This is a question, that many people don’t take the time to consider properly
Most of the people in the world today have been marketed to their whole lives. They have been told what car they should drive, what clothes they should wear, which restaurants they should eat in – in order that society can see them as a “success”
I was once caught up in the rat race, on the hypothetical hamster wheel, chasing a goal of more money, more prestige, more pointless crap that unknown people can measure my worth by
This may come across that I am an anti-capitalist, believing that communism has the answer to all our problems . . . stay with me here . . . that’s far from the reality
I love money, success, prestige and all the shiny things that go with it
My question here is simply aimed to get at the “WHY?”. Why do you need the business with 50 employees? Why do you need the £1,000,000 clear in your bank account? What is the driving force, what do those things enable you to have or do?
Understanding what motivates us is crucial to making good quality decisions. These can then fast track us to a place of happiness and contentment. I am fortunate to have worked with some exceptionally good coaches over the years. I can create potentially amazing business ideas all day, every day, without even putting much focus and effort into it
My good friend Emma Warren has mentored and coached me since 2011. Often, I would call her up with the next exciting stand out, brilliant business adventure. Speaking so fast through the sheer excitement, bouncing up and down with enthusiasm. I could tell that this next idea was the BIG one, the one that was going to earn me more money than Prince Harrys latest PR bill
After listening to my tirade of brilliance, she would ask some simple questions;
- How many employees does it require, to get it to where you want it to go?
I don’t enjoy running big teams, if it involves lots of employees its very unlikely to take me to a place of joy and happiness, therefore I would be creating a living nightmare. This simple question, helps me to see that 95% of my “brilliant” business ideas are going to take me to a place frustration and annoyance
- Is it working towards your ultimate end goal?
Sometimes you need to do things that are not directly working toward your end goal. If however, you are creating something that’s going to take you in the wrong direction, then it’s probably worth rethinking the strategy.
This removes another 4% of those “brilliant” ideas
There are other factors to consider when exploring the remaining 1%, but by this stage, we are not far off
The only reason any of this works is because I have put the work in over the years, taking the time to understand what I want from life
My version of success is probably very different to yours, your version very different to the next persons. The point of this Blog is to get you to check in and ask if you are following the path toward your definition of success?
So many people are following the path their parents, partner or society has set, rather than working toward their true purpose
When people say things like “when my business gets to x stage, il be sorted”, my first question, yep you guessed it, is “why?”. Often, they won’t know why, sometimes they will say because it will allow me to do “x”. Its then “why do you want to do x?”. If they can answer this, we are getting closer to the real reason, the true motivation
My next question will be “why don’t you go directly toward that now?”. This one is normally greeted with a look of confusion. They will normally say because they must achieve xyz first. When challenged again with “what’s stopping you from going straight for the thing you really want, now?”
The answer is normally from a place of fear, lack of self-belief, worrying about what others think or one of the many other self-limiting beliefs out there
Here is a real-life example (to give some context);
For years my goal has been to live abroad, being able to surf in warm water everyday – that’s it, no fancy cars, no superficial elevated status
A couple of years ago I was running an extremely profitable building company. It had an exceptionally good brand. We turned down more work than we took on. The logical thing to do in this situation was to expand the company, surely?
It had all the essential building blocks to make a standout, exceptional business – so that’s what one should do, yeah?
Let’s play it forward, from prior experience, I would estimate it’s a 5-10 year journey to expand it to a place where its well positioned for sale (retire with a shit load of cash), or have it running passively so I am hands off and it brings in passive income (you follow the same process for both options)
Fortunately, I dug into the “why” that I mentioned earlier? My why is I want to go surfing in warm water every day. Someone asked me those challenging questions from earlier. What was stopping me doing it now?
Once I had the answers, it made way for the solution. I’m now living that life. I don’t have as much money as if I had sold the building company but I’m here 10 years earlier – that seemed like a pretty good deal to me
I hope this has got you thinking about your own life / situation?
As always, any thoughts or questions I would love to hear from you?
Thanks for reading
George B
