December 9, 2024 • 21 mins
In the latest episode of the Get Off The Treadmill podcast, Chuck Blakeman sits down with The Evolving Expert founder, Vanessa Emerson, to dive deep into the powerful connection between business success and personal fulfillment.
Vanessa shares her journey as a business strategist and wellness educator, explaining why getting clear on lifetime goals and life vision is the secret to both thriving in business and truly living. 🙌
Vanessa reveals how reading Chuck’s book, Making Money is Killing Your Business, has been a game-changer in helping her clients find clarity, set intentional goals, and avoid the trap of becoming a “hostage” to their own business. She talks about how important it is for entrepreneurs to start with the end in mind—and not just chase the money. 💰
Key Takeaways:
- Why setting a lifetime goal or life vision is crucial to building a business you love 🎯
- How to create clarity in your life’s purpose and use it to guide every business decision đź§
- The 3 principles that turn business success into meaningful success 🌱
If you’ve ever felt stuck on the treadmill of your business, this episode is a must-listen! Vanessa and Chuck get real about how to stop just chasing paychecks and start living with intention. ✨
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Welcome back to the Get Off the Treadmill
podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs, where
we show you how to build a successful
business and to have a life too.
We're going to dive into another topic that
helps us make more money in less time
and to get off the treadmill so we
can experience a life of significance.
And now your host and the author of
(00:25):
the number one bestselling business book, Making Money
is Killing Your Business, Chuck Blakeman.
Today I'm with Vanessa Emerson, a dear friend.
She's the founder of The Evolving Expert.
She's recognized as a business strategist, wellness educator,
MC and influencer.
Vanessa Emerson FDSI mentors professionals in every area
(00:47):
of business.
She is a great business strategist.
Vanessa's annual conferences also attract professionals who gather
to learn, network and support each other in
growing their skill sets, mindsets and shaping their
industry.
I should know, I go to them regularly.
And Vanessa is honored to serve NSA as
the NSA Arizona as one of the board
members for 2024 and 2025.
That's cool.
(01:07):
She's frequently booked by organizations who would like
to encourage their members to explore and expand
their roles as speakers and consultants.
Welcome Vanessa.
Hey, thank you.
Happy to be here.
Yeah.
Good to have you here today.
Today we're going to talk about lifetime goals,
life vision, that kind of stuff.
You read my first book and got something
(01:28):
out of that part of the book.
So why don't we just start with that?
What in my first book, it was making
money is killing your business, building a business
you love and getting a life too.
And you found something in that book on
life vision, lifetime goals that you felt was
helpful and compelling for you.
Take it away.
Where do I start?
I mean, I've read that book physically probably
four times and I've listened on Audible many
(01:50):
times and you know, I tell you this
every time I see you, I still refer
that book to every lead that comes to
me looking for help.
The focus of my business advisory is primarily
for those who teach in some regard.
They speak, they coach, they're professors, they're educators,
trainers, whatever term we want to use, but
often solo entrepreneurs or small business people.
(02:14):
And I feel like it was such a
helpful book.
So when I was told I kind of
needed to choose, like I'm like, I would
like to talk about it all because it
really is an incredible foundational business book for
entrepreneurs.
And so congratulations on that.
(02:35):
And I don't know how many times you've
like redone it, but I think at least
twice.
And it's just, it's amazing.
So I share with everyone, they need to
get a copy of that book.
But beyond that, I truly do.
And you could ask anybody in my community
and so many of them have read the
book and put the principles to use.
Beyond that, I also share it as I
(02:58):
help speakers and consultants and coaches start, you
know, launch or grow their businesses.
We often go back to that step one
that often we don't do.
You know, so many business owners don't take
the time to figure out where am I
driving the bus?
You know, I'm a cat person.
And so I love the quote from the
(03:19):
Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland when she's
at the fork in the road.
And which way do you want to go?
And Alice doesn't know.
And that I find often business owners don't
know until they take the time to figure
out where, where do I want to go?
And I think that's so scary.
I think that's why it's meaningful to me.
It's so scary that we'll end up somewhere.
(03:40):
But the whole idea of plotting, planning according
to what we feel, not just what we
think we want, but like what we feel
in our gut.
You're the expert here on this topic, so
I'm going to let you jump in, but
like I can talk about this for three
hours.
Well, I was just going to say, as
you're talking, it reminds me, I'm sure I
stole this because I've never had an original
thought in my life, as I put in
that book.
But the saying that comes to mind is
(04:02):
a person still finds their destiny on the
road they chose to avoid it.
A person still finds their destiny on a
road, on the road they chose to avoid
it.
And to your point, it's terrifying.
We don't, it's not, it's not an intentional
road.
It's just, we don't know how, or we
don't know what, or we don't, we're afraid
of.
So we just keep driving the bus.
And we end up with a destiny.
Yeah.
Why do you think we do that, Vanessa?
What causes us?
(04:23):
You work with business owners all the time.
Why do we not think about, well, what
do I want when I'm done?
Well, you know, I would tell you in
my experience with the people that I work
often come to me because they want to
speak.
They want to be speaking, you know, whatever
industry they're in, they're like, I want to
launch a business.
I feel like I'm an expert in something.
I want to speak.
And I want to know, is this topic
(04:44):
hot?
Will meeting planners hire me?
And I'm like, hold on.
