Anytime I start an essay title to “share my philosophies on something,” something has gone seriously wrong in the world. Like “Hell freezing over” kind of wrong.
There are basically three guarantees in life: dogs don’t sleep with cats; peanut butter and chocolate were made for one another; and Perrin DesPortes doesn’t write philosophy. Period.
That being said, I have reached the ripe old age of 54 and feel reasonably confident that I know more now than I did when I was 34 – which makes what I’m about say incredibly valuable to the eight people who are reading these essays…
Life Is Hard. “My God, Perrin, is this an essay or a nursery rhyme? Surely, you can do better than that…”
What I mean is a bit more complicated. We all celebrate Charles Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” theory of evolution. There’s a lot of practical truth in that far beyond anything philosophical, but the underlying premise is that animals (and humans) adapt to their changing environments. My work career has been a gradual, but intentional, evolution into entrepreneurship. I haven’t so much adapted to my environment as much as I’ve adapted my environment to fit what I want to become.
Is there any philosophy in that last sentence? You be the judge.
No one told me to do that, and no one told me it would happen that way. Did anyone else ever walk this same path before me? I would surely think so, but since they never bothered to share any insights with 34-year-old Perrin, I’ll do so now.
Philosophies:
Philosophy is technically a pursuit of wisdom, knowledge and understanding around fundamental questions of life, so I guess it makes sense that we don’t consider “philosophical questions about our work careers” at early stages of our lives when we lack the experiences that help to form the questions we would otherwise be asking. See “chicken and egg” problem…
Regardless, here are a few things you can all wrestle with.
YOU, Inc. You may work for a Fortune 500 company. You may own a small healthcare services practice. Or you may be anywhere in between. Regardless of the way the I.R.S. classifies your wages, you are “in the business of you.” The sooner you embrace the fact that no one will take care of you better than you can take care of yourself, the better off you’ll be. I’m not advocating that you do things for yourself at the expense of others, but today’s working world is becoming increasingly flat, so it’s prudent to be our own best advocate. Being “the CEO of YOU, Inc.” (as I’ve written before) is a philosophical mindset shift for many. It certainly was for me. Which brings me to…
Entrepreneurship. Being an entrepreneur is a choice. We intentionally choose this life. We embrace the freedom to create, and we confront the freedom to fail. Living life without a safety net is daunting even on the best of days, but the fulfillment that comes from creating value for someone else far exceeds the remuneration. The secret is that your career arc will be filled with lived experiences that will hopefully increase in both value and impact. When that happens, you should be forward-thinking enough to embrace the decision to place the biggest bet of your life: a bet on yourself.
Results. Most likely everyone who reads my writing or listens to my podcast is metric-driven and KPI-oriented, but that’s tactical. Being a successful entrepreneur requires you asking yourself the following questions: “Are you in the time and effort economy? Or the results economy?” There’s a very big difference in “doing the craft” versus “owning the craft machine.” There’s also a very big difference in doing the same thing every hour of every day compared to being the creator of the new output that makes tomorrow different from today. Trust me when I tell you that you want to get paid for your results; not your time – and surely not your effort.
Congruency. I hear a lot of people talking about “work-life balance” and I don’t know that I agree with it. In fact, I’m all but 100% certain that I don’t. “Balance” is fools’ gold because it’s not attainable. Opportunities arise. Setbacks happen. Priorities change. I’ve been a highly accomplished leader of Corporate American businesses as well several successful start-ups. I’ve created high levels of income for myself and my partners. I’ve also burned out and been a less-than-stellar father and spouse. My consolation was always on the other side of the word “when.” That’s not balance. It’s failure. Balance can never exist, but congruency must. I am incredibly intentional about keeping congruency between my work, my family and myself. If I simultaneously maintain the complementary, regenerative aspects of those three, then I’m living the life that I desire.
Strategies:
Phases of Life. To state that Things Change would be the beginning of another nursery rhyme as above, but I don’t think I can stress this one enough. We tend to look at our work career in one light, then we look at our family life in a different light, and then our personal age in a completely different light. Not only are they not congruent (see above), but we completely fail to anticipate personal life cycles and the adaptations required for where we hope to be in the future. The famous hockey player, Wayne Gretzky, has a great quote: “I skate to where the puck is going to be; not where it has been.”
My bet is that all of you have a 10-year BHAG or plan for your business, but none of you have considered how old you or your family will be in 10 years. Do you have any idea how much you’re going to change along the way? Will the evolving dynamics of your family create compromises in your 10-year business plan? Or (God forbid) vice versa?! Are you building a business or a cage for yourself?
