We live in an age where there’s literally information and training everywhere. From association meetings to podcasts to YouTube to FaceBook, you can’t turn around without being exposed to the latest and greatest "wow factor" strategy or "new wisdom".
With all that success advice right at our fingertips, why is it that according to Inc. Magazine, more than 85% of people today don’t like what they do for a living? How can it be that the majority of Americans wake up every Monday morning dreading going to their place of business?
One clue is in the nature of the message that much of the modern-day success literature promotes:
"You should be outworking everyone around you"
- "You can manifest anything you want"
- “You have all the power to control everything"
- “Being rich and unhappy is better than being broke and unhappy”
- “The purpose of a business is to be profitable”
I bet you’ve heard every one of these things, and they certainly have their attraction. But I ask you, does any of it mesh with your experience in the real world? Or have you observed, in yourself and others, that the opposite of each of these things is usually the truth?
I’ve coached many men and women over the years that have reached what most would consider “the pinnacle of success” only to wake up saying, “is this it? Please tell me there’s more to life than this!”
And invariably, what I found in coaching and getting to know these people is that they all built businesses designed for what today’s “wisdom” is the measure of success, which is to be profitable. But the word “profit” encompasses many things, and certainly goes far deeper than just financial gain.
Bottom line is, real estate investors don’t end up feeling satisfied by creating a business that spits out money every month, no matter how much money that is.
Don’t get me wrong, your business should—in fact, must, make money.
But building a business the right way means embracing much more than just financial gain. I haven’t met anyone to date, if they’re being completely honest, that has been fulfilled by financial gain alone, and when they get to the point where they’ve achieved ‘success’ by every measure of today’s ‘success wisdom’, they find that it doesn’t come with the happiness they looked forward to. And then they have to start the process of figuring out what WILL make them happy, and having to painfully restructure a business that’s already a juggernaut.
So my question to you is, if you don’t already have a profitable-but-unfullfilling business, why not build one right from the beginning that is wildly profitable financially and fulfills who you are as a person as well? If you’re going to spend the time to build something, you might as well build something you’re going to love every day as well, right?
Sounds awesome, right? But the next obvious question is, “HOW? How do I begin to build a business where I wake up each day and jump out of bed - completely excited for what’s to come?”
The first step is, forget financial projections, and the law of attraction, and “crushing it”, and get a meaningful, moving vision. One that doesn’t just talk about how much money you’ll make, but about how you’ll give back to your community. One that doesn’t just say what kind of vacations you’ll take, but how you’ll set up your life to work a tiny fraction of the hours most real estate entrepreneurs do, so that you’ll have time to take them. One that envisions not just how prosperous you’ll be, but how impactful you’ll be in the world.
Learning what it means to have a vision - especially a business vision - has without a doubt been the most life changing set of business principles I’ve ever had the privilege of sharing, with others and enacting in my own life.