We need to go back a couple of
steps because in my mind, that's step three.
And as we rewind back to step two,
which is like determining your business strategic plan,
which I don't remember exactly the term you
used for it, but that's the gist of
it.
And then go all the way back to
step one, it's like, I think we don't
even know yet what topic we should speak
(05:06):
on.
You know, so I think part of the
reason that, and I was the same way,
Chuck, I don't know when I met you.
Was it like 15 years ago?
It was a long time ago.
Yeah, it was.
You were still working with another conferencing thing.
Yeah.
Well, you know, one of our colleagues there
in Colorado referred me to your book and
then to you.
Okay.
(05:26):
Yeah.
And so you and I started doing some
coaching and I was in that same situation
where like I kind of knew what I
wanted, but I really hadn't taken the time
to write it out.
And to have a really, and I love
your exercise in the book about the waypoints
and like the whole idea of figuring out
where we're starting and where we want to
go and how to get there and how
to get there in a condensed period of
(05:47):
time too.
Like that's really juicy.
That's really exciting.
Not like eventually I'll get there, but if
we were to do it in three to
five.
So I think it's really powerful, but your
question was why, why do we think, I
think it's just natural, not necessarily, it's not
necessarily natural to think about starting there.
I think people think I'm going to start
a business and this is what it needs
(06:07):
to be and I need to figure out
the business piece.
Yeah.
And I have to eat this month.
That's why I'm doing my business is because
I need to eat.
Any questions?
You know, it's not, it just, it's that
simple to begin with.
Of course I have to start because I
have to get a paycheck so I have,
so I can eat.
And then very, very quickly we forget about,
well, is that really all you want is
to eat?
Right.
But do you find that too?
I know you're like a serial entrepreneur, Chuck,
(06:29):
did you find that in your early businesses,
you were also someone who kind of jumped
in and then you figured this out along
the way?
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
You make it up as you go along.
It's, it's the entrepreneurial disease.
And yeah, my first five businesses, I grew
them.
Every single one that I grew became a
treadmill and I became a hostage to my
own business.
And it was only after my fifth business,
I sort of, I call it coming to
(06:49):
the end of myself.
It's like, what are you doing?
I remember the fifth business, we had three
or four of us when we started and
they were just shy of 120, three and
a half, four years later when we sold
it.
And I was working 50 plus hours a
week when we started with three people.
And I was working 50 plus hours when
we had a hundred plus.
And when we were selling it, I'm sitting
at my desk thinking, what, how did this
happen?
(07:10):
Somehow I should have been able to give
something away to some of the other 100
people.
How did I end up just as busy
as I always did?
So yeah, if you do not start with
the end in mind, you do not get
to the end.
You stay at the start.
I started calling it Groundhog Year.
Every year is the same.
It's like Groundhog Day, the movie, but every
year you wake up January 1st, like, here
we go again.
My business hasn't really yet.
(07:31):
Maybe I make, the business is making more
money, but I'm as busy, quality of my
life hasn't changed in seven years or three
years or whatever it is.
So it's absolutely the biggest problem in business
is the tyranny of the urgent.
I've got to make my bills.
I got to do all these things.
We get run over by the truck of
the tyranny of the urgent.
We never get to the priority of the
important.
Because I think part of that, Vanessa, it
(07:54):
isn't urgent, it's just important.
It's incredibly important, but it's not going to
pay the bills this month.
And what's really sad is it's really fun
to do too, right?
So it's not like it's an important thing
I've got to do, like I've got to
figure out this tax thing for the IRS
or something, but it's more of a delicious
because you get to do what I want.
Yeah.
I am rewriting as I'm developing our new
(08:16):
podcast, Get Off the Treadmill, I'm rewriting this
book as part of doing that podcast.
And we're probably going to rename it something
like The Purpose Filled Business or something like
that, because it really is about that.
The book really was about that.
And it is something that can be delicious.
I tell people, I have my vision statement
and my mission statement, but I say, you
(08:37):
know what drives me, my motivator, is to
help people find that second most important day
of their life.
Mark Twain actually didn't say this, I thought
he did, but he didn't, but it still
worked.
Somebody said it.
We'll say he did.
Somebody said it.
But we've all heard this saying, or maybe
you haven't, two most important days of your
life are the day you were born and
the day you figure out why.
(08:57):
And that's your lifetime goal stuff.
And that's really what drives me with business
owners and what drives you as well is,
yeah, okay, you want to be a speaker,
but why?
Yeah.
And how's that going to help you get
there?
And sometimes I figured that that's not really
what's going to help them get where they're
wanting to go.
Yeah.
I mean, that is fairly common that people
think, oh, I'm going to make all this
money as a speaker.
Well, the reality is that it's not typically
(09:20):
a career that you make money, a lot
of money in just speaking, unless you're like
a retired NFL quarterback, Heisman, or something like
that.
Right.
And so once they start getting some reality
around that, I mean, certainly speaking is really
great for helping people market what else it
is that they are wanting to offer as
far as services, but so getting realigned with
(09:41):
the realities, but that's that step two in
the middle.
Right.
That's that strategic plan and being able to
really understand your profit centers and revenue streams
and just the business planning piece.
Yeah.
And I want to have you back to
talk about that.
Yeah.
I think there's a ton of reasons why
we don't get into this stuff and you
just triggered me on one.
