Back in 2011, I attended Business Mastery with Tony Robbins in Fiji, with 80 other companies. It was the most powerful business experience that I’d had. I was a self-starter and to me, the work I did with Tony, that was me bringing me fully to the table of the business. I’d started the business with the ‘must achieve, must prove that I can do it’ attitude. And then the business grew and ego took over and I sort of lost my path a little bit because I didn’t really have all the right energy in all the right places to make my business what I wanted it to be. And it had to be something that was going to be sustainable beyond me being the leader.
I knew what I was creating was going to become a large company that I wasn’t actually going to own eventually. I knew that I was setting it up for myself to be able to hand it over for it to be taken to a much bigger level.
So what I would say in terms of the ultimate vision is it comes down to knowing what your WHY is.
Why is a really annoying question to be asked, isn’t it? Sometimes people say it as if it’s the new thing to say: what’s your why for your business? Sometimes when you’re in that frustrated space already… to have to try to work that out, it can actually make you stop looking, and then skip further forward again, similar to what I did.
So I’ll just share with you my thoughts on it. And it’s taken from what I did. I actually did a full exercise on this for myself, and I wrote out my ultimate vision. Gosh, it helped me take the business over the next seven years forward to the sale that eventually was fulfilled.
What makes a business work is the why?
The why is what gives you the fuel to persevere through all the ups and downs.Ups and downs that you are inevitably going to experience over the years. I remember Tony saying at that event in 2011, that being a business owner is for gladiators. ‘cause you have to keep getting back up. You have to keep on finding new ways, looking at it differently, or, as I said, use the 3 mandates of leadership I’ve shared in an earlier video.
Any business can work as long as the person or the people behind it have the passion and the intensity. And as long as you can be flexible enough and adjustwhen necessary, all of that is the critical part for me. I was lucky that even though it was a large business, I always adopted flexibility.
For example, we went from massive sales one week and then with the Newman government coming into QLD, the impact of that had our sales halve, and then halve again. I could have gone out of business and a lot of my competitors, the big organizations, did go out of business, some tragically. I didn’t. I was admittedly scared half to death watching emails for the bank, hoping that we would survive it.
I just got on the tools and I had to be flexible to dump every single expense possible to make that business survive, to take it to the vision I had for it, that it would be a care organisation, lasting long beyond me. So, you know, if you don’t align to a compelling reason for being in business, you’re not going to maximise its potential.
It’s just going to be a surface level kind of feeling. Owning a growing business takes so much energy. Owning a business that’s near failure equally takes so much energy. If you’re going to make a truly successful business from the ground up, or even if you’re going to buy a business or turn it around or take it to another level, that energy will get worn out. If it’s only physical or if it is onlyemotional, you need to have a reason and you need to have a vision of something you’re truly passionate about, where you’re serving more than yourself.
The work that I’m doing now is very outcomes-focused through the 3 Vital Questions framework and personal and business coaching I deliver. I can see my ‘story of my first business’ differently to how I saw it then. Even when I had done this ultimate vision. Now, I’ve advanced to a new space, and putting it very simply, with a Why or knowing what your desired outcome is for what it is you do want, everything comes down to being brave and consistent about just moving baby steps towards it.
And you might just be surprised how you keep on making breakthroughs for your business, as you do it that way. Having a vision, that’s what gives you the energy, even when your body’s tired and you’re emotionally tired, you just keep on going.
I saw this lovely quote that was related to it, and it was
“Dream lofty dreams. And as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is a promise of what you shall one day be. Your ideal is a prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.” – by James Allen
That’s me and today’s thoughts anyway. Have you defined your ultimate vision? Have you got down to that lovely, juicy why of what it is? What it is really beyond the simple thing that you think you’re doing the business for now.
What business are you really in? Where do you really want to take it? Where are you going?
Please contact me if I can help you.