Yesterday was the first day of 2012 we reached 90° in Wilmington, NC. I think we’ve had a few brushes with 90 but over all we’ve had a mild spring. Weather is not something I pay much attention to, unless we’re hitting the extremes – drought, flood, hurricane, extreme hot or cold, etc etc. I probably wouldn’t have realized yesterday was our first day of 90° temps EXCEPT, when we came home yesterday around 5:30 it was hotter in our air conditioned house than it was outside!
We were running out to another meeting. So, I ran the thermostat down to 70° and left for the evening. When we returned home the house was cooler than it had been but still not as cool as it should be. Our neighbor is a mechanical genius and his specialty is refrigeration and heating and A/C. He is also one of those guys, like my dad, was who is always willing to help. When we called Rod his first words were ‘turn the system off, now! or you may burn up your compressor.’ I’ll be over soon.’ Naturally, we turned off the system ASAP and waited for Rod to arrive.
I held a flashlight as Rod checked our system he said our system was Okay and then we had a conversation that went something like this:
‘Have you ever cleaned your coils?’
‘ummmm, well, you did a couple of years ago.’
‘No, I cleaned the outside – I mean the coils inside your House’
‘There are coils inside the house?’
‘OH, you’re going to be amazed at how well your system can work and how much lower your electric bill will be once we clean your coils! Your system now is so clogged; it has to work hard to keep up and on these really hot days it just can’t cool your house’
Naturally, I was full of ‘how’ questions. Then we discussed when we’d be able to get these things cleaned, etc. After Rod left, I started to think and it occurred to me that there are many things in my life that are just like my A/C unit. They’re working, but not as well as they used to. Sometimes doing simple things become complicated, not because of the thing itself but because of all the crap around it.
Night before last I attended a seminar by Brad Sugars
There was a guy (Mr Z) who had a business. Mr Z was making deliveries for his business one day each week (8 hours) because he did not want to incur the expense of hiring a guy to do the deliveries. When questioned, Mr Z admitted it would take only two new accounts to be able to cover the salary of a delivery guy. Upon further questioning it was determined it would only take two hours of Mr Z’s time to secure two new accounts. The obvious question is why Mr Z was wasting 8 hours of his time on deliveries each week when he could be growing his business.
Because his coils were clogged!
Mr Z was so busy running his business he failed to grow his business. He needed to take the time and make the effort to step back and clean off the coils. He needed to strip away the dirt, grime and dog hair so that the system can run at capacity. It’s cheaper, easier and the system is less likely to break.
I have no doubt that cleaning off the coils of my life will not be as easy as cleaning the coils of my Air Conditioning unit. However, recognizing that the coils are dirty is a start toward getting them cleaned.
If you’re a business owner, what are you spending time on that you need to delegate? Where do you need to dust off the coils in how you do business?
What about your personal life? Are you carrying years of hurt? Are you holding on to guilt? Where do you need to clean the coils and let go of stuff so you can operate more efficiently?
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