It's a good trigger because we, I think
(10:03):
we're taught by the world around us.
Maybe our parents, certainly the economy and the
schools and just the culture that my job
is to chase money.
And if I get enough of it, I'll
be happy.
Somehow I can put all the other pieces
together and I'll get a life and all
that.
And I've never figured, I never found anybody
who actually did it that way.
They might've gotten money, but it wasn't money
(10:23):
that actually got them a life.
They had to stop and go back and
say, well, why do I have money?
So they still had to do that work.
And then they would all say, well, you
know, this would have worked better if I
had just done that to begin with.
But yeah, I think we assume that the
American dream is, hey, you're profitable.
And I bought a boat for somebody else
to go out on because I don't have
time to do it.
It just doesn't work.
So lots of reasons why we don't do
(10:43):
that.
But isn't that so beautiful?
I mean, so I was thinking how it's
been what probably, let's say 15 years or
so since you and I first connected and
at that time read the book and then
reached out to you, but also did the
exercise in the book.
And I still, my very same, what I
call life vision, you'd call maybe lifetime goals
or use a different term, but it's still
the same document.
(11:04):
I've just modified it multiple times.
I've continued to go back and modify and
it's so powerful to be able to have
right here beside me in my computer, in
your wallet, you know, put it on the
bathroom mirror, wherever, wherever to be able to
like, oh yeah, this is why I'm jumping
out of bed in the morning, ready to
go.
And to your point, that's how we know
our big why.
My friend Alan Weingarten came to me once
(11:26):
and said, I know I have my big
why.
And that's what we call it for shorthand,
lifetime goals, vision, big why.
I said, well, great.
How do you know?
And he looked at me and said, because
it has me.
And I said, how do you know it
has me?
He says, because every morning when I got
out of my bed, I asked myself, well,
how am I going to live out my
big why today?
And every decision I make now from buying
a copier to starting a new business goes
(11:46):
through his big why.
And he has an incredible story to tell
about how he ended up leaving one business
and getting into another one that made him
millions because he met a guy in a
coffee shop and he could help that guy
with his big why.
So it's pretty cool stuff once we get
there.
It's a good understanding.
I think there's three fundamentals I want to
quickly get to to just have you comment
how they work for you.
Three fundamentals of a lifetime goal.
(12:08):
And I think we should say what is
different between a lifetime goal than any other
goal.
It's really simple.
It's a goal you can never check off
as complete.
I can buy a big housing, have millions
in the bank.
I can play all the 100 best golf
courses.
But it's something I can never complete, like
being a great mom, solving world hunger.
It doesn't have to be huge.
It just has to be continuous, something you
can never solve.
So one of the things you can solve
(12:30):
with the first fundamental principle of lifetime goals
is making money is not an empowering vision.
And I'm sure you've experienced that.
Do you have any quick reflexive thoughts around
that?
Around which piece of that?
Making money is not an empowering vision.
Just that principle itself.
Yeah.
I mean, yes.
My thought is that when I got really
clear about why I'm wanting to build this
(12:53):
business and started realizing that I already was
a good ways toward what I wanted my
life to look like, I feel like, I
mean, like, so for me, my life vision
document has bullet points and it's things like,
I look at it as every day.
What do I want every day to look
like?
It's get out of bed, RPM, rise, pee,
meditate, workout, you know, take a walk or
(13:15):
something, take care of.
We're very much into cats.
We're, I'm very involved.
We have a cat sanctuary, like on my,
that's on my life vision.
My making more money helps me help more
cats.
Yes.
What also happened is for clarity for me
was that I started getting opportunities that I
would otherwise have probably said, that's probably not
a good fit for me, but like the
opportunity to be a board member with a
(13:37):
premier cat rescue here in town.
Like there's things that just, it starts coming
together and then you can keep looking back
at that life vision and say, wow, like
I'm, I'm really largely already living what I
want mostly.
It's like, you can see the progression.
It really didn't have to do with money.
Yeah, exactly.
To your point, your particular vision doesn't need
tens of millions of dollars.
I've seen this work both ways for people.
(13:59):
People, once they get their lifetime goals, they
figure out, man, I need another couple of
million dollars in order to figure this out.
And other people get their lifetime goals and
say, you know, I don't actually need as
much money as I have.
Different for everybody.
It's not that money isn't important.
It's critical.
It's one of the three resources, time, money,
and energy, but if you don't have the
money you need to live out your particular
lifetime goals, it's not going to be fun.
(14:19):
But to your point, it may not be
millions.
It may be for the next guy.
The second fundamental principle of a lifetime goal
is a goal realized is no longer motivated,
which is kind of fundamental to the whole
concept.
Do you have any thoughts around that?
I think that's why it's critical that you
write your, whatever you're going to call this
document, your lifetime goals, your life vision, however,
(14:40):
as far as it's not events, it's not
something you can cross off a list, but
more of a, when I say that every
day I want to get up and do
these things, I can never like completely cross
that off because there's more days.
And I want it to feel a certain
way.
And I want to continue to learn in
certain veins, like spiritually or that type thing.
You never can cross that off.
So it's, it's, it remains motivating.
(15:04):
Yeah.
And I found that being a lifelong learner
is much better than saying, I want to
be educated because you can actually cross off
educated, but you can never cross off being
curious.
There's always another certification course somewhere.
