What firm commitments are holding you back from MVP-level performance?
With news that EQT Corporation has optimized some of its firm transportation portfolio, this morning's a good time to ask yourself whether the commitments governing your professional and personal life are still providing the same value you'd anticipated when you signed up for them...assuming you even remember signing up in the first place.
The headline: EQT sells portion of its capacity on the Mountain Valley Pipeline (by Paul J. Gough of The Pittsburgh Business Times)l
The goal: to (G)row, (P)rotect, and (S)ustain success by pondering these 3 questions throughout your day:
💡 What unnecessary commitments are hindering your ability to flourish?
💡 How much time, energy, and money are you spending to protect old habits?
💡 Are you unwittingly signing up for an unsustainable level of new obligations?
For an expanded conversation on the topic of (figurative) FT agreements and how they produce unsustainable leaders, check out this April 2020 episode of The Energy Detox.
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Hello and welcome to the energy detox petroleum based blend of leadership conversations guaranteed to boost your professional and personal output by flushing away the hidden and often toxic barriers to peak performance. I'm your host, Joe Sinnott, a chemical engineer, executive coach and 16 year energy industry veteran helping you tap into the same resources fueling today's most successful and sustainable leaders. And this morning, we're taking a headline that occurred last night, at the end of the market day from EQ T Corporation, the largest producer of natural gas here in the United States. And he Qt announced ahead of their earnings call this morning at 10 o'clock Eastern that they have optimized some of their firm transportation portfolio. And what that means is they offloaded almost half of their firm transportation capacity on MVP mountain valley pipeline. And without getting into the details on the actual story, they didn't quite offload it as much as they offloaded some of the some of the responsibility, it seems and maybe some of the commitments to someone else, while still being able to produce gas, send it down to the southeast, produce responsibly sourced gas, nonetheless, end all toll per their release, reduce the cost of their transportation. So all that being said, it begs the question today for you, which is how optimized is your commitment? Portfolio? if you will? What are you locked into that may or may not be allowing you to continue moving forward? Or is the title of this podcast today is what? What are you doing? What? What are you What is in place? How are your commitments when it comes to being able to achieve MVP level performance? Do you have firm commitments in place that are preventing you from having MVP level performance? Now, of course, before we begin when I say MVP, I'm talking in terms of most valuable player like some of those vying in the World Series last night including I was able to have a and and his counterpart on the on the mound there who had very good performances, MVP level performances, perhaps I am not referring to MVP level performances in terms of mountain valley pipeline, which of course, is about $3 billion over budget and about three years behind. But all that being said, the goal today, as always, is to ask you three questions that help you grow, protect and sustain success, three questions you can ask today and continue throughout the rest of the week and the rest of the month, even though there's a couple days left. So that again, you can continue moving forward, continue maximizing the performance of yourself. And in turn of your team, much as you cutie, apparently maximize and optimize the performance of its transportation portfolio by selling a bit and committing to some other firm transportation out west, which you can find in the article that's linked in the comments for this episode. So all that being said, let's jump into that first question today, which is what unnecessary commitments are hindering your ability to flourish? And of course, unnecessary can kind of give you pause, right? If you signed up for it in the first place, well, surely it's necessary. You're you're not going down a path unwittingly and and continuing to do things that don't make sense. Except that you probably are, you probably have some commitments that are really not adding a whole bunch of value for you. And the question today is, what might those commitments be? And again, if you're running a company, obviously, you might have commitments to vendors and suppliers that maybe don't make sense anymore, perhaps even to customers that don't make sense anymore. But for you personally, are you committed to figurative firm transportation commitments that are forcing you into daily habits, daily things daily commitments that just don't make sense. And that can be as simple as your recurring coffee run with with folks that maybe eats up a certain portion of your day? Maybe it's your inability to say no to lunch meetings, maybe it's the commitment that you feel to again, hop on Zoom every so often, and, and engage in unnecessary meetings that, again, aren't really adding a whole bunch of value. Again, I don't need to go through the litany of things other than asking you yourself, hey, as you go through today, ask yourself, are you committed to something that really isn't adding any value? And if so, what can you do about it? How can you set that aside? How can you optimize your portfolio of commitments, if you will, so that you continue to grow and so that you can help your team continue to grow and flourish in an age when time is precious energy is precious, and, frankly, money is precious? All that being said, we'll move on to the next question, which is how much time and energy and money are you spending to protect old habits?
