Welcome to Day 2 of the Seven Questions to Advance Yourself Personally and your Business series.
Over seven days we will be looking at each of these questions in depth that you as a person, or as a business owner, need to ask yourself. Doing so will grant you far greater insight into your business or your personal self.
Why ask these questions?
For the same reason we do anything else, to get better. Timothy Ferriss and Michael Gerber both have books detailing how a business owner should be exactly that, an owner, not just another employee. The owner of a business should be running the business and working at the business.
Employees are not exempt from asking these questions. Even if you are a “wage slave” working for someone else right now, you must better yourself in order to keep the job you have and especially to advance, be that via promotions, pay increase, or striking out on your own.
Previously we asked the question What is Broken?
Today, let’s look at what is missing.
What is missing in my life?
Something might not be broken simply because it is absent from your life. However, this is a form of broken and must be remedied just like any problem.
What is missing from my life is free time and extra income. I am trying to work on both currently by running my own web design business. The more I grow the business, the more money I make and the more free time I have since I will not have to hold down a W2 “wage slave” job. This is just my missing piece. Each individual must figure theirs out on their own.
There is a missing piece in your life. If you already know what it is, what are you doing to add it? If you do not know what it is, looking for it might cause some pain, but I guarantee once you find it, and complete your life puzzle, the hurt will quickly heal. Timothy Ferriss’ most profound statement in The Four Hour Work Week was that most people do not ask the penetrating questions they need to simply out of fear. People would rather busy themselves with pointless tasks or work that could be eliminated to avoid asking the truly penetrating and helpful questions. Do Not Be One Of Those People…
How to figure out what is missing? If asking the question, What is Missing in my life, does not immediately conjure up desires, you might need to approach this differently. Start by asking the question in a different way. What do I want to add into my life? Or possibly the most common, simply What do I want? Ferriss breaks down wants into Doing, Being and Having.
- What do you want to do?
- Go skydiving
- Travel the world
- Mine: Own my own business
- What do you want to be?
- A professional stunt car driver
- A firefighter
- Mine: A vagabond, who does not have to work.
- What do you want to have?
- A brand new computer
- A paid off house
- Mine: A Red Ferrari 360 Spider
Whatever it takes, figure out what the missing piece is which will make you complete. There might be just one, or there might be several. The only way to know, is ask. Then plug the holes.
How to add the missing piece? This is almost entirely up to you. For me, gaining the missing free time and adding the extra income is being remedied by running my own company while working a full time job. But each person is different. To get the Ferrari dream car, I am going to have to sell a lot of websites. If you too want a Ferrari, then it is possible, just think about what you need to do or be in order to attain the goal.
Adding in these missing puzzle pieces is not going to be easy, but we all know that anything worth doing is not easy.
If you want more money, start by creating a budget and cutting back on your expenses, then figure out ways to add income streams. No one says you have to earn all your money in one place.
If you want more time, think about negotiating a remote work agreement with your employer or redesigning your own company to remove you as a cog in the machine.
Whatever it is you want. Whatever is missing. It is up to you to find, and add.
Find that piece. It will complete you!
= =
Very Interesting and awesome post! I totally agree with it. Thumbs up to more extra income ideas