Exactly.
Not that I have a problem with that.
No.
And the third one of these principles that
I use for lifetime vision, lifetime goals.
(15:24):
I brought a visual.
Oh, you did.
You have a visual.
Nice.
For those who are watching the podcast, she
has a visual.
A cat just jumped into my lap.
Yeah.
But the third principle is we are made
to do and to be something, we're made
to be and to do something significant our
whole lives.
Not just the first two thirds, not just
the first 60 years.
(15:45):
We're not supposed to be put out the
past year.
Otto von Bismarck invented retirement in 1881 and
it's not a human condition.
It doesn't mean you need to go into
the factory or into the office until you're
95, but it does mean that you shouldn't
stop trying to live a life of significance
because you reached 60 or 65 or some
magic number.
So how do you feel about that one?
(16:05):
I think we're talking about Dharma, right?
We're talking about our purpose.
Is that what we're talking about here?
Yeah.
Well, that's, yeah, that's what some people would
call it.
Absolutely.
And it's like that deeper soul level purpose
of why am I on this planet?
What am I, what do I feel, where
do I feel I can serve?
And I think when we look at it
as not, you know, I think about my
(16:26):
dad who had a very honorable career working
for corporations and had his retirement and ultimately
he was a depression baby in that era.
So it's like an older way of looking
at retirement and I think things have changed
over time.
Getting to that end of like the usefulness
I think can be not awesome as far
(16:49):
as our morale.
I agree.
I think it's so important to be locked
into that greater service or that greater how
can I leave the planet a better place?
And what's so exciting to me is that
we can continue to do that as long
as we can continue to do it.
What I mean by that is like even
into my 80s, I expect to still be
(17:10):
doing what I'm doing in some level because
I feel like I'm serving.
I know I'm serving and I know there
are more people to be served that you
can help them meet their goals.
And I think what's a key is for
people to figure that out.
And you know, Chuck, can I talk about
this a second?
In my own experience, we figured that out
by getting quiet and by with mindfulness and
(17:32):
by going within.
It's not something that somebody's going to tell
us or figure out for us.
We can.
I'm a big believer in coaches and you
know, all levels of helpful service out there
that can help us.
But ultimately, we just have to come back
with, well, is it this, this or this?
And we need to take that into prayer
or meditation or a walk where we can
contemplate.
(17:53):
But our inner GPS will never serve us
wrong.
Nobody's ever, ever, ever said, I listen to
my gut.
And boy, do I wish I wouldn't have
listened to my gut on that if they're
being honest.
And I think we can land on what
is that dharmic purpose by listening to our
gut.
And I think what's really exciting is when
it's scary.
Yeah.
Right.
(18:13):
Because it might be like, I really feel
like, no, I'm a dentist.
I've gone to school.
I put in all this money.
I've got all this debt.
I'm doing dentistry.
And I feel like maybe my purpose is
beyond that.
That's a scary, but also exciting place.
Yeah.
And then the type of scary that I
always promote is ask yourself this question.
If this doesn't work out, will I die?
Or will this be catastrophic?
(18:33):
I don't even have to die, but will
it be the kind of failure?
I don't even believe in those things, but
the kind of lack of success that I
could not handle.
And usually for the most part, people say,
yeah, you know, I might lose my house,
but I'd bounce back or something.
So it has to be scary, but it
shouldn't be something that terrifies you.
It should be scary.
I like that.
Yeah.
I think, I think, cause then you have
some skin in the game.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
When we do things that are easy, we
(18:54):
don't learn.
When we do things that are a little
scary, we start growing like crazy.
So it's, it's a growth path.
Also say that when you feel right in
your gut, even if it feels a little
scary, then when you move in that direction,
it feels to me like all manner of
like heaven and earth start moving with you
because it is what is meant for you,
which I, with my new brand and where
we're moving, we're definitely moving into an area
(19:16):
that for a while I thought of and
I thought, thought I should do, but I'm
embracing.
Good for you.
Well, I think you, you're a great example
of overriding principle of the lifetime goal.
And that is this, people who are helping
other people are the most joyful, fulfilled people
on earth.
And I would encourage everyone who is working
on their big why to have a piece
for themselves.
(19:36):
Like I want to be a lifetime long
learner.
I want to be healthy.
Great.
But I would also encourage you to have
a piece that you share with the world
that there's some obligatory stress in my big
why that I, that the world is, is
depending on me in some way.
And that, that desire to be helpful in
the world around is solving other people's problems.
There's a lot of data, a lot of
research that those are the most fulfilled, joyful
(19:58):
people on earth.
So put that into your big why.
Well, we've got, we can go on for
like three hours, you and I could, but
these are supposed to be short podcasts.
So we're just going to leave people hanging
with this.
You can help them with this.
I can help them with this.
How can they get ahold of you and,
and get more from, from you on how
you can actually help business owners and how
they can find out about your conferences and
that kind of stuff?
(20:18):
Sure.
So info at vanessaemerson.com is the easiest
one, info at vanessaemerson.com.
And what we talked today about the business
advisory and helping people with speaking and consulting.
That is a big piece of what we
do.
And we also offer training and coaching and
self-development and self-care.
So there's a wide range of ways that
(20:40):
we can work with entrepreneurs and it's all
available at the evolvingexpert.com.
I love it.
Business from the inside out.
So it ought to be.
