Ep 316: Log of Lessons Learned

What if you could step out of the day-to-day and see your business from a whole new perspective? Welcome to Above the Business, where we empower you to rise above the daily grind and embrace a higher way of business ownership. It's time to build your business by design. Hey everyone. Well, I did this last year and I've done it now for the last 3 years, is starting to keep up with kind of a running log of lessons learned. So I have a Slack channel that every time I see something, whether it's on possibly on X or Twitter and, uh, or just something that has, uh, come across, whether it's in a sessions with somebody or something that I've read in a book or listened to on a podcast that really resonates with me, I'll just send myself a Slack message. And now I've got a Slack channel from Log of Lessons Learned 2021, 22, and 23. I wish I'd have done this. Previous to that. And so it's interesting for me to go back and look. And so what this lesson is, or this episode's gonna be, is my top 10 log of lessons learned. Now I looked through this and I probably ended up sending myself somewhere around 70 messages or so. I narrowed it down to 23, and then I decided to highlight and pick the top 10. So I'm just gonna go over these kind of quickly and, uh, cuz I didn't figure you wanted to hear 73 different log of lessons learned. Some of these, if I did not capture who, uh, to give them credit for, if I learned it whether it was in a book or a podcast, I apologize for some of that. If I can remember where some of these were, then I certainly will. All right, number 1, show me, don't tell me. This actually has become one of our maxims with Blueprint OS this year now, but it really comes down to taking the intellectual property that you have, your systems and processes, and actually documenting them down to the point to where you can email it, you can show somebody, you can put it in a three-ring binder. And so many of our clients have really taken that tangible step of being able to say, hey, show me, what do you have? Instead of it just, this is what we do, this is, this is what our process is for whatever that may be. Do we actually have that documented? And so that really gets down to assets. Are we creating assets in the organization? So number one is show me. Don't tell me. Number 2, it's lonely at the top. Well, that's a choice. Being a business owner is difficult. Uh, stepping into the entrepreneur's seat is not for the faint of heart. It is hard, and a lot of times it can feel very lonely, especially or even whenever you're surrounded by a lot of people. But the reality is that is a choice. And I've heard it's lonely at the top, but I think this is credit to Michael Hyatt, who I heard— saw Maybe, I don't know if it was on a YouTube video or something, I heard him say, well, that's a choice. And that really resonated with me. Reaching out, getting yourself in a community of other business owners, you can make that decision to where you're open and vulnerable to be able to share the, the good things and also, uh, the struggles that you maybe have. So it's the only thing at the top. Well, that's a choice. Number 3. Quote from Andy Stanley: if it's a mist in the pulpit, it's a fog in the pews. And this specifically resonates with me because of vision. And I've heard like vision leaks, etc., but I really do believe that it's so important that one of the things that we cannot delegate in our organizations is the vision of where the business is going. And so it's the requirement for us to be so clear about what it is we're trying to accomplish, where the business is today, where it's going, specifically over the next 3 years, the next year, and over the next 90 days. If it's a mist in the pulpit, it's a fog in the pews.

