We take that time off because, well, it's just what everybody says you're supposed to do – and good for you for doing it.

The problem is that we don't take enough time off on a regular basis to really do the reflecting we need to do. Once a year? Sure, that's great – once a year we get those emotional feelings of what's really important in our lives, and then we go right back to work in January. 

Then we have other goals – we set revenue goals and profit goals and new patient goals and get new clients and all that kind of stuff. Yes, those are important, no question about it. But we quickly dilute those feelings we had when we were together with the people we care about, and forget what was truly important.

You know, this whole last eighteen months going back to 2020 at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we've had the Great Resignation, the labor shortage, with people all across the globe and certainly in our country, doing the same thing – reflecting about their lives and wondering “What's this really all about?”

We chase a lot of the wrong metrics – and again, you need to have business metrics – but we chase a lot of the wrong metrics for the wrong reason. Why? Because again, we're told that this is what we're “supposed” to do. You're supposed to go to work, get a career, get the education, and go to work for 35-40 years, and then go into retirement.

If you know me, you've heard me talk about this long enough. You know that's not me at all. I am not about doing the same thing over and over again for 40 years of your life and then hitting some retirement wall. That's not the way you should live your life. 

Now, I look at changes in emotions, feelings, and stages of life as an opportunity. Sometimes these are crises, like I went through when my daughter was very sick with leukemia and had a liver transplant – that was my reset, my wake-up call. It was tough going through it, no question about it. Then I went through a divorce with her mother, and it was tough going through that. Then I had a practice sale that failed. 

All of these events in my life though, I look back at now and say there was a reason. As long as God gives us the ability to get up the next day and breathe air again – in other words, we get to live to fight another day – then it's an opportunity. 

So what are you going to do with the opportunity that you've had to look at this past year?

Are you just going to go back to the same old thing? Meaning work, work, work, and try to work a little harder, a little faster, a little bit longer, or are you going to start to work smarter? 

See, I think that's the key in life. But how do you do that? There's no training in school. There are no academic courses. There’s no degree in working smarter and leveraging other people, skills, and assets. It's not there. 

I would implore you to think long and hard about who you are and what's really important to you, wherever you are in your career right now – whether you're young and just starting your family and your business, or you’re mid-career and things are rolling along but now you feel like you're treading water, or you're towards the end of your career and you're transitioning or selling the business, but you have this great uncertainty about “How's this going to look” and “Who am I going to be?” and “Do I have enough money and capital saved up?” 

All of these questions are what perplex people all through their life and keep them doing what they've been doing over and over and over again. That's where burnout comes from.

I want you to think long and hard about who you are and what's really important to you.

There are pathways to get you from where you are today to where you want to be, but they're not what you think they are. They're not what society says they are. They're not what the industry standard is. It's all about relationship capital and leveraging opportunities, other capital, other assets, and making your life become clear to you with more certainty than you've ever had before.

If you're interested in doing that, reach out to me and my team at Freedom Founders. We've got a path for anybody who is committed to making a change in their life. I hope you'll do it this year. Remember, the best time to change the next 10 years is today. Don't let the opportunity go by.