TCFBO #009: No Way!

Read Time: 4 minutes

We were chatting to a business owner once, explaining what we do when he said:

“Why do I need to get clear on a Life Vision first? Can’t you just help me make more money?”

To which we replied:

“To answer your second question first, yes we can. But we won’t until you’re clear on your Life Vision.”

Here’s why.

A couple of weeks ago we wrote about how facing failure in advance increases the success rate of your business projects.

If you missed it, you can read it here.

We described an exercise you can carry out, before starting a project, where you imagine that the project has failed and then say to yourself:

“We failed. If only we had…”

and then capture all the things that come into your head.

This gives your subconscious mind a chance to highlight areas that are likely to end up causing your project to fail, which gives you an opportunity to address these areas before you start investing your valuable time, energy, and money into the project.

We also described how you can imagine the project succeeding and saying to yourself:

“We succeeded because…”

and then capturing all the things that come into your head in order to identify the areas that are likely to lead to the success of a project so you can ensure they are present as you make progress.

By using your imagination and tapping into your intuition you’re able to experience in advance the risks you may have to mitigate, the challenges you are likely to face and the things that you are going to have to do in order to succeed.

But it’s not necessarily the things that are likely to cause a project to fail that will have you saying:

“No way are we doing that project!”

Sometimes it’s the things you’re going to have to do or sacrifice in order for the project to succeed.

What if, for the project to succeed, you had to work 80 hours a week for the next 12 months?

What if, for the project to succeed, you had to take out a loan against your family home?

What if, for the project to succeed, you had to cancel that holiday you’ve got booked?

Maybe you would be prepared to do those things and make those sacrifices.

Maybe you wouldn’t.

But it’s knowing what’s important to you that allows you to decide.

Now, let’s say you want to make more money.

Well, that’s easy.

You could increase the number of customers, charge more, offer more products, work more hours, offer a product that is cheaper to produce, reduce your overheads and so on and so forth.

There’s any number of ways to make more money.

But what if to make more money, you had to spend less time with your partner or your friends?

What if you had to move to a new location?

What if you had to sack a long-term member of staff who was also a good friend?

What if you had to close your current business and do something completely different?

Unless you’ve taken the time to get clear on the vision for your life, you won’t know whether these are things you’re prepared to do or not. You won’t know whether these things take you towards or away from what you truly desire.

On one occasion we had a lady approach us for some advice. She had come up with a great invention and her friends had said she should start a business.

We explained how we worked and said the first thing we would do with her was facilitate a Life Vision session so she got absolute clarity about what she truly wanted from her life.

However, once we’d run the Life Vision session with her it became blindingly obvious to both her and us that the last thing she wanted to do was start or run a business.

Instead, she identified the things she knew she would love doing that still meant her invention would help the people it was designed for.

If she hadn’t got clear on the vision for her life, the chances are she would’ve wasted her precious time starting and running a business that took her away from the things she loved and the life she wanted to create.

Which is why, when a business owner contacted us for advice about turning his business into a franchise but wasn’t’ willing to get clear on his Life Vision first, we had to turn him away.

He wasn’t sure whether to set up a franchising model, a licencing model or simply to expand his business into new areas.

Any one of the models could’ve worked and all had their pros and cons, risks and benefits.

But without being clear on the vision he had for his life, there was no way for him to know which option was the best for him. So there was no way we were going to send him off in a direction that could end up being so out of alignment with his heart’s desires that it had a detrimental impact on him and his young family.

Whereas, one client who was really struggling running two businesses before he started working with us, was able to completely turn things around.

Because he got clear on his Life Vision he was able to choose which of the two businesses to focus his attention on and this in turn meant he increased his profits whilst still being able to reduce his working hours.

A few months after we’d finished working with him, he called us up out of the blue and said his life had completely changed for the better. He’d been able to move house, he had more time for his family and he really loved his business.

In short, he was creating his dream life.

So we encourage you to revisit the vision you have for your life and identify which of the projects you’re currently engaged in move you towards your vision and which are taking you away from it.

And if you need some help creating your Life Vision, check out the links below.

Because it’s not just about knowing what you should do that will be a key part to your success. It’s also about knowing when to say “No way!”

Let us know how you get on and we’ll see you next week.

Paul & Philly

Whenever you’re ready, there are two ways we can help you:

1. To discover the method we use to create a life and business you love, just grab a copy of “Backwards Planning - A Simple Method to Move You and Your Business Forward” from Amazon.

2. If you'd like to work one to one with us through the entire “Backwards Planning” process outlined in the book, you can apply to join The Clear Focus Business Academy.

The first step is to book a facilitated Life Vision Session which we conduct over Zoom. This session will not only give you clarity on what you want from your life but will give you the opportunity to experience how we work and ensure we're a good fit for each other before deciding whether The Clear Focus Business Academy is right for you. It comes with a 100% money back guarantee, so if you're not entirely satisfied, simply let us know at the end of the session and we'll issue a full refund.