Why I Bought a Tahoe
About two years ago, I was invited to a business owner’s office. He wanted to talk with me about where his business was at and his current workload. He was working 80 hours per week and his wife had expressed to him that she didn’t sign up for an absentee husband. After he shared that with me, we got into the performance of the business and he said, “I’m happy with where we are.” I had only been speaking to him for about 45 minutes and I already knew that wasn’t true. The issue he was experiencing was that he couldn’t imagine scaling because of how much more time and effort he believed it would take. That was the commodity that he couldn’t spare anymore of. In his mind there wasn’t a way to scale the organization without overdrawing what little was left in his time and energy accounts. Yet, two years later, he now has multiple locations and is on track for two and a half times the revenue and double the profit. Additionally, he has a strong support team and is working less hours, spending more time with his wife and their dog, and living on a golf course in a beautiful part of the US.
Or, consider another client of ours. He had enrolled in one of our group coaching programs and we immediately connected. At the end of the program, everyone got some time to spend one-on-one with me. During his session, I challenged him, asking, “What do you really want?” He kept sharing how he had once been in business for himself but that he ended up choosing to go and work for someone else. There was something comforting about his income getting direct-deposited into his account, the organization's bills being paid by someone else, and him only being responsible for working with his assistant. Yet, he wasn’t satisfied. He knew it, and I could sense it. So, we started out doing a SWOT analysis on him going back into business for himself. He ended up deciding that his own business was actually what he truly wanted. We worked for the next two months on creating his vision, mission, and values, as well as his long and short term goals. About a month after he opened his business, I saw him for our quarterly planning session. He was lighter, more joyful, and more fulfilled.
I recently picked up Arthur Brooks’ new book The Meaning of Your Life. In the introduction, he talks about the three ingredients of happiness: enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. While each could make up their own book—let alone blog—allow me to summarize here. He talks about enjoyment—you know, the lost art of finding joy in what we do. We get so caught up in our obligations that we forget to enjoy them. I think any golfer knows what it can be like to go out and play a game we love but end up miserable in the midst of the round because of our performance. Satisfaction is that moment where we look at something and take delight in it. Some could call this the lost art of contentment. I imagine this being what we hear God declaring over the days of creation: “He saw that it was good.” And then, there’s meaning. And meaning isn’t just the task having its own infused meaning, but providing us with an adequate challenge. It’s something worth getting out of bed for each morning. Or, as the Book of Common Prayer calls it: “setting us at tasks that demand our best efforts” (Thanksgiving Prayer).
I hear lots of people say that they are stuck. I’m beginning to wonder increasingly if being “stuck” actually means that the work isn’t challenging enough. It’s safe, but it doesn’t meet the criteria that Brooks lays out for happiness. So, enter in my story about why I bought my Tahoe.
My business was growing, but it felt like it was “stuck.” My car needed about $5,000 worth of work and I couldn’t see my way into putting that much into it given its value. So, I started looking for a new car. (By the way, now I know what I used to put all of you through when you came into the dealership to purchase a car. It was different being the consumer!) I could have played it safe and purchased the economical option, but I was exhausted from the sacrifices I made to start my business. So, I started doing the math on purchasing a Tahoe. Did I need it? No. Did my financial advisor think that I should purchase something more conservative? Yes. Then I asked my coach what she thought. She asked me: “Are you the type of person who will be energized by this and you will go out and make it work?” She spoke to my soul in the moment. I responded with an enthusiastic “Yes!” So I went and bought the Tahoe, not because I had to but because it was a challenge—and I am the type of person who rises to that challenge. Well, fast forward 45 days and my business tripled.