September is in the books. It's time for another business update. Afterward, I'll share a clip from our final coaching call from September to close out the summer. Now that October is here, it's time to crank it down! I have 4 months left to build and delegate my cleaning company before my self-imposed deadline of February 1, 2022. 

​We had an interesting conversation in our Smart Cleaning Tribe recently that I wanted to share. I'll play the full clip in the podcast, but here's the scenario. Kate is a very successful cleaning business owner with 18 cleaning techs (cleaners). On this particular Monday, she had 2 call out. It put Kate into crisis mode. Can you relate? What would happen if 2 of your cleaners called out or quit on you? As I listened to Kate describe her employee scenario, I thought of the term negative employee margin. 

Would you like to know the one book that will absolutely change your life? Come on! Wouldn't you like to know how to cut through the thousands of self-help books out there to the one book that sums it all up? It's so much work to read all of those books. What if you could just listen to this podcast episode and hear my answer to the best book I ever read? Wouldn't that be awesome? It's the perfect microwave answer. You can take your uncooked mind and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes and presto... you have wealth mentality.

​I talk about freedom on this podcast a lot. I talk about finances and building your company a lot. I also talk about family and keeping the main thing, the main thing. But I haven't talked about a topic that is as important if not more important than all of them. Let's talk about our health. In this podcast, I'm going to simply share a story of my own health journey from that of trusting doctors to taking ownership of my own health and being proactive. This has lead me to partner with doctors and health professionals in order to create the most healthy experience possible. Do you know why this is so important to me? I'm 44 years old with 5 kids between 4 and 16. I can still get down on the floor to play and out in the woods to hike and camp. I want to do that with my grandkids and great-grandkids. Therefore, I need to work hard to get healthy and wealthy.

Resources - In this podcast, I mentioned "The Model Health Show" by Shawn Stevenson. Check it out. There are so many hacks you can do to improve your health from anti-inflammatory diets, to cutting wifi while to sleep, supplements, walking every day, and so on. I highly recommend that you find a medical partner that you can work with to achieve your goal.

I've built my cleaning company for 16 years solo and have operated under my own set of personal core values. I've communicated them in my marketing system and they have earned me better, higher paying clients that stay with me a long time. However, I've never had to document them or communicate them to a team. My coach, Josh Melton, has been driving this point home recently. He recommended that I re-read the book, "Traction" by Gino Wickman and complete the EOS® VisionTraction Organizer or the VTO. This process is so helpful because it forces me to extract my most inner and core beliefs about me and my company and share them in my vision. I have never done this before. It was scary at first. But now, it energizes me and that's a true tell if my foundation is right. I should be able to communicate my mission, vision, and values. Before I dive in, let me give thanks where thanks is due. I've already mentioned Josh. Josh, if you're listening... thank you! I want to also thank Kevin Smith of Grace Home Cleaning in Omaha, NE. Check out my interview with Kevin called, "It's Grace for a Reason". Kevin shares his mission and vision in this interview and it truly inspired me. I shared the exact one, just didn't know how to communicate it. Thank you Kevin for being so real and transparent about your relationship with God and He leads your company.

Every time I meet with my chamber president for breakfast, great podcast episodes result. The last breakfast with Steven Hunsberger produced Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable. Why should our August 2021 breakfast be any different? I was sharing with Steven my recent camping trip and the profound influence my phone has on me. He totally related when I said my goal was to simplify my life. I started the next part of the conversation with this. "Steven, I'm trying to do too much and I'm missing the simple things in life. And I really wasn't missing that much but I was convicted at camp. I got back and did my best to not return to where I was. I was changed and I wanted my life to reflect that change.  All the things I thought were so important can all wait, my kids are growing up and they won't wait. It's what are the essential things I need to do to hit our goals but not steal from this valuable time with my kids? That's the question we should ask ourselves? What are the 80/20 opportunities in my life?" Steven loved this and wanted to apply that way of thinking to how he runs the chamber.

My daughter Christiana said something very interesting. I was telling her about a house I was considering taking on, but totally willing to say no if I didn't get the price and the other parameters that I wanted. She said. "If I were ever to have my own cleaning business that would be really hard for me to do. I'm a people pleaser."  I thought about that and it's so true. There's something called the disc profile that helps put people into personality boxes. It's a useful analysis that helps us understand ourselves and others around us. We can learn things like traits, work styles, tendencies, best way to communicate with each other. 

In the opening story, I shared a major breakthrough of how my phone loads stress on me that I didn't even know what there until I had 4 days on airplane mode. I came away from that camping trip with my 8-year-old son with this. Simplicity is the word. It's the word that I need to press into. How do I get simplicity into every area and role in my life? This became a burning question. I learned that airplane mode is simple.  The 80/20 Rule is simple because less is better. Less equals less stress equals simple. I was in this place as I was processing the decision to scale my cleaning business for the first time in 15 years. I realized that delegating tasks that I was good or great at to someone equally suitable was simple as it gave me more time and allowed me to function in an ever greater capacity. I realized that creating sustainable systems was simple as it ran predictable workflows through a repeatable process. For the first time, I wanted to scale so I could add more simple into my life. I was in this place as Coach Josh's instruction to simplify my cleaning business to a targeted niche. This helped me narrow my cleaning focus to reduce the loading and make it way simpler to scale. I was in this place when Vincent and I were in our Nashville hotel room during Podcast Movement 2021 and I discovered the 3 x 3 matrix that simplified my business to the key income-producers to focus on to close out the year. Simple. I was in this place when I read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. I heard so many concepts that I knew needed to be adopted. Above and beyond every one was what Stephen called "Habit 3 Putting First Things First".

I had an awesome conversation with a good friend recently that I'll keep anonymous. He was struggling with anxiety around his lack of control. This is only a problem for him because he has the type of personality that thrives on being in control or at least the perception of it. This is what I mean when I use the word illusion. The conversation was deep and very therapeutic for both of us. We dove into so many topics including health, family, finances, and faith. As I took a giant step back from this conversation, I made 3 observations that I'd like to share.