Strategic Coach Resources

Back to freedom.

We’ve met thousands of successful entrepreneurs at the top of their professions over the past 25 years. A common realization among many of them is that, although they’ve attained the kind of money and success others only dream of, the money hasn’t given them the meaning they wanted it to and the success doesn’t have the significance they hoped it would. What they often don’t realize is that the thing that went missing along the way wasn’t anything mysterious. It was there at the beginning, and likely motivated the decision to become an entrepreneur. It’s freedom. Freedom can be the starting point, the journey, and the payoff for your entrepreneurial career. Smart entrepreneurs realize that getting to the next level, whatever that may be, is always about increasing your freedom in some area. In this article, we’ll focus on the first important freedom, the freedom to become the person who exemplifies your deepest values and highest ideals. In short, “the freedom of ideals.”

Ideals defined.

Let’s start by defining what we mean by “ideal”:

• An ideal always responds to a fundamental human issue
• An ideal committed to and acted upon makes the world better
• An ideal helps others to be free

Your ideals inspire you to become the best possible version of yourself. When you use them as the focus of your activities, your deepest values and highest ideals become a natural part of what you do every day.

Business as unusual.

Most people working in bureaucracies look forward to retirement because there’s some aspect of their work that they hate. But as an entrepreneur, you have the opportunity to create a work environment that’s consistent with your ideals. There’s a ripple effect to this: You also transform your business and improve the lives of those around you. Decisions are easier to make, too, when you can compare the options against your ideals.

Ideals of a lifetime.

What if you don’t know what your ideals are? How do you find them? At the beginning of The Strategic Coach Program™, participants do an exercise called The Lifetime Extender®. It gives them five, ten, even 20 extra years to live. (We won’t get into how it does that, because we have to keep some trade secrets.) What would you do with that extra time? Many successful people consider what they would like to give back to the world. Others imagine big adventures or spending more time with loved ones.

The real you.

This “bonus years” person is the real you. Why not start incorporating some of those elements into your life now? If you make your ideals part of your life today, you’ll find yourself becoming the person you aspire to be. Your ideals can have a similar effect on others, multiplying who you are to make a lasting change in the world.

Action Step:

Imagine that you discovered you had 20 extra years to live. What would you do with that time? Write down goals for five different parts of your life. For instance:

• industry
• community
• learning/growth
• relationships
• financial

Now examine each of these activities: Behind each of them is one of your ideals. Even if you identify just one ideal and find a way to start to increase your focus on it in your daily life, you’ll have made significant progress.