Get Off The Treadmill Podcast

The SBA tells us 50% of businesses fail in five years, but my experience is only about 1% (or less) actually fail due to outside circumstances. The other 49% experience something that was entirely avoidable. If you ask small business owners why they might go out of business, they will tell you they need a loan, or the market is just collapsing, the economy sucks, they can't find good people, or the competition is burying them. We'll show you owners who have thrived in the face of all these obstacles because they avoided the one thing that actually will put you out of business. Circumstances don't make me who I am. How I respond to them does. This one response makes all the difference.

In this episode of the Get Off The Treadmill podcast, host Chuck Blakeman sits down with Scott Graves, co-founder and CEO of Alignment Financial Advisors, to dive deep into Chapter 3 of Chuck’s acclaimed book, Making Money Is Killing Your Business. This chapter, "The Way Off the Business Treadmill," offers a transformative blueprint for shifting from business overwhelm to a life of balance and fulfillment.

Scott Graves, whose journey from public school band teacher to successful financial advisor serving over 1,500 households, reveals how Chuck’s insights have reshaped his approach to business. 

Key Takeaways:

• Structured Approach: Learn how Scott used the chapter’s strategies to streamline his decision-making process, easing the strain of managing his business.
• Growth Stages: Scott highlights how understanding the outlined business growth stages gave him clarity on his current position and future aspirations.
• Mindset Shift: Hear about Scott’s epiphany regarding the importance of intentional planning and setting clear goals to ensure the business serves him, rather than the other way around.
• Balancing Act: Scott shares practical advice on achieving a harmonious balance between financial success and personal time, emphasizing that it’s indeed possible with persistence and a solid support network.

How did one business owner move from working 55 hours a week to working 16 hours a week and make exponentially more personal income? 95% of business owners find out at some point that they have built themselves a job and are hostages to their businesses. How do we build a Mature Business that regularly produced both money AND time for us, not just money? It's not for the smart or the lucky, but for the intentional. You get what you intend, not what you hope for. What result are you intending from your business - this year? Five years from now? When you're done. Learn the power and Clarity of being intentional about what YOU want not what your customers, the market your business wants. 

1. Visioning the End Goal: Discover how starting with the end in mind can reshape your business strategy, leading to clearer objectives and better decision-making.
2. The Power of Clarity: Allison shares her journey from overwhelm to empowerment, revealing how clarity about her desired business outcome transformed her approach to planning and execution.
3. Delegation and Freedom: Learn about the importance of delegating tasks to free up time and energy for higher-level strategic thinking—crucial for any business owner.
4. Practical Tools for Success: Mark and Allison discuss the effective use of a two-page strategic plan, breaking down annual goals into quarterly and monthly actionable steps, ensuring consistent progress.
5. Overcoming Roadblocks: Explore the challenges Allison faced, from feelings of overwhelm to maintaining focus, and how she navigated these obstacles to achieve her goals.
6. Creating Momentum: Understand how small wins lead to bigger successes and how momentum can drastically reduce your to-do list while increasing overall productivity.

It's easy to spend thirty years of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, scarcity and abundance, always reacting to the good or bad times that seem to be happening to us, not because of us.  Because we feel dragged along by our business, we can't wait to sell it some fool who will do it all over again for another thirty years. Is it any wonder we're tired? This podcast shares examples of people who learned how to be proactive about the right things, ignore others, make decisions based on the long-term gain, and get off the business treadmill. It's the difference between laying bricks, making a wall, or building a cathedral. Which one are you doing? Let's get off the Roller Coaster Treadmill of Business, and find Freedom IN our business, not FROM it.