Ep. 74 The Stern Truth: Is Your Business Serving Your Life?

This episode is shorter but still impactful. It’s a solo episode because I’ve had wonderful guests lately. But this one asks the question, Is your business serving your life?

As always, grab a paper and pen. Write down the question, Is my business serving my life? Is it serving me financially, in terms of freedom, to do what I truly love? Or is it not serving my life? Do I feel trapped?

Get back to why you started your business. What was your “why?” Sometimes we forget why we started our business. We might get stuck in that employee mindset. Come back to that “why,” why you do what you do.

I invite you to take my Business Energy Reset. If your business is serving your life, that’s fantastic, and I’d still love to hear from you. But, if not, there’s an opportunity for change there. Take one step forward.

Email me “yes, it is” or “no, it’s not” at marshall@marshallstern.net or grab the Business Energy Reset here: https://marshallstern.net/page/business-energy-quiz 

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Join my Business Inner Circle Community for free here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebusinessinnercirclegroup

Book your complimentary business blindspot assessment with me here: https://attractwell.com/MarshallStern/landing/breakthrough-session

I encourage you to reach out with feedback, topic suggestions, and share your own entrepreneurial challenges.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Marshall Stern: Hi, I'm Marshall Stern and I've spent over 35 years leading and growing multiple small businesses. I know firsthand the struggles of entrepreneurship, feeling isolated, lonely, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have to do it all by yourself. I've been through multiple recessions, and I have felt the highs and the lows.

[00:00:24] I've been there, and I get it. This podcast is here to change that. Every week I will bring you straight talking advice, real world strategies, and honest conversations about what it takes to succeed in business without the fluff, the gimmicks, or the sugar-coated. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, then you are in the right place.

[00:00:47] This is the Stern Truth.

[00:00:52] Welcome back everyone, to another episode of The Stern Truth Business Unfiltered. I have a question for you today, but before I do, you'll notice it's just me today, and the reason being is it's been awhile. It's been a while since it was just you and me in a solo episode. Because I've had so many amazing guests that have reached out and that I've connected with who wanted to be part of this podcast and had so much to give so many golden nuggets.

[00:01:19] So if you haven't heard some of these episodes more recently, please go back and listen to them because they're going to give you so many strategies and tools and insights and, and you're going to understand where they're at and that you're not alone. That we all are going through this entrepreneurial journey in our own way.

[00:01:37] So, today I wanted to sort of continue on that theme with a question. Question is this is your business serving your life. Now, you know, I always suggest grab a pad of paper and pen, and I hope you have one, because at the top of the pad of paper, I want you to write down that question. Reword it. I want you to write down the question.

[00:02:04] Is my business serving my life? Is it serving my life when it comes to the financial needs of my life? When it comes to the freedom, right? That's why do most of us start a business to begin with. Freedom is usually part of the conversation. Is my business serving my life the way I want it to? Is it allowing me the freedom to do what I want to do?

[00:02:33] Is it allowing me the freedom to take vacations, to take time off, to spend time doing what I love with the people I love? Or is the business not serving my life? Do I feel trapped? Do I feel like I'm in jail at times? Now, here's the thing, and this is not meant to be a negative episode. In fact, quite the opposite, because if you are feeling sometimes like you are in jail, you're trapped in your business, there are things we can do and I want to talk through some of them, but I want us to first, one of the things I do with my clients is I really help them first get clarity on why they do what they do, and remind themselves why they started the business.

[00:03:17] So, if you have your pad of paper and pen, write down those two questions below the main question. The main question being is my business serving my life? And below that, I want you to write down this financially, emotionally, spiritually, with a question mark beside each of them. Then I want you to fill in the rest of this.

[00:03:39] I began my business because I… Fill in the blank. That's the first why. Sometimes we forget. Sometimes we forget why we started our business. We just get stuck, what I call the employee mindset, right? We have a skill. We we're great at photography, so we started our photography business. We're great at digital marketing.

[00:04:01] We worked in marketing and corporate in a department, so we just decided, well, I’ll do my own thing. I want the freedom. So, you go and you start that, but you forget why you started it and you end up just having a job. And you think you started it in many cases because you wanted that freedom, right? You wanted that freedom of unlimited financial potential.

