This week I thought it was high time to talk about what ‘Finish With A Sprint’(FWAS) means to me and what I hope it will bring to you.
I have founded, operated and sold multiple businesses over 30+ years of my working life. What isn’t obvious to most is that there was a big gap between earlier success and my current success.
My first and only child was born in June of 2003 at 24 weeks and being so severely premature, he was in the hospital until November 1st of that year, undergoing several major surgeries and being diagnosed with multiple disabilities. Within the next few years after his birth, I ended up selling all my companies because I wasn’t able to work effectively as a business owner.
The next 15 or so years were pretty dark and challenging. Financially, my family struggled and my mental health followed suit. I know what it is like to lose your identify as a business owner and the financial success that can come with it. Finding my way back to a ‘second act’ in business seemed out of reach for many years.
There are many reasons why I have been able to return to successful entrepreneurship and a few are my faith, my clients and my family. All three were instrumental in my earlier success and are front and center this time as well.
The point where things began to change for me was when I committed to publish my latest book, Can I Borrow Your Car. That process of deciding to invest in a book project, unbeknownst to me at the time, began a process of resuscitating my entrepreneurial identify once again. The process was challenging and also massively cathartic, healing deep wounds of betrayal and failure.
As my editor and I worked through the book development process I had a moment of insight about what was happening in my life through a memory from high school.
I was a middle of the pack athlete, able to perform at a varsity level in different sports, but never elite. What I did have that separated me from everyone else I have ever competed with is the ability, when knowing I was close to the finish, to outkick/sprint anyone I ever raced. I have always been able to finish with a sprint.
That memory, from a District Championship meet in cross country, is so vivid in my mind and is what propels my work with Blue Ridge Legacy Partners and Strategic Referral Team. The concept of finishing with a sprint has a lot of applications, but here are four for now:
- FWAS is not just about the end of your life. There are a ton of ‘finish strong’ messages out there, many of them in my Christian community and I am absolutely speaking to that in some cases. Primarily, I am talking about right now though.
- FWAS is about realizing this: you aren’t done if you are reading this blog.
- FWAS is about encouraging you to get tactical with a truth in your life: if you can see the finish line you can increase your effort (sprinting in any sense) and the key to a better life now and at the end looking back is to break up whatever time you have left into shorter ‘races’. Instead of the ultimate finish line, maybe set up a series of shorter ones.
- When it applies to business specifically, I want to share my story further to encourage others that you can recover from massive adversity and financial devastation in your earlier life. As I write this blog I am 56 and experiencing a period of business and personal growth that far surpasses anything from earlier in my life/career.
Action Steps for you if your are a business owner:
- Spend some time and think about the reality that you don’t know when the last finish line will come. Denial of the absolute guarantee of mortality is not going to serve you well right now or later.
- Decide that you (a) want to improve now and (b) that you have the ability to do so. Both of those are 100% true.
- Do some reading about the difference between #exitplanning and #sellingyourbusiness. They are related, but are not the same thing. The first has a timeline that can be from 3-30 years and the last could be as short as 3 months.
- Get some help. Whether it is from an informal group of business owner peers, or, engaging with a consultant like myself or the thousands of CEPA designees around the world, getting an outside perspective that is focused on helping you improve now will be huge for you and your business.
In the CEPA course we learn about value acceleration and most importantly, how to help business owners execute upon that concept within an exit planning process. The part I want you to learn about right now is that we do so in 90 day sprints. You can get a lot done in 90 days if you choose the right things to work on (and in most cases keep from trying to do too much).
90 day sprints don’t just have to be about your business. They can be focused on your health and your family and maybe even your faith. What has shut me down, and my clients in the past, is being too focused on the last finish line and failing to keep motivated and disciplined as we struggle with the reality that we don’t really know when it is (admittedly at 56 I am on the back half of my personal race).
Uncertainty and lack of clarity kills business owners. Instead, race small and finish with a sprint.
All the best,
Mike
