"Daddy, can we play?"

"Not right now."

I feel sick with how many times I've said that. “Not right now.”
There was always something "important" that stole my attention.
Something "urgent."

My face buried in my phone... was too common.

You know how it goes:

Hundreds of emails that needed my attention.
Dozens of Slack messages on unread.
My social media inbox was all unread.
Meeting after meeting.

After that...
Zombie scrolling.

Slowly, my family got pushed down the list of priorities.

It wasn't intentional, of course. But that was part of the problem. Lack of intention.

I woke up one day and realized my "business of freedom" wasn't free.

A jam-packed calendar with more "to-do's."
Or on the next plane for another event.

What I owned was a lot of responsibility and obligations.
Sure, I had a bunch of cash coming.

But I was friggin marginless everywhere else.

Emotionally.
Relationally.
Spiritually.
Marriage.
Physical.

And for what? 

Looking back, it's insane that we think that's a good way to live.

Always exhausted.
Always distracted.
Always worried.
Always hurried.

The hell? More people than not live in that place.

The silly thing? If you're not living like that, something must be wrong.

Why else would we live on the razor's edge of burnout?

We've lost meaning.
We've lost purpose.
We've lost connection.

If you turn the news on, you'll see we're on the brink of WW3 or Civil War. A lot of that is nonsense.

But what is true:

We live in a chaotic and tired world.

Here's the cool thing: We can live in chaos or peace.
Marginless or margin.

So, ya wanna talk about living with more margin and peace?

Chaos or Calm? 

It’s your choice.

Almost every client I work with lives (lived, rather) in chaos. A part of our work is to de-chaos their business and life.

I just got off a call with one of my clients. She said, "A 90-hour week was typical before working with you."

Now, she works under 20 hours a week, and the business is cruising.

How?

Let's discuss.

First, two types of chaos exist.

Internal chaos.
External chaos.

Internal chaos is the chaos in our souls. As entrepreneurs, we often create who we are. If we're internally chaotic, hurried, or marginless, that's what our business (and life) will look like.

STOP! If you're feeling a sudden rush of guilt, anxiety, and shame, let that all go.

Instead of feeling anything close to "Oh man, I suck," I want you to:

1. Awareness (notice)
2. Action (growth)

In my business, when things got "boring," I'd need to speed up or create chaos to feel useful because then I had something to fix. Wild.

If you know something needs to change but don't know what, that's okay. Let's keep pulling these threads.

Thoughts on turning chaos to calm and creating more open space (margin) for what's most important to us.

1. Say No

We say yes to way too much. We overcommit. We've bought into the idea that we're limitless. We ain't.

Start saying no, and you'll start to find more freedom.

Action: Write down everything you're doing in business and life. Then, on paper, write a 'Keep' column, a 'Maybe' column, and then 'Don't Keep.'

It's necessary = Keep
It's not necessary = Don't Keep
Unsure = Maybe

Reasons we don't like to say no.

This might sting...

Brace yourself...

We need the chaos.
We need to be the hero.
We need the hurry and business.

If we start to let go of all the things we're holding onto that keep us distracted, we can discover the state of our soul.

When we discover our soul's state, we can enter rest. And then never leave.

Say no so you can say yes to what's important and matters to you.

2. Slow Down

I was a lawless speed limit breaker. I rushed everywhere.
If there were a shorter line, I would find it.
Bigger goal? Get out of my way!

The famous psychologist Carl Jung said, "Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil."

Hurry has become cultural. What if we changed that? It's weird initially when you slow down, and everybody is going 100 miles an hour, but I wouldn't change it.

I wrote last fall about my friend Kenneth Yu's passing away. It was unexpected. He was young, and he thought he had more time. We live so fast to get to a destination we're not guaranteed to get to.

Start living with margin NOW. Don't wait until you get to "that goal."

Here's a great quote from John Comer: "The problem isn’t when you have a lot to do; it’s when you have too much to do, and the only way to keep the quota up is to hurry."

3. Subdue

Subdue: to bring under control by force.

Creating constraints is one of the best ways to think about growing a business.

So, as my client mentioned above, a constraint would be: "How can I run a seven-figure business in less than 20 hours a week?"

With this constraint, we're forcing things out that DO NOT matter.

Action: write your constraint out. "How can I achieve X without X." This is a great way to start. Let me know if you need help.

Never again be lost in your phone when the kids want to be with you or your spouse. Don't allow yourself to have endless meetings. Don't let yourself stay stuck doing what you don't want. It might not feel like it, but it is a choice.

The more practical side of this (which I structure with my people) is how we implement processes and people to do the work that needs to be done.

Let's normalize calm.
Let's normalize the margin.
Let's normalize consistent, steady growth.

In your corner,

C

When you’re ready:

1. Grab my book, which is already impacting Founders profoundly.

2. Not taking clients right now. But get on my waitlist (by responding to this email).