You're a beautiful human being.
I appreciate you being on the podcast.
Thank you.
It's always so good to spend time with
you, friend.
Yes.
Looking forward to being with you again, I
believe at least in January, if not sooner.
(21:00):
Thank you.
That wraps up another episode of the Get
Off The Treadmill podcast.
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(21:23):
workshop leader, you can contact us at grow,
G-R-O-W at cranksetgroup.com.
Until next time, have a great week.
Welcome back to the Get Off the Treadmill
podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs, where
we show you how to build a successful
business and to have a life too.
We're going to dive into another topic that
helps us make more money in less time
and to get off the treadmill so we
can experience a life of significance.
And now your host and the author of
(00:25):
the number one bestselling business book, Making Money
is Killing Your Business, Chuck Blakeman.
Today I'm with Vanessa Emerson, a dear friend.
She's the founder of The Evolving Expert.
She's recognized as a business strategist, wellness educator,
MC and influencer.
Vanessa Emerson FDSI mentors professionals in every area
(00:47):
of business.
She is a great business strategist.
Vanessa's annual conferences also attract professionals who gather
to learn, network and support each other in
growing their skill sets, mindsets and shaping their
industry.
I should know, I go to them regularly.
And Vanessa is honored to serve NSA as
the NSA Arizona as one of the board
members for 2024 and 2025.
That's cool.
(01:07):
She's frequently booked by organizations who would like
to encourage their members to explore and expand
their roles as speakers and consultants.
Welcome Vanessa.
Hey, thank you.
Happy to be here.
Yeah.
Good to have you here today.
Today we're going to talk about lifetime goals,
life vision, that kind of stuff.
You read my first book and got something
(01:28):
out of that part of the book.
So why don't we just start with that?
What in my first book, it was making
money is killing your business, building a business
you love and getting a life too.
And you found something in that book on
life vision, lifetime goals that you felt was
helpful and compelling for you.
Take it away.
Where do I start?
I mean, I've read that book physically probably
four times and I've listened on Audible many
(01:50):
times and you know, I tell you this
every time I see you, I still refer
that book to every lead that comes to
me looking for help.
The focus of my business advisory is primarily
for those who teach in some regard.
They speak, they coach, they're professors, they're educators,
trainers, whatever term we want to use, but
often solo entrepreneurs or small business people.
(02:14):
And I feel like it was such a
helpful book.
So when I was told I kind of
needed to choose, like I'm like, I would
like to talk about it all because it
really is an incredible foundational business book for
entrepreneurs.
And so congratulations on that.
(02:35):
And I don't know how many times you've
like redone it, but I think at least
twice.
And it's just, it's amazing.
So I share with everyone, they need to
get a copy of that book.
But beyond that, I truly do.
And you could ask anybody in my community
and so many of them have read the
book and put the principles to use.
Beyond that, I also share it as I
(02:58):
help speakers and consultants and coaches start, you
know, launch or grow their businesses.
We often go back to that step one
that often we don't do.
You know, so many business owners don't take
the time to figure out where am I
driving the bus?
You know, I'm a cat person.
And so I love the quote from the
(03:19):
Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland when she's
at the fork in the road.
And which way do you want to go?
And Alice doesn't know.
And that I find often business owners don't
know until they take the time to figure
out where, where do I want to go?
And I think that's so scary.
I think that's why it's meaningful to me.
It's so scary that we'll end up somewhere.
(03:40):
But the whole idea of plotting, planning according
to what we feel, not just what we
think we want, but like what we feel
in our gut.
You're the expert here on this topic, so
I'm going to let you jump in, but
like I can talk about this for three
hours.
Well, I was just going to say, as
you're talking, it reminds me, I'm sure I
stole this because I've never had an original
thought in my life, as I put in
that book.
But the saying that comes to mind is
(04:02):
a person still finds their destiny on the
road they chose to avoid it.
A person still finds their destiny on a
road, on the road they chose to avoid
it.
And to your point, it's terrifying.
We don't, it's not, it's not an intentional
road.
It's just, we don't know how, or we
don't know what, or we don't, we're afraid
of.
So we just keep driving the bus.
And we end up with a destiny.
Yeah.
Why do you think we do that, Vanessa?
What causes us?
(04:23):
You work with business owners all the time.
Why do we not think about, well, what
do I want when I'm done?
Well, you know, I would tell you in
my experience with the people that I work
often come to me because they want to
speak.
They want to be speaking, you know, whatever
industry they're in, they're like, I want to
launch a business.
I feel like I'm an expert in something.
I want to speak.
And I want to know, is this topic
(04:44):
hot?
Will meeting planners hire me?
And I'm like, hold on.
We need to go back a couple of
steps because in my mind, that's step three.
And as we rewind back to step two,
which is like determining your business strategic plan,
which I don't remember exactly the term you
used for it, but that's the gist of
it.
And then go all the way back to
step one, it's like, I think we don't
even know yet what topic we should speak
(05:06):
on.
You know, so I think part of the
reason that, and I was the same way,
Chuck, I don't know when I met you.
Was it like 15 years ago?
It was a long time ago.
Yeah, it was.
You were still working with another conferencing thing.
Yeah.
Well, you know, one of our colleagues there
in Colorado referred me to your book and
then to you.
Okay.
(05:26):
Yeah.
