Is It Ever Enough? A Conversation About Striving for More

Kyle: Before we get into today's episode, I want to tell you about our partner, Jobtread. If you're still running your business on a mix of spreadsheets and sticky notes and a software tool that doesn't quite do everything you need, Jobtread might be exactly what you're looking for. It's an all-in-one construction management platform, estimating proposals, scheduling, job costing, I love job costing, invoicing, client communication, all in one place. What I love about it is how it helps you close more deals faster with professional proposals. It keeps your team on the same page. So jobs stay on time and on budget, and you actually know your numbers so you can protect your profit margins. JobTread has been named the number one construction estimating software two years running. We have a ton of our Remodlers on the Rise clients who love it. And if you've been looking for a way to get organized and grow with confidence, head to JobTread.com. dot com and check it out. Jobtread.com. All right, let's get into today's episode. All right, we're going sometimes. Sometimes I have a very organized methodical outline for the podcast. If I have a guest, I have very specific questions that we lead through. Sometimes I do almost some trainings on these when I'm doing kind of a solo show and I've got maybe even slides in front of me to keep me organized. Other times, it is just straight riffin, R-I-F-F, comma ing-n-g. I think is how you would spell that. Just riffin. And that's what that's what today is. I actually had a on my on my docket to do a leadership focused podcast. And I was looking at the notes and I'm like, yeah, this is good stuff, but I think I'm gonna do that in a few weeks. And instead I was hearkening. Never used that word in a long time. Was hearkening back. most of the time when people say the word hearken, they're hearkening back to their youth or their childhood or years ago. I was just hearkening back like 12 hours to a conversation from the previous day. I was on a one-on-one, that's what I want to riff on today. I was on a one-on-one call. I think we're probably like six meetings in, maybe a little more than that. So we've gotten to know this new client of mine a bit at this point. I like how open he is to feedback. He's ready to learn. I see that he's implementing and he asks good questions. He is kind of getting under the surface of things. And we had three minutes left in our in our time yesterday. usually I don't have a super hard break, but I had a hard break because it's summertime and there's some kids that need to be run to and fro. I had to take our our son Calvin to drumline practice. And this client of mine with three minutes left goes, Hey, I have another topic that I just wanted to get kind of your thoughts from and brainstorm together. And he said this. Is it ever enough? Is it ever enough? At what point is it, all right, business person, chill a little bit, relax a little bit? And I said, You're you're gonna bring that beautiful, wonderful, amazing thought process and questions up. And we only have three minutes left. So we ended up going a little over time. Plus, then I just picked up the phone and called him while Calvin and I were driving to Drumline. What a great question. Is it ever enough? One of the first questions I asked back, because to answer that question, you need to ask a lot of questions. I said, How old are you again? And he said, I'm 35. And here I'm sitting at 43. the way that I was thinking at 35 is different than 43. If you're listening to this and you're older, if you're listening to this and you're younger, you know, that's that's of note. And sometimes our answer to these big picture questions. could be different based on our age and our experience and the season of life that we're in. And he even kind of hinted at it as we started to unpack. He goes, it's probably different for everybody, isn't it? it's probably depending on a lot of situations, isn't it? And the answer to that is yes. But this question, especially as entrepreneurs, majority of you listening to this are business owners, our entrepreneurs, and we are a unique bunch. We have this innate desire to grow and to build. And then because we're business owners, we get in our feeds all kinds of business coaching and marketing and branding that talks about bigger being better. And if you're not, and we hear and read books like if you're not growing, you're dying. And frankly, when you start your business, you have a lot to build. It is growth, growth, growth. It is okay, what's next? What do I implement now? How do I figure out my financials? What about my sales process? I guess I should start charging for design and project development. So I need to learn how that works. You know, I've just relied on word of mouth. I need to develop a real marketing plan. Holy cow, I'm growing my business. I've got to hire people. Who do I hire? And we go through this whole process in kind of phase one, phase two, phase three as you're growing your business. A lot of times in those early stages, you're sitting there going, when I can make X amount of money, then things can kind of calm down. And then we hit that X amount of money and then we move the goalposts. Some of you are saying, I do that a lot. I've done that over the years. once we get there, then it's time to take the foot off the gas. Then you know our Got a lot of the financial side of things and a lot of our family goals in place there. We can kind of take the foot off the gas. And then, as entrepreneurs, we tend to just move the goalpost a bit and slide that out a little bit more to