Stephen Covey Lesson For a Coaching Client
“Begin with the end in mind.” – Stephen Covey
Last Sunday at 4:30 AM I had a big “a-ha” moment while feeding baby Sofia on the couch.
My client was looking to reinvent his business.
He’s making good money, but it’s coming at the cost of his time and enormous logistical headaches.
Frankly, he’s too smart to work so hard for a million bucks a year.
He sent me some ideas for 2024.
As Sofia slurped, I mused.
A lightbulb went off.
My client was suffering from the same problem as the masses.
The average person lives a reactionary life.
They trade time for money and end up in a paycheck prison.
Color-coded calendars become golden handcuffs chaining them to work all day.
Zoomin’, meetin’, time wastin’, procrastinatin’
Tons of activity.
Nothing accomplished.
The average person thinks, “How can I make money… What job will make me rich?”
…without thinking about how they will live their life.
And so they end up as suicidal dentists hating life and treating (literally) foul mouths in exchange for $192,177 per year (according to Salary.com).
After taxes, $71 an hour (assuming a 2,000-hour work year and living in OC, California).
Um, no thanks.
Fortunately, you can escape the matrix.
How?
They begin with the end in mind as Stephen Covey taught.
Back to my client’s ideas for new businesses to start in 2024…
The problem was that he was only looking at business as the MEANS to the END.
Going down any of the roads he proposed would simply put him back where he was now… dealing with regulatory and staffing nightmares, making similar amounts of money, and worse, working more than he was now. (Which simply wasn’t acceptable given his family demands.)
“You must flip your thinking,” I said to him.
Begin with the END in mind.
Then build the Means to get there.
Redo your ideas…
But start with these questions.
What is the specific definition of success for your income?
What is the specific definition of success for your work week?
Both are questions covered in my latest Vision Training, a year-end training I ran with our private coaching clients.
Reverse engineer your life.
When you answer those questions…
You do what Stephen Covey says and you begin to get clear on your END goal…
And only then can you build the means to get there.
So that you can have the business and lifestyle you want.
BTW… a year ago my good friend Jason Capital was in the same situation – working too much for not enough (despite it being a lot by most standards)…
In Jason’s relentless pursuit of freedom, he had built himself a paycheck prison…
11 hours of Zoom meetings with team members almost daily…
The means to his end had become Golden Handcuffs.
This happens to so many of us…
We start out with simple goals like “getting rich” or “becoming millionaires” …
And then things spiral out of control.
We say “YES!” to too many opportunities…
…not examining the opportunity cost or the effective hourly rate of all our work.
The next thing you know we’re working 60 hours a week to run a business that pays our employees more money than us …
…while they only work 40 hours a week… and can forget about work when they go home!
In 2022, Jason reached out to me, Alex Hormozi, and Sharran Srivatsaa.
He asked us a few questions to get our “outside eyes” on his talents and blind spots.
Our answers helped Jason recognize the errors of his ways.
He burnt that time-consuming business to the ground.
Jason was a free man again.
He built a new freedom business from scratch.
But only after getting clear on exactly what he wanted life to look like.
That meant writing copy, running a simple business, no meetings, NO managing, etc.
His END goal was clear.
Now he started putting in place the means to get there.
He assessed his skills.
He studied what people were doing in the marketplace.
He found an area where no one was playing… and where his skill set was perfectly poised to produce sensational results.
It required a lot of thinking time…
On the outside, it looked like nothing got done for a while.
And he had a few false starts with some MEANS on the way even after he figured out the END.
But eventually, he cracked the code.
When I met him and Sharran Srivatsaa for dinner at the Costa Mesa Mastro’s in September, his face lit up.
“My new business is doing over $100,000 a week on Clickbank. I have no employees. I work a few hours per day.”
We ordered Mastro’s famous butter cake dessert to celebrate.
When they arrived, Jason looked up at Sharran and I and smiled the smile of a free man.
“I’ve never been happier in my life.”
Because he followed the advice from Stephen Covey and began with the end in mind.
Happiness comes from the freedom to pursue projects that light you up.
What I’ve done for Jason, I want to do for you, too.
NOTE: Jason Capital is speaking at my next Mastermind in Costa Mesa, California.
You must be there. This event will be epic.
Other speakers joining me and Jason at this event are:
Bedros Keuilian
Vince Del Monte
Frank den Blanken
Daniel Woodrum
Gavin McHale
Galel Fajardo
The dates are May 1-3, 2024.
If you’re interested in attending, please send an email to lynda@earlytorise.com with the subject line “Costa Mesa Mastermind.”