Running a small business feels a lot like being on a treadmill.
It’s super common to feel like I’m running REALLY FAST but not actually moving forward.
A few years ago, someone explained to me the difference between working in your business vs. working on your business. The idea is that you can get so caught up in the day-to-day tasks of making your business GO that you never spend time actually improving the business as a whole.
This fundamentally rocked my world and made me really understand the pattern I was experiencing. I always felt “busy,” but I never felt like I was actually improving or moving forward.
I’ve seen this to be true for myself and all the business owners that I work with. If you don’t put time aside to work on your business, you’ll never truly make progress and get to where you’re going. That’s why coaching, mentorship, and peer groups (like Unreal) exist.
It’s a big reason why I started working with a coach and pretty aggressively investing in continued education and mentorship. I thought I had it all figured out.
But then a couple weeks ago, I had my world rocked again.
We were interviewing Josh Dorkin for our podcast, the founder and former CEO of BiggerPockets. BiggerPockets is a massively successful real estate investment community (over 1 million members, 17 books, millions of podcast downloads, etc.)
Josh got pretty personal on the show, talking about a point eight years into the business that he broke down and nearly quit. And then last November when a family illness finally convinced him to step away from the business.
I’m blessed that I had the opportunity to look back upon the previous bunch of years running the business and realize all those things I would have done differently.
And now, I can examine what I did, right, what I did wrong, what changes I would have made, and a lot of those were not necessarily. I should have eaten better way sooner, I should have taken care of my body way sooner, I should have stopped and thought about happiness sooner.
You know, we all become so consumed with our lives, I think I was not the only one guilty. The reason I was miserable at year eight and cried to my wife and brought in this consultant was I was in the business, right.
And I think what I’ve discovered and believe to be true is that the vast, vast, vast majority of people are so stuck in their lives versus working on their lives.
So again, in the business versus on the business, once I changed that it changed my life for the better. The same applied for my life, once I started working on my life versus being stuck in my life and and being a prisoner of my own life, things changed dramatically.
It makes so much sense, but I had never thought of it before.
I see it play out all the time when I talk to people and they start talking about the things they WANT to do, but just can’t seem to find the time.
The changes they WANT to make, but just haven’t quite prioritized.
It’s so easy to look at the calendar and realize months have passed, and yet nothing seems to have progressed.
Are we growing? Are things improving? Will I ever get to that idea I have?
You won’t if you’re stuck working in your life and not on our life.
And if you’re ready to make a change, I’m here to help.
Last week, I reopened applications for our Unreal Collective Accelerator program.Â
The accelerator program is designed for founders, freelancers, and creatives to make remarkable progress on your project or business over the course of 12 weeks together.
To date, 75 individuals have gone through the program and accomplished incredible things. It worked for them, and it would work for you too.
And don’t take my word for it! Read their stories and testimonials.
Applications are due May 31, and if you join before May 20 you’ll save 20% of the price. Let’s work ON your life, together.