The 10 Things We Have Done Differently To Find Success In Life, Ep #013


Everyone defines success in life differently. For us, it’s living a life by design that we are happy with where we can also give to others. Because we have been so intentional with our lives, we’ve been pretty successful at a young age. We are always being asked what the secret to our success is. So we wanted to devote an episode to all the things we do differently than everyone else. Things that you, too, can do to become successful. This is one you don’t want to miss!

Highlights From Our Conversation

  • [2:45] 1. Willing to work hard and delay gratification
  • [6:40] 2. Don’t have a back-up plan
  • [8:58] 3.The decision to do everything together no matter what happens
  • [15:08] 4. Commitment to personal development
  • [20:55] 5. Be intentional with everything you do
  • [26:38] 6.Collaborate with your spouse and the world
  • [30:09] 7. Closing our business because it was no longer serving us
  • [34:35] 8. Waiting to have children until we were financially ready
  • [38:02] 9. Selling our home and deciding to rent and move when we want
  • [40:58] 10. Give yourself permission not to fit the mold

Find your passion and invest your time and money in it

In previous episodes, we talk a lot about how we invested our time and resources into our business. But sometimes people don’t realize how much. For six years we dove into our business, and any money we had (that didn’t go towards personal development) was constantly recycled back into the business. We exercised discipline and delayed gratification. Our obsession with building our business is what made it so successful.

It wasn’t until the later years that we finally started making money. As cliche as it is—our blood, sweat, and tears were poured into this thing that we had built from the ground up. We wanted it to keep growing and after years of hard work, we started to reap the fruits of our labor. Keep listening as Ray talks about a powerful illustration by Les Brown that really describes our business.

Don’t set yourself up to fail by having a backup plan

I think a huge thing that terrifies people is the thought of giving up a stable job for something that could fail. A new business venture is both frightening and exciting but if you’re passionate about it you can make it work. I didn’t give myself a plan B. Instead of taking a leave of absence from teaching, I turned in my resignation. I burned the boat and decided there was no turning back and it was completely freeing.

We’ve learned through the years that you can’t have everything—but you can have everything you want at the level you want. I was no longer happy teaching, right? So I left it and found myself working with Ray in a business we were passionate about and that we needed to be successful in. Knowing there was no back-up plan was a huge driving force behind that success.

Know your fears so you’re not motivated by them

Playing off of not having a backup plan is the firm belief that we were going to do this life together, no matter what. Not everyone has the support of their significant other and we vowed that that wouldn’t be us. But there were still so many unknowns. There’s this great Ted Talk by Tim Ferriss that we have in the show notes below, but the gist of it is this: take the time to walk through your greatest fears and identify the worst things that could happen.

Could we find ourselves without the money for basic needs such as food?

Would we lose everything and be homeless?

Could we live with the consequences of our actions?

In all of these things, we realized that we have a support system of family and friends that would never let us be homeless. As disheartening and potentially embarrassing as it may be if we lost it all, we had people to lean on. But we chose to do everything we could on the front end to mitigate the worst case scenario. The huge thing for us was completely supporting each other 100% and simply knowing that no matter what happened we were in it together.

Be intentional about what you do…and how you react

Something we believe everyone needs to learn to do is say no. As much as you want to, you can’t do everything. Secondly, there is always a trade-off. If you say yes to something you don’t really want to do (or you feel pressured to do), what is the thing you’re having to give up? Be very intentional about what you choose to do—especially prioritizing your health. If you aren’t in a good place, your relationship and business won’t be either.

You also need to be intentional about how you react. Life isn’t always going to be easy. You’re going to experience hardship and hurt. Every time we made a mistake or something didn’t go as planned, we labeled it a “learning lesson”. We chose to change our perspective. You must choose to focus on the positive. Have gratitude for what you do have. Don’t focus on what you don’t have, but shift your perspective and instead focus on how you can achieve what you want to have.

We have a lot more to share with you, so you’ll have to listen to the rest of the episode to hear the other 5 things we do differently that we believe helped us find success!

Resources & People Mentioned

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