continue to grow and grow and more and more. And we live in a culture that is so in our face about grow, grow, more, more. The good life is just around the corner. The good life is just over that hill. Says who? Says who. So, this question of is it ever enough? I'm going to share from my vantage point of my own personal kind of ongoing journey of that and just kind of share some other things that come to mind, some client examples that come to mind on this on this topic. It's a great topic. It is something that we need to be grappling with. Is it ever enough? Is it okay to just kind of say, all right, let's chill? For each of us, there's all kinds of seasons, the shifts with the seasons. But one little bit of a diagnostic question might be something like this. Is your business supporting the life that you want to live? That's a great diagnostic question to kind of start with a little bit here. Cause if the answer to that is, well, my business is super stressful. And while financially it is very helpful and good and going well, my own physical health-wise, not going well. My my stress level, not going well. My ability to be fully present with my family, not going well. Is it ever enough? At what point do you kind of go, all right, chill? I think it's helpful to kind of start with, let's just evaluate what's going on right now. And some of you listening to this haven's slowed down enough to evaluate how the business is supporting your life? Is it going well? Is it not going well? And really being honest with yourself about that. So that's one area that I kind of start with. I was talking to this client yesterday on this topic, and I said, you know, super great topic. We're going to need to spend a full meeting on it. And I kind of immediately went to just my own personal experience and saying, you know, I have not always succeeded at this, but I knew right from the get-go that success in business cannot come at the expense of success at home. If I become a really this was early on, those early, I've been in business for 18 years, that first three, four, five, six, seven, eight years. If my business grew and thrived and produced revenue and take-home pay and net profit that I could kind of only dream about when I started my business. And if it came at the expense of my relationship with my wife, with Sarah, then I'm a total failure in my eyes. I put that on a pedestal. I put my marriage and in particular that on a pedestal of going, I'm not going to develop a business where I'm traveling all the time, where I'm not at home, where I'm not able to be there. I purposefully strategically designed things to make sure that that was contained and that didn't get out of hand. It was a really important thing for me. I wanted to really, really focus hard. And again, this ebbs and flows. There's seasons. There's times where I've worked my ever loving face off. There's times where I worked deep into the night. There's times where I woke up at 4 a.m. We're business owners. That happens. But when you pull out and you look at the bigger picture, if that's normal, that's not sustainable. So let's not get caught up in, you know, a season here, a couple days here, a week or two there, a month there. Let's look at the big picture. But get clear with what you want, what success looks like in in your own life. Again, I'm riffing. I don't have any notes in front of me. So it might I might be jumping a little bit to and fro here. But you know, I look at that and go, man, if my business overtakes my life. This is not going to be good. And I have really worked diligently at making sure that I was present for my kids, that I don't miss things, that I drop them off at school in the morning. The reason I drop my kids off at school in the morning is because my wife likes to sleep in or not like rush out and get ready. And I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna design my business and my start times and everything around that. It's doable. so so think about that. I don't. What does what does success look like for you in the here, in the here and now? And also a little bit of kind of the vision and check in on how you're doing with that. And if it's not going well, you need to slow down a certain area, take your foot off the gas a little bit, and you need to put that entrepreneurial focus and effort and tenacity and skill at improving whatever area is suffering, whether it be Your role as a mom or dad, whether it be in your marriage, whether it be in your health, whether it be in your hobbies, whether it be in your faith, whatever the case might be. Okay. All right. Let me re let me regroup here a bit. Is it ever enough? Is it ever enough? I don't know. I don't know. I know that for me, that I can fall into the love of money very easily. The Bible that I read quite often talks quite a bit about the money side of things. And I need to guard against that. I need to guard my heart against that. I want to be generous. I want to give a lot of money, but I can easily kind of flip into my security and my comfort and my anxiousness and my nerves and everything all relate to the money side. That's not healthy either. So I've had to guard against that. There there's there were numbers in my head early on in my business that I that I said, boy, if I ever get to that type of level of income, sick. Six figures of personal income, that would be amazing. And then it turned into 150, then it turned into 200, then it turns into whatever else. More financial security does help with stress level. More financial security does help in a lot of areas. You might want to save for retirement, you want to save for college, you want