Episode 063: Scaling Without Sacrifice: Leadership, Fulfilment and Freedom with Jason Billows

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And from the outside, it looked like I had a picture book wedding or picture book marriage.
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And my health seemed to be fine up until a point where all of the cards came crashing down.
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I had what I now look back on affectionately as my year from hell.
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And I say affectionately because a lot of stuff changed that year.
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I was fortunate that I had an opportunity to do a reset.
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But the reality was that while I had a lot of success on the surface, I was really lacking fulfillment underneath it all.
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And within the course of a year, my marriage came to a very surprising end.
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Some health issues came to a head, and I ended up spending six months in bed, unable to move on a lot of opioids with family members having to take care of me.
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And my career that was very successful had just left me feeling so empty that I took an extended period of time off to try and figure out what I was going to do.
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Welcome to Purpose-Driven Success with Mo Salami, where real journeys, mindset shifts, and strategic insights meet purpose-driven success.
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I'm your host, Mo Salami.
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Every week we dive into real conversations with high-achieving founders and leaders, uncovering the mindsets, strategies, and takeaways that help you define and achieve success on your own terms.
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I'm so happy and proud to bring you today's guest.
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And of course, we're going to have an exceptional episode.
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And one of the reasons I'm so happy and proud is because we have a partly shared background from the Tony Robbins world, either through mentoring or coaching.
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So it's a really aligned guest today, as per usual.
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Jason Billows is a business and leadership coach.
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He's an international speaker and he's an entrepreneur who spent nearly two decades helping business owners build companies that create freedom rather than consume it.
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Having founded and led multiple businesses, including a multi-seven-figure company, he co-owns with his wife, Jason combines real-world experience with thousands of hours coaching founders around the world.
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A day Jason helps overloaded business owners step out of the day-to-day, become better leaders, and build businesses that thrive alongside a fulfilling life instead of at the expense of a fulfilling life.
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Jason Billows, welcome to Purpose-Driven Success.
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Mo, it's an absolute pleasure to be here, buddy.
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Thank you for having me.
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Absolutely.
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So I gave my intro to Jason my way, Mo's way.
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So how would you introduce yourself?
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What's your journey to this point?
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Tell us a little bit about yourself.
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Oh wow.
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The journey, it feels like such a long one.
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I'm 56 now, and so I don't know how how far back we should go here, but let me let me dive into the relevant pieces.
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I've been just I've been so lucky to have such an interesting and diverse career over the course of my career.
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So back in university, I launched my first business and I worked in the entertainment industry, the performing arts.
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I actually ended up selling two businesses in my in my early 20s.
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They were, they were modest exits, but I was very, very proud of them.
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And then I went on to different leadership roles with a variety of different organizations.
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All of those different roles that I played are less relevant than what ended up happening in my in my early to mid-30s.
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And that was I found myself at a point in my life where I was enjoying a lot of success.
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I was successful in the roles that I was playing.
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I was being headhunted to move to different organizations around the world.
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I had had some entrepreneurial success.
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I was married, and from the outside, it looked like I had a picture book wedding or picture book marriage.
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And my health seemed to be fine up until a point where all of the cards came crashing down.
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I had what I now look back on affectionately as my year from hell.
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And I say affectionately because a lot of stuff changed that year that I was just, I was fortunate that I had an opportunity to do a reset.
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But the reality was that while I had a lot of success on the surface, I was really lacking fulfillment underneath it all.
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And within the course of a year, my marriage came to a very surprising end.
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My health, some health issues came, came to a head.
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And I ended up spending six months in bed, unable to move on a lot of opioids with family members having to take care of me.
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And my career that was very successful had just left me feeling so empty that I took an extended period of time off to try and figure out what I was going to do.
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And so that point in my life was a turning point for me.
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And with the help of some people that asked some phenomenal questions for me that really helped me to figure out a new direction, I set my sights on some new goals, some new ways of being, new priorities in my life.
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And eventually it's led me to where I'm at now with an incredible woman that I'm married to, who's almost also my business partner, two amazing kids, in better health than I've ever been in my adult life before, and doing work that I absolutely love with business owners who are essentially facing the same challenges that I faced back in my 30s.
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Jason, what an awesome intro.
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And obviously, we're going to dive and delve into some of your journey as well.
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Jason, when you look back early in your entrepreneurial journey, how did you personally define success?
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And what were you actually chasing beneath that definition?
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So I think that I was defining success by more.
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Simply that whatever I had accomplished, the next step was going to be success.
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So there was no point of really stopping and celebrating for too long.
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It was always, okay, well, what's the next target that we have to hit?
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What's the next milestone?
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And that if I stopped doing that, if I stopped the hamster wheel, then that was going to be failure.
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So success meant more.
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It meant to keep going.
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But I think that really what I was chasing, and I love that you asked this question.
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What was I chasing underneath it all?
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Was I think, I think a sense of worthiness, a sense of recognition, which is it's actually it's kind of surprising because I had an incredible upbringing with amazing parents and extended family.
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I felt loved constantly.
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I I felt appreciated.
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And so the fact that I was then feeling that if I didn't get that through my business, through my other accomplishments, that that was going to be a failure was surprising for me because I had grown up feeling worthy, and yet here I was trying to get more to kind of fill that hole in me that wasn't feeling like enough.
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Right.
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And you mentioned your trajectory from when things felt like they had were falling apart to a more whole jigsaw puzzle, if you will.
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Jason, before you started intentionally designing how you were operating your business, what did your day-to-day reality actually look like, especially when things got busy or high pressure?
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Part of that, my day-to-day schedule, my weekly schedule involved me working a lot.
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I was working long hours, burning the midnight oil, if you want to call it that.
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But it was less about what I was doing and more about what I was not doing.
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I was not spending time on the things in my life that were, that I said were important to me, my my marriage, my health, those kinds of things.
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And so what ended up happening was that I would go in, and I guess you'd say sprints where I would work really, really hard for an extended period and then I would crash.
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Okay.
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And I would need time to recover.
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And then I would sprint again and I would crash.
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And I kept repeating that pattern over and over again, whether I was getting an emotional crash or a physical crash, becoming sick, and not seeing the pattern at the time.
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But my body, my relationships, all of the signs around me were telling me that, hey, this isn't sustainable.
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It kept forcing me to stop, and yet I kept repeating it.
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And then so obviously sprint, crash, crash, sprint, and then rewind again.
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And what was the moment when the way that you've been operating your business with the sprints and the crashes, you realize this can't go on, it stopped working.
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What was that moment when you realized that?
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This is where I just feel like I was given a real gift because I didn't realize it myself until the external forces in my life caused me to realize it.
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The health issues with my back, which ended up resulting in a having to have a spinal fusion, my marriage coming apart, and my ex-wife telling me that it was it was coming to an end, challenges with work, all of these things were kind of forced upon me.
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I I hadn't realized it.
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I was, it was like that old story that you hear about the that you put a frog in water and you slowly turn up the heat, it doesn't realize it and it eventually boils left.
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I don't know if that's true or not, but I know that I wasn't realizing that I was starting to boil.
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And so it was a real gift when that happened.
