Now if you’ve been a listener for a long time, or you’ve done coaching with somebody in our team, you’re really familiar with the Five to Thrive. It’s a holistic representation of your life.
Now in your Five to Thrive you really need to know your numbers. You need to know your numbers so you could hit your goals. Where are you? I had a talk with a business owner this morning. Now, this business owner’s very savvy and has done very well. And they invited me to come on as a member of their team, an equity partner really, and when I asked them for their numbers they just didn’t know. You see they were an extremely successful business owner, but yet they didn’t understand what the lifeblood of their business was. What were their cash flows, how was their balance sheet looking, what were their profit and loss statements like, how much actual money do they get gross versus net?
Now, of course, they have somebody who can send me this information, but this got me to thinking, got me to thinking, “How often do people that I talk to not know their numbers?” Right? How often do you not know your numbers in your body? Maybe you’re trying to lose weight, well where are you today and where do you want to get going? Right? Where are you right now in this moment? Maybe you’re looking to gaining a body, or muscle mass and losing body fat. Well, do you know your numbers? Do you know your body fat percentage? Right now in this day and age, you can actually look at body fat percentage in different parts of your body, and that can give your fitness professional and yourself a lot of insight into what kind of training you should be doing, as well as your nutrition. And speaking of nutrition, do you know your numbers there? Do you know your macro-nutrients? Do you know what calories you should be eating? If you believe in counting calories, and that’s a controversial subject in itself.
What about your relationships? Oftentimes I’ll ask my wife, I’ll say, “Hey what is your love tank? On a scale of one to five, how full is your love tank?” You know, I’ll also ask her, “How am I doing as a husband on a scale of one to five?” Now I like the scale of one to five versus one to ten because it really narrows things out. And oftentimes she’ll tell me a four or five, but there are those times when she’ll say, “Doug it’s a three.” And then I’ll want to know why, and it could be something going on in her world, or it could be something that I’m doing or just not knowing, I mean I’m a guy, right? So this happens every once in a while, but by knowing my numbers, I can course correct. If I would have gone through our relationship like I did early on years and years ago, just assuming things were okay, and realize that my wife is a three, maybe even a two at times. I’m thinking it’s a four or five and just carrying on and forgetting about her unintentionally because I didn’t know my numbers.
Now I do this in all areas of my life, and when we look at the Author of Your Own Story lifestyle, and if you’ve done the Seven Days to Becoming of Your Author of Your Own Lifestyle, you’re very familiar with the game that we put on. So this is a 90-day game where we actually quantify your goals in five different areas, so your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships, and your business, and we assign a number to those goals. That way, at the end of the day or week, month, quarter, year, you know if you’re winning, you know where your numbers are. But I want to take this conversation a step further with you. If you’re a business owner, you just need to know your numbers. This is business 101, right? You need to know how healthy your business is. How are you going to determine how much marketing you should be spending, what your budget is, what your costs are, what is your actual, how much your sales. How can you do sales forecasting without knowing your numbers? How can you invite a business coach to come onboard your team and try to give them equity without knowing exactly what that equity is worth?
Now in your body, the same thing, I use those analogies earlier. But what about your soul? Are there numbers there that you can attribute? Do you know what they are? Is it quantifiable? Now, I don’t believe everything needs to be quantifiable at all, but sometimes I find that this really helps the clients that I’m working with, and it really helps them understand what’s going on in their world. So, if you’re a business owner, you’ve got to know your numbers. You’ve got to know your overhead, you’ve got to know your cost per goods, got to know your margins, got to know your employee expenses. When is payroll coming out, and how much is coming out each and every time? When are taxes do? Are you doing quarterlies if you’re in the States? What is going on in your business?
Now you can apply this to all other areas including your mind, and I highly recommend you do this. So what I want you to do is grab your journal right now, and starting writing out where are your numbers, what are your goals. And an easy one to attack right away is if you’re a business owner and I ask you what are your gross receipts, what’s your net, what’s your personal take home. Because at the end of the day you have to feed your family too, so if I ask you these numbers, can you tell me right away? And if you have multiple businesses I know it gets more complex, but again, these are the basics and you should know these numbers. I know I do.
Now also, in your body, it’s another easy one to go after. Whatever your goal is in your body, is that a quantifiable number and do you know them? Do you know roughly how many calories you’re eating? Do you know roughly how many meals you should be taking? Do you know your vitamin, vitamin regimen? Do you know your macro-nutrients?
Now you can apply this to other areas, but I want you to write these down. What I think you’re going to find are things that most people I talk to do fine. They skip them over but you’ll find that if you write them down, you’ll realize that you may not know as much as you thought you did, right? And now this is great, this is a great realization because now you can target with laser-like focus your education. Now, this should be your first priority over reading another business book, or over-reading another book on dieting, or over-reading another book or program on losing weight, or whatever it is for you. Maybe it’s relationships, maybe you’re like me and you want to turn to your spouse, or a friend, and say, “Hi, how am I doing? How would you rate me on a scale of one to five?” I could tell you right now exactly what my wife would say. She’d say a five. Because I just asked her. I just got back from a walk, I took a break in the day to go walk with her and my son and I asked her what my numbers are. It’s an easy question. It’s also she’s free to give me as much scrutiny as possible, but it’s something we’ve worked on in our relationship very hard.
If I don’t know my numbers, I can’t course-correct. I can’t steer that ship in another direction should it be going the wrong way. And if I’m doing great, hey I want to give myself a pat on the back. Not because I’m ego-driven but because I deserve it, and I also want to replicate those things that I’m doing so well. Like taking a break in the day for her is huge, so I’m able to do that because I’m the author of my own story. You know, I’m able to take breaks any time I want. And I want that for you. The first step here, right now, is knowing your numbers. So take a moment right now to jot those down.
If you have any questions, of course, go to The Author of Your Own Story group on Facebook, happy to answer those for you. Also, go over to authorofyourownstory.com right now and make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter. We can get more tips, tricks, and techniques delivered right to your inbox. I’m going to ask one more thing of you, please go ahead, if you’re enjoying these, let us know by simply subscribing below and just giving us a quick review. A quick shout out is all we’re asking for. If you’re getting anything from these daily growth hacks, I would really appreciate it and I personally take it as a compliment here.
And I’m live, I want one more thing. I want you to go out and inspire somebody right now by going out and being the author of your own story. You yourself, just by simply taking these small steps are inspiring more people than you’ll ever realize. And I want that for you. Have a great day, remember always go out and be the author of your own story.
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