2020 sucked. Not only for businesses... but for families, communities and economies around the world. Working closely with SaaS founders means I’ve heard the pains, seen the panic and talked through the new reality of Covid 19 for many struggling startups. Some businesses have a model that lets them bend rather than break. Others… aren’t so fortunate.

Have you ever wanted to cut a toxic person out of your life before? It’s a more common feeling than you think. Maybe there’s an old high school friend, a buddy from college, a distant relative… Whoever it is, you know in your gut that this person is toxic and brings negative energy to most conversations. The question is: Is it ok to cut them out of your life?

What does success mean? Get specific… what exactly does it look like to you? Is that word just a placeholder for some anonymous measure of public respect and acceptance? Is it about bank account zeros? My idea of success has changed… a lot. The answer I’d have given you when I was 21 is nothing like the answer I’d give you now. Why?

A few weeks ago, I owned up to the biggest mistakes I made in my 20s... mistakes that cost me literally millions. This video is the sequel. Believe it or not, when I turned 30 I didn’t magically become an angel, with a perfect track record of success.  (Shock! I can hear your gasps from here)

So here’s a crazy story.... In January, I started training for an Ironman 70.3 event.  I had never done anything like this before in my life… and I knew it was going to be f-ing hard. I’m 6’3” and weighed 235lbs... I looked more like a linebacker than a skinny triathlete. An Ironman 70.3 (aka: Half Ironman) consists of a 1900m swim, 90km bike ride and 21km run. This is how I broke down my goals:

I’ve got to come clean... I’m not a guru. I can’t read your future, don’t perform miracles, and I’m about as enlightened as a stick. I’m just a SaaS-obsessed business coach that has made WAY too many mistakes, enough to fill entire encyclopaedias of ‘what not to do’. But I did do something right: 

Hate to break it to you, but it’s not all about money. I mean it. Here’s an example... One of my coaching clients recently hit a milestone that we’ve been working towards for years:  $1M per month in profit.  After 9 years of hard work, he turned that dream into a reality. HUGE achievement! But instead of celebrating, the next question that came was... “What was the purpose? Why am I doing this? If we make more money as a

12 months, 1 piece of paper, A4 only. Does it fit? Can you write a plan for your next year on a single piece of paper? If not, then… your plan is too complex. (This is coming from a guy who LOVES spreadsheets.) Your next 12 months are going to fly by whether you want them to or not. The question is: Are you going to get 12-months’ worth of life out of them?

Ever noticed my black wedding ring? Want to know a secret about it? It’s electronic (made by Oura). It measures a lot of cool stuff about my body, including my sleep. I didn’t care about sleep for YEARS. It wasn’t until I had kids (aka: human alarm clocks) that I had to dial in my routine and structure.

When I was 26 years old, my company Spheric was growing steadily.  We were doing about $2.5 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), with about 16 employees. But… I felt suffocated. I was struggling to cope with the daily challenges that came with business, so I reached out to a mentor for help.  The first thing he did? He asked about my routines.