to be able to do certain things, go on trips. Absolutely. But I think a lot of us are like more, more, more, more. Be careful with that. Be careful with that. We need to find some contentment. We need to make sure that we're not trying to do things in a super short time frame, which adds all kinds of pressure against needing to extract more money and grow faster. A lot of times it's wiser to grow a little bit slower and to do things in a more reasonable fashion. Back to the original question. Is it ever enough? Is it ever enough? What a great question. Hmm. Yeah, this riffing I'm I'm riffing here. let me let me actually pause here. This is a great time for a quick commercial break. Cassie, editor of the podcast, producer of the podcast, toss one of those in there. I want to tell you about our partner, JobTread. One of the things that separates a good remodeling company from a great one is the client experience. And JobTread helps you deliver that. With JobTread, your clients get their own online portal. They can see job documents, communications, invoices, photos, everything in one place. No more digging through email threads or texts trying to find that one file. Plus e-signatures and online payments built right in. It makes your business look more professional and it makes your clients feel more confident and informed throughout their project. Jobtread is built for remodelers, home builders, and contractors of all sizes. They are outstanding. If you want to level up the experience you're giving your clients, check out jobtread.com. Okay. Thank you for that. All right. Few few other thoughts. Is it is it enough? Think about, I'm going to ask just these questions. Maybe you pause it. Maybe one of these is going to resonate with you. Where do you find your peace? Where do you find your contentment? Have you considered those things lately? How can you be a little bit while still striving to be excellent in your business and perhaps to grow your business? How can you also find contentment? I am pretty convinced that. There are a lot of filthy rich people who are miserable. There are a lot of people who put a lot of their hope and their peace and their contentment in achieving a certain level of success that then find it to be fairly hollow and regret the amount of effort and focus and whole selfness that had to go in to make that happen. You have to be careful with that. Everything in moderation. We need to make sure it's balanced. What kind of life do you what do you want your life to look like? What are your priorities? Making sure that you're not putting your priority in some vision of some fancy rich person that you see in social media, but running your race, running your life. Maybe you want to be, maybe you're okay with not growing your business as fast if it translates into a more present husband or wife. A better son to your parents, a better aunt to your nieces and nephews. Maybe you're okay with not growing your business so big or so much if you're able to, through kind of your normal week in and week out, have the ability to live a healthy lifestyle of working out a certain number of times a week. Maybe you have a goal of taking Friday afternoons off and you know that that comes at the expense of growing your business and you're perfectly okay with that and super content with that. And crazy happy about that? That's interesting. What's kind of your vision? What's your vision? And sometimes it's good to kind of think super long term, but even just like, what's my vision later this year? What do I need to change to move more towards the vision in this business that I want it to look like? So those are those are some a little more soft thoughts. Now, the other side of this is the straight up financial side of things. how much is enough on the financial side of things? For a lot of us, we need to be putting a little bit more focus and energy and intentionality and dollars towards our retirement goals. A good goal would be: it would be amazing if when I'm 56, 7, 8, 9, maybe 60, it would be amazing that if I worked enough and put enough away that I have some options when it comes to quote unquote retirement. would be pretty cool. I think it is nice to start with the end in mind a little bit and say, okay, let's use that little 4% rule. If I had $2 million in retirement and I calculate drawing out 4% a year, that comes out to $80,000. Using my calculator, it comes out to $80,000. Could I have some options to quasi-retire, step back, slow down a little bit, pursue other interests I have? That's kind of interesting. I bet you if you get four million dollars in retirement-ish funds or joint brokerage account or outside of retirement funds, and you do that four percent rule and you say, Wow, that's $160,000 a year. I bet you you'd go, I could probably live off $160,000 a year. Especially if I put some effort towards in my 40s and 50s here, paying off our mortgage and not being wild with adding a bunch of debt. Hmm, maybe also if I start to learn about the retirement side and the investment side, and I start putting more and more money away into a Roth IRA type thing or a Roth 401k, if I go with a Safe Harbor 401k plan, all of a sudden, whatever money that I'm putting in there. Is growing tax-free. And when I take a hundred thousand dollars a year out of that, I'm not paying any taxes on that because that's Roth dollars. So part of like the how much this big picture question, I've taken it a few different ways. I've taken it into what is your why, emphasizing kind of the the shift in seasons that we have, making sure your business is supporting your life and not the other way around. we came back