Back in the early 2000s, I was a proud business owner. I had a business mentor that I was working with and he told me, “Doug, you need to build it before you need it.” Now, this is one of the most successful people I have ever met at the time and what he was really telling me was I need to start building the infrastructure in my business before I actually needed it. What I was doing is what most business owners, in fact, most of us do, right? We start building things or getting things in an order when we need them whether that be a relationship, whether it be a friendship when it comes to networking, or just whether a skill or even fitness. We try to get in shape for summer. We try to get in shape for the new year when that time is there.
For me, what it was going is my business was doing great and what he was trying to tell me is I was going to grow. Employees are going to come and go and I needed to build an employee hiring system before I needed it and he was right. I had employees leaving as they started to move and atriculate around the country and I also had demand coming into my business. I needed to have a B team as he called it or a minor league team in place.
Now, fast forward to today and it’s been gosh, quite a while. It’s been almost 15 years or so and now, just this very weekend my wife was extremely ill. She got sick and she couldn’t even leave the bedroom. She couldn’t leave the room. She was so ill and my son, my eight-month-old little guy was also sick. Here I am the father and husband trying to do the best I can, trying to take care of both of them. There’s only so much I could do and I was juggling and launched another new business and I’ve got coaching clients coming in. Impossible to do it all, except for that it wasn’t. It actually wasn’t very hard at all because I built my business before just to be able to handle these types of situations.
Now, truth be told I built my business really so I could go travel, have fun and be the author of my own story but as I’ve gotten older, as I’ve gotten married and raised a family or raising a family, I’ve really been able to leverage what I’ve built in order to spend time and take care of my family, which is the most important thing to me. At the same time, I had the infrastructure in place for each of my businesses that nothing went through the tracks. Everything moved so smoothly. It allowed me to spend that focus time, that quality time nurturing both my wife and my little baby son. Even after I recorded this Daily Growth Act, I will walk outside and I’ll be able to play with both of them, cherishing that precious time that everybody talks about. People talk about they don’t miss out on that or I wish I would’ve spent more time. Yeah, how many of us build our lives in such a manner that allow us to do what’s important? You need to build it before you need it.
Now often, you’ve heard me in this Daily Growth Act say, “Show me your calendar and I’ll show you your priorities.” That’s very true but I can also look at your lifestyle and locate what your priorities were several weeks, months, or even years before. It’s just like looking at someone’s body, you know what they’re priorities are. If they’re really fit, you know fitness is a priority for them. If they’re really out of shape, chances are fitness isn’t a priority and it’s probably talk. This goes for your business, too.
I recommend grabbing your journal right now, taking on this exercise of writing out your Five to Thrive. Where in that Five to Thrive if you want to have forward-thinking where you can start building it before you need it? Where are some things you could have? Maybe it’s in the area of your body. Maybe you’re getting older and you want to make sure you have a consistent exercise that you could enjoy. Maybe you’re like me a couple of years ago, I was still playing competitive soccer. You know with a bunch of people literally half my age. It wasn’t sustainable for the lifestyle that I wanted so I had to build another mechanism. Another way of staying in shape and being healthy that I could continue on and continue for years to come maybe even decades.
Maybe it’s in your mind. Maybe you need to build something else. Maybe you need to learn new skills, the economy and market are always changing. Maybe it’s a foreign language. Maybe it’s the area of relationships. Maybe you should look around and see the people that you’re spending time with. Do they mirror the life that you want to live, the things that you want to do? Maybe it’s a romantic relationship. Maybe it’s time to make some changes. Maybe you’re like a friend of mine I was talking to today who said, “Hey, I want to start building my life for kids.” He wants to have kids and get married and so he is actually is now trying to prep his business. Kudos to you if you’re listening right now.
Also, maybe it’s in the area of your business. Do you want to scale? Do you want to be able to have the freedom? How many business owners talk about having freedom? Yet, realize when you start a business you have anything but unless you put those things in place.
Write those down because now I’m having the clarity of mindset. The truth will set you free. You can actually start building it before you need it and maybe you’ll find yourself like me where you’ve spent years building something around the lifestyle that you want and you’ve actually achieved it but maybe even looks a little different. Maybe something happens like your family gets sick and now that you have this infrastructure around you that’s the author of your own story lifestyle as I like to call it, you’re able to do much more. You are able to take I and then some, something you never expected or planned for because you’ve built it before you needed it.
That’s it for me today. Go over to authorofyourownstory.com, get more tips, tricks, and techniques. Make sure you sign up for the newsletter. Also, do us a favor right here, right now. Wherever you’re watching this, put a comment or rate us. That’s how people find us so often times I get email messages from people who say a co-worker shared one of our daily growth acts and it actually had a shift in their life. I want that for you. Obviously, they thank their friend and their co-worker for sharing these daily growth acts and even if it’s not these daily growth acts. What I want you to do is share something. Share something to make the world a better place and it’ll let somebody know that you are thinking about them.
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