Up at 4 a.m., to bed by 10 p.m., and then get up and do it all over again. Even on Saturdays and Sundays. I was told this was the life of an entrepreneur. I was told wrong.
Now it’s a tale of two lives: the one I lived prior to 1999, and the one I live now.
See, there were several things that I had done wrong as a young entrepreneur, and as the son of a rancher, it was pretty simple: “Son, you have to work hard.”
Prior to 1999, I did just that. I reacted to customer complaints, dealt with employee issues and ran a 60-person business every day. I didn’t have time to build a mission statement or create a set of values. I didn’t have time to create an identity outside of work. In my opinion, that was all “textbook stuff” that didn’t have anything to do with the real world of business. So I continued to put in the hours, and from 1995 to 1999, I slowly worked my way toward bankruptcy.
I should have gotten the hint when lawyers started telling me that I needed to seek legal counsel immediately, but not for my business— for my personal life. While I had been terribly focused on my business, my health, family and spiritual life had all gone to Hell. My wife had had enough. It was only by the grace of God that her father passed away the day she was filing the divorce papers, and that was my opportunity to put things into perspective and see things more clearly.
It’s a common theme among entrepreneurs that we get our roles and identities mixed up and that we have huge issues with work/life balance. What I try to remember is that identity is who I am, and a role is what I do. My roles include father, husband, deacon, runner, CEO and volunteer. These roles must be balanced, or else I – and the ones around me – suffer.
So how did I change? I developed a personal mission statement around the roles in my life to help build a successful life plan. When I started with that, the rest of my life started to come back together.
I’ve also learned that when I spend disciplined time on what I used to think of as “textbook stuff,” the payoff is amazing. Improving my business culture – including my company’s mission, vision, values and goals – was the quickest way to free up time in my business. This invisible thread that has tied my business back together has enabled unbelievable, tangible results, including a 340% growth rate and five weeks of vacation time with my family this summer.
If you’re killing yourself with work like I used to, it will eventually take its toll. I’m just glad I woke up. I have a lot of other things in my life to enjoy than just my business.