05:04
Are you investing all of your, again, your your precious resources, on things that you've been doing for years and don't even realize that you're continuing to do, maybe it's your morning routine, maybe there's some elements of your routine that takes, I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes, or something that you're doing, again, around lunchtime, that just makes you lose focus. It allows you to go off on a tangent, if you will, it distracts you whatever that is, maybe it's your working environment where you're working from home, and you love the ability to go and engage with your spouse, you know, and have lunch with them. But yet, you realize that whatever upside that you're gaining from that, that commitment that you feel you've you've established over the last year and a half of working from home, maybe the downside from a work standpoint isn't worth it, maybe you'd be better off, working through staying focused, and then spending time in the evening. I don't know what it is. But you need to ask yourself, are there old habits that have been developed, whether it's over the last 18 months of pandemic induced changes in your day? Or maybe it's over the last several years? Whatever it is, question them, uncover them, and ask whether or not they are still adding value. And if they're not just as we said in the first question, figure out a way around it, figure out a way that it doesn't lock you in to things that no longer make sense. And the final question today is, are you unwittingly signing up for on sustainable new obligations? And again, as cliched as it is, you know, you need to you need to exercise your ability to say no to new things, right. Any any coach is going to tell you that anybody that I'm working with that feels stuck, that's one of the first things we tackle right is, are you able to say no to new obligations to new commitments, especially when you don't even realize you're doing it? When you feel so proud of your ability to say yes, and to tackle new things and continue moving forward? Are you missing the fact that you're overextending yourself? And again, this is about as trite of advice as you could possibly get. But it's because it's true. And I see it all the time, people getting stuck people who will feel obligated that they need to do X, Y, or Z. And one of the best questions that you can ask yourself, and in turn, you can ask those around you. When they say something like, well, I need to do this, or I have to do this. The best question you can ask to disarm them is says who? And again, I can't remember the first time I heard that. So if it happens to be you, if it was a podcast I listened to or if it was somebody in some coaching that they offered me that suggestion. My apologies. And please feel free. You can you can chime in live here if you happen to be listening or watching and let me know that it was you who first put that question in my head says who says who? Who says that? Your family needs a nice home cooked meal tonight, instead of Wendy's because you're over committed on your children's activities. And you don't have time? Who cares? Says who? Who says that? You know, you can't just have a nice drive through dinner tonight. Yes, ideally, you would have a nice home cooked meal and everybody sits around the table. But sometimes that's not practical. So don't put that extra obligation on yourself. Why are you committed to certain ideas like that, and again, and might be a silly one for for some of you out there. But certainly if you have kids, you realize that in many ways, you probably are heavily committed, almost say over committed. But some of those things feel like they're you're stuck in some, you know, 10 or 20, long commitment, your commitment, you know, to continue moving forward and doing activities, whether it's sports, or whatever it happens to be, and you can feel stuck. And it's healthy as a parent to ask whether those commitments are actually serving you serving your children, and so to in business, asking whether the commitments that you have with all of your stakeholders are continuing to serve their purpose, but the best thing you could do is at least be on guard against new commitments. So again, that is my suggestion for you today.
08:52
That is my advice for you today. And those are the questions for you today. Ask yourself, what firm commitments have you entered into? Are you continuing entering into that don't add value and don't let you achieve MVP level performance. And as always, thank you for taking the time to listen in today. I hope you never feel committed to listen to any sort of podcast or media or content out there certainly with no shortage of media and podcast and content available. So with that being said, I appreciate you taking the time and energy to listen to me today. And if any of this resonated, I invite you to check out the link here to this post that can bring you to an expanded conversation about firm transportation in the energy industry, what it means and in turn, and a longer conversation about some of the ways that you can mitigate some of the firm transportation agreements that you've entered into. So with all that being said, I hope you have an excellent day. If you are curious about EQ T's optimization of their firm transportation commitments. I welcome you to hop on their earnings call at 10 o'clock this morning, Eastern Time to to hear a little bit more color on what all of this means. And again in the meantime, I hope you have an excellent day and thank you again for tuning in.