Most people build a business and hope a life fits around it somehow. I teach the opposite.
When I lost everything, I didn't want to start over but there I was; exhausted, broken, and starting from zero.
It was a dark time for me. I had to look myself in the mirror and really ask – do I like the person looking back at me? Is this really the life I want to live? Is this what I want to be known for? I had sacrificed so much, ten years of my life, my friends, my family, my health…for nothing. I lost it all.
But what did I really lose? Money, yes. I lost LOTS of money. But other than that, I didn’t feel 100% sad about losing my businesses, I felt relieved. Because I could finally breathe. I could rest, spend time with my family, pick up a hobby, really whatever I wanted to do. I felt free for the first time in a really long time.
And it was during that time of enjoying my newfound freedom that I realized, we’re going about business all wrong. We’re letting society and our own businesses define what success means for us as humans and that’s SO backwards! I started to wonder; "What if you designed your business for your life — first?"
Not built a business and hoped it gave you a life. Not hustled and ground it out and prayed there was something left over for you at the end. What if you started with the life you wanted — and built the business to FUND it?
That question changed everything for me. It is the foundation of every single thing I teach.
Hear me when I say this – you can be a slave to success. Success can make or break YOU, and it can make or break your business. That is why I built this. I founded The Founder Life to teach people how to start a business the RIGHT way -which is backwards.
Let me position this a different way; How can you know if your business ever reaches success if you don't first define success? And let's say your business is making a million dollars – people would say that's successful. But if it's making a million dollars and you're literally dying, if you've become a slave to your business – then it's not successful.
We must define success by our LIFE FIRST. You're going to hear that over and over from me – LIFE FIRST, then BUSINESS, L>B. You cannot define a business’s success if you do not first define what that success looks like for your life. If you do, it’s an incomplete formula, guaranteed to fail you sooner or later, like it did me.
Whether you want to start a business or you’re already up and running but running short on time to live – it’s not too late to reset your definition of success. No matter where you are in your business lifecycle, stop right now and take a moment to think about what success looks like for your life. Write it down, make it your north star.
Once you’ve set the destination, you can then chart the map to get there – this is the reverse engineering part. The destination is your definition of success for your life. Your map is your five-year business roadmap to get there. Then we build the car – your business itself. Once we know where we are going and how to get there, we can choose the right vehicle – build your pricing, your ideal customer profile, your customer experience and so on. Everything starts at the end and gets built backwards, only then can you KNOW it’s leading you where you want to go.
Your life dream is your destination; your business is just the vehicle that gets you there.
Try This // The Real ROI Exercise
Write down what success looks like for your life.
Next write what success looks like for your business.
With every decision – check it against these two measures of success. Ask yourself, is this decision moving me closer to the life and business I want?
Follow along for more insights.
Your BFF,
Tay