But why do you want more?
Once upon a time I had a business partner who used to say things to me like “but why do you want more, why do you need to achieve more, why can’t we just stay like we are”
Eventually it wore me down and my future dreams seemed further way than ever. Trying to pursue them just seemed to cause trouble, and so we settled down into living the same year, again and again.
Have you heard that expression, where someone might have been in business for 20 years but they’ve had the same year 20 times over? Doing the same things, with the same knowledge and skills, getting the same results?
I didn’t really understand about personal growth in those days. But I knew I was ambitious and frustrated that no matter how hard I worked, things weren’t actually moving me forwards.
Well I realised before too long that I was with the wrong business partner, and in the wrong business. I sold my majority share in the business and got out. I knew my ambitions were too strong to be held back by anyone.
You don’t just get your dream – you have to grow into it
And then I discovered the world of personal growth, and realised that you have to grow into your dreams. You have to grow into the person who can achieve those things you dream of.
To become a decent writer I had to learn how to write. To be able to coach my clients to achieve their financial dreams I had to train as a coach, and I’m constantly learning more about mind-set and financial freedom to keep growing those skills. To become a speaker I had to learn how to speak, and I had to learn how to run retreats to be able to run retreats.
And the work I do every day with my clients stretches me to know more, be more and want to help more.
These things I now do every day seemed unthinkable to me even 4 years ago, when I was still doing mostly accounts work (which I hated!). In hindsight I can see how I’ve grown more in the last 4 years than any other time in my life.
My life is unrecognisable now compared to then.
And I’ve still got massive goals on my list, not least of which is launching the F Word online finance academy next year. But rather than get overwhelmed by that goal I’m growing myself to be the person who can pull that off.
Growing into a financial leader
Last year a business asked me to go and see them. It was the easiest “pitch” meeting I’ve ever had.
They said “we’ve been following you for the last couple of years, we want to work with you and we’re ready to become the financial leaders our business needs us to be”
What an awesome insight to have!
They’d realised it was going to be hard to create long term financial success and security for themselves unless they took full responsibility and learned the “difficult stuff” they knew they needed to know. Until then they’d done what almost every business does, leaves it all to their accountant and not really get involved.
They decided that THEY needed to be the experts in their own finances.
And what a great decision they made. In the last 14 months they’ve been able to grow their business in a truly profitable way by putting these things in place AND taking full ownership of them:
- A plan of what their business will make possible in their lives
- Robust cash flow forecasting with all taxes put away and buffer cash reserves built up
- Tight control over job and capacity planning which means they can not only forecast their income months ahead, but they know where the operational capacity gaps are
- Monthly management accounts that report against budget and give them a live forecast for the year ahead
- Putting consistent marketing in place and learning to do things they were uncomfortable with at first
- Being clear on the most important things they need to pull off
- Embracing my weekly planning structure and being held to account for delivering their plans
And this means they’ve been able to confidently take and implement some pretty big decisions about their business growth in the last year, whilst being utterly consistent with their new marketing and financial habits that have all contributed to the bottom line value of their business being the strongest it’s ever been. AND with a full order book for several months in advance working with awesome companies like Centre Parcs and Toyota.
That business is Fat Free Media, who just celebrated 10 years since Neil and Kate Rostance took their first office and started their new business, and are one of the most awesome businesses I’ve had the privilege of working with this year.
The truth is, that 14 months ago they didn’t have the skills to be the people who could’ve achieved these next steps, but they knew that, and took themselves on to develop to the next level. And I know they’ll never stop learning and never stop growing themselves. I can’t wait to see who they can become!