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Now, I had the the a period of time where all of this was happening where I was in denial.
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So I was pushing back and I was saying, oh, I've just got to I'll figure this out with work.
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I'll I'll save the marriage.
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Well, I'll have surgery on my back and I'll move on.
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But this period lasted for such a long period of time that it kind of forced me to reflect.
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I had a lot of time laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, just reflecting.
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And it and eventually it dawned on me that that that I was arguing with reality.
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And that's the surest way to find yourself in suffering is to argue with reality.
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The fact was that while I was succeeding in certain areas of my life, the evidence was that it was all falling apart.
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And I think it was a moment where I was literally laying in bed waiting for surgery.
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I was in a lot of pain.
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And I just, there was a sort of a calmness that fell over me because in that moment I had a realization that oh, I don't have to keep doing this, that I can step back, I can make new choices, different choices.
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And it was scary, but it was an opportunity because previous to that, I felt like I, as I mentioned before, I was on a hamster wheel that I had to keep running on.
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And now I realize that, oh, I can get off, I can choose a different path.
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So you're laying in in bed or you're laying on your back in the hospital, I suppose.
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Like what was that moment?
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How did it feel like when you had that release that I just don't have to keep doing this?
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I don't have to keep at this hamster will.
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Exciting.
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Yeah, it was it was exciting because previous everything that I had been doing had felt like work and it felt like a slog, like I was having to push and push and push.
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It wasn't that my new path was gonna be effortless.
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It was absolutely gonna require effort to move forward, but there's an excitement and an energy there because it brought a new possibility.
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And it wasn't a possibility of more success, it was a possibility of feeling like, oh, I can do something now, I can take a path that's gonna feel fulfilling for me, that's gonna light me up.
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And with that kind of came this boundless energy.
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I was just excited to get moving and to start pursuing it.
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Right.
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And before you got moving and started pursuing, obviously you mentioned that the external forces showed you what was going on.
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What was the emotional cost of trying to hold everything together at that stage?
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I think that the emotional cost, well, I guess to put it bluntly, was it was it was to feel that I had just let down a lot of people in my life.
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I I feel like I had I had let down a lot of other lot of other people, I had let down myself.
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And I think that there was a sense of a sense of shame there around that.
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That that that I that I see a lot of other business owners face as well.
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I I think that sometimes when we're high achievers, when we're wanting to accomplish a lot, when we're wanting to succeed, that we say to ourselves, well, look, I'm I'm willing to make the sacrifice.
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That we think that if I just sacrifice a little bit more for a little bit longer, suddenly everything's gonna fall into place.
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But what we don't realize is that often we're not the only ones paying the price.
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And that the other ones that are paying the price along with us are the ones that are closest to us, the ones that we've actually decided to build the business for or to serve.
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And I think that that was the biggest emotional cost for me was realizing that while I had perhaps been willing to make that sacrifice, that there was other people that I loved that were paying the price as well that had never asked to pay that price.
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And what would you say, Jason, what was the real turning point where you realized the way that I'm operating my business at the minute has to change?
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And what beliefs about success or ownership did you have to now let go of?
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I think that the the I'll start with the second part of that question because I think that informs the first.
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So it was it was a realization that I was pursuing success based on somebody else's terms, somebody else's definition of success.
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And so what I needed to let go of was all of those preconceived notions of what success was and to redefine them.
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I mentioned before that a lot of the things that were driving me was to feel that need to be accepted, right?
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And so I needed to let go of that.
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I needed to let go of other people's expectations and I needed to define what did I want my life to look like.
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And it wasn't just a matter of deciding, well, what do I want my next job to look like?
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Or what's the where do I want to live, or like things like that.
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It was about really going inside internally and asking myself, like, what are the values that I want to live by?
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Because when we understand what those values are, what's truly important to us.
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And I'm not, look, if you ask somebody what their values are, they're gonna say, oh, I value health, I value family.
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But how you define family and how I define family may be different.
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And what it looks like to live those values in our life in the real world is also gonna look different.
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So to do the work to really understand those values at the deepest core level, and then to let those values act as a compass to identify your priorities, then that's where I was able to build momentum.
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That's where I was able to come back from.
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Because previously I was focused on other people's priorities to accomplish a level of success that was defined by other people's terms.
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Coming back to myself, going inside, that's where I was able to, as I say, identify that compass to guide me moving forward and what was going to be ultimately fulfilling for me.
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Right.
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So you mentioned your values there, Jason.
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So what would you say were your or what would you say are your platter of values from which everything else is a springboard now?
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Yeah.
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It's so I I would say that I probably, and I would say most people probably have dozens, if not hundreds, of values.
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And I think that they shift and change over time.
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But ultimately, we have at any point in time in our life, we have what I just define as our core values, those values that are kind of taking precedence at any point in time.
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I think that for many of us, our values are established when we're young, and then our core values bubble to the surface over time.
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So, for example, family has always been a value of mine.
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And I loved my parents when I was young.
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We had a great extended family.
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But although family's always been a value of mine, when I was a teenager, it probably wasn't a core value.
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It wasn't very high on my list.
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I wanted to go and hang out with my buddies, right?
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I want to go to the movies and hang out at the corner store, things like that.
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Now I have an incredible wife, two amazing kids.
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Family is at the very, very top of my values list.
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So, while again, hundreds of values, but the ones that are really bubbling to the surface at this point in time in my life, absolutely my family.
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But I think even before my family comes my health because I realize that without a strong, healthy foundation, I'm not going to be able to show up for my family.
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Right.
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So my marriage, my family and my kids, my health, absolutely my career.
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But my career at this point is coming from a different place than it was in my 20s or my 30s.
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I've redefined it.
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And it's more about service.
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Arthur Brooks talks in his book, Strength to Strength, about this shift that we go through over our career.
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And I felt like he was writing that book and he was speaking directly to me because I'm at this point right now in my career where I'm wanting to, without this sounding too egotistical, to mentor, to coach, to guide other people at this point from the lessons that I've learned earlier in my career.
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Definitely, definitely doesn't sound egotistical for podcasts a lot earlier.
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And just this first few minutes of this conversation would have saved them years, perhaps even a couple of decades of partake or going in a different direction.
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Because now they can think about aligning their values and really thinking about what success really is, could be taking into account their health and their well-being and those important to them.
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So you had a different thought process about success and ownership.
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Finally, can you walk me through a decision, a real decision that you made that reflected this new way of operating?
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So where you would have acted one way previously, but you chose a completely different approach instead.
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Yeah.
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I I think that probably the the biggest example of that is looking at where my time has gone in my life.
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So with my wife Tracy and I, we have when when my wife Tracy and I first met, she had just launched a business.
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And we've now since become business partners in that.
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But that business required a lot of time and a lot of energy early on from both from primarily from her.
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But we also had kids relatively early in our relationship together.
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We got married relatively early in our relationship.
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So she was growing that business at the time while we were also establishing our family.
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Now, previously, because I had defined so much of what my life needed to look like by business success, I would have kept forging ahead at the same pace that I was with my career and with my business, with my own business at the time.
