Man executes 80/20, then freaks out a little

Congrats! That’s awesome. Now go fill your life with the good things that you love. Tim Ferriss talked about this phenomenon in “4 Hour Work Week”. You have to fill up your time once you cut out all the BS.
Enjoy the Journey. I’m very happy for you.

Congratulations Sir!

Now, go take a long vacation!

Working less and getting paid more is what it is all about.

Congratulations on implementing 80:20 and executing same.

I am in the process of doing exactly the same.

Continued Success,

Ray K.
Toronto, Canada

Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

Dear Mr L,
While you have the time (ie before you re-immerse yourself in loads of work you hate), join the next level of Perry’s groups (roundtable?) and surround yourself with the people that have been there/done that and will challenge you to jump curves again. Don’t get hung up on keeping those old clients, maybe you can come up with a product offering that is a fit for them and keeps you from back-tracking, maybe not. But the roundtable sounds like the place to get the right advice to me.
[qualifier: this advice comes from a future roundtable member... lol... who is currently taking the steps you describe. I will be following this blog post closely]
-Philip

I think the answer depends on the absolute figures behind this percentages:

“my client base is down 23%; revenue is up 43%”

Taking it to the extreme, if you’ve gone from 4 customers to 3, even though your revenues are higher you are in a riskier position, as losing any of the remaining 3 customers could put your business in jeopardy.

Whereas, if you’ve gone from 200 to 144 clients, not only you still have a big enough customer base as to be confident about your future, but you’ve somehow separated the wheat from the chaff, and increased your profitability.

Just relax, enjoy your improved revenue stream and… congratulations!!

Ditto HS Jenkins or spend some more time with the family, take a vacation…

No advice, just two questions:

1. What do you want to do next, professionally?

2. What do you want to do more of (or for the first time), personally?

You obviously have hit on doing what provides the most value. Continue to focus on that. When you provide higher value, your client base will grow. You will be attracting your idea client and by providing higher value to them, your income will continue to grow.

No need to freak out, just stay focused on providing what a select number of clients find extremely valuable.

Gee, if I were only in that situation I would …. ummm … perhaps really focus on finding the commonalities of the customers you retained to find key points of engagement. And then look at the ones you lost to see why they weren’t a fit – helping you avoid attracting more like them (or modifying your offering to capture them as well). It seems you have plenty of time to do this analysis while still working on lowering your golf handicap or smelling the flowers.

To be honest, this sounds as if you didn’t have much of a life outside business. You were so focused on success that success when it comes isn’t what you wanted. Enjoying the chase is one thing, becoming addicted to it is quite another. I am afraid that you won’t be the only one who has your problems if they implement 80-20 as well as you have – after all, it’s a great reason not to.

So my advice is to revisit your childhood – your dreams and your wishes. Work out which ones you can deal with in the next twelve months and start enjoying them. Treat them like a business to start with, apply the 80-20 you are so good at! Start knocking them off, you’ll always find more dreams to realize. Once you become good at making them real, you’ll realize that life has a lot to offer right now without any need for dreams.

Oh, and your wife’ll appreciate you being around too.

The ski areas have gotten about 30 inches of snow in the last two weeks here in Colorado. Get away from your biz completely for a week or so doing something very different and give your mind a break. Wen you come back you’ll see it with different eyes. As someone else said, you can add to your current business, or expand into something else where you see opportunities.

Congratulations Mr. L. Stay Focussed and keep doing what you are doing even to a higher degree. As One of the comments above, I agree, take a vacation. be with the Family, then plan to attend one of Perry’s top of the line corses like 4man Intensive.

Thanks for showing us it works.
Gerald

Congrats to you! I, too am facing some “weird” things after going through the second level of 80/20. It requires some adjustment, eh?

Why don’t you pull out your dream list and dust it off (all those things you want to do someday when you have the time) and take action towards getting them into motion?

Enjoy your newfound freedom as well!

Be vigilant! It can creep back in, in spades!

I’d say, take a breath, then take a break. Sounds like you earned it. {I took a week off and still checked in for a couple of hours from the ski lodge over wifi each day…was just as productive}

Plus I bet you’ll come back from the break more focused and even less prepared to put up with any crap from anyone, cos the power you’ve developed will ‘bed-in’.

Be sure to let us all know where you go on vacation

{and share the pictures}.

You are experiencing the peach seed effect. A peach seed is one of the toughest seeds for rain and other elements to break through but once it does and that seed starts to grow, it bears one of my favorite fruits. Life can in fact be peaches and cream, it’s just not peaches and cream getting there. Congrats! And most important, don’t rest on your laurels and new found success. It’s a lot easier to lose it than it was to gain it. Time to look for more hidden opportunities.

