How To Find Business Success And Gain Your Family’s Trust

Why does money matter to you?

Seriously though, why does money matter so much to you? Think past the whole “Well Andy, I need money to pay my bills. I need money to eat, send my kids to school, and buy a really big really flat crystal clear TV.” and definitely past “Well, I want to have the perfect business model and be a total success“.

What does yours look like?

Let’s go back to the “Well, I want to have the perfect business model and be a total success” for a minute. We all want to be successful. I’ve never met anyone who said that their main goal in life was to be as unsuccessful at business as possible. It just doesn’t happen. The problem is that those are just empty, almost cliche, words that are easily thrown around these days. Here’s a thought for you:

How much money does it take to be successful in business?

When I ask folks this question they usually just stand there looking like their brain’s going to explode from over thinking. When you really think about the question and try to answer it with an actual dollar amount, you can’t. Ok maybe you can. You’d probably say something like “$1,000,000.00. If I had a cool million bucks in the bank I’d be a success.” But would you? Is that money going to solve all life’s problems and cement your family name in history? Is that business going to make everything perfect? The answer is no, and here’s why:

Money doesn’t equal success (but I’m sure you knew that)

I’m sure that you don’t need me to tell you that. You’ve probably heard it a thousand times and you probably believe it for yourself. So why do so many still relate money to success?

We (the U.S. and probably most others) live in a culture that praises status, and status usually comes from being a success or being involved in some type of BIG business. We’ve been raised to believe that status is a result of having a lot of money at your disposal, and thus money equals success. It only takes about 10 minutes of watching the news or E! to find out that money and status don’t make you happy. If you’re not happy how can you consider yourself to be a success? If you’re not happy, how can you consider your business to be a success?

Now lets take a look into the future. Imagine yourself with a thriving business and as a total success. You’re probably imagining your family perfectly happy, having every need catered to. Your relationships with them are beautiful and they feel completely loved and cared for by you in every way.

Maybe you have incredibly bright, business savvy kids. Smart phones so smart they don’t even need you, and bank managers that send you gifts for no reason other than you’re you and they LOVE you. What kind of cars are you driving (or collecting)? Naturally, your clothes are only name brand, and by “name” I’m not talking about Old Navy. I’m betting that your kids are in most of those dreams. Excluding, of course, those “after hours” thoughts of your luva (hey Pidge ).

The future’s looking good isn’t it? Yea buddy, you know that’s right!

Crystal Balls, Arithmetic, & The (Not So Obvious) Obvious Truth

While we’re looking into our crystal ball at our glorious future, let’s perform a little test. Lets start taking away parts of our success vision. I realize yours will look different from the one I explained above, but I’m sure you’ll get the point here. Our goal is to be able to take away as many things as possible and still feel like our vision is one of success.

The Equation

• Subtract the fancy cars – are you and the family still happy? Do you still consider yourself to be a success?
• Subtract the fancy clothes – are you and the family still happy? Do you still consider yourself to be a success?
• Subtract the bank managers – are you and the family still happy? Do you still consider yourself to be a success?
• Subtract being catered to – are you and the family still happy? Do you still consider yourself to be a success?

What’s left so far

At this point we’ve taken away everything except the close family that feels totally loved in every way. If you were to lose all of your stuff today and only left with your family that completely loved, trusted, and supported you unconditionally, would you feel like a success? Do you think you would have the confidence and motivation to keep pushing forward?

Oh crap, not more math!

Now lets turn it all around. Let’s erase that wonderful family from the picture. The new image is one of having the clothes, the cars, the bank managers, the super duper Terminatorish smart smart phones, the money, and status. You have everything that you could possibly need or want.

Do you still feel like a success?

Here’s The Point

There isn’t a right or wrong answer here. The point is for you to think deep down about what is truly important to you. Is it stuff? Is it family? Is it a combination of both? How much do you need of each to feel like a success?

Here’s why is this so important.

Once you decide what your version of success is you can ignore everything else. You won’t have to worry about trying to make a million dollars if your idea of success only requires $4,000 a month. Money isn’t bad. I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t want a lot of it. But when I visualize my version of success, money isn’t what I see.

I’m sure that this will bring on few different opinions in the comments, and that’s great. That means you’re thinking.

The other point

Being an entrepreneur is hard, especially if you’re doing from home. It’s 20x the work of just having a job. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Oh, well you’re just taking the easy way out because you’re lazy and don’t want a real job.”. Yea part of that’s true and the other part makes me want to turn them into a human pretzel. I don’t want what they consider as a “real” job, and if you’re a regular Entrepreneurial Daddy reader you probably don’t either.

The lesson above is extremely important if you’ve jumped ship and decided “I’m not working for you anymore. I’m doing my own thing.” You have to be perfectly clear on what you need. It’s going to be ridiculously hard in the beginning. Not just the work load, but the money (or lack thereof), the emotions that come with that, and maintaining the support and confidence of your family.

I’d like to say that I’m making 5 figures every month or even in the high 4 figures, but I’m not. However, we also have everything that we need when we need it. Yes, it’s my goal to have those big months but the foundation I’m building around my wife and two amazingly smart little girls is more important to my vision of success. Both my wife and I have businesses that not only give us great pleasure, but allow us to be with our girls, make our own schedules (within reason), and pay the bills.

Are some months harder than others? Yes, but that’s just part of it and every month our businesses grow.

I can honestly say that growing a business while still keeping my focus on my family has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m sure that many of you feel the same. It’s difficult when all you want to do is build your business as fast as you can. You feel guilty because you’re either not giving your loved ones the attention they need or you’re not spending as much time working on your business as you think you should. You feel like you’ve let your family down because all of sudden that extra $19 to eat at Chick-Fil-A with the kids last weekend made a big difference in this weeks groceries.

I’ve been there and know how you feel.

If any of this sounds familiar, lets talk. There’s no catch, no fees, and I’m not going to ask you to give me a percentage of you’re first years sales. The fact is, I’ve been thinking a lot about a quote from Zig Ziglar:

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

So I guess you could say that I do have selfish reasons for wanting to talk, but I absolutely believe this to be true.

I’m totally serious about the talking to you part. I wish I’d had someone to talk to about all these things a long time ago when I trying to figure out how my business fit into my life. I actually hired a business coach for a while, but he spent so much time coaching others that his marriage was in shambles and his son hated him. Go figure.

So here’s the deal. If you just need to talk, call me.

If that seems too personal. Sign up for Thrive Weekly. It next best thing to one-on-one coaching with me, and it’s completely free.

Tagged as: human interest, money, money matters, success, total success, trust