What’s Next?

The framework

Here’s how to think about obstacles. There are two kinds: people being difficult, and things that are hard because they’re hard. When I started my first company and something went wrong, I had to take responsibility. It sucked, and it was awesome.

Entrepreneurship is learning the difference between pain and suffering. Greatness has a price, and it’s on you to tell when you’re paying the price of greatness and when you’re suffering the pain of the wrong path. We aren’t afraid of pain. Pain is the entry fee. What we avoid is unproductive misery.

Over the past few weeks we’ve started building a framework: a way to see your life and make decisions, in business and everywhere else. Make it so steady you can handle any decision life throws at you.

Quick decisions

I asked a friend if I could go dirt biking with him and his boys. His first question: do you know how to ride? Sort of. He gave me two options on the spot. Go learn the basics and come ride with us when you’re confident. Or bring a friend at your level, eat breakfast with us, ride at your own pace, and we’ll meet up around the campfire.

He never changed his values to fit what I wanted. He made me feel seen and made his sons feel seen, without compromising. When you know your framework, even simple questions have clear answers. He is always awake to his choices.

The dip

“Winners never quit and quitters never win” is wrong. Winners quit all the time. They quit early and often, whenever the size of the opportunity doesn’t match the size of their ability. If something doesn’t align, the smartest thing you can do is get out.

Everything starts fun, then you hit the part where you have a thousand hours of being a bad snowboarder ahead of you. For a 30-year-old who’s never ridden, the sensible move is not to start. The typical move is to go twice a year and never get good. The committed move is to commit to getting good, climb back up the mountain, and work until you’re amazing.

The stupid thing is to start, give it your best shot, waste a lot of time and money, and quit right in the middle of the dip.

Try lots of stuff. Fail at lots of stuff. Quit lots of stuff. That’s all great. What I hope for you most is that you find the right mountain, with enough courage, vision, grit and joy to make it to the top, because the top is where your beautiful life is waiting.

• What mountain are you going to climb?
• Where can I find great enthusiasm and great devotion?
• Where can I spend myself in a worthy cause?
• Where can I be a powerful steward of the gifts God has given me?
• Where can I bless, serve and create value?

The universe will conspire

When you pursue your life’s purpose, the universe conspires in your favor.

I’ve found this deeply true in my life and in the lives of people I admire. If it’s clunky and hard in the wrong ways, it may not be what the universe wants for you. Every hero’s journey has dragons to slay. Only real wisdom tells you the difference between a hero’s journey and a fool’s errand.

Advice from a business partner

My business partner once texted me a thought I keep coming back to:

Movement allows iteration, which is a form of revelation. Stagnation is death.

He reminded me that whatever I was put here to do, it isn’t for my own gratification. Popularity and money aren’t the answer. All that matters in the end is who you impacted and how they changed because they knew you. Avoid anything that only feeds the ego. Focus on what is lasting and others-oriented.

Try a thought exercise. If you and God sat down before you were born to talk about a life well spent, what would you have discussed? Being cool? Rich? A big house and a social feed that makes people jealous? Surely not. Here’s my guess at that conversation:

Be yourself. You were given talents, gifts and opportunities made for you. Don’t try to be anyone other than who you were made to be.

Discover who you are. As you do, think about how to use your strengths to serve. He who loses his life for My sake shall find it. If your vision board is all about you, it’s probably not the right vision.

Make an impact. Real estate has a phrase: highest and best use. What is the highest and best use of your life? I feel closest to it when I’m serving others, magnifying my talents, and engaged in a good cause, and free from jealousy, insecurity and trying to prove myself to people who don’t matter.

Don’t wait for the dream job or the perfect idea. Action is magic. I learn far more doing something than thinking about it.

Get up, get in the arena, and seek inspiration as you actually do the work.

A life lived in service of others is a life well spent. A business built on serving others is a business worth having. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon. Know who you are, and make your work noble, dignified and of service.

Advice from a friend

You are not boring or regular, and there’s a reason for that. Don’t waste your life on stupid things. You will hate yourself if you turn 40 without stretching yourself toward something big. Sit, think, listen, and ask God for breadcrumbs. It will take time. It will be hard. Good. Anything worthwhile is hard.

Watch for the breadcrumbs. Your next step is close. Wealth is not the yardstick. Changing lives and serving is the reward. What matters is what you can take with you: knowledge, faith, a strong family, and accomplishments that made you and others better. Make yourself better, then your family, your neighbors, and your community.

Goal: make sure you know how to use these tools.

Time freedom

Meet my friend Larry. At 20 he had no ambition. He followed me to community college one day, a counselor talked him into a placement test, and he landed a full scholarship. After a couple of years he decided entrepreneurs were too dumb to work an honest job, and set out to become a doctor.

From 21 to 30 he was in school. Late nights, high stress, high anxiety, constantly wondering if he’d get in. A decade in a cave of pain and $400,000 in debt. Along the way he married a great woman, then barely saw her for five years.

From 30 to 33 he finally became a doctor, and his reward was 80-hour weeks for $50,000 a year. From 34 to 40 life gets good: real money, loans paid off, some balance, and people are impressed at dinner parties. From 40 to retirement he’s a highly paid employee. He doesn’t make money on vacation.

If saving lives (or filling cavities) is your calling and it fills you up, God bless you on that path. It’s a wonderful life. But if you’re considering law or medicine because you lack the courage or creativity to do something else, I strongly urge you to reconsider.

What’s the scoreboard?

Develop yourself and opportunities are everywhere. For me they show up in the dull and normal. It doesn’t sound sexy. How’s your ego with that?

How will you measure your life? It’s okay to suck at something for a while. It’s not okay to wimp out. Build your scoreboard and your self-esteem around effort and courage, not around outcomes you can’t always control, like short-term money.

Your life will always be bigger than your career. I love entrepreneurship, not just because it served me financially, but because it’s been a refiner’s fire that made me a better husband, friend, father and leader.

Good people succeed, because people only want to work with and for good people. You can fool people for a while, but not forever. Early on, customers bought me. Now they buy because they believe we are excellent and will serve them well. That’s freedom. What are you selling?

Be grateful when it’s hard. Hard is what makes other people quit, and it’s what makes your work valuable. Find the right dip and don’t quit. If it’s the wrong dip, get out.

The scoreboard has to be measured in courage, grit, continued effort and learning. Measure yourself that way, and the money, success and freedom will follow.

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Goal planning activity

Set your goals for the next stretch. Each one should be:

• Specific: what do I want to accomplish, and why?
• Measurable: how will I know when I’ve done it?
• Achievable: how can I accomplish it?
• Relevant: is this the right time frame for me to work toward it?