Welcome back to another installment of the Small Business Executive! If you’re returning, thanks for checking out my first article about myself and my business. If this is your first time seeing this, go back and read that first article.
Today we’ll be talking about success, something I mentioned a few times in my previous post. Despite being an avid hater of spoilers, I think in the context of business ownership it’s important to start with the ending in mind, as this will be the basis of what you’ll be working towards for however long you are able and/or decide to. I’m hoping to explore my own definition of success here, and hopefully provide you with the tools to define your own.At first glance, it can seem easy to define success in the context of business ownership, right–make a lot of money, become rich and/or famous, buy a nice car, stop working and make others work for you, be free from the 9-5 grind, etc. I’d argue that for most people who desire to own a business, these are the first things that come to mind as the end goal. I’d also argue that these goals often lead to the failure of many businesses. While money, power, and autonomy ARE important, I believe that these desires are almost always the result of societal and media influence on individuals and, without a proper understanding of the ACTUALITY of these facets, ultimately are antithetical to what success should entail, and for what business owners should expect out of their journey.
In my previous article, I made it a point to talk about my “young man’s naivety” and ultimately that was driven by this false sense of what success meant - I wanted money, influence, and was tired of working for other people and I felt like business ownership was my quickest and easiest way to achieve that. If you’ve been paying attention at all, then you can probably deduce that I was incredibly incorrect in this assumption, and it led to YEARS of depression, feelings of failure, and stumbling over myself, and personal defeat, despite business success. Yes, you read that correctly–even though my business was succeeding and hitting metrics (increasing revenue and profits year over year, growing it’s staff base, etc), I was still failing because I didn’t have a concept for what success actually meant to me, only what I was told it would be like. How much money is enough to be successful? How much autonomy results in success? How would spreading influence actually translate to a successful career? In truth, I was naive because I didn’t take the time to flesh out what it was I actually wanted or how I thought I would get there. And without those milestones and end goals, I could NEVER be successful. There were no milestones or achievements to hit, personally. From the personal side, my only real measurement of success was how much I could mitigate the feelings of failure - and that’s not exactly a recipe for happiness. In short, I couldn’t reconcile my own personal happiness with the goals of my business, and that is where I failed. As a business owner, you’re going to have long days. You’re going to be subject to responsibilities and duties that you aren’t prepared for, or that you outright don’t want to do, and if your only end goals are extrinsic, then your passion will never have staying power and neither will your business. You have to be able to define business success in the context of what makes you happy and feel successful.
When it comes to personal training and coaching our clients, we like to create SMART goals - a very simplistic way to set Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-based goals as they relate to fitness measures. When setting these goals, it’s also important to ask WHY. In my experience, a person’s “why” will ALWAYS be their entire motivation for putting themselves through a journey, and it will always have multiple layers. For example - I’ve had many many clients over the years who want to lose weight–cool. Losing weight is easy, right? Consume less calories than you expend and the scale goes down. But if it’s that easy, then why does it turn out so difficult? It’s because people lose their “why” or they just don’t actually know what that is. I spend a ton of time with my clients on picking their brains on why they want to train. Some want to be more attractive to their partner. Some want to be able to play with their grandkids. Some want to go through their life and day-to-day activities experiencing the same level of movement freedom they had when they were younger. Some want to become the strongest they’ve ever been. Those are all great reasons, but to be honest, they don’t tell the entire story. WHY do these clients want to do this? Ultimately, it comes down to psychology - people want to be happy. They want to have joy. They want to have hope. They want to feel confident. They want to feel valued, by themselves, so they can feel valued and content with those around them. Once we’ve gotten to that point, then we break down that goal into smaller points - how much weight will make you happy? How much strength will make you confident? How much movement freedom will give you that happiness? And how will you know when you’ve reached that point? If at any point my clients can’t answer this question, then we may just be chasing the wrong goal, and it’s time to reset our intentions.
You see, the thing I never considered in my first 8 years of business ownership was myself. I felt that I could continue to go through leading and feeling successful solely because my business was doing better year over year, even if I wasn’t - and that was a recipe for disaster. I had lost my why and it wasn’t until I took the time to decide and remember what I originally went into business for–to help people–that those feelings of success began to return. Now I measure my success by a few different metrics - how happy are my employees? How satisfied are my customers? How much time do I spend with my friends and family? How much time do I spend at work? Am I able to take care of myself? Are my employees able to take care of themselves? Are we all progressing towards our individual and collective goals, and how do we know? As a small business executive, I’m ultimately the tour guide for a successful problem-solving endeavor and it’s my responsibility to navigate the complexities that result in that pursuit - and it should be yours too.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Be sure to comment down below about your thoughts on this article, future topics you’d like me to cover, or anything else that’s on your mind. You can reach me at cody@chapelhilltraining.com and if you aren’t a current client or staff member but want to get involved, please check us out at chapelhilltraining.com!