And so you and I started doing some
coaching and I was in that same situation
where like I kind of knew what I
wanted, but I really hadn't taken the time
to write it out.
And to have a really, and I love
your exercise in the book about the waypoints
and like the whole idea of figuring out
where we're starting and where we want to
go and how to get there and how
to get there in a condensed period of
(05:47):
time too.
Like that's really juicy.
That's really exciting.
Not like eventually I'll get there, but if
we were to do it in three to
five.
So I think it's really powerful, but your
question was why, why do we think, I
think it's just natural, not necessarily, it's not
necessarily natural to think about starting there.
I think people think I'm going to start
a business and this is what it needs
(06:07):
to be and I need to figure out
the business piece.
Yeah.
And I have to eat this month.
That's why I'm doing my business is because
I need to eat.
Any questions?
You know, it's not, it just, it's that
simple to begin with.
Of course I have to start because I
have to get a paycheck so I have,
so I can eat.
And then very, very quickly we forget about,
well, is that really all you want is
to eat?
Right.
But do you find that too?
I know you're like a serial entrepreneur, Chuck,
(06:29):
did you find that in your early businesses,
you were also someone who kind of jumped
in and then you figured this out along
the way?
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
You make it up as you go along.
It's, it's the entrepreneurial disease.
And yeah, my first five businesses, I grew
them.
Every single one that I grew became a
treadmill and I became a hostage to my
own business.
And it was only after my fifth business,
I sort of, I call it coming to
(06:49):
the end of myself.
It's like, what are you doing?
I remember the fifth business, we had three
or four of us when we started and
they were just shy of 120, three and
a half, four years later when we sold
it.
And I was working 50 plus hours a
week when we started with three people.
And I was working 50 plus hours when
we had a hundred plus.
And when we were selling it, I'm sitting
at my desk thinking, what, how did this
happen?
(07:10):
Somehow I should have been able to give
something away to some of the other 100
people.
How did I end up just as busy
as I always did?
So yeah, if you do not start with
the end in mind, you do not get
to the end.
You stay at the start.
I started calling it Groundhog Year.
Every year is the same.
It's like Groundhog Day, the movie, but every
year you wake up January 1st, like, here
we go again.
My business hasn't really yet.
(07:31):
Maybe I make, the business is making more
money, but I'm as busy, quality of my
life hasn't changed in seven years or three
years or whatever it is.
So it's absolutely the biggest problem in business
is the tyranny of the urgent.
I've got to make my bills.
I got to do all these things.
We get run over by the truck of
the tyranny of the urgent.
We never get to the priority of the
important.
Because I think part of that, Vanessa, it
(07:54):
isn't urgent, it's just important.
It's incredibly important, but it's not going to
pay the bills this month.
And what's really sad is it's really fun
to do too, right?
So it's not like it's an important thing
I've got to do, like I've got to
figure out this tax thing for the IRS
or something, but it's more of a delicious
because you get to do what I want.
Yeah.
I am rewriting as I'm developing our new
(08:16):
podcast, Get Off the Treadmill, I'm rewriting this
book as part of doing that podcast.
And we're probably going to rename it something
like The Purpose Filled Business or something like
that, because it really is about that.
The book really was about that.
And it is something that can be delicious.
I tell people, I have my vision statement
and my mission statement, but I say, you
(08:37):
know what drives me, my motivator, is to
help people find that second most important day
of their life.
Mark Twain actually didn't say this, I thought
he did, but he didn't, but it still
worked.
Somebody said it.
We'll say he did.
Somebody said it.
But we've all heard this saying, or maybe
you haven't, two most important days of your
life are the day you were born and
the day you figure out why.
(08:57):
And that's your lifetime goal stuff.
And that's really what drives me with business
owners and what drives you as well is,
yeah, okay, you want to be a speaker,
but why?
Yeah.
And how's that going to help you get
there?
And sometimes I figured that that's not really
what's going to help them get where they're
wanting to go.
Yeah.
I mean, that is fairly common that people
think, oh, I'm going to make all this
money as a speaker.
Well, the reality is that it's not typically
(09:20):
a career that you make money, a lot
of money in just speaking, unless you're like
a retired NFL quarterback, Heisman, or something like
that.
Right.
And so once they start getting some reality
around that, I mean, certainly speaking is really
great for helping people market what else it
is that they are wanting to offer as
far as services, but so getting realigned with
(09:41):
the realities, but that's that step two in
the middle.
Right.
That's that strategic plan and being able to
really understand your profit centers and revenue streams
and just the business planning piece.
Yeah.
And I want to have you back to
talk about that.
Yeah.
I think there's a ton of reasons why
we don't get into this stuff and you
just triggered me on one.
It's a good trigger because we, I think
(10:03):
we're taught by the world around us.
Maybe our parents, certainly the economy and the
schools and just the culture that my job
is to chase money.
And if I get enough of it, I'll
be happy.
Somehow I can put all the other pieces
together and I'll get a life and all
that.
And I've never figured, I never found anybody
who actually did it that way.
They might've gotten money, but it wasn't money
(10:23):
that actually got them a life.
They had to stop and go back and
say, well, why do I have money?
So they still had to do that work.
And then they would all say, well, you
know, this would have worked better if I
had just done that to begin with.
But yeah, I think we assume that the
American dream is, hey, you're profitable.
