Our life is filled with gifts, whether it’s our driven mind driving us insane while motivating us to be successful or something else.
It’s that something else I want to talk about today, another gift we really want to embrace.
Success is a gift, and it’s one we make ourselves to a certain degree, but where do we want success?
How do we find the right balance of personal and business life?
Today, we’re asking the big question:
Is success a choice?
Yes, success is a choice, but not the one you may think. Choosing success is really choosing to have your cake and eat it too by choosing to leverage your business success to help others around you fulfill their potential and purpose. In this way, you balance personal and business success together.
Let’s wade into the waters of success, my friends, and figure this out.
What Is The Choice?
We’re going to talk about the success choice, business or personal.
You only get to pick one.
You can’t have both.
Remember, you either get good at business or you live a happy, loving, and fulfilled life.
Wait a minute. What? Come on!
Where in the world did this come from?
Why are there these sayings?
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Are you giving me a little nod right now?
I know we can’t see each other.
I love writing to you, but I want to see you shaking your head right now.
You’ve heard the saying: “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
You can’t have your cake and eat it too, right?
Hang on.
I know I might’ve grown up as a short fat kid and maybe I like cake, but here’s what I do know:
Why in the world would I want to have cake if I’m not going to eat it?
I want to challenge you here today because I do believe that you can have your cake and you can eat it too.
You can be happy, and you can be healthy, and you can be wealthy, and you can be wise, and you can have loving relationships, and you can have the dream life that you want and desire as well as deserve.
Doesn’t that sound awesome?
And it all comes from a place of choice and intention.
Do You Believe Success Is A Choice, Kenny?
Yes, I believe it.
I believe you believe it on some level.
When you are told you have to make a choice between business success and or personal success, it doesn’t make sense.
My friend, I want you to honor that disconnect in your world because this saying, this trope Isn’t the only one that’s wrong.
We also have things like:
- Money doesn’t grow on trees.
- You can live where you want to live, or you can make the money that you want to make.
I was told that one very young by a mentor of mine.
Why do I have to choose why I can’t live where I want to live and make the kind of money that I want?
How about this: rich people don’t get into heaven.
Don’t forget that one.
Yes, there’s a scripture that says something like that, but let’s dive into the scripture because you and I might interpret that scripture a little bit differently.
It doesn’t actually mean that.
I want you to just kind of take a step back with me here today and think about these things that are put into our minds.
These sayings may come from a place of truth, but more often than not, they’re warnings. Do rich people really not get into heaven?
Maybe, if they love money more than people, more than honoring their purpose in the world, and more than the positive difference they can make in the lives of people.
Everybody’s doing the best they can.
And I believe my mentor was trying to save me from going down a rabbit hole of fallacy when he told me that you can make the money you want or live where you want to live.
Drain Cleaning At 23
When I first got into the drain cleaning business as a ripe, young 23-year-old entrepreneur, I had a different mentor that said:
“You know, you’ll make a living, but you’ll never get wealthy with this thing.”
Perhaps the way that that business was set up at that moment in time wasn’t necessarily a wealth track.
However, it was the next step in my journey of wealth in the world.
And I don’t mean well from an income statement or a balance sheet standpoint.
I’m talking about wealth meaning living the life that I want to live where I want to live and living with who I want to and surrounding myself with the team that I want to be surrounded by.
That’s what I’m talking about when I say living wealthy.
So why do we have to choose to think about these questions that come up?
- Either you’re going to be healthy or you’re going to be wealthy.
- If you’re going to be profitable, then you’re not going to be likable in business.
- You’ll have a culture of accountability, or you’ll be a people-driven people, growth, focus culture.
- You can’t be accountable and grow people.
What’s up with that?
These “beliefs” pounded into us by the world and by other “successful” people are a myth.
It’s a false choice.
To find success in your personal and business life you first need to realize what the real truth is.
Everyone Is Searching For Happiness Or Wealth
As I was prepping for our time together here today, I went ahead and typed into Google: “happiness over wealth.”
Guess how many results come back?
49 million.
49 million responses about why it’s important to choose happiness over being wealthy.
I personally believe that is insanity.
And I believe that it’s easier to blame the outside world, those around you, your team, the economy, God, whoever and whatever you want to blame for not living your greatest life.
It’s easier to buy into the myth that you have to choose between the two and miss out on the greatest opportunity that you have to become the very best version of yourself that you were put on this planet to become.
You may also enjoy how to overcome mediocrity.
Money Can’t Buy Happiness
We have to address another saying:
Well, you know, Kenny, money can’t buy happiness.
That’s another one that we’ve heard.
I’ll give that to you. Money might not be able to make you happy.