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But instead, recognizing that she needed to be more present in her business and knowing that family was a top priority for me that stood out above and beyond my business success, I chose to spend more time at home with the kids.
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And so while I still continued to work because I had a lot of flexibility with my schedule at that time, I ended up being the primary caregiver at home for our kids when they were really, really quite young.
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And it when I look back on that, it's it's a decision that I made entirely because I knew the price that I would pay if I hadn't because of my year from hell.
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That that was the lesson for me.
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And now I was able to make a better decision, at least a better decision for me and my values.
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Might be different for somebody else, but for me, that's what was important to our family overall.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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So, Jason, how has your definition of success evolved through this shift?
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Like we heard a lot of it in that previous answer, especially when you started factoring in life outside of business in a more intentional way.
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So success is something that I I I actually find it really challenging to nail it down by a definition, right?
00:22:59.960 --> 00:23:03.720
Because I think that everybody can define success differently.
00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:10.920
But even for myself, I still kind of in many ways go back to that old definition of success as being more.
00:23:11.640 --> 00:23:13.800
I can attain a certain level of success.
00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:22.360
And in my business, I might set a revenue goal or an impact goal of how I want to impact my clients or the broader community.
00:23:22.600 --> 00:23:28.200
And so I can define that success and I can reach that level of success, but I still want more.
00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:35.640
And the thing is that I don't think it's wrong to want more success, whatever success looks like for you.
00:23:35.800 --> 00:23:49.480
I think that the danger is when we pursue success at the cost of fulfillment without recognizing that, again, I mentioned this before, success without fulfillment is ultimately that biggest failure.
00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:54.680
So however you define success and wanting more of it, I don't begrudge that of anybody.
00:23:54.920 --> 00:23:55.720
Go for it.
00:23:55.960 --> 00:23:59.400
But make sure that you're not paying a price that you're going to regret.
00:23:59.560 --> 00:24:02.040
And so for me, really, it's about balance these days.
00:24:02.120 --> 00:24:09.560
And I know that balance is a word that a lot of business gurus like to like to beat on and say, oh, balance isn't possible if you want to succeed.
00:24:09.640 --> 00:24:12.200
And I I vehemently disagree with that.
00:24:12.280 --> 00:24:14.040
It's absolutely possible.
00:24:14.280 --> 00:24:23.080
But yeah, so I think that success needs to be balanced with fulfillment, or you're going to end up at a point in your life where I believe you're probably going to have regret.
00:24:23.640 --> 00:24:28.600
Because I've worked with and I've seen a lot of business owners who have incredibly successful businesses.
00:24:28.840 --> 00:24:36.520
And then they come to me and they say, Well, oh, geez, my marriage is falling apart, or my kids aren't talking to me, or my health is terrible.
00:24:36.600 --> 00:24:42.520
And they find themselves having lost touch with all of the things that they built the business for in the first place.
00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:43.640
And so what do they do?
00:24:43.800 --> 00:24:49.160
They retreat back into the business yet again because it's the only place where they're feeling any kind of validation.
00:24:49.320 --> 00:24:50.520
So wow.
00:24:50.600 --> 00:25:01.720
And I left an intentional pause there because I know for a lot of founders, they can relate to this where the number one metric is just success, whatever that looks like.
00:25:01.800 --> 00:25:04.760
The numbers, the revenues, and all that great stuff.
00:25:04.840 --> 00:25:08.440
And then there's the whole, we'll just do the other stuff when we get there.
00:25:08.600 --> 00:25:11.000
Family, health, well-being, free time.
00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:18.280
We'll just do that when we get to the finish line, get to the finish line, and all the other stuff isn't there.
00:25:18.840 --> 00:25:25.320
Jason, you often say you cannot read the label from inside the bottle.
00:25:25.480 --> 00:25:26.600
What does that even mean?
00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:30.600
And why is that such a dangerous place for founders to be?
00:25:30.920 --> 00:25:31.480
Yeah.
00:25:31.800 --> 00:25:35.480
It's so I wouldn't say it's a dangerous place.
00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:38.520
I think it's the reality of life for all of us.
00:25:38.760 --> 00:25:43.160
And when we become aware of it, we can avoid the the pitfalls of it.
00:25:43.320 --> 00:25:47.080
But so think of it this way: we're all inside the bottle of our own life.
00:25:47.240 --> 00:25:56.680
In other words, we're all in our own experience, which then immediately changes our perspective on the experience itself.
00:25:57.320 --> 00:26:06.680
A great example that I like to give of this is we've all had that friend who at one point in their life was in a relationship that was a terrible relationship.
00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:13.400
They and their partner would fight and would argue and break up and get back together, and they go back and forth all the time.
00:26:13.480 --> 00:26:18.120
And inevitably, that person would come to you and say, geez, I don't know what I should do.
00:26:18.280 --> 00:26:20.200
I don't know what I should do about this relationship.
00:26:20.360 --> 00:26:21.320
Should I stay in it?
00:26:21.480 --> 00:26:26.200
And we're back pulling our heads, screaming at the top of our lungs, of course you should break up.
00:26:26.280 --> 00:26:27.480
It's not working.
00:26:27.640 --> 00:26:31.560
And yet that person doesn't see it because they're in the experience, right?
00:26:31.800 --> 00:26:40.520
And we all have this experience ourselves, whether it's how we show up with our families, how we show up in our business, whatever it might be.
00:26:40.760 --> 00:26:50.760
And so it's really valuable to have somebody who's on the outside of the bottle who can essentially hold up a mirror for us to help us see what's going on.
00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:54.840
Another simple way to put this is that we can't see our blind spots.
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.400
By definition, we're blind to our blind spots.
00:26:57.480 --> 00:27:00.760
And it's really valuable to have somebody to be able to point those out.
00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:13.000
Now, for business owners, the challenge with this is that often because they are in a leadership position with their team, their team won't always speak with them honestly about what they're seeing.
00:27:13.320 --> 00:27:19.080
And family members and friends often don't understand the challenges that come with their business.
00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:29.320
And so while they might complain that they don't see that person much anymore, that they've lost touch or that they're sacrificing their health, the business owner says, Well, you don't get it.
00:27:29.480 --> 00:27:29.720
Right.
00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:36.200
So I think that to see the label requires one of a couple of different things that we can do.
00:27:36.280 --> 00:27:48.040
We can have somebody who we trust to hold up a mirror to tell us how it is, whether it's a coach or a mentor, or sometimes a peer if we have a peer that can really do that effectively for us.
00:27:48.280 --> 00:27:51.080
But we can also look for clues.
00:27:51.400 --> 00:27:59.160
So while we're behind the label, so we can't read it, we can look into the world around us and ask ourselves, what are the results that I'm getting?
00:27:59.320 --> 00:28:01.320
What are the patterns that I'm seeing?
00:28:01.560 --> 00:28:08.760
And when we see certain patterns show up enough, it starts to give us really good indications of what the bottom and what the label might say.
00:28:08.840 --> 00:28:16.680
We can't know for sure, but we can get ideas and we can at least know if things are working or not, and then we can redirect our efforts.
00:28:18.040 --> 00:28:18.440
Wow.
