A short solo coaching monologue by Bill Gallagher (Scaling Coach) describing a personal period of unhappiness despite outward success. He recounts re-examining his life, adopting the mindset of 'starting with the end in mind' and committing to be a "generous contribution," which quickly reduced his suffering and changed how he handled problems. The piece offers practical leadership and life-advice for business owners and closes with calls to subscribe and visit scalingcoach.com.
Hey there. Are you suffering some circumstances right now? Is there something in your life that's leaving you suffering and frustrated by something? I've got something for you that I think will help. Hey there. My name is Bill Gallagher. I'm the Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. We bring tips and lessons and ideas like this every week to you on the Scaling Up Business podcast. We've got hundreds of these and more wherever you get your podcast, podcast or lesson material, wherever you got this. Or you can go to scalingcoach.com and search through all 300/plus of these back catalog of content and you'll find something to deal with your people, your strategy, your execution, cash, or the leadership that's required to grow and scale your business successfully. So anyway, back to the story. Shortly before I turned 40, I found myself having everything that I thought and that I'd said that I wanted, and yet really feeling suffering. Feeling suffering and feeling trapped by myself, my life, my business. At the time, we had three businesses, we had some pets, we had a house, we had two adorable kids. They were much younger than they are today. And yet I wasn't happy. I was suffering in all areas of my life. It just didn't seem to be working. I had problems, they were high quality problems and yet was unhappy. The thing that I did in sorting myself out was one just to recognize that I had everything I wanted and yet I still wasn't happy. And then to go back and to examine my life, one of the things that I uncovered in thinking about my family and my upbringing and especially the first relationships, how I'd been around the family, around my siblings, around my parents, how my relationship was with them today, what I'd been like as a character in my life through grade school, that kind of thing. One of the things that I saw about myself is that I was really like, sure that for me to be successful, I was going to have to play to my strengths. And my strengths were that I was a leader and that I was articulate and that I was really smart. And yet I always found that there was somebody who was doing a better job, who was a better leader, who was smarter, who was more articulate. And so it felt like in the present moment of that point in my life, like the businesses were failing, marriage sucked at the time. My kids were just really hard and stressing me out, even though I loved them and there was nothing wrong with them. And I just felt trapped by all these things. And I certainly wasn't having any fun. But I looked at myself And I realized if those strengths aren't enough to deal with the present things and I'm not happy, then there's something else I wanted and needed in order to feel really great about my life. So you consider all that stuff that's got you to this point. We know Marshall Goldsmith has said, what got you here won't get you there. Is there? There for all of us is the successful conclusion of our life. If you think about your whole life, how do you want it to end? Of course you don't ever want it to end. Nobody wants to die, like all that kind of thing. But consider your life as a story and the successful end of it. It ends really great. You've been successful, you're happy, you're loved. It all turns out at the end. So now we want to go to and think about who's that person and what is there at the end of that thing, what's said about you, what do you say about yourself at the end of your life that isn't going on today? When I did that for myself, I thought, okay, I'm smart somewhat, I'm somewhat articulate. I'm something of a leader. And although there may be people better, the thing that I most saw at the end of a successful life that wasn't in the present moment was a person who made a difference for others. Being a generous contribution was something that I aspired to be all the time, somewhat unconsciously, but it wasn't a foreground thing for me. Well, when I took on that, like, for the rest of my life, to have my life, my leadership, my companies, my whatever it is, be about making a difference, be a contribution, be one of those good guys that I wanted to be at the end of my life. But be it now. Things really started to change very quickly. I wasn't suffering so much. I could lean into the problems that I had. I could tackle them, address them from a whole different point of view. So start with the end in mind. Think about the whole end of your life. Your life turns out, it's successful. Then notice what would you have said about yourself and have others say about you at the end of a successful life that isn't going on with you today? That's the key. There's a key there. It's a very simple but powerful, important thing to do. And it's not about all those things you've done to survive to get to the point that you're on right now. It's something else. It's something beyond that, and it'll make a powerful difference like it did for me. Thanks. I hope that's helpful. Keep listening, like, subscribe. Come back, Talk to you next time. Keep scaling up.
