This morning I was in the car with my daughter and couldn’t help but start crying, my daughter instantly got worried and asked me why I was crying like a crazy lady. Fair call for a 7-year-old whose Mum starts sobbing without warning.
I tried to explain to her they were happy tears, like, no really, not sad, HAPPY TEARS.
The truth is, these were really tears of utter joy, elation and ‘holy-eff-i-did’ it because today was the day I got rewarded for winning my own race.
15 minutes before all-the-kinds-of tears started I’d just picked the keys up to my new house.
For ten years straight every morning I woke up having dreamed about this house and every night I went to bed knowing it would be there again in my dreams.
It was in a beautiful country like setting, on acreage, with horses and ocean views. A rare luxury to have 30 minutes from the centre of Sydney, but I have always believed I could have it all, even on the days my faith wavered I stepped outside and reminded myself of my ‘why’, took a deep breath and went back inside to try again.
Even when I was in my darkest PND days, even when I was fired from a soul-destroying 9-5 job, even when we struggled just to get by on one income and even when everyone laughed at me and said I’d never make it, even on the days I felt lost and had no idea how I was going to make it happen, even on the days I was a shit mum because I chose to work instead of spend time with my children, even on the days I stayed home and worked instead of going to social events, even on the days I fought with my husband, even on the days I got totally pissed off and impatient that it hadn’t happened yet, I still, deep down, knew tomorrow could be the day it all happened. Work-life balance.
To say that I have sacrificed in order to get to this point would be an understatement. But, as I listen to my children running down the halls, giggling and excited to go swimming in the pool with me about to join them after I finish this blog, I know in my heart, there was no other path for me and every hard moment, every tear, every second of stress, every minute I spent working was worth it because it filled my ‘why’
I had architectured this exact moment through determination, discipline and motivation and what I know for sure is, if you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.
This morning as I collected the keys to my house, the agent chatted away about what a beautiful house it is and I reflected on how exactly it was that I got to this point.
The major turning point was when I became a student of learning how to stop trading time for money and instead trade value.
It was when I decided to wrap up my website, design and business skills and streamline, automate and outsource them into a package that I had seen immense demand for. I matched my package with an undercurrent of desire I had to help other Mums become successful in running their own online business so they could escape the 9-5 grind and live a life of freedom and profit just like me.
Trading time for money means you and your income will always have a ceiling. A cap. A max out. A can ‘go no more’
Have you stopped to consider if that max out is aligned with your dreams, visions and goals?
To break it down, there are on 24 hours in a day with only approx 8-10 hours to trade for an income. If you earn $50 an hour then you are going to cap out once you hit your time limit. So the key is to work smarter, instead of harder so we can 10 x the income we get within that same timeframe, or even better, within a smaller timeframe.
It Starts With Mindset
Firstly, everything starts with your mindset. I always believed my house was possible even when I got those ‘yeah right’ looks as I told people of my dream. Sure, there were moments where I wondered whether I really was ever going to make it happen but I always reminded myself I didn’t have to know how it was going to happen, I just had to know it was going to happen.
Instead of feeling stressed out that there are not enough hours in the day to start and run your business, flip your thoughts and feelings to knowing you will find the answers and you will work it out.
When we drop the mindset that says that in order to make money, we have to trade our time for it, our minds open up to the possibilities. There’s no rule that says that to make X dollars, we have to work X hours. In fact, it’s more important to spend time “un-learning” the old than “learning” the new.
Trade Value, Not Time
Traditionally we will trade one hour of our time for a set rate. Whether it be $20 or $300 we will still max out. Once we understand the strengths and value we can bring to others, we next need to build expertise around it. For example, every now and again I will get comments from people who say they can DIY their own business or website or logo instead of using our services, and that is totally true – I ain’t disagreeing with that.
But, here is the thing. Business Jump provides the most value in all of the intangible ways you might not even realise.
We create transformations, we create new opportunities, we create new lives, we create freedom, we open our clients up to a new way of doing business, hell, I even had one beautiful client tell me that because of Business Jump they are able to have a third child. Just, amaze.
So, think about trading value for money, not time. Think about what value you can create for other people, and how you can deliver that value. What assets, skills, knowledge, connections or ideas do you have that people value? Recognise your strengths and competency, then go all-in.
Choose Your Income Streams Wisely
To stop trading time for money, create an offer that you can sell and deliver without having to be there the majority of the time. Create it once, sell it an infinite amount of times type thing.
A powerful way to do this is to create an online product — an e-book, e-course, mastermind, membership program, online directory, digital products, downloadable products, marketplaces, apps, etc.
The reason why an online product can be powerful is that you can create it once, then focus the rest of your time on selling it. Yes, you’ll have to improve and optimise the product, but those tasks will happen on your own time and most importantly it affords you the time to spend working largely on the income producing tasks, not the sucky boring crap that doesn’t yield any profit or growth.
Some people refer to this as passive income, some people (like me) refer to it as highly automated income streams but here is the thing I want to be real with you about. Whatever you call it, it is not an overnight pill to success, you’ll need to embrace upfront work, in exchange for self-sustaining freedom and profit down the road. Front-load your workload. Passive income isn’t something-for-nothing, it is about planting seeds today, so you can harvest freedom for the rest of your life.
Automate Everything
Figure out a way to automate and systemise everything you can in your business. My business is largely serviced based with a few various other income streams so most would be surprised to learn that approx 60% of my service based offerings are outsourced to my amazing team or automated and this is how my business affords me freedom. It is so empowering and life changing once you nail it and I find true job in sharing this message and the mechanics of how-to with my clients and Business Jump Tribe Mastermind members.
The real power kicks in because essentially what this allows me/you to do is always be working in my Zone of Genius. Your Zone of Genius is where all your strengths hang out and are the tasks that come easiest to you. Be gone stressed out head scratching. For me, it is business strategy, creating content and growing the business – all the income producing tasks. My team largely take care of the rest.
Do More of What’s Working
It is a common thread in conversation that people think that business has to be complicated and that they need some secret method that you can only buy on the black market with your left lung. The truth is, the formula to success is actually a lot more simple than people realise, and scaling back instead of adding more generally leads to faster growth. So instead of spreading yourself too thin doing 1001 tasks, define what’s working in your business, find where you are getting the best results from and add them to the cool kids club, then become a master in those tasks and test, measure and scale.