00:28:18.520 --> 00:28:19.480
Wow, wow, wow.
00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:22.040
What great boot for thought there, Jason.
00:28:22.280 --> 00:28:29.880
So most founders they think the answer to overload is another hire or another system.
00:28:30.760 --> 00:28:33.480
Why do these solutions often fail?
00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:44.120
Yeah, so I think what what often happens is when when a founder launches their business, they they need to sacrifice.
00:28:44.520 --> 00:28:53.560
Let's face it, if you want to build a successful business, if you want to have impact, if you want your business to succeed, you're going to have to make sacrifices.
00:28:53.640 --> 00:28:57.960
And that's absolutely reasonable early on in your business, right?
00:28:58.200 --> 00:29:03.720
But it's not sustainable over the long term, at least not if you also want to have a fulfilling life.
00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:11.320
And so what will often happen is that these business owners will wake up one day and they'll realize I'm no longer the founder.
00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:16.200
I played the founder role at one point, but now I've woken up and I'm no longer the founder.
00:29:16.360 --> 00:29:26.120
I'm what I like to call the overloaded operator, that person where all of the decisions and primary responsibilities are resting on their shoulders.
00:29:26.280 --> 00:29:30.440
And they have essentially become the bottleneck for the business growing.
00:29:30.680 --> 00:29:35.720
And so there's a lot of people out there that will say, well, the answer to your problem is to scale, it's to grow.
00:29:35.800 --> 00:29:43.400
So you've got to hire more A players, or you need to put systems in place, you need to like put install EOS or something like that.
00:29:43.480 --> 00:29:46.200
And don't get me wrong, I use EOS in some of my businesses.
00:29:46.280 --> 00:29:47.640
I think it's a phenomenal system.
00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:58.680
But the problem is that when business owners do this without removing themselves from the center of the business, all they're doing is they're scaling their overload.
00:29:59.560 --> 00:30:06.440
And so the hires might be the hiring the A player, installing the system, those might be the right steps.
00:30:06.600 --> 00:30:15.800
But first you need to remove yourself from the center of the business so that your team, you can lead your team so that your team can implement and use those tools.
00:30:16.120 --> 00:30:21.640
If you keep yourself at the center of the business, you're only going to scale your overload along with trying to scale the business.
00:30:21.720 --> 00:30:28.200
And eventually you're going to remain the bottleneck and eventually you're going to burn, you're going to burn out or the business is going to stall.
00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:29.640
Right.
00:30:29.960 --> 00:30:46.920
So when you're working with founders as a business operator coach and they're clearly the bottleneck in a business, what does the lead framework actually look like in practice when the founder is stuck as the bottleneck in their business?
00:30:48.120 --> 00:30:49.960
So there's two steps to this.
00:30:50.200 --> 00:30:54.360
And the first one is to get clarity about what's actually going on.
00:30:54.600 --> 00:31:01.800
I think that oftentimes when we're facing business challenges, we we we go to the problem right away.
00:31:01.960 --> 00:31:03.960
We say, okay, like how do I solve for this?
00:31:04.120 --> 00:31:10.840
But in many ways, that's almost like dealing with the symptom without looking at what's the underlying condition that that's causing the symptom.
00:31:11.080 --> 00:31:16.760
So I always like to just ask the people that I'm working with to just pause and get some clarity.
00:31:16.920 --> 00:31:24.360
And there's a tool that I have that is a fulfillment wheel that looks at the three kind of key components of a business owner's life.
00:31:24.520 --> 00:31:30.280
It looks at them and as a leader, it looks at their business, and then it also looks at their personal life.
00:31:30.360 --> 00:31:35.240
And there's a number of different dimensions of their life, their business and their leadership that we look at.
00:31:35.320 --> 00:31:40.200
And we essentially measure them, we look at them and we say, okay, what's my level of fulfillment?
00:31:40.280 --> 00:31:42.040
What's my level of success in these different areas?
00:31:42.200 --> 00:31:44.680
So that we can see where we're falling short.
00:31:44.760 --> 00:31:49.560
Because the reality is that all of these different areas of our life are interconnected, right?
00:31:49.880 --> 00:32:00.920
That our relationships impact how we show up at work, our health and our sleep that we get impacts how we show up with our kids, how we show up when we're having a sales meeting, the decisions we make.
00:32:01.080 --> 00:32:12.840
So I always like to start with that because I find that when we can get clarity about what's working and what's not working, then we can better diagnose well, what are the things that we need to shift and change?
00:32:13.080 --> 00:32:14.520
So that's the first step.
00:32:14.760 --> 00:32:28.200
But then when it comes to how do we actually help that business owner remove themselves as the bottleneck, the feeling is often that there's going to be a lot to quote unquote do to remove themselves.
00:32:28.360 --> 00:32:31.560
The reality is it's almost always an identity shift.
00:32:31.720 --> 00:32:44.600
There's an aspect there where they need to realize that they need to put the put the pieces in place so that they can trust and and and transfer ownership and decision making to their team.
00:32:44.760 --> 00:32:58.200
And I'm not saying that we abdicate that, that we just hand it over, but there needs to be an internal shift where that owner goes from being in an operator mode to stepping into a leadership mode where they can then empower the team.
00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:04.760
As I describe that, I realize that that that sounds like it's a it's a a big step.
00:33:04.840 --> 00:33:07.320
And it is, it's a big emotional step.
00:33:07.560 --> 00:33:15.880
But I can tell you that when you when you can take that step, the actual actions that are required are oftentimes really, really quite simple.
00:33:16.120 --> 00:33:29.800
When I start working with clients, it's typically within the first 60 to 90 days that we win back a full day of their week for them, where they reclaim that amount of time that they can then start investing into the business in a different way as a leader.
00:33:30.120 --> 00:33:40.280
So, so yeah, first we get the clarity, then we look at what is the identity shift that needs to happen so they can take often the very simple actions to remove themselves from the day-to-day.
00:33:40.760 --> 00:33:57.160
And what are the behaviors that separate founders who persist and they stay stuck doing everything by themselves to those who shift successfully into operating their business through systems and other people?
00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:03.560
Yeah, you essentially summed it up there really, really well in saying that they hold on to control, essentially, right?
00:34:03.720 --> 00:34:06.600
That they're the ones that continue doing everything.
00:34:06.840 --> 00:34:12.440
And it comes from a place of fear, a fear that I'm the only one who can do this effectively.
00:34:12.599 --> 00:34:17.159
The reality is that when you have the right people on your team, they're gonna do it much better than you.
00:34:17.960 --> 00:34:30.280
The fear that if I relinquish control, that things are gonna fall apart, that if I hand over the reins, that somebody else is gonna let me down, that this the client isn't gonna be served as well.
00:34:30.519 --> 00:34:34.760
And and look, that that's all valid fears.
00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:44.440
But the reality is that there are checks and measures and approaches that we can put in place to mitigate for the potential downsides and risks of things falling through the cracks.
00:34:44.679 --> 00:34:50.039
So it's not to say that they shouldn't be fearful, but it's to say, okay, what's behind that fear?
