THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

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My Quarterly Plan

My personal quarterly planning day was last week.

I’ve done quarterly business planning since 2014 when I implemented EOS® in my second business, but personally I hadn’t done much detailed planning until about 2 years ago when I was winding down my most recent business.

Prior to two years ago I generally allowed my business planning to dominate my whole life, and attempted to fit everything else in. While this strategy, or lack thereof, went pretty well for my first 35-40 years, it ultimately led to a place where life was happening TO me, instead of FOR me.

After years of everything going pretty darn well and always working out in my favor, at some point things started to go south for me.

This occurred, and then snowballed, until I found myself with a business that was getting out my ability to control, my marriage was falling apart, and my mental health was deteriorating.

Getting to this place was jarring, to say the least.

I ultimately worked through these issues, as we all have to, and am a better person for them.

The amount of change, growth, and reinvention required to do so has been tremendous. I suppose when I reflect on what I like to write about, the tools that helped survive, and then thrive, are what I enjoy writing about the most.

Living a life by design is at the core of those principles.

Life by design involves understanding that we can shape every aspect of our lives through deliberate planning, decisions, and actions every day.

This shifts our lives to happening FOR us, which is a much better way to live.

Personal planning is a critical part of living this way for me.

My quarterly plan

I wrote about my personal planning process two weeks ago, and want to share my quarterly plan here.

Partially to share my process in case you want to adopt part of it in your own planning.

Additionally, sharing it in public creates more accountability and pressure for me to meet my goals.

So without further ado, my quarterly plan for Q3 2024:

This plan follows the modified “Vision/Traction Organizer” we use in EOS®. I like it because it’s mostly the same format I use for all my companies and clients, and because it’s simple.

If done consistently, the quarterly Rocks and Issues List portion is the only thing updated each quarter, everything else is updated once a year.

In terms of progress towards my annual plan - I’m tracking for my numbers - I’m currently at 21 sessions with 20 forecasted for Q3 - so I believe I’ll exceeed my revenue, profit, and measurables for the year - WHICH IS FUCKING AWESOME.

In terms of annual goals:

• My session fee is already up to $6k so that’s done

• My VA, Hassan, has been working with me for 3 months now and we’re developing a very strong working relationship - done

• I’m staring my 10th client this month, so while I have a ton of work to do, I’m tracking with my 16 clients

• BJJ = Jiu Jitsu - When starting marathon training I realized I didn’t have enough time/energy to do both, so I’ve taken a few months off - Off track

• Average sleep score has been slowly improving - I’ve gotten a few 80s on weeks, but not consistently enough. Some work to do still but I’ll call it - On- Track

• No alcohol for 2024 - that’s been easy, and there’s no risk of missing that one

• Throw a 1-year plan party - looking forward to that!

My rocks are for me & Hassan

So they look like there’s too many, and there very well could be - because if everything’s important, nothing’s important.

But nonetheless they’re for both of us.

I feel really good about my quarterly plan, especially knowing I’m tracking towards my annual goals.

Each week, Hassan and I will review our rocks and state “on-track” or “off-track”. This creates weekly accountability and reminds me to focus on my priorities each week.

This process flat out works, and i’m thankful I started doing it for not only business, but the rest of my life.

If you’d like a few pointers or to talk through your planning, I’m just an email away. This is my passion, so I’d be happy to talk through things with a phone call.

I’m off to party with my three brothers who are in town for Metallica weekend in Minneapolis.

Night 1 was amazing, we have some family time planned today, followed by night 2 on Sunday. I hope you have a great weekend.

If you don’t believe me, try to prove me wrong :)

Talk to you next week,

Mike

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