But what O’Neill realized is that focusing on the company’s new keystone priority of safety would cause a trickle-down effect to the bottom line.  If employees work more safely, there are fewer injuries and production slowdowns resulting in improved productivity.

This gave the slumping Alcoa, record profits in 1988 and someone who invested a million dollars in Alcoa on the day O’Neill was hired would have earned another million dollars in dividends while he headed the company, and the value of their stock would be five times bigger when he left!

So, what is your keystone priority?

What is the one thing, which if done correctly, will make everything else fall into place?

As for me, I continue our nightly reading ritual and hoping for some new Llama Llama books to come our way soon.