When I was younger I loved to dance. (Well I still do, but I actually took lessons and performed in my youth). What I admired about professional dancers was their athleticism, their grace and their superb amounts of skill. The way they could capture an audience and tell a story through movement.

What I learned was in order to get to be so skilled and master their craft, they practiced all the time and often practiced the basics. Like a musician mastering and warming up with scales. It’s the foundational steps and method that help them to hone their craft. It’s focussing on the foundations of their craft that built the muscle memory and capacity that they have today. The ballet dancers always came back to their pliés.

When I hear and speak to business owners and founders today who want to grow their companies, some of them have all sorts of plans and initiatives. I always love hearing about their plans and vision. It’s inspiring. Until I hear about their method…

Several years ago my husband and I were asking questions like: Will we have enough to retire? How much is ‘enough’? What do we need? What do we want our future to look like?

We’ve both worked in the financial industry and we have a good understanding and knowledge of personal finance. However, we wanted more than our general understanding and wanted to speak with an expert in retirement planning.

We explored possibilities and chose someone who we love working with and has the expertise we needed.

Once we made that move I felt incredibly relieved. Like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders because we now have a plan built for us.

And, I feel more confident in our ongoing day-to-day financial decisions because I know where we are in relation to where we are going with our ‘plan’. It was a very smart decision for us and I’m so thrilled we made it.

Getting help in the areas you need it is important. We can’t be all the things.

And we don’t know what we don’t know.

You can apply this to a number of areas in life.

I always loved the message from Michael Gerber’s E-Myth that says:

“Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work ON your business, rather than in it with a full understanding of why it is absolutely necessary for you to do so.”

He makes the point that your business is not your life.

Your business and your life are two separate things.

Your business has its own set of rules, its own purpose apart from yours.

Realizing this concept can support that separation and objective perspective where you fit, in relation business.

There’s a relationship between the value of your business and the time you spend IN your business.

First - what is value to you?

What I hear from my clients is that value means you get to meet your financial expectations through your business.

Value also means that it supports their lifestyle expectations.

And, it fulfills them at a deeper level

When it comes to your business, value also means how it can be viewed from an outside perspective. Is it valuable to someone else who might purchase your business one day?

Consider this…