Louis Massaro (speaker/coach) argues that true success is building a life, not merely a business, and that business should be a vehicle to financial freedom so you can live that life. He recounts starting a moving company at 19, scaling to an eight-figure business, feeling unfulfilled, then—after coaching—shifting focus to life balance; this change coincided with his business growing to about $20 million per year. He gives three practical steps: (1) brainstorm what you want across life areas (relationships, health, personal growth, finances, contribution); (2) "step into" what is already possible now (start date nights, golf, etc.); (3) build freedom in the business through systems, people, and automation so you can scale and fund the rest of your "ultimate life" list. Repeated theme: raise profit and thrive together.
Questions this video answers
September 21, 2021
19 years old
$20 million per year
An eight-figure business
Chapters
True success does not come from building your business. True success comes from focusing on building a life and using your business as a vehicle to financial freedom to allow you to live that life. You know, if you put all your focus and energy on just working and grinding and hustling to build your business without a vision for where you want your life to go, meaning you don't have a target on what you're truly after. Instead of just business goals, you're going to end up either completely unfulfilled, burnt out, and just not inspired anymore to continue to grow your business. You know, if you're joining us for the first time, my name is Louis Massaro. I help business owners optimize their business, increase profits, and live an extraordinary quality of life. You know, when I started my first company, you know, I was 19 years old, I started a moving company, and it was hustle and grind and hustle and grind and just putting in time, putting in hours, literally till I was sick of my stomach. But I got it going, I got it successful. I'm like, oh, this works. I got to work hard, I got to strive. I got to keep it, you know, keep grinding. And I got to a place where, you know, I hit an eight figure business, had, you know, the homes, multiple homes and cars, and all the money I could ever want. And I was just unfulfilled, unhappy, depressed even. And around that time, I got my first coach, and she said to me, louis, you've done an amazing job of building your business, but you haven't put that same effort into building your life. And that really was such a transitional moment for me in my life because I realized that that's what was missing. You know, I figured, hey, work hard, make the money. Work hard, make the money, and everything else will fall into place. And it didn't. I had to be intentional about it. And once I focused on, okay, let me look at all the areas of my life, let me look to bring them up all together and not just bring my business up and wait for everything else to fall into place. Once I did that, not only did I become a happier, more fulfilled person, my business doubled. I went to $20 million a year. And I share this with you because a lot of times we start our business in kind of a, hey, we've got to make this happen. Like, for me, it was like, my back's against the wall. Like, if I don't make this happen, I don't know what else I'm going to do. So we put in the hustle, we put in the grind, and it's needed to get the momentum going. But then there's a point where it's no longer needed, and we've got to take a step back and we've got to say, you know what, if I'm trying to increase the profit, I also want to take my life up with it. The thrive, Profit and thrive. You hear me say that all the time. So it's like anything you do. You want to bring up the profit and you want to bring up the thrive at the same time, you know, and you might say, louis, but, you know, you've got to work hard. You've got to, you know, really put in a lot of effort to build a business. It's hard work. No one's telling you not to work hard. What I'm saying is identify what you want in your life, make that the priority, and then work hard and smart towards that. Not just making money, making money, making money. And so I want to share with you three things to get you thinking about what it is to not just build a business, but to build a life. And the first one is to brainstorm what you want in your life. You know, it's easy to say, oh, I want to buy these things, or I want to, you know, have these experiences. But when you start looking at, in all areas of your life, what do you really want financially in your business and your relationships, in your personal growth and the contribution that you make in your health? You know, when we start to look at all areas of our life and say, what do I want? That is, when you start to create the life that you are then going to go after. You know, if you're going to put in this work, if you're going to put in the time, if you're going to, you know, really give your all to build a business, why not make that effort, lead exactly where you want it to go? Why not make sure that the ladder is on the right wall? So before you start climbing, the next thing you want to do, once you have that list of everything that you want in your life, right, this is what you should be after. This is your ultimate aim, what you want in your life, the next thing you want to do is step into whatever's possible. Now, what I mean by that is, you know, I used to write, okay, let me. I want to play golf once a week, right? And so, okay, am I capable of doing that now? If so, step into it and start doing it now. Don't put it off. I want to have date night once a week. With my wife. Okay, start doing that now, right? Because you'll have things on this list of your ultimate life, of what you want and what you're after that you don't yet have the time, the freedom or the money to do yet. But there'll also be a lot on that list that you do have the time, freedom and money to do. Start those now. Step into it, right? You say you want something, it's there, you're able to do it. Step into it, make it happen. Arrange your schedule, arrange your life to bring up everything, the profit and the thrive. And the third thing you want to do is from that point, focus on freedom and money to live the rest of that ultimate life. Meaning get yourself the freedom in your business, okay? Set up your system, set up your processes, set up your people, set up your automation so that you've got the freedom, freedom to work on scaling the business. We don't want to just get freedom to go lay on the beach. That's great. We want to do that too. But we need freedom to work on the bigger picture so that we could build a bigger business to really get to that next level. If you're stuck day to day, you know, working in the business, you're not going to be able to do that. So you want to focus on getting the freedom so that you could focus on getting the money. Because once you have the freedom and the money, you should be able to handle everything else you want to handle on that ultimate life list. So do these three things. Let me know how it works. Start focusing on what you really want in your life. Make sure that every move you make, you look up, you know, you look to take the profit up with the thrive. At the same time. Go out there every single day. Profit in your business, thrive in your life. I'll talk to you soon. Hey, my friend, before you go, you've got to hurry and watch these next few videos over here. They will absolutely help you take your moving company to the next level. Go watch them now and I'll see you over there.