from a little commercial break and I started to talk about kind of your peace and contentment and what is kind of just a simple vision of Of what you're wanting this to look like. Kind of emphasize, hey, make sure business success doesn't come at the expense of your personal life. Emphasize that side of things. Also, if it has come at the expense of your personal life and there is a series of regret and divorce and issues and challenges that are downstream from that, or downstream from that, and in the past, work really hard to heal those wounds. Work really hard to not sit there and beat yourself up for the rest of your life. Look to heal that, look to work through it, look to see and take responsibility for your part, which wasn't all of it, your part and what led to that. And say, you know what? Line in the sand. This next chapter is going to be different. I see the mistakes I made and how I let business control or I let this happen or that happened or whatever the case is. Give yourself some grace on that too. I think a lot of people, when they've made mistakes. When they've done it not intentionally, or this happened, or whatever the case is, they then make that be their identity. And that's not usually the case, especially if you're somebody that takes responsibility for your parts in it, works through it, goes and sees a therapist, works through it, heals things, works on healing relationships, being quick to forgive and ask for forgiveness, all of that can go a whole long way towards that peace and contentment. Okay. So I just wanted to throw that in there. Hmm. I told you I was gonna riff at the start of this, and this is straight up riffing. And I'm hoping that there's some nuggets in here, that there's a question that I asked that was the question that you need to sit in for a while and you need to consider for a while. I think my biggest answer to this client's question, is it ever enough? Is the following would be what a great question. What a great question. And not enough of us are asking it. Let's get clear with what is your why? What are you trying to build and why? How does the business be a portion of the lifestyle and the relationships and the life that you're wanting to lead? How can it help you live that? And let's put the let's rightly order these things. Let's not kick ourselves in the booty. Sorry for cussing there, guys. Kick ourselves in the behinds. For what we've screwed up on in the past. We're not gonna sit and live in that. I'm gonna give myself some grace to realize that growing a business is really hard. There's gonna be seasons where I need to really lean into it. There's gonna be seasons where hopefully I can lean away from it and lean a little bit more into some of these other areas. how much is ever enough? I'm going to be wise as a business person and as a person who understands numbers. And I'm actually gonna run some actual numbers around this as well. I wanna give myself the opportunity to have the. choice to maybe step back a little bit from the business, to pursue a different interest, to work really hard to get my financial house in order so that I have not a lot of debt around, sitting around, forcing me to continue to work. And I'm gonna be disciplined to tuck some money away into different buckets and different areas so that I have some options as I get older. That's an amazing reason why. You might even, as you grow your business, turn it into, you know what, I've achieved certain success. You know what my why is now? And is it is it enough and why I want to continue to grow? Is because I have we have built a an incredible company to work for. We serve our clients extremely well. And if we grow the business, we can have more employees who get to enjoy a wonderful place to work that care tremendously about them. And we're going to be able to help more clients and deliver a wonderful experience for them. That's one of my clients' whys of why he wants to continue to grow after reaching a certain level. So is it ever enough? I don't know. Is it? You tell me. What are you chasing after? What's your vision of success? You sure that is what you want to be chasing? Are you comparing yourself to people that are putting their highlight reel on social media? Run your race. What do you want? Is it what's enough for you and why? And why? And make sure it's thought out, make sure it's mature, make sure. you continue also to grapple with it kind of season in, season out, if you will. I hope there was something in there that was helpful. I would love, I would love a few of you to maybe send me a quick note, Kyle at remodelersontherise dot com. Was there something in here that was helpful? Send me a note. Let me know. Here's my cell phone too. Send me a text if you prefer that. 517 902 8450. Is it ever enough? I don't know. You tell me.

Kyle Hunt: Thanks for tuning into the Remodelers on the Rise show. Whether you're listening or watching, I appreciate you being here. If this was helpful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next one. We're putting out new episodes every single week focused on helping you build a better remodeling business with real stories, practical ideas, and things you can actually take and use. If you're on YouTube, hit that like button and turn on notifications so you know when new episodes drop. If you're listening on a podcast app, a five-star review goes a long way and helps more remodelers find the show. We've got great links below or in the show notes where you can connect with us, check out our remodelers community and learn more about our coaching and resources. Appreciate you very much. See you on the next episode.