00:34:50.280 --> 00:34:54.679
And then let's take the steps to mitigate for the possible risks.
00:34:54.920 --> 00:34:58.200
And it's almost like building a muscle.
00:34:58.360 --> 00:35:07.800
When I first start working with business owners in this way, when they first start taking these steps, taking these actions, it can feel like a big heavy lift for them.
00:35:08.039 --> 00:35:14.280
But once they do it a couple of times and they start to build some momentum, there's a momentum model that I have that we work through.
00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:30.759
And once we start building that momentum, it's pretty incredible to see how quickly they can go from being an overloaded operator to what I call a leveraged linchpin, that linchpin leader who's at the center of the business, but who's not carrying all the weight.
00:35:30.919 --> 00:35:42.279
So if you think about the metaphor of a linchpin at the center of a wheel, the linchpin is not doing all of the work of the spokes and the hub and the axle and what have you.
00:35:42.439 --> 00:35:50.919
The linchpin is just at the center of that wheel, needing to be strong and steady, holding so that everybody else can do their work.
00:35:51.079 --> 00:35:54.759
And if they can provide that stability, then the wheel works beautifully, right?
00:35:55.159 --> 00:36:07.319
So the relinquishing of control, it's it still requires that the leader shows up and works and it does work, but it shifts the type of work that they're doing considerably.
00:36:07.559 --> 00:36:11.559
And when we do that, it creates momentum in the business for scaling.
00:36:11.719 --> 00:36:19.079
But then also that that linchpin leader then reclaims that energy and that time, which they can then put into higher priorities in the business.
00:36:19.319 --> 00:36:26.279
Or what I often see with my clients is they then take a lot of that reclaim time and energy and they put it back into their relationships.
00:36:26.439 --> 00:36:30.279
They put it back into their health, their hobbies, reconnecting with old friends.
00:36:30.439 --> 00:36:35.639
And suddenly we start cultivating that fulfillment as opposed to just success within the business.
00:36:36.039 --> 00:36:39.239
I love that so much, the leveraged linchpin.
00:36:39.559 --> 00:36:53.559
And how do you help founders, high performers, entrepreneurs, how do you help them with that, with with balancing that pressure to grow, with protecting their energy, clarity, personal life?
00:36:54.919 --> 00:37:00.599
So it's for the work that I do with with my clients, we take a three-pronged approach.
00:37:00.759 --> 00:37:08.039
So I mentioned earlier looking at the leader as, or looking at the owner as a leader, as an individual.
00:37:08.279 --> 00:37:12.359
And I'm not just talking about a leader in terms of how they lead their team in the business.
00:37:12.519 --> 00:37:22.759
Yes, that's important, but also how they show up as a leader for themselves, how they show up as a leader for their family, in many cases for their community or for those that are part of a church group.
00:37:22.839 --> 00:37:24.679
Like, how are you showing up as a leader?
00:37:24.919 --> 00:37:34.039
If we're not building ourselves as a strong foundational leadership for ourselves, then anything that we build on top of that is going to be built on shaky ground.
00:37:34.199 --> 00:37:37.879
So first we start with that, with that level of leadership for ourselves.
00:37:38.039 --> 00:37:39.559
Then we look at their business.
00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:46.599
And the majority of clients that I work with, the pattern that I see is that they have very complex businesses.
00:37:46.759 --> 00:38:00.279
And when I say complex, I don't mean that they're doing rocket science, but the systems and the processes and the way that they have things structure is often complex and often requires them to be at the center of it so that they can hold everything together.
00:38:00.439 --> 00:38:04.839
This is why they become the bottleneck, because the decisions and responsibilities are flowing through them.
00:38:05.079 --> 00:38:19.239
So we help them to move from having a complex business to having a leveraged business, a business where the team and the systems and the processes all align to serve the leader so that the leader is not just serving the business.
00:38:19.479 --> 00:38:20.839
That wins back time.
00:38:20.919 --> 00:38:25.399
And then ultimately, then we have the all three of these pillars are important.
00:38:25.479 --> 00:38:31.559
But ultimately, the one that I think is is the most important is the final one, which is your life, right?
00:38:31.879 --> 00:38:36.759
A lot of the clients that I work with, when they come to me, they have what I call a misaligned life.
00:38:36.999 --> 00:38:45.399
They have a family, they they have their homes, their toys, all these things, but they haven't taken the time to really step back and evaluate their values.
00:38:45.559 --> 00:38:48.919
What's truly important to me and what would that look like?
00:38:49.159 --> 00:39:05.879
I think that most business owners, when they first start out, they have a vision for the life that they want to create, but then they end up putting it on hold for so long that the other people in their life go on with their lives and they're stuck with this vision that they're trying to reach, but maybe they get there, maybe they don't, right?
00:39:05.959 --> 00:39:07.559
They sacrifice it along the way.
00:39:07.719 --> 00:39:16.679
So with those three, with those three elements, their leadership, their business, and their life, we approach all three of those right from day one that I start working with them.
00:39:16.839 --> 00:39:18.839
We focus on all three of those.
00:39:19.399 --> 00:39:27.879
I was talking with a client the other day, with a new client that came on board and they said, Well, why don't we just get the business stuff figured out and then I'll do the other things, right?
00:39:27.959 --> 00:39:29.799
This is the pattern that I hear over and over again.
00:39:29.959 --> 00:39:34.279
I say, Well, you've been doing that already, but it's not working out for you.
00:39:34.439 --> 00:39:39.239
And the fact is that your business needs you to be a better leader today.
00:39:39.399 --> 00:39:42.439
It doesn't need you to work harder, it needs you to be a better leader.
00:39:42.679 --> 00:39:48.999
And your personal life and the people that you love and care about, they shouldn't have to be put on hold while you get your business figured in.
00:39:49.159 --> 00:40:00.999
So it can sometimes be a little bit of a leap of faith with the clients that I work with that, hey, I'm going to have enough time and ability to scale the business if I also take time and energy for these other parts of my life.
00:40:01.319 --> 00:40:03.159
And it's a little bit of a leap of faith.
00:40:03.239 --> 00:40:09.879
But once we get working together, they see that it is possible that you don't have to sacrifice everything else to be able to build that business.
00:40:10.119 --> 00:40:11.959
Then that earns the trust there with them.
00:40:12.119 --> 00:40:17.879
The alternative to that is is just not, it's it's no longer appealing to them, right?
00:40:17.959 --> 00:40:24.279
Because the alternative that they've been living is building a business at the cost of everything else, and they just don't want to do that anymore.
00:40:24.679 --> 00:40:25.079
Wow.
00:40:25.399 --> 00:40:35.319
So, Jason, once someone starts operating their business more intentionally, they have the the team, the systems, the leverage in place.
00:40:36.279 --> 00:40:43.799
What tends to pull back, what tends to pull them back into old patterns, especially under pressure or growth?
00:40:45.399 --> 00:40:46.439
That's such a great question.
00:40:46.599 --> 00:40:48.839
We've touched on it here a little bit already.
00:40:49.239 --> 00:40:50.839
There's two key things that pull them back.
00:40:50.919 --> 00:40:52.439
The first one is fear.
