I can imagine two distinct reactions to this week’s newsletter title:
- How the heck can I possibly do that?!?
- How can I do it right now?!?
Context: I fly fish, on average, a minimum of once per week. These excursions occur 99% of the time during the work week (usually between 6:30 am and 3:30 pm).
I run several coaching/consulting/training businesses and am the father of a severely disabled adult that lives at home and celebrated 31 years of marriage this year.
You can do it if you want to. Of course, it doesn’t have to be #fly fishing unless you want to live your most glorious life.
I am able to do this, taking most of a business day off from my growing business(s) because of one simple thing: I decided that it was essential to me and then designed everything else around it from a business perspective. Of note, the reason I don’t usually fish on weekends is so that I can be at home helping out with my son.
If I can do it, you can do it. NO excuses
How is a fair question to ask and the answer is it is not easy. It starts with what my friend Chris Snider describes as the Personal Plan in his landmark book “Walking to Destiny”. What drives owner satisfaction before exit and especially after exit is their work creating their personal plan and their ability to execute upon it before they sell their company.
Basically, the personal plan involves spelling out in clear and specific detail what your life is going to be like post-exit and who you are going to be then as well. This is then integrated with the business plan and the financial plan to ensure that we have realistic and achievable timelines and strategies to achieve success.
Here is where most of us get it wrong as business owners, whether or not we know to call it a personal plan: We wait to start living our personal plan until after we exit.
This is a bad idea for a number of reasons.
Let’s assume you are a noble soul, great human being and reasonable person and have as part of your personal plan to fly fish 3-5 times per week after you sell your company. You are a good person and I want to know you…but I digress.
Here are some problems with waiting until after you exit to begin living your plan:
- You don’t know when you will exit and you aren’t guaranteed to do so on your own terms. A lot of business owners exit both their business and their life on the same day. That reality of your lack of control over your ‘expiration date’ is why you should make sure you get some fly fishing in while you are still around.
- You don’t know what condition physically you are going to be in when you exit. You might be older and less physically capable than you are right now (likely). That restricts your ability to get all the joy that fly fishing can provide for you. We can mitigate that some by exercise and nutrition now, but we can’t always predict when/if we might become physically or mentally disabled.
- One big part of exiting your business with the best options and highest multiples is decentralizing your business. What better way to demonstrate the value of your business than having it growing and thriving while you are out fly fishing all over the globe? I want to buy companies like that.
- You might not like fly fishing all the time after you sell the business (I know it’s inconceivable but possible). Can you imagine the depression that might ensue from waiting and striving to get to the point to finally take up the world’s best hobby and then discovering that you don’t enjoy doing it at that level of frequency? This is a real thing. You need to test out your life post exit while you still have control over your cash flow and the ability to grow it. Maybe you will love it, maybe you won’t.
The most important reason is I want you to live now.
If you don’t know how to get to what I am describing don’t hesitate to reach out below or directly.
I average almost 100 days on the water each year and it is hard…very hard. However, fly fishing is one of the things that brings me life and joy AND powers my business and personal success. As my wife says to me: “you always come back better”
Start with thinking about what you have promised yourself and your family that you will be doing after you sell the business…and make a commitment to doing some of it right now. Maybe it is just Friday afternoons on your local creek fly fishing for Bluegill.
Getting started allows you to experience life now and will propel you forward into doing the work of planning for your business’s growth now and favorable options to exit at any point (planned or unplanned) in the future.
We don’t always get to pick our exit…live while you still can.
All the best and tight lines,
Mike