Not too many of the comments so far have addressed the uneasiness Mr. L is feeling–and I think that’s key.

It reminds me of an online exercise I once saw called “the prosperity game.” It worked like this: Every day you would get an email that said, “Congratulations, the universe has rewarded you with $1,000. What will you do with it?” The next day’s email was $2,000, then 3, then 4, 5, 10, 15, 20… You had to make a list and detail how you would spend every dollar of that money. The takeaway was that most people, after they’ve paid off their plastic and car and house, simply don’t know what to do with the bounty of the universe. They get uneasy, they say “I don’t know what to do,” … sound like Mr. L?

Or take any random lottery mega-winner. It’s not “bad luck” or “a curse” that makes some of them end up right where they started within five years.

Mr. L, you have an opportunity to sit down with your family and determine what your values are, and how your new-found time and money can be used to support those values. Clarify this, and I suspect your unmoored feeling will be replaced by purpose.

Our family decided several years ago that we were tired of living on the bleeding edge of our credit limits, in a crappy house, in a crappy neighborhood. We used David Bach’s technique–google “david bach values circle” and read the PDF called “determine the true purpose of money in your life”–but there are plenty of other paths to the same goal.

We each made a list of what money means to us, we aligned our common goals, and then we examined how our daily life was or was not supporting those goals and values. This exercise led to IMMEDIATE, LONG-LASTING changes in our everyday lives. We did some housekeeping (Do you have a will, Mr. L? What about life insurance?), we started paying attention to how we were using money, and we made a “five-year plan” to pay off our plastic, purchase our car, and buy a better house in a better neighborhood (which would mean better schools for our kids, a better commute for us, etc.) We actually did it in something less than two years.

Socrates said: The unexamined life is not worth living. Examine what your new security and time really mean to you, what you really want to do with them, and then go do it!

We’re rooting for you.

How funny you say that – I’m in the exact same place!!! I spent all of last week being weirded out and exhausted; finally now I’m adjusted to this new place and loving it!

My advice would be to give yourself a day or two to regroup. You just need to reset your dials for where you are now. You said it, yourself – you’re so used to being in 2nd gear, you don’t know how to handle it in 4th.

Gain this new identity of yourself as a happier, wealthier, more leveraged person. Shouldn’t take you too long to adapt; it’s a lot more fun here ; )

And CONGRATS!!!

: )

Feedback Mr. Marshall? Sure! What you’re describing is deeply unsettling. I’ve experienced it too. You get so accustomed to fighting fires and staying on the tread mill that it becomes normal.

And then when it’s gone, without a new crisis to occupy you, it’s deeply unsettling and leads to insecurity and doubt.

You fear you’re missing the big picture and disaster is right around the corner. Happily, that’s not a bad instinct. Disaster is always right around the corner….but now you’ve the time to see him coming, head him off, avoid him, or convert him into success.

The only thing worse than having this mild paranoia is not having it.

Great problem to have. Now, you need to think about ways to shrink your client base some more. The more you decrease the number of clients you work with while increasing what it takes to be a client of your business, the faster you will grow. And you can use some of the extra time you have to identify new business opportunities. One of the challenges of having too much to do (pre-80\20) is finding time to acquire new business…now you don’t have that problem. And sure, have some fun too!

I have to admit, I’m a little annoyed at your comments. Grow up and start enjoying what you have accomplished. I am working my butt off to achieve what you have already done and I don’t have anywhere near the time or resources you have.

You always have to ask yourself is the squeeze worth the juice?

Start doing the dishes, fold some laundry, take out the trash and stop being so selfish. hahaha

Go buy a set of golf clubs. You will experience all of the misery that is missing in your life. Invite the clients you no longer have if you really miss them.

Now it’s time to “give back” to the community. Volunteer for the SCORE program to act as a mentor to small business people stuck with the same problems that you learned how to overcome. (SCORE helped me learn about business.)

What a brilliant analogy:

“It’s like I was in 2nd gear for years, and now I’m in 4th. More speed, less RPM.”

That is such a powerful statement. Working hard and getting nowhere!

I bet most people can relate to that. I can. I need to move up a few gears I think I’m still in 1st…

Perry – thanks for sharing that – I’ll never forget it!

My advice to Mister L is keep going in the same direction and you’ll soon move up to ‘Top Gear’ – you’ll soon get used to it.

