Honestly, the last 180 days have been absolutely awful. (Copy)
Originally sent exclusively to The Letter subscribers on December 1st. Want to be the first to get my personal newsletter in your inbox every Monday at 7am? Subscribe for free here.
If you are a business owner or you earn an above-average salary, you will face a trade-off.
I can almost guarantee it.
The trade-off is less family time, more stress, greater commitment, more anxiety and more time spent doing things you do not want to do.
Your commitments outside the family will be greater than most. It is simply the way it is.
Here is an example to ponder. Imagine you are a headteacher. You will have more stress than a teacher, more thinking time and more to worry about. You will be concerned about the pupils’ education and success, the wellbeing of the staff and whether the school building itself is in good condition.
The trade-off for higher pay is more responsibility, more pressure and more thinking.
The trade-off is less time for you and yours. If you are doing a good job, you become a servant leader to your responsibilities.
Then there is entrepreneurship, which is significantly harder.
You carry all the responsibility with no instant reward.
You must wait for the rewards to appear.
Leaders eat last and must embrace delayed gratification.
You will also deal with personal guarantees, debt, contracts, profit and loss statements, ideas to deliver and paying yourself as little as possible to ensure everyone else is paid in the early days.
You will be niggled by succession planning in case you drop dead.
You will risk your calmness and happiness to deliver a new idea or business success and to ensure you are doing all you can to keep the team as happy as possible.
Miss a sales target and it is your problem.
Lose a contract and it is your problem.
A recession is also your problem.
That said, if you are wired for it, the path less travelled does have a pot of gold at the end.
You will reach the calmness that comes with financial security.
It will feel like a close friend. Then you will want to protect it, then worry about inflation eroding it, so you invest again. It is simply who you are.
You are unusual. You have been trained to cope with responsibility and to be the keeper of money.
This might not be the case for your nearest and dearest.
Inheritance can ruin people. It is heartbreaking to see a lifetime of earnings squandered by those who have not been trained.
It makes me think of my children and of the people to whom you hand responsibility.
They must be trained well first. If you have made a few bob, giving it to your children can ruin them.
You may give them more because you traded your time elsewhere to build an empire, and guilt or abundance encourages spending because you could not have such things as a child.
The real gold you can give anyone is mentorship and education. Then, when you do reward them with riches, it makes them stronger and more capable.
Ninety per cent of wealth is lost by the fourth generation.
Most companies do not reach ten years old. Many fizzle out like a Victorian photo book, becoming a distant memory. I do not want that for your business.
Get your senior people and your children into personal development and watch the dividends it pays.
Give your loved ones books and mentorship.
Here is a final point to ponder. Marks and Spencer is celebrating its 140th year, and it is in very good shape.
Even after a cyberattack that shut its online business, M and S pushed for year-on-year growth.
Instead of complaining about the attack, they doubled down on technology improvements and worked to close the gap on lost sales.
I am so proud of M and S. They are a dinosaur that chose to innovate rather than evaporate. Well done to them.
They embraced education and innovation at an age when most get tired and fade away.
And lastly:
Tell the world what you want and watch it land in your lap.
If you want more of anything, write it down in a notebook using pen and paper. The trick delivered me another golden opportunity this week.
The more we channel our brain on the biggest frustrations by putting pen to paper, the more clarity leads to action and then the more we get done.
Life success comes from a well-written success list.
NOTE: Peak performance is working on very important non urgent tasks. Find your thinking time. Your business will thank you.
And lastly again;
I have been working out solidly for four years now, trying to push my healthier self.
I asked my personal trainer if he could teach me to do the splits.
He said, how flexible are you?
I said, I cannot do Mondays or Wednesdays.
To your continued success,
James
PS. If you’d like to grow your business with me - join me on accelerator, if you’d like to join me on a discovery call, please email my team: info@jamessinclair.net more details here: Business Accelerator.