Happy New Year! And New Decade!
I spent last night at home with my hubby, rounding out our list of 100 things we want to experience. We’re getting much more reflective about our lives together now that the boys are older - David will be 20 in a matter of days. Ashton is 16.
I’m being intentionally reflective in my business too. For the first time EVER, I booked a full day to myself earlier in December to plot and plan Business 2020.
For one thing, I scheduled six weeks of TRUE holidays. Not pretending that traveling to a conference counts as a holiday. Not tacking a couple of extra days onto the end of a business trip and pretending that counts as a holiday. When I do that, I come back drained – not reinvigorated. So this year, I’m taking true, regenerative holidays.
It’s how I Reverse-Engineer success.
Reverse Engineering sounds high-level and complex. Especially when you read a definition like “to disassemble or analyze in detail in order to discover concepts involved in manufacture." (Thanks, Merriam Webster.)
Actually, it’s as easy as recognizing that:
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“A goal is a dream with a deadline.” - Napoleon Hill
“A dream written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true.” - Greg Reid
When it comes to Wishes, Dreams, Goals (even New Year’s Resolutions) – in your personal life or in business, reverse engineering simply means working backwards from your Someday Dream, plotting the course to get there.
Begin with the end in mind.
If you’ve never reverse-engineered a Someday Goal before, today is an ideal day to try it out. Here’s how it works…
10 YEARS: What is one Someday Dream that could be achievable in 10 years? We’re putting a date on that dream -- 2030 -- to make it a GOAL (see quotes above). What would you love to have accomplished 10 years from now? For example – let’s say you would be thrilled if you could sell your business in 2030 for a significant profit – enough to let you take 3 years to travel while you plan your next endeavour.
5 YEARS: Now, look ahead five years. What’s ONE thing that you need to do in the next five years that will put you on the path to your Someday Goal? That’s your new Five-Year Goal. Let’s say… you’d like to document all your processes so they’re clear and repeatable and aren’t dependent on you being there to explain or direct them.
THIS YEAR: Okay – it’s a fresh, new 2020. What is one thing that you need to do THIS YEAR to make progress towards that Five-Year goal? Using our current example, maybe it’s to assemble a list of all your processes, and the protocol through which you’ll capture them. At the same time, this year you’d like to assess what’s working/not working and what needs tweaking so that you’ve got ample time to optimize as you document them, readying for sale.
THIS MONTH: What is ONE thing you need to do next month (or each month) to make progress to your Next Year goal? Maybe it’s to brainstorm what process documentation needs to look like for your business, capturing all the questions and unknowns that come up. What format will you use? Who can help get it onto paper? You’ll kickstart the work with each Director, but who can take it from there? How long should it take to ensure that in 5 years you’ve got full standardization and documentation? How do you make it a living document?
THIS WEEK: What is one thing you need to do this week or each week to achieve your This Month goal? Schedule a block of time each week this month to devote to brainstorming and brain-dumping. Make it an un-interruptible appointment in your calendar.
TODAY: What is one thing you need to do daily or TODAY to make sure you reach your This Week goal? What ONE small thing can you do today, and one small thing you could do tomorrow? Find an hour today when you can write down ALL the questions bubbling up about this task. Get them out of your head and down on paper.
RIGHT NOW: What is one inspiring action that you can take RIGHT NOW that checks off your TODAY goal? Open up a fresh page/notebook/word doc where you’ll keep all your notes, title it, save it, then start a timer for your hour of brain dumping!
Do that one thing and you have started your journey. Truly – that’s it. You’ve started. You have actively begun working on your Someday Goal. Not your Someday ‘dream’ but your Someday Goal. Every single day believe it. Remember why you want it. Imagine it. Envision it. And take action towards it. Remember – it’s a LONG game.
You may remember, I set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) on this day last year. I committed to doubling the number of Canadian millionaires by 2030. That morphed into doubling the number of self made millionaires in Canada by 2030.
How the heck was I going to do that? It was certainly a BHAG. And a SMART BHAG: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
That goal is my long-game. I have to remind myself of this now and then. Remind myself why. And refocus. I have to be tenacious. Persevere… the attitude of every entrepreneur I have ever met.
Cameron Herold, former co-founding COO of 1-880-GOT JUNK, and author of Double Double: How to Double your Revenue & Profit in Three Years and Vivid Vision: Aligning your Business Around a Shared Vision of the Future, revealed to me with a laugh that when he was a university student working for College Pro Painters he thought he had ‘invented’ the term reverse engineer.
Now he’s helping me with my own BHAG. Together we’re presenting an invitation-only workshop for business owners who want a cash-rich exit through selling their business in 10 year or less. (My example above didn’t come out of nowhere!)Over the course of a single day, we’ll help you take your business worth millions (on paper) and help you exit for multiple times, putting those millions on your personal balance sheet. Implementing the strategies you learn will easily give you 100X return on your investment for the day.
Double to Sell with Cameron Herold: How to Make a Cash Rich Exit
This is advance notice for my readers, members of the Self Made Nation, to find out more and take advantage of a Super Early Bird Offer that ends two weeks from today.
Hey – checking the link could be your RIGHT NOW thing – that one, small, easy, eminently doable step you take that starts your journey towards your 10-Year Someday Goal of a multi-million dollar exit from your business.
Whatever your BHAG, I hope you enjoy today, take time for yourself, and celebrate everything you’ve achieved so far, and get excited for everything that’s to come.
Happy New Year!