Your strategy should be to evaluate every major business decision or commitment with the thought process of how it will impact you and your family 3 to 5 years in the future.
Success and Fulfillment. They aren’t the same thing. To build off the Phases of Life point above, we start out by applying brute force to our career to earn more money so that we can afford more material possessions and create more financial stability. No judgment in that…up to a point. My fear is that too many people get caught on a treadmill in the relentless pursuit of more because they’re trying to out-achieve the levels of their peers. Yes, I want to create financial stability for myself and my family every bit as much as you do, but I don’t want to do it at the expense of the time and experiences I have with them. Success is more ego-driven and comparative whereas fulfillment is driven by happiness, purpose and joy. I wish I had known this a decade earlier.
Your strategy should be to evaluate every major driver of success from the lens of whether it’s truly your own as well as whether it adds to or detracts from the life you want to lead.
Longevity and Adaptation. There is no “Gold Watch” waiting for any of us at the end of our careers. We’re all working for ourselves now, but only some of us realize it. For that reason, we should start to measure our “career” in 5-year increments. Our work life is no longer a marathon; it’s a race created around a series of phases that vary in length, intensity, incline and number of people around us (competitors and teammates alike).
Your strategy should be to try to stay as nimble and adaptable as possible when it comes to major business decisions that require commitments that run longer than 3 to 5 years in the future.
Four Dimensions of Health. I wish I had known the things about “total, comprehensive health” in my 30s that I do now. I have pretty good genes, so I was “born on first base.” I’ve worked my ass off to get the runner to third base by eating a very healthy diet and being involved with athletic pursuits (mostly endurance sports). I categorize my Four Dimensions of Health as: mental health; social health; physical health; and spiritual health. As I said, my physical health is quite good, but I need to add more upper-body muscle mass (read Peter Attia’s book “Outlive” for more details). I give myself a B+ here. My mental health has improved dramatically over the last few years based around some personal and professional changes I deliberately made, so I give myself a grade of A- on this one. About two years ago, Lucy and I decided to leave our church where we were married (the denomination in which I was raised) and where Elizabeth was baptized, then found a new “home” after about 18 months of exploration. It was a healthy process for us to go through together and for me to go through personally upon a re-evaluation of a lot of what matters to me in life. It was bumpy, but I’m far better off for it. Solid B here. Social health is my biggest challenge – as it is for many men in mid-life. I have a number of life-long friends, but few of them live in Charlotte. Proximity creates depth, so I’ve got some work ahead of me in this department. At least I’m aware of it and committed to improving it. Let’s call it a C- but with an upward trend.
Your strategy should be to look at “healthspan” in place of lifespan and take ownership of all of it outright.
Personal Board of Advisors. I’ve written and talked about this before, but I’ll subtly remind you that none of what I’m sharing came from “Perrin’s Basket of Brilliant Things.” Yeah, I learned all of it firsthand, but much of the “making sense of it all” was a result of direct and indirect input from others. I don’t know my own blind spots and neither do you. I can’t even sort my own sock drawer at times. If you’re going to be an effective executive and an accomplished entrepreneur with a healthy family life and do it all in a positively reinforcing way, the likelihood is you’re not going to do it by yourself. If you’re the smartest person in your room, then it’s time to find a new room.
Your strategy should be to figure out the characteristics of the people you need who can minimize your weaknesses as well as accelerate your learning curve in life, then find people who you trust and who will tell you the truth to fill those roles.
Tactics:
Decision making. I stated above: “Your strategy should be to evaluate every major business decision or commitment with the thought process of how it will impact you and your family 3 to 5 years in the future.” Considering that, we all need to be more intentional as to how our short-term decisions create long-term consequences. Typically, this isn’t immediately obvious, but the key point here is that many of our business decisions are interconnected to subsequent decisions that are downstream (think: “Do I allow my Associate to buy into my business?”). Not only do people fail to truly evaluate the longer-term implications of their decision, but they make far too many consequential decisions in haste.
Your tactic is to simply slow down and ask yourself: “If I decide to do this, then what are 2 to 5 things that might happen as a result of it?”
Four Freedoms. Dan Sullivan, the Founder of Strategic Coach, is beautifully simplistic in his description of the “Four Freedoms” of Entrepreneurship, which are: the freedom of time, money, relationship and purpose. If you decide to embrace the philosophy of Entrepreneurship as stated above, then these Four Freedoms are what await you in your journey – and they make the journey so incredibly worthwhile.
Your tactic is to begin to evaluate how the decisions you make and the growth you’re experiencing are either adding to or detracting from the Four Freedoms that ultimately complement the lifestyle you want to lead.