[00:04:21] You wanted that freedom of time, but do you have that? Too many times, we, as business owners. We, as entrepreneurs, get stuck in the doing. Doing. Doing. Doing and having a busyness, not a sustainable, and if you really want scalable business. Now, not everybody wants to scale their business, but I'm sure you want a sustainable business, and you would like to grow it to a certain point.

[00:04:51] It doesn't have to be 10x 20x, all the stuff you see online. You want it to serve your life. That's the bottom line. And if it's not serving your life, do you find yourself working hard and doing and doing, and you're just doing so much, but at the end of the day, you're not getting the results. Or at the end of the day, after doing so much and being busy, so busy, at the end of the day you look back and it's like, what did I really accomplish?

[00:05:21] So, my invitation to use this. There's like actually a couple. I have a simple exercise you can do on your own every day. Very simple. If you're interested in it, if you want to grab a copy of it, the link is below. Email me. In fact, I have a few invitations and this is for everyone whether you want that or not.

[00:05:42] This is an invitation and it's a request. I would like you to email me anyways, simple question, and I promise I will not spam you. You're not going to be on my list. Don't worry about it. I am just curious. It's a bit of a pulse I'm taking to that question. Yes or no, is my business serving my life? Is your business serving your life?

[00:06:06] If it is and everything's great, wonderful. I would love to hear back from you. If it's not great, there's an opportunity in there for you to possibly change that so it can serve your life. And sometimes when we're so stuck in the doing in the weeds of our business, we lose sight of the path forward or what we can actually accomplish.

[00:06:28] My other invitation for you is simply this. Take it one step forward. If you find yourself busy, but you're not gaining traction. If you find yourself drained, at the end of the day, you're probably doing the wrong activities. So, my invitation to you, if you have not had this before, again, my email is below Marshall, M-A-R-S-H-A-L-L, at Marshallstern.net.

[00:06:56] It's dot net. Not dot com, because the.com, you'll get some comedian in Chicago. So it's marshall@marshallstern.net, and in the subject line, simply put Business Energy Reset and we'll take it from there. This is a powerful, if you want to call it, audit assessment where you, I'm pretty confident we'll be shocked as to what you find and the opportunity for you moving forward so that next time I ask you or you ask yourself.

[00:07:24] Is my business serving my life? The answer will be yes. There are things to do right now today that you can do to change things up a bit and have your business start to serve your life, because that is probably one of the big why's as to why you started your business. The other why is why do you show up every morning with your customers, your clients?

[00:07:52] Why do you do what you do? There's the why you started and then there's the why you continue and having clarity on both is power. Clarity is power. So, I have my action steps. My accountability for you today is to reply back to me, yes, it is, or no, it's not. And if you want the Business Energy Reset, simply request that.

[00:08:15] And the document, the PDF exercise, there's a lot in there. You can reply back one email for it all, no it's not, I would love the PDF exercise, and, yes, I would love to have the Business Energy Reset with you as well. Okay. Until we meet again. Also, one more thing, you know, the whole thing, subscribe, like, share, all that kind of stuff.

[00:08:41] I don’t know if you can like a podcast, but I do want you to review it. I do want you, if you're getting value from this, to go onto the main page where you are watching this. If it is Spotify, Amazon, apple, and at the bottom, there's usually a place where you can give it a review. If you're watching this on YouTube, great.

[00:09:00] Give us a comment like it, love it. Whatever you can do on YouTube and comment. An insight. A takeaway, or maybe even answering that question, is my business serving my life? We will see you again next week on another episode of the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered. Bye for now.

[00:09:21] Thank you so much for tuning in to the Stern Truth. If you found today's episode helpful, we would love to hear from you. Please like, share, and leave us a review. Also, if you'd like to be a guest in an upcoming episode or join us in one of our Moment Accountability Group sessions, simply email me to marshall@marshallstern.net.

[00:09:41] That's marshall@marshallstern.net. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep pushing forward and leading with confidence.