Lifestyle Entrepreneur #20

The Delegation and Elevation Tool

Mike Jones
December 30, 2023

THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

Read time - 3 minutes

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The Personal Strategic Plan

In this issue:

Why personal planning works
My personal planning process
2 Effective tools

“Plans are nothing, planning is everything” - Dwight D Eisenhower

The greatest leaders, like Eisenhower, have figured out something that most humans don’t.

The art and practice of planning orients teams and organizations in one direction towards a common goal, and the plan itself shows them the way to get there.

This simple practice is what creates great companies, great institutions, structures, great things.

This concept is well accepted by most people, but is not widely adopted in our personal lives.

I laid out my history with personal planning in The Lifestyle Entrepreneur #8, and needless to say I didn’t really do it until a few years ago.

The primary reasons I failed to plan strategically most of my life:

I was always “too busy” to slow down and plan
I didn’t know it was a thing
I figured my business/career plan was my plan, so that was enough

Everything worked pretty great without a personal plan, until it kind of didn’t.

What I noticed at some point, was that I’d added enough complexity in my life - kids, multiple businesses, living far away from family - that at some point I didn’t have much control over how things were going.

I also started feeling like life was happening TO me, instead of happening FOR me.

These past 5 years have been an exercise in simplifying down, focusing on what I want to spend my time on, and being painfully strategic with where I’m going.

Introspection, thinking critically about all aspects of my life, and personal planning has played a big role in that.

My goal in these issues is to 1) get a few of you to start personal planning right now, 2) keep myself accountable to more in-depth personal planning, and 3) growth for me and you.

I’m going to lay out the planning process I’m using this week, 2 other well-known processes, and then come back next week with my actual plan to share.

My Personal planning process

Here’s my simple planning process that I execute each quarter, which is laid out in more detail in TLE #8 - it’s really simple:

Wheel of life - fill this out each quarter
Personal/Family VTO - update each quarter, and annually (right now) is the time to update the whole VTO
Business VTO - Update according to business planning. My primary business is my coaching practice so it’s a planning team of one.

Business or personal planning first? The logical method here is personal, then business. The caveat, is if you’re an entrepreneur or have multiple businesses or sources of income, then it’s more of an iterative process.

For example you may do a draft of your personal plan - go into your business planning and make some updates and work on your business planning - and then go back and make a few personal updates based on what you concluded with your teams.

A good rule of thumb is - as your business interests get more complex, so does your overall planning and the iterations increase.

If you find the planning becomes too complex - that could be a sign you need to simplify a bit - that’s your call though.

Other planning tools

What’s the best planning tool? The one that works.

Because of that, I won’t ever say I think one is better than others. The tools above are working for me now, I’m sure a year from now I’ll roll out the Mike Jones Super Duper Planning tool that will have some tweaks.

If mine seems too complex or doesn’t give you the right vibe, here are a few other tools I’d recommend you take a look at. Honestly though, learn from my mistakes. This process can seem overwhelming, but it’s just a matter of picking one, locking yourself in a dark room for 1-2 hours, completing it, and committing to repeating each quarter.

It’s as simple as that.

All of these methodologies will work for you - you just have to pick one and do it.

The Challenge

Ok so here’s my challenge to you - I want you to pick a planning methodology, and over the next week complete your planning.

I’m completing mine as well this weekend. Next week my actual plan with be the Lifestyle Entrepreneur #21, so you’ll see mine - and you reply with yours.

You don’t have to share anything too personal, just whatever you want to share to show that you completed a plan.

We’re going to become accountability buddies over the next week.

Are you in? If so give me a reply to this email so I know there are a few people doing this with me.

2023 Closeout

Since this is the last issue of 2023, I want to thank all of you for reading and letting me know the things you like, and don’t like, about my writing.

I started writing online on February 22, 2023, after years of wanting to create content but being too scared, or too busy, to commit to it. On February 22nd I was a month into being a full-time coach and was frustrated with my progress.

That trigger got me started, and the journey I’ve been on since has been a deep one - challenging, frustrating, confusing, inspiring, forcing growth, forcing me to get better.

The initial goal of writing was to get more clients. That’s still a short-term goal, but that’s not what I’m really writing for. I’m writing to help people - by being curious and learning, and sharing my experiences - if I can help one person who’s going through something I’ve worked through every week, it will all be worth it.

I’m going to keep getting better at writing (and a few other things) in 2024. I’ll share my plan with you all next week (and a few of you are hopefully going to share yours 🙂 )

I wish you a Happy New Year, and send my best wishes for a challenging, productive, and joyfilled 2024.

I’ll talk to you next week,

Mike

Thanks for reading The Lifestyle Entrepreneur

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