Experience. This was “a big miss” of mine for far too long – and I find that it is with alarming regularity for almost everyone I ask. We never slow down to really take inventory of our own lived experiences and to derive the confidence that we should from what each experience truly means. This is a tactical miss because we’re all so success-driven that we’re on to the next big thing. The sad part for each of us is that we don’t celebrate our wins nearly enough, but the even more insidious part is that we fail to reinforce our confidence when we know we’re going to need it down the road. Experiences are lived, but a lot of people can live an experience while never taking inventory of it.
Your tactic is to reflect on your experiences (both positive ones and negative), then derive your own constructive insights that create the meaning behind each one – and then document them in a journal.
Reading vs Studying vs Applying. I love to read, and I know that many of you do as well because you’re constantly asking me for reading recommendations or “the best book I’ve read recently.” I just finished reading “The Splendid and the Vile” (by Erik Larson) about Churchill’s first year in office at the outbreak of World War II. It’s an absolutely epic accounting and a wonderful book…but I didn’t study it. Last year I read, but only just now finished studying, “Thinking Fast and Slow” (by Daniel Kahneman). It reads like a college psychology textbook in many ways, and was quite a mental wrestling match to take on (it probably won…). I’ve highlighted, annotated and dog-eared so many pages in that damn book that it’ll never lie flat again…but I haven’t applied it (yet). Last year I read, studied and applied “From Strength to Strength” (by Arthur C. Brooks) – a book that was beyond instrumental in confronting my own internal struggles and solving my own external challenges that was a catalyst to my better understanding of happiness and fulfillment. Many of you have reading lists of books you’ve read and books you’re going to read, but how many of them have you truly re-read and studied? And how many of those have you applied to create results or change in your life? Is reading an active or a passive pursuit for you? Reading “The Splendid and the Vile” was a passive pursuit for me because it’s history. I love novels, biographies and fiction for the same reason, but I read other business and self-help books with the intent of finding around 40% of them worthy of my study – and then only about half of those worthy of applying for impact.
Your tactic is to read books with the intention of either escaping from reality or creating a new reality; you should be studying ~40% of what you read (with a highlighter and/or pen) and applying ~20% of what you read.
Invest in Yourself. I’ve talked incessantly about Doctor Development plans to create greater productive capacity. I’ve given guidance to “hire into” executive and leadership roles to unlock the future potential of the organization. I’ve taught courses on growth strategy and expansion for De Novo and Acquisition-oriented businesses. I’ve shared KPIs and metrics around what the right marketing company ROI should be. But for all of this investment, the one that I find that most people get wrong (at best) or neglect (at worst) is in…themselves. I’m not trying to be self-serving here, but Tiger Woods had four different swing coaches in his best 20 years on the tour. And why was that?! Because he was constantly looking to improve every phase of his game over every phase of his career. I’ve also had four business coaches over my last 20 years, and together we’ve won 15 Major Titles in golf. HUNH?! OK, never mind… My point here is that you can make all the right investments in your business, but the best investment you can make is in yourself. “Professional development” isn’t a passive activity.
Your tactic is to commit to finding a person or group that will accommodate your time constraints and your budget to accelerate your learning curve through this next phase of growth and uncertainty.
Recharge. Our family lives are demanding, and our business lives are chaotic. As Founders, we often come in a distant 3rd in the pecking order. However, without us at the peak of our abilities, the other two suffer…so we double-down and work harder. Burn out is real. Ask anyone who has truly experienced the depths of it, and you’ll get an emotional response. There’s a reason that the flight attendant tells you to “put on your oxygen mask first” in the safety briefing. In this case, you need to be the one to save yourself from yourself.
Your tactic is to commit to scheduling two separate three-day, two-night “get-aways” from both your family and your business to a place that is relaxing and rejuvenating, taking only books or journals, and truly disconnecting from the pressures of life. You’re welcome.
Concluding Thoughts:
I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall any nursery rhymes that dealt with the concept of “intentionality.” Ultimately, I’ll let you be the judge on how philosophical, strategic or tactical this essay is, but I can unequivocally say that I couldn’t have written it when I was 34.
Regardless of whether you’re older or younger than that age, I hope that there’s something worthy of your learning and your application. We’re all on the entrepreneurial journey toward some level of mastery, while knowing that the actual concept is an ever-evolving target. As the author Robert Greene has written: “The first move toward mastery is always inward…It’s never too late to start this process.”
You can start with a new philosophy. You can start with a new strategy. Or you can start with a new tactic. But only YOU can start.
Go grind some beans.