I want to reiterate what Kathy said about these comments not addressing the root of your uneasiness.

Look, this is new territory for you ‘L’ and you’re going to feel uncomfortable simply because you’ve stepped outside of your comfort zone. Give yourself time to readjust to your founded reality and become easy with your uneasiness. And that’s it, plain and simple.

Everyone is telling you what you should be wanting to do. The problem, however, as I see it, is that there may be some underlying issue that is keeping you from enjoying your newfound freedom for life.

It seems like so many people feel guilty about having free time, that if things come too easily, they aren’t “earning” their way or paying their dues. They are stuck in society’s “doing, doing, doing” loop and not allowed to enjoy being in the now and present.

Another issue that could be blocking you might have something to do with self-worth. Some of the most confident, successful people still sometimes have deep, deep underlying issues with feeling worthy about their success and happiness. Perry has touched on this phenomenon as well.

Or maybe you are an adrenaline junkie with some deep-seated hole or void you’ve been trying to fill with always doing, doing, doing.

Or, are there some fears that are keeping you in a place of lack, that make you feel if you don’t keep doing, doing, doing, it could all be taken away from you tomorrow?

I would find someone to talk with (I believe Perry even has a workshop on this currently that would be right up your alley) who can help you pinpoint and identify what the underlying issues are so you can start clearing away those cobwebs and begin allowing yourself to enjoy the success you’e clearly achieved. You have the God-given right to enjoy LIFE, not just work, work, work.

Mr. L,

I bought the Perry Marshall Platinum marketing system QUITE a few years back… and his adwords book, whitepaper course, and a few other very useful courses and seminars and implemented them. I did a few 1-1 consults where Perry set me straight and ‘unjammed’ me from my sticking points… MOST of which are covered in the 80-20 course, so what you are getting the last 2 months are a SPECTACULAR value.

The exact same thing happened to me… I went from working all the time and killing myself (I made a really good living, but was miserable… and I often had to put off my wife, at the time, beg me to take trips with her and my boys because I didn’t have time) to ‘all of a sudden’ Making more money and start a second and then third business and having a huge amount of time off, WHEN I WANTED TO! I still do a lot of work, but on my terms now.

RE-EVALUATE your life!!! Talk to your loved ones about that they and you want to happen in it… More work/stress/money wasn’t even in my top 5… or my kids’ so we decided to go LIVE!!!

Reevaluate.

I did. Now I spend EVERY other weekend with them hiking, snowboarding, biking, golfing and having the best memories ever with them.

and I did a personal bucket list for myself too! So I also take time for myself and travel on the weekends, bungee jump, skydive, golf, go enjoy the best meals in the PNW and do almost anything else I want to in my free time including Salsa dancing, SPA days and BJJ…

Be underwhelmed! it is much better than the alternative.

Jade

Wow great story. Well done! Yes it’s funny how we’re programmed to believe we ought to be doing the things we hate. There can be a strange satisfaction in knowing that your “working hard”.

Sounds like some inner head trash work would help you to let yourself off the hook and enjoy some free time. I can highly recommend Perry’s Financial Sozo course – its all about giving yourself permission to have abundance in your life. I got some major epiphanies in just the first video of the course.

http://www.perrymarshall.com/financial/

Onwards and upwards!

Michael

Based on the writings of Perry and the book The Four Hour Work Week, I would say you have made it. Like many of ys, you probably have a very strong work ethic and are troubled with earning money without “working” for it. While many of the comments above talked about more leisure, I doubt you would like this. My suggestion would be to investige new business opportunities. This can be done very cheaply and quickly by following Perry’s advice in his book The Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords. Here he talks about doing quick market research with Adwords. You might be able to find something you never considered before. Good luck.

Hmm… maybe the clients who left kept you in your comfort zone – who you ( thought? ) you were in the past.

And new you need to get used to operating on different level.

Hi L,

Take a vacation. Learn to enjoy non-working life. Don’t be a workaholic. Be with your spouse more (if you have one) and your kids (if you have them). Go out with friends. If you don’t have a spouse then date. Read a book. Have fun!

Hey Kathy…

Great reply. Thanks for the insight.

Mr L,
Not an advise… but a big question!!
How did you do it?
Apmis

Everyone here is telling you to relax and take a vacation, but at least consider the possibility that you are one of those people for whom, like Noel Coward, “work is more fun than fun.”

So, start doing five times as much as you are now, either things like what’s working well for you, or entirely new and different things – NOT the crap you were doing before.

Then after an appropriate period review and cut out 80%. Repeat the process. And repeat again. And again.