00:40:52.839 --> 00:40:56.999
So it's where they take these steps, they understand them.
00:40:57.639 --> 00:41:02.599
We talk through what are the steps that we're going to take, the strategies that we're going to implement.
00:41:02.919 --> 00:41:08.039
But ultimately, the strategy is not the thing that's going to hold them back.
00:41:08.119 --> 00:41:09.479
It's the psychology behind it.
00:41:09.559 --> 00:41:11.479
It's when the fear gets in the way, the stories.
00:41:11.559 --> 00:41:19.959
So they could have the perfect strategy to implement with their team, to remove the owner as the bottleneck, to move forward to scale the business.
00:41:20.119 --> 00:41:29.399
But if they have a story of fear behind it, then they either don't execute on that strategy effectively, or in many cases, they don't execute on it at all.
00:41:29.559 --> 00:41:29.799
Right.
00:41:29.959 --> 00:41:34.519
And so this is where a lot of the work that I do with my clients is not around strategy.
00:41:34.679 --> 00:41:40.679
Yes, we work on it to an extent, but I say to people, like, look, if you want to get more leads, go and go and work with a marketing consultant.
00:41:40.759 --> 00:41:42.279
Don't come and work with me, right?
00:41:42.599 --> 00:41:46.999
I'm going to help you on showing up as the best person to execute on strategies.
00:41:47.079 --> 00:41:52.119
And I've got a long list of strategies and 17 years of frameworks and that that we can use.
00:41:52.439 --> 00:41:55.959
But again, the strategy is not the thing that's going to hold you back.
00:41:56.039 --> 00:41:59.559
There's a million and one strategies out there to get any result you're looking for.
00:41:59.719 --> 00:42:01.159
It's the psychology behind it.
00:42:01.239 --> 00:42:02.519
And so that's the fear piece.
00:42:02.599 --> 00:42:08.439
And so we address that fear and whatever other limiting beliefs they have that are going to hold them back from executing.
00:42:08.679 --> 00:42:10.439
But I mentioned that there were two things.
00:42:10.599 --> 00:42:13.639
First one was the fear that would suck them back in.
00:42:14.279 --> 00:42:31.719
But the other thing is that sometimes we we find where they they win back this time, that they get things working, the team becomes empowered, the team's doing great work, the business is scaling, and the owner now suddenly has this time and this energy to redeploy someplace else.
00:42:31.959 --> 00:42:41.639
And because they've sacrificed their personal relationships and their health, it's scary for them to go back and to start reinvesting in those.
00:42:41.799 --> 00:42:42.039
Yeah.
00:42:42.199 --> 00:42:46.199
They're now wondering, okay, well, like how do I re-engage with my partner?
00:42:46.359 --> 00:42:48.199
How do I re-engage with my kids?
00:42:48.359 --> 00:42:53.159
And so because that now feels scary, they retreat to what feels familiar.
00:42:53.319 --> 00:42:54.199
What feels familiar?
00:42:54.359 --> 00:42:54.839
The business.
00:42:54.999 --> 00:42:58.679
And so then that's why they start pulling things back from their team, then oftentimes.
00:42:58.759 --> 00:43:03.799
So fear in both cases, but just in a little bit of a different, uh different way that it's applied.
00:43:04.759 --> 00:43:06.919
They've got a great insight there, Jason.
00:43:06.999 --> 00:43:15.879
And it's all it's almost like as a as a founder, there are so many things that are brand new as a founder until they're not brand new.
00:43:16.039 --> 00:43:26.599
And it it almost sounds like when they've gotten that free time and they want to now go and work on the aspects of their life outside of their business, like you just mentioned, it's scary.
00:43:26.679 --> 00:43:33.799
And they sort of have to accept that brand newness of the things outside of their business until they're now not scary anymore.
00:43:33.879 --> 00:43:37.079
I don't know if any of that made sense, but it did to me.
00:43:37.879 --> 00:43:40.439
And I'll just I'll share a quick story here with you.
00:43:40.599 --> 00:43:46.999
So there's a client that I've been working with him now for a couple of years, and he has a very successful business.
00:43:47.159 --> 00:43:51.639
People that are listening to this podcast probably have some of his products in their home, right?
00:43:51.719 --> 00:43:53.639
He's been incredibly successful.
00:43:53.959 --> 00:43:59.799
And he he's negotiated like very, very large deals with very, very large organizations.
00:44:00.119 --> 00:44:02.039
This guy is very confident.
00:44:02.199 --> 00:44:04.359
He can be a very cutthroat negotiator.
00:44:04.439 --> 00:44:06.199
He's a badass in the boardroom.
00:44:06.359 --> 00:44:06.919
All right.
00:44:07.239 --> 00:44:14.199
One of the biggest challenges that he had working with me was a conversation that he needed to have needed to have with his wife.
00:44:14.439 --> 00:44:26.439
And it wasn't a bad, like if I were to tell you, and for confidentiality's sake, I won't tell you, but it's not something that you or I, outside of the bottle, right, looking in, would say, Oh, that's not a big deal.
00:44:26.599 --> 00:44:29.479
Like that, that's just an easy conversation to go and have with your wife.
00:44:29.719 --> 00:44:45.319
But because he had been distancing himself, there had been this rift between him and his wife for so long because he had been so focused on the business, that their relationship had shifted so much that now this simple conversation was becoming really difficult for them.
00:44:45.559 --> 00:44:53.959
And so it's it's really interesting that I often find myself that when I start working with clients and they think, oh, we're going to work on business stuff and I'm going to help them there.
00:44:54.039 --> 00:44:55.159
And yes, I do.
00:44:55.399 --> 00:45:08.119
But ultimately, where they get the biggest wins or where the biggest hurdles and challenges are for them is having conversations on the personal side, re-engaging with their personal life, building that life of fulfillment because they've they've neglected it for so long.
00:45:08.679 --> 00:45:08.999
Wow.
00:45:09.079 --> 00:45:11.879
And thanks for that personal touch story as well.
00:45:12.199 --> 00:45:14.039
Speaking of personal, how about yourself?
00:45:14.199 --> 00:45:27.399
How do you personally stay grounded in your own definition of success today, especially when business demands could easily pull you back into your own version of default mode?
00:45:27.719 --> 00:45:28.039
Yeah.
00:45:28.999 --> 00:45:39.399
So that's such a timely question, because right now, with a few of our businesses, we we're actually they're demanding a lot more of our time than they they typically have in the past.
00:45:39.559 --> 00:45:48.199
With with with our businesses, we've put so we put our teams in place so that it requires maybe five hours of my time on average a week.
00:45:48.359 --> 00:45:52.119
Not a lot of time for these for these other businesses that we have with teams.
00:45:52.199 --> 00:45:53.719
Now, my coaching, I do that full time.
00:45:53.799 --> 00:45:58.679
But the other stuff, five hours of my time typically, it's demanding a lot more of my time these days, right?
00:45:58.919 --> 00:46:01.399
And I I can't ignore that.
00:46:01.559 --> 00:46:04.439
I need to address that aspect of the business.