And I bought a boat for somebody else
to go out on because I don't have
time to do it.
It just doesn't work.
So lots of reasons why we don't do
(10:43):
that.
But isn't that so beautiful?
I mean, so I was thinking how it's
been what probably, let's say 15 years or
so since you and I first connected and
at that time read the book and then
reached out to you, but also did the
exercise in the book.
And I still, my very same, what I
call life vision, you'd call maybe lifetime goals
or use a different term, but it's still
the same document.
(11:04):
I've just modified it multiple times.
I've continued to go back and modify and
it's so powerful to be able to have
right here beside me in my computer, in
your wallet, you know, put it on the
bathroom mirror, wherever, wherever to be able to
like, oh yeah, this is why I'm jumping
out of bed in the morning, ready to
go.
And to your point, that's how we know
our big why.
My friend Alan Weingarten came to me once
(11:26):
and said, I know I have my big
why.
And that's what we call it for shorthand,
lifetime goals, vision, big why.
I said, well, great.
How do you know?
And he looked at me and said, because
it has me.
And I said, how do you know it
has me?
He says, because every morning when I got
out of my bed, I asked myself, well,
how am I going to live out my
big why today?
And every decision I make now from buying
a copier to starting a new business goes
(11:46):
through his big why.
And he has an incredible story to tell
about how he ended up leaving one business
and getting into another one that made him
millions because he met a guy in a
coffee shop and he could help that guy
with his big why.
So it's pretty cool stuff once we get
there.
It's a good understanding.
I think there's three fundamentals I want to
quickly get to to just have you comment
how they work for you.
Three fundamentals of a lifetime goal.
(12:08):
And I think we should say what is
different between a lifetime goal than any other
goal.
It's really simple.
It's a goal you can never check off
as complete.
I can buy a big housing, have millions
in the bank.
I can play all the 100 best golf
courses.
But it's something I can never complete, like
being a great mom, solving world hunger.
It doesn't have to be huge.
It just has to be continuous, something you
can never solve.
So one of the things you can solve
(12:30):
with the first fundamental principle of lifetime goals
is making money is not an empowering vision.
And I'm sure you've experienced that.
Do you have any quick reflexive thoughts around
that?
Around which piece of that?
Making money is not an empowering vision.
Just that principle itself.
Yeah.
I mean, yes.
My thought is that when I got really
clear about why I'm wanting to build this
(12:53):
business and started realizing that I already was
a good ways toward what I wanted my
life to look like, I feel like, I
mean, like, so for me, my life vision
document has bullet points and it's things like,
I look at it as every day.
What do I want every day to look
like?
It's get out of bed, RPM, rise, pee,
meditate, workout, you know, take a walk or
(13:15):
something, take care of.
We're very much into cats.
We're, I'm very involved.
We have a cat sanctuary, like on my,
that's on my life vision.
My making more money helps me help more
cats.
Yes.
What also happened is for clarity for me
was that I started getting opportunities that I
would otherwise have probably said, that's probably not
a good fit for me, but like the
opportunity to be a board member with a
(13:37):
premier cat rescue here in town.
Like there's things that just, it starts coming
together and then you can keep looking back
at that life vision and say, wow, like
I'm, I'm really largely already living what I
want mostly.
It's like, you can see the progression.
It really didn't have to do with money.
Yeah, exactly.
To your point, your particular vision doesn't need
tens of millions of dollars.
I've seen this work both ways for people.
(13:59):
People, once they get their lifetime goals, they
figure out, man, I need another couple of
million dollars in order to figure this out.
And other people get their lifetime goals and
say, you know, I don't actually need as
much money as I have.
Different for everybody.
It's not that money isn't important.
It's critical.
It's one of the three resources, time, money,
and energy, but if you don't have the
money you need to live out your particular
lifetime goals, it's not going to be fun.
(14:19):
But to your point, it may not be
millions.
It may be for the next guy.
The second fundamental principle of a lifetime goal
is a goal realized is no longer motivated,
which is kind of fundamental to the whole
concept.
Do you have any thoughts around that?
I think that's why it's critical that you
write your, whatever you're going to call this
document, your lifetime goals, your life vision, however,
(14:40):
as far as it's not events, it's not
something you can cross off a list, but
more of a, when I say that every
day I want to get up and do
these things, I can never like completely cross
that off because there's more days.
And I want it to feel a certain
way.
And I want to continue to learn in
certain veins, like spiritually or that type thing.
You never can cross that off.
So it's, it's, it remains motivating.
(15:04):
Yeah.
And I found that being a lifelong learner
is much better than saying, I want to
be educated because you can actually cross off
educated, but you can never cross off being
curious.
There's always another certification course somewhere.
Exactly.
Not that I have a problem with that.
No.
And the third one of these principles that
I use for lifetime vision, lifetime goals.
(15:24):
I brought a visual.
Oh, you did.
You have a visual.
Nice.
For those who are watching the podcast, she
has a visual.
A cat just jumped into my lap.
Yeah.
But the third principle is we are made
to do and to be something, we're made
to be and to do something significant our
whole lives.
Not just the first two thirds, not just
the first 60 years.
(15:45):
We're not supposed to be put out the
past year.
Otto von Bismarck invented retirement in 1881 and
it's not a human condition.