However, I’ll also say one of my buddies, Joe Polish, talks about money.
Money can’t buy happiness, but the last time I checked, poverty can’t buy anything.
Poverty doesn’t buy anything.
And I’m not talking about being rich as important or more so than being poor is going to be fulfilling.
That’s not what we’re here to talk about, but here’s what’s interesting.
There’s a study done by Elizabeth Dunn that talked about how money can’t buy happiness.
Here’s what’s really fascinating.
They actually concluded the money can, yes, it can buy happiness so long as the money is spent on someone else.
Now, check that.
Be mindful with me here for a moment, money can buy happiness as long as it is being spent on someone else.
Think about that.
You want to grow an empire; you want to scale your business.
Guess what?
You need to pay your team a lot of money.
You need to help people accomplish their goals in their dreams.
And yet a lot of the world is challenged by that.
What if you’re accumulating wealth and giving people good things at the same time?
What if you’re investing in your team?
Are you continuing to grow those around you?
Where’s The Balance?
Leverage your wealth to find your happiness and help those around you.
You know, I’ve had many businesses in many different industries, but one thing is always at the core: I run people, development companies, period.
The products have changed.
The markets have changed.
I’m not in the same area, but I am in the process of developing people.
No matter what my companies are both internally and externally, therefore, as I become wealthy I become happier because I’m doing something fulfilling by working with people.
It actually makes me happy.
Why?
Because I am investing my wealth into the greater good of humanity.
With that comes what I would call success:
Happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise.
I feel fulfillment, engagement, enjoyment, passion, love, gratitude, empathy, and all of these incredible things, right?
Check out how to avoid regretting the past.
More Money, More Happiness, Right?
Here’s what’s fascinating about the study that they did, though.
This is what I want you to think about your own situation.
If some money will make me happy because I can spend it on others, then maybe a lot of money will make me really happy because I’ll spend a lot of money on other people.
Here’s what was fascinating.
In this study, they started by giving people $5, $10, $15.
They did different combinations up to $20.
Everybody that spent money on other people became happier, but they all became happier at the same level.
No matter whether the people got $5 or $20 to spend on somebody else, their level of happiness increased at the same amount.
I want you to think about what that looks like and start really challenging your limiting beliefs, challenging the limiting contracts that you’ve built with yourself around money or around wealth that influence you.
It really helps you become more influential in the world if you have the means to do so.
What does that mean?
You can:
- Give your church more money.
- Give shelters more money.
- Create greater causes, greater goods.
- Take trips to go do missionary work.
Is Success A Choice? It’s An Action.
If that’s what you want, whatever it is, there’s nothing wrong with you leveling up your game.
As a leader, you became a leader for a reason.
You’re in this space for a reason.
Say yes to your greatest self and the gifts that God gave you actually makes the world a better place.
You can have your cake and eat it too.
I want you to start accepting it.
Ask yourself: “why would I want cake if I can’t eat it?”
What are you going to do?
Just stare at the cake?
This is what’s happening when you choose business or personal happiness.
You’re getting a ton of cake and just letting it sit there.
What the heck? That makes no sense.
This is about reinventing.
Entitlement Is A Gift And A Curse
What do you think about “cake” in your life?
Here’s something that will blow you away.
I’m going to talk about entitlement for a moment.
Those of you that know me, know I’m not a big fan of entitlement.
I believe that we all should work for certain things.
I believe that there’s no entitlement other than you were born and you get an opportunity to play this game alive.
However, here’s what’s fascinating.
I am going to tell you that you are entitled today.
My friend, you are entitled to the life that you want to live.
You are entitled to the greatness that you have within you.
You are entitled to have, do, and be everything that you desire in your life.
That’s your entitlement. And that’s where it stops.
You have the power and the responsibility to use it, own it, grab it by the horns.
My friend, let’s make this life something that you truly want, desire, and deserve.
Final Thoughts
Stop saying no to yourself.
Is success a choice? Yes!
Can you balance your personal and business life? Yes!
I get you, though, my friends.
You are afraid to go after it.
You think you might not succeed or won’t be able to attain it.
Is the risk even worth the reward?
These are questions that you have to ask yourself.
My responsibility here at Leadership In A Nutshell is to challenge you to challenge yourself. We’re cracking the code of the driven mind, and the driven mind may tell you that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Choose success, true success.
I want you to be challenged by that.
I want you to start asking better questions, so you get better answers in your life.
It’s time to say yes.
As Les Brown taught me, you’ve got greatness in you.
I want to see more of it.
My friends, I pick both personal and business success.
I hope you will too.
If you know someone you want to be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise, share this post with them.
Until next time, make it a better-than-fantastic day!