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Next, we cannot both hope for an easy life and an epic story. When your trials are trivial, so too are your accomplishments. And the reality is the most growth that I've had, both personally and even this past year and in business, have come through some of the most difficult times. And there's never a time that I'm going through a difficult period that I think, oh boy, this is going to be a great story. I can't wait to share this on, on a podcast in a couple years. It's just not that. But the reality is I can't hope for things to be easy. I'm going to mess this quote up, but something to the effect of smooth seas don't make a strong sailor, or something to that effect. And I think that's certainly the case in business, but also in our personal life. Kind of the next one, log of lesson learned, is this is what hard feels like, and that's okay. And I think I picked that up from Alex Hormozi, and, uh, that has been something that throughout this past year, but personally, professionally, that I've told myself, it's like, yep, this is what hard feels like. This is exactly what it is. And I think those two things go together, and I almost put them together, but I thought that they were different. And so, um, that's something that I tell myself even this past couple weeks. We were so busy coming off of Thanksgiving, leading up to, uh, before we shut down for the Christmas break. So many obligations, so many time working in the business, so many Zoom calls, etc. And I was telling myself, this is what hard feels like. This is exactly what it feels like. All right, next. Better life. And a business by design, not by default. And this is kind of another way for me to think about, you know, we get to, we don't have to. We get to do this as a business owner. I get to do these things. I don't have to do them. I get to do them. But what does my life and the business created by design— how do I— if I'm going to be the architect of my business, I'm going to step into the role of being the architect of my business and of my life. How would I design that ideally versus just drifting and allowing it to happen by default? All right, 4 more. Don't create a business you grow to hate. Sometimes growth, innovation, change brings about a lot of complexity. And sometimes without knowing it, if we don't design it, we're not constantly looking at it. The business can, can kind of grow and back us into the corner, and we begin to do things that we think, how did I get to this point? This is not the things I feel like I want to do. And so we kind of, as the business grows, it creates complexity. And so growth creates complexity in an organization. And so when then we have to work to then simplify and kind of go back down, take some things off, then go back, grow again, create more complexity, and then be able to simplify. And so I think at the end, I, I want to be thinking through how can this business continue to grow and I continue to buy back my time so I'm only focusing on the things that I really love to do. Next, the fun is in the building, not in the having. And I think around Legos The fun in Legos is in the building of the Legos, not necessarily in the having of the Legos. My kids, specifically Cooper, used to really love Legos. Doesn't love them nearly as much now, but he always loved to build them and then he would put it down. And I think there's so many times that when we think about kind of the empty promises, if I can just get— if I can just qualify for this, if I can just make this, if I can just hit this revenue number, etc., then everything will be there. But the reality is, is that the journey is actually the destination. All right, last two. Log of lessons learned. Everything I want is on the other side of structure, process, and routine. You've heard me say this quite a bit recently, but as an entrepreneur, I push hard against structure, process, and routine. But yet everything I want— the flexibility and the freedom— is on the other side of those things. And you're going to hear— continue to hear more about that as I go into 2024. And then lastly, log of lessons learned that really landed with me. Yesterday is a canceled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is cash to spend. And at the time that I'm recording this, just a couple of days ago, I started to look at my 2024 from an hours invested perspective. And a thing I've never done before, ever. I've never thought, how many hours am I actually going to work? How many hours actually is there in a year? How many— what does that actually look like? And I'll tell you what my number is. It's, it's 41 weeks. So my target— it won't probably work out to be this— the target is to work 41 weeks, take 11 weeks off. Will it be perfectly 11 weeks? Probably not. I'll hopefully maybe report back on that, but at least I'm building it from this perspective. 41 weeks, 11 weeks off, 1,500 hours worked. How am I going to allocate my time? How do I grow the businesses with that amount of time? How much time am I going to spend working on the business? How much time do I spend working in the business? And how much time am I going to be spending working above the business? And then what does that need to look like? And so when I think about the time that I have now, it's, it's given me— at first, the first the few minutes I was doing this, it kind of made me a little sad. But then the more I did it, the more I realized, man, I do have control over my time. And so looking at that, how much time do I spend in meetings? How much time do I spend planning the business? How much time am I spending above the business? What does that look like? What's the right allocation of that 1,500 hours that I'm working in a year? So I'm curious, what does that look like for you? Have you ever thought through how many hours you're actually going to work in a year? Because at the end of the day, it's not the hours. It's the output, it's the results. That's how people like Branson get so many things done, or billionaires get so many things done. It's not what they're doing with their time, it's not how many, how many, uh, how much time they're working. It's what they're doing with their time that really matters. And so how can I grow the businesses while actually continuing to work less? And having not just having that as a nice saying, but actually thinking through what that's going to be. So I thought I'd leave you with that one. How will you spend your time in 2024? There's a little bit inside in demand. We're going to measure it, my EAI and I, and, uh, well, hopefully we'll report back and we'll say this is what we wanted it to be. What did it actually look like? All right, everyone, appreciate all of you. Till next episode, lead well. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]