This is the last week of 2023, which means, for me, the last newsletter of the year. This final week is one that, for many of us, is more reflective by nature. Author John Maxwell blocks off the week between Christmas and New Years to look back on his entire calendar from the year before and assess his productivity and accomplishments and then adjust to make the following year better in all of those areas. I personally don’t have the discipline or desire to track everything the way Maxwell does. But I admire his approach, and subsequently have created our own rituals that fit our goals, dreams and desires.
As I have written about before, each year we create a new “level” to our business and offerings. What started a few years ago as an idea has grown into a blog, podcast, mastermind, membership, coaching, books, courses, speaking, and more. It’s what I describe as our “stadium”, which you will be hearing more and more about in 2023. Just like a sports team, they play one game and the stadium they play in has multiple levels, pricing options, products, services and offers. But any franchise would tell you that you don’t just build them all at once. It requires time, planning, vision, patience and persistence to create such a special place.
They would also tell you that finances have a lot to do with not only building that stadium, but how well the franchise grows in the future. Too many dreams have been killed by a lack of financial planning.
We have what some might consider an unusual approach to financial planning. Meaning, I personally don’t like having bills to pay. Now, you are probably thinking- neither do I! Or anyone else for that matter. But I really don’t like paying bills. So much so, that when the year begins, we don’t have any bills to pay.
To backtrack, we had a few too many Decembers in the past where there was no money left. Where, after what would be considered a successful year, we found ourselves scrambling at the end of the year. Before we figured out how to create multiple income streams and create recurring income, we were in a business that slowed down near the end of the year and too often we found ourselves pinched for cash.
In a bit of humorous desperation, I joked to Elizabeth that I would love to have all of our bills paid for the year before the year even started. She agreed that it would be amazing to be in that spot. How differently would we work if there were no bills to be paid? What would we do differently? What would we stop doing? What would we have the ability to create?
Slowly- actually too slowly- we began implementing that idea. We would take one bill or expense and pay it for the year. Huh, it’s nice to not think about that water bill each month. Then we added another. And then another. As time went on, December felt different. Instead of allowing the finances to creep up on us, we actively went after it. Which means that now, we have started planning in September, October and November to crush our bills for the following year.
As I type this, Elizabeth is in another room paying all of our bills for the upcoming year.
There are finance nerds that will criticize this approach. They will point out all of the mathematical reasons why this isn’t financially sound. We’ve heard them all. We know them all. But math doesn’t hold a candle to freedom.
Because when January 1st arrives, and there are no bills to be paid for the rest of the year and there is a fund set aside for all of our expenses, do you know what we’ll get to do?
Whatever we want.
And that is how we grow our business with minimal stress while making our family our main priority. I ask my clients this question when I work with them. “If your bills were paid for the year but you still had to work- what would you work on or create to make your future better?” More than 90% choose something different than what they are doing right now. So we get to ask ourselves this question every year. And it’s during this time that we decide what we don’t like doing and what we want to eliminate. And it’s during this time that we dream on and create what we want to do next. And with no financial boundaries, we can create whatever we want to create without a fear of failure and without money and time constraints.
In the next few weeks, you will learn more about what we are creating for 2023. I will give you a hint, though. In all of this building, we have now created a low-priced option for our membership. Something where we can charge as little as possible for people who don’t have much money or time to invest. Something where people who resonate with our work- who want to build a business to give them time, money and location freedom- have a place to start in an inexpensive way that doesn’t require them investing a lot of time. We are calling it Total Life Freedom School and it will be incredibly affordable for anyone, including students. We haven’t created anything like this before and we couldn’t be more excited. I spent all of last week recording video lessons for the school.
Having no bills to pay makes each level we create easier to build. Our current income- instead of a percentage of it going towards bills to pay- can be invested towards all of the things we are creating for the future. Which just makes everything grow easier.
So the question that I have for you is this, and it’s a question that I would love for you to think about during this quieter week in our lives. What would you create- or build- if all your bills and expenses were covered for the upcoming year? What is the thing that you would absolutely love to spend your time creating that you currently can’t because you are working to pay your bills week to week and month to month?
When you can answer this question, you know what it is that you truly want to do, regardless of the money that you will make from it. And it’s in those ideas that we not only get the most fulfillment, but also the income to create that life of freedom for ourselves and our family.
Have an amazing, happy and safe end of the year and we will see you in 2023!!
Have an AMAZING day!
Vincent
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