00:46:04.679 --> 00:46:08.999
And it's going to be a season, it's not forever, but I've got to step back in there.
00:46:09.079 --> 00:46:15.879
Now, it could be really easy for me to say, well, I'm just going to go all out and focus on the business, but then I've still got my health.
00:46:15.959 --> 00:46:16.999
I've still got my family.
00:46:17.159 --> 00:46:21.399
And so this is the challenge that successful business owners are facing.
00:46:21.559 --> 00:46:26.599
It's it's We're constantly being pulled in different directions.
00:46:26.759 --> 00:46:35.399
And I think that I think that this is one of the reasons why a lot of business gurus, I'll use that in quotes, why they'll say, Oh, you can't have balance in your life.
00:46:35.479 --> 00:46:36.839
You need to go all in with your business.
00:46:36.919 --> 00:46:42.679
And I call BS on that because I think that what they're what they're actually describing is is equilibrium.
00:46:42.839 --> 00:46:45.559
And I do agree, we can't have equilibrium.
00:46:45.719 --> 00:46:53.959
Like equilibrium is where we get everything dialed in equally between our business, our life, or our personal selves, and that nothing changes, right?
00:46:54.119 --> 00:46:54.919
That's not balance.
00:46:54.999 --> 00:46:55.879
That's equilibrium.
00:46:56.039 --> 00:46:59.399
Balance requires that we're constantly shifting, right?
00:46:59.559 --> 00:47:04.839
If I were to have you stand on one foot from a distance, you look rock solid.
00:47:04.999 --> 00:47:06.359
You look like you're in equilibrium.
00:47:06.439 --> 00:47:08.679
It doesn't look like anything's moving or changing.
00:47:08.839 --> 00:47:18.039
But if I zoom in on your foot and your ankle, you are constantly making little adjustments with your foot and your muscles and your leg and your calf.
00:47:18.119 --> 00:47:19.239
That's what balance is.
00:47:19.399 --> 00:47:20.119
And you know what?
00:47:20.279 --> 00:47:27.479
In life, sometimes a wind comes along or somebody nudges you, and you need to flail your arms to maintain balance, right?
00:47:27.719 --> 00:47:29.879
So balance is dynamic.
00:47:30.359 --> 00:47:39.079
And right now I'm facing a point in my life where life has given us a nudge and my balance is looking a little bit shaky.
00:47:39.159 --> 00:47:40.359
But so how do I maintain?
00:47:40.599 --> 00:47:42.999
To come back to your question, how do I maintain that?
00:47:43.319 --> 00:47:48.039
I actually use tools that I've borrowed from my business experience, from the business world.
00:47:48.199 --> 00:47:53.639
We talk about KPIs in business all the time, those key performance indicators that we need to measure regularly.
00:47:53.879 --> 00:47:56.279
Well, I measure the KPIs of my life.
00:47:56.439 --> 00:48:02.599
Yes, I look at what are all the metrics in my business that I need to measure, but how am I measuring what's going on in my marriage?
00:48:02.759 --> 00:48:03.879
What's going on with my family?
00:48:04.039 --> 00:48:06.839
What's going on with my health, with my personal time?
00:48:07.079 --> 00:48:14.439
And I have some very simple but really effective systems that I use where I balance this stuff and I look at it every single week.
00:48:14.679 --> 00:48:16.599
It's kind of a dashboard, if you want to call it.
00:48:16.679 --> 00:48:21.719
I call it my mission control that I look at regularly to see what's happening.
00:48:21.959 --> 00:48:24.439
Now, does that mean that everything stays in equilibrium?
00:48:24.599 --> 00:48:28.039
No, sometimes the KPIs in one area are lower than another.
00:48:28.199 --> 00:48:29.719
And I need to be aware of that.
00:48:29.879 --> 00:48:38.599
And I need to make decisions to try and balance that, knowing that certain things might need to take priority at a given time.
00:48:38.759 --> 00:48:39.079
Right.
00:48:39.559 --> 00:48:57.079
But just because this week I don't have five hours to go and hang out with my kids on a Saturday afternoon because I've got to address something in the business, doesn't mean that there isn't something else that I can be doing that takes 15 minutes that's going to make sure that I keep that relationship strong with them.
00:48:57.239 --> 00:48:57.639
Right.
00:48:57.799 --> 00:49:06.759
And then when I get through this season, now instead of spending five hours with them on a weekend, I can spend a five-day long weekend with them because my balance shifts back the other way.
00:49:08.599 --> 00:49:10.119
What a great answer, Jason.
00:49:10.279 --> 00:49:21.239
And that sounds like almost like the wheel of life on steroids, where you've got the wheel of life, and then you now are literally measuring the KPIs on a on a weekly basis.
00:49:21.639 --> 00:49:23.239
It's really, really, really profound.
00:49:24.599 --> 00:49:26.359
I love that you said that and you picked up on that.
00:49:26.519 --> 00:49:37.799
So actually, one of the tools that I use is essentially built on that wheel of life, but it it builds out all three of these areas of leadership, life, and and business.
00:49:37.959 --> 00:49:42.119
But it goes beyond just measuring on a scale of one to 10, where am I?
00:49:42.359 --> 00:49:44.839
This tool looks at what's the gap?
00:49:44.999 --> 00:49:46.119
How do we close the gap?
00:49:46.199 --> 00:49:47.479
What does that look like?
00:49:47.719 --> 00:49:50.439
And that's a it's a tool that I use with all my clients.
00:49:50.599 --> 00:49:55.319
And if any of your listeners are interested in it, I can throw it up on my website.
00:49:55.479 --> 00:50:02.679
That that's where I say for anybody who is a business owner who's not even sure, do I have balance in my life?
00:50:02.839 --> 00:50:03.879
Am I fulfilled?
00:50:04.199 --> 00:50:05.959
Find out, step back, take a look.
00:50:06.039 --> 00:50:13.799
And so if anybody wants to go to my website, jasonbillows.com slash clarity, they can download that exercise.
00:50:14.039 --> 00:50:29.559
And I'll also make sure that along with that, that I attach it's a 30-minute video that I can do that I've done where I walk people through how to not just do that assessment, then but then what do you do afterwards to then help to regain some balance, to rebuild fulfillment in your life?
00:50:30.039 --> 00:50:30.519
Awesome.
00:50:30.679 --> 00:50:30.999
Awesome.
00:50:31.079 --> 00:50:32.359
Thanks for that share as well.
00:50:32.519 --> 00:50:51.719
And if someone's listening to this, Jason, and they're doing great, successful in inverted commas, and they feel like they're currently operating in default mode, successful externally, but stretched internally, what is that first real shift you would encourage them to make?
00:50:53.319 --> 00:50:59.399
I think that the the first step is to to figure out like where it where am I in balance?
00:50:59.639 --> 00:51:02.039
Like where where does that shift need to happen?
00:51:02.199 --> 00:51:06.839
And so again, that tool will help you to get some clarity to take an assessment.
00:51:06.919 --> 00:51:09.799
Again, jasonbillows.com slash clarity.
00:51:10.279 --> 00:51:10.919
Do that.