It doesn't mean you need to go into
the factory or into the office until you're
95, but it does mean that you shouldn't
stop trying to live a life of significance
because you reached 60 or 65 or some
magic number.
So how do you feel about that one?
(16:05):
I think we're talking about Dharma, right?
We're talking about our purpose.
Is that what we're talking about here?
Yeah.
Well, that's, yeah, that's what some people would
call it.
Absolutely.
And it's like that deeper soul level purpose
of why am I on this planet?
What am I, what do I feel, where
do I feel I can serve?
And I think when we look at it
as not, you know, I think about my
(16:26):
dad who had a very honorable career working
for corporations and had his retirement and ultimately
he was a depression baby in that era.
So it's like an older way of looking
at retirement and I think things have changed
over time.
Getting to that end of like the usefulness
I think can be not awesome as far
(16:49):
as our morale.
I agree.
I think it's so important to be locked
into that greater service or that greater how
can I leave the planet a better place?
And what's so exciting to me is that
we can continue to do that as long
as we can continue to do it.
What I mean by that is like even
into my 80s, I expect to still be
(17:10):
doing what I'm doing in some level because
I feel like I'm serving.
I know I'm serving and I know there
are more people to be served that you
can help them meet their goals.
And I think what's a key is for
people to figure that out.
And you know, Chuck, can I talk about
this a second?
In my own experience, we figured that out
by getting quiet and by with mindfulness and
(17:32):
by going within.
It's not something that somebody's going to tell
us or figure out for us.
We can.
I'm a big believer in coaches and you
know, all levels of helpful service out there
that can help us.
But ultimately, we just have to come back
with, well, is it this, this or this?
And we need to take that into prayer
or meditation or a walk where we can
contemplate.
(17:53):
But our inner GPS will never serve us
wrong.
Nobody's ever, ever, ever said, I listen to
my gut.
And boy, do I wish I wouldn't have
listened to my gut on that if they're
being honest.
And I think we can land on what
is that dharmic purpose by listening to our
gut.
And I think what's really exciting is when
it's scary.
Yeah.
Right.
(18:13):
Because it might be like, I really feel
like, no, I'm a dentist.
I've gone to school.
I put in all this money.
I've got all this debt.
I'm doing dentistry.
And I feel like maybe my purpose is
beyond that.
That's a scary, but also exciting place.
Yeah.
And then the type of scary that I
always promote is ask yourself this question.
If this doesn't work out, will I die?
Or will this be catastrophic?
(18:33):
I don't even have to die, but will
it be the kind of failure?
I don't even believe in those things, but
the kind of lack of success that I
could not handle.
And usually for the most part, people say,
yeah, you know, I might lose my house,
but I'd bounce back or something.
So it has to be scary, but it
shouldn't be something that terrifies you.
It should be scary.
I like that.
Yeah.
I think, I think, cause then you have
some skin in the game.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
When we do things that are easy, we
(18:54):
don't learn.
When we do things that are a little
scary, we start growing like crazy.
So it's, it's a growth path.
Also say that when you feel right in
your gut, even if it feels a little
scary, then when you move in that direction,
it feels to me like all manner of
like heaven and earth start moving with you
because it is what is meant for you,
which I, with my new brand and where
we're moving, we're definitely moving into an area
(19:16):
that for a while I thought of and
I thought, thought I should do, but I'm
embracing.
Good for you.
Well, I think you, you're a great example
of overriding principle of the lifetime goal.
And that is this, people who are helping
other people are the most joyful, fulfilled people
on earth.
And I would encourage everyone who is working
on their big why to have a piece
for themselves.
(19:36):
Like I want to be a lifetime long
learner.
I want to be healthy.
Great.
But I would also encourage you to have
a piece that you share with the world
that there's some obligatory stress in my big
why that I, that the world is, is
depending on me in some way.
And that, that desire to be helpful in
the world around is solving other people's problems.
There's a lot of data, a lot of
research that those are the most fulfilled, joyful
(19:58):
people on earth.
So put that into your big why.
Well, we've got, we can go on for
like three hours, you and I could, but
these are supposed to be short podcasts.
So we're just going to leave people hanging
with this.
You can help them with this.
I can help them with this.
How can they get ahold of you and,
and get more from, from you on how
you can actually help business owners and how
they can find out about your conferences and
that kind of stuff?
(20:18):
Sure.
So info at vanessaemerson.com is the easiest
one, info at vanessaemerson.com.
And what we talked today about the business
advisory and helping people with speaking and consulting.
That is a big piece of what we
do.
And we also offer training and coaching and
self-development and self-care.
So there's a wide range of ways that
(20:40):
we can work with entrepreneurs and it's all
available at the evolvingexpert.com.
I love it.
Business from the inside out.
So it ought to be.
You're a beautiful human being.
I appreciate you being on the podcast.
Thank you.
It's always so good to spend time with
you, friend.
Yes.
Looking forward to being with you again, I
believe at least in January, if not sooner.
(21:00):
Thank you.
That wraps up another episode of the Get
Off The Treadmill podcast.
If you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe
and hit the like button to ensure you
are receiving the latest tools you need to
grow your business and to get off the
treadmill.
If you want more information on the 3
to 5 Club, the Crankset Group, or to
book Chuck as a business advisor, speaker, or
(21:23):
workshop leader, you can contact us at grow,
G-R-O-W at cranksetgroup.com.
Until next time, have a great week.
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