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Life is not a Metcon, even though you do need to be able to do one from time to time
Yesterday I shared that I am going through a patch of adversity in regard to providing care for my autistic son. We lost our primary caregiver for him to a full time gig and for the immediate future I am the person providing care from 2pm to 530pm during the week.
My wife and I consider ourselves very fortunate that I have the type of business that I do, professional business coach, and that I can maintain service and even grow my business while missing out on almost 18 hours of the normal work week. How many of you could do the same?
Back to the title above. Crossfit is a worldwide industry, sport and fitness leader and I have been directly and indirectly associated and benefited from the work of its coaches and leadership for almost two decades now. At the core of the Crossfit experience is something called metabolic conditioning aka ‘metcon’. Typically these are high intensity workouts anywhere from 5 minutes to 20+. There is a reason the mascot for Crossfit used to be Pukie the Clown.
These types of workouts are challenging on multiple levels for any level of athlete. Intelligently designed and professionally coached they can provide effective stimulation for multiple types of clients in one group workout through a process called scaling and/or adapting.
How does this apply to my situation and perhaps yours now and in the future?
You need to be able to adapt to adversity. Often, in the gym, we are adapting to fatigue or injury. If you physically cannot perform the prescribed movement(s), the closest effective substitution is discovered and then implemented so that, hopefully, in the future you will be able to progress.
I am losing 18 hours of ‘live’ coaching time and needed to think about how I was going to adapt to this in the short term (we will find another caregiver eventually) and how I was going to consider this realistically happening again for my future business plans. Short term, I can effectively meet the needs for my current clients (they rock) and my current pipeline of prospective clients. However, my live coaching time has now become a more fragile resource for business growth.
For financial advisors, remember when the pandemic hit and we all needed to figure out how to service current clients without meeting in person? That was a big shift and some of us are now doing more virtual work than we ever would have otherwise.
Some things to think about:
- Referrals are the ultimate ‘anti-fragile’ marketing system for you and your business. They are the most resilient and sticky form of client acquisition you will ever have and…best of all, you own it. No outside vendor can ‘cancel’ you or take away your ability to generate new business predictably if you have taken the time to approach referrals correctly. (I provide a lot of guidance on this in my upcoming book next month)
- Your business model, if you base it upon your being the primary production source for revenue, is fragile at best. Change is always happening to our beloved financial services industry. Maybe it’s time to evaluate whether you own a job or a business. One of my clients just got back from a 30 day sabbatical without any phone calls or emails from work. What would that be like for you?
- Your personal operating system. One of the big things I try to get all my clients to do is develop an operating system (OS) that is antifragile and is designed to create momentum no matter their circumstances. The main rule is that the OS must take less than an hour a day to complete and it must be important enough to prioritize over any non-emergency stuff.
What is the whole point?
You need to prepare, now, for the reality of adversity. There are things that I chose not to do that have resulted in my current situation. We were too comfortable with our former caregiver (5 years) and stopped looking for other caregivers as a backup plan. Fortunately, I have taken other steps in my business over the years that allowed me to respond better and to adapt with less cost.
What will you do when it comes for you? How are you going to prepare? Now, or when the storm arrives?
I would love to hear your stories of adversity in your business and life and how you were able to make it through and what you have changed in your own ‘OS’ as a result.
If you get anything from this (I certainly hope you do!) I hope that you are more confident about what you can do to improve in the near and distant future. I get to work with other successful professionals like you every day and am blessed beyond measure as a result. You are capable of more AND you are able to enjoy the process of working towards it as well.
You can have success and a life that is full of joy. You do need to do some work to make that happen and to keep your life aligned (throw out that trash talk of work life balance…complete and utter nonsense).
What makes you most alive?
What really matters to you?
Why aren’t you doing that as much as possible?
Those three questions are 100% relevant to getting predictable referrals. This is because when you are the most alive…you are the most referrable. People want to introduce people that are enjoying their lives, especially financial advisors, to other people. Your BMW or Porsche isn’t going to make them want to refer you, but your passion for life will do nicely.
Get out there and live. If you are stuck and not sure where to start, reach out and let’s talk.
All the best and Tight Lines.