00:51:11.239 --> 00:51:17.959
See where where it lands for you, see where the where things are working, where things aren't, and then how you can make some shifts.
00:51:18.199 --> 00:51:23.559
If anybody's looking for support and help in making those shifts, then that that's a conversation that I'm happy to have with them.
00:51:23.639 --> 00:51:38.519
I have a group that I have called Lynchpin, which is a group of business owners and it's a group coaching and mastermind program where we focus on these three key areas of your life on a regular basis so that you're not just growing a business, but you're building a life around it.
00:51:38.919 --> 00:51:40.599
It is so outstanding, Jason.
00:51:40.839 --> 00:51:49.479
And just to back up a little bit, and I'm sure most people on this call know what that is, but just in case, and if you don't, it's absolutely fine.
00:51:49.639 --> 00:51:51.239
What is the wheel of life?
00:51:51.559 --> 00:51:51.959
Yeah.
00:51:52.199 --> 00:51:58.919
So the wheel of life is a tool that's been used in coaching circles, personal development circles now for years.
00:51:59.159 --> 00:52:06.199
Think of it this way it's a imagine a circle that is split up into different pieces of pie.
00:52:06.519 --> 00:52:06.839
All right.
00:52:06.919 --> 00:52:12.279
So you look, it's like you're looking from a from an overhead view of a piece of pie that's divided up.
00:52:12.439 --> 00:52:21.559
Some wheels have six circles or six slices, some have eight, others that are more complex, like the one that I have, is going to have up to 16 or more.
00:52:21.799 --> 00:52:26.919
And each slice of the pie represents a different area of your life.
00:52:27.239 --> 00:52:37.159
And what we do is we measure starting at the middle, would be zero, and out towards the outer ring of that wheel on a scale of one to 10.
00:52:37.399 --> 00:52:39.559
How would I measure that part of my life?
00:52:39.719 --> 00:52:45.799
Now, this can be applied to your life, it can be applied to your business, your leadership, relationships, your health.
00:52:45.959 --> 00:52:48.759
We can use wheels for a variety of different things.
00:52:49.079 --> 00:53:02.279
But here's the thing that I would really encourage people to think of if they're doing a wheel of life, or if they're doing the one there that I've that I've suggested that they download here from my site, that you don't just think about how successful am I in this area.
00:53:02.359 --> 00:53:05.799
Again, you want to ask that question, how fulfilled am I?
00:53:06.039 --> 00:53:06.359
Okay.
00:53:06.599 --> 00:53:12.839
I'll give you an example of a client that I worked with who he was very, very financially successful.
00:53:12.999 --> 00:53:19.399
And so when we looked at the financial portion of his life, I asked him to measure it on a scale of one to 10.
00:53:19.719 --> 00:53:23.479
And from financial perspective, he was like, Oh, I'm a 20 out of 10.
00:53:23.639 --> 00:53:25.639
He had every toy that he could ever want.
00:53:25.799 --> 00:53:27.799
He had been incredibly successful in business.
00:53:27.959 --> 00:53:33.799
But when I said to him, no, no, no, not how financially successful are you, how financially fulfilled are you?
00:53:33.959 --> 00:53:37.319
And he took a long pause and he said, three.
00:53:37.719 --> 00:53:39.399
And I said, Well, how can that be?
00:53:39.559 --> 00:53:42.199
That you're a three when successful you're at a 20.
00:53:42.439 --> 00:53:43.479
Tell me why you're at a three.
00:53:43.559 --> 00:53:47.239
And he said, Look, I've got every toy that I could ever want, every bell and whistle.
00:53:47.319 --> 00:53:51.719
I've got my yacht, I've got like all the cars that I wanted, a couple of vacation homes.
00:53:51.959 --> 00:53:56.919
But the fact is, I've got all this money and I don't really feel like I'm doing anything meaningful with it.
00:53:57.159 --> 00:54:03.719
Yeah, I give money to charities when they come, they come asking, but it doesn't really feel like it lights me up.
00:54:03.879 --> 00:54:11.959
So one of the things that I actually did with that gentleman, working with him over the course of a couple of years, was we defined what fulfillment would look like for him in his financial world.
00:54:12.279 --> 00:54:18.359
He ended up starting a foundation that was going to do work specifically aligned with his values.
00:54:18.599 --> 00:54:26.599
Fast forward two years after working with him, and his fulfillment in that financial space was now at like a nine out of 10.
00:54:26.759 --> 00:54:35.879
And interestingly, because we had kind of redefined success versus fulfillment for him, he stepped back from the business, let the business run itself.
00:54:35.959 --> 00:54:40.519
And he spent like 90% of his time and his foundation doing work giving back.
00:54:40.599 --> 00:54:52.839
It was a beautiful, beautiful story of how you can see when you look at the difference between pursuing success versus pursuing fulfillment, how it not only impacts you, but it impacts other people as well.
00:54:53.159 --> 00:54:53.559
Absolutely.
00:54:53.719 --> 00:55:03.479
And what a great way to round up that amazing yin and yang, if you will, that yin and yang, if you will, of success plus fulfillment.
00:55:03.719 --> 00:55:11.399
Jason, it's been absolutely outstanding hearing your insights and your share on this episode of purpose-driven success.
00:55:11.799 --> 00:55:14.359
Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up?
00:55:14.759 --> 00:55:16.759
Yeah, I just thank you very much for having me.
00:55:16.919 --> 00:55:25.959
Having listened to so many of your other episodes, I appreciate the the purpose that you're bringing to your work and helping other people pursue their purpose.
00:55:26.199 --> 00:55:43.639
My I'm at this point right now in my career where I am really hoping to save other people some of the some of the pain that I experienced back in my 30s by helping them realize that success doesn't have to come at the cost of fulfillment, that it's something that we can pursue along the way.
00:55:43.799 --> 00:55:54.519
And that actually scaling your life while you scale your business is not only possible, but I believe that we can enjoy more success in our business when we prioritize our personal life along with it.
00:55:54.679 --> 00:55:58.039
So thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this here today.
00:55:58.199 --> 00:55:59.959
It's been an absolute pleasure.
00:56:00.279 --> 00:56:00.919
Absolutely.
00:56:01.079 --> 00:56:03.079
And have an amazing rest of the day, Jason.
00:56:03.159 --> 00:56:03.719
All the best.
00:56:03.879 --> 00:56:04.439
Ciao.
00:56:04.679 --> 00:56:05.079
Thank you.
00:56:05.239 --> 00:56:06.119
Take care.
00:56:07.639 --> 00:56:10.839
Thank you for listening to Purpose Driven Success with Mo Salami.
00:56:11.319 --> 00:56:15.239
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00:56:15.319 --> 00:56:18.439
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00:56:18.599 --> 00:56:22.679
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00:56:22.839 --> 00:56:29.559
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00:56:29.799 --> 00:56:37.159
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00:56:37.399 --> 00:56:46.039
Work on your mindset, work on your skill set, and always move in the direction of the result you want before you see the result you want.
00:56:46.199 --> 00:56:49.719
And until next time, do the best you can consistently.
00:56:50.039 --> 00:56:50.839
Ciao.