[ALIGNED]: An Introduction
[ALIGNED]:
An Introduction to the Series
By Mike Brcic, Chief Explorer, Wayfinders
This is the first post in my new [ALIGNED] series, a weekly series designed to help entrepreneurs create resilient, self-managing, purpose-driven companies and live aligned lives.
Visit the Table of Contents to see all of the posts in the series.
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“I think over again my small adventures, my fears, those small ones that seemed so big for all of the vital things I had to get to and reach, and yet there is only one great thing; to live and see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.”
- Old Inuit song
I’m a firm believer that the arc of our lives - and the arc of our character - is shaped by the most difficult struggles and the deepest pain of our lives.
My own life had already been shaped immensely by my mental and emotional struggles I suffered through from 2004 through 2007 - a period in my life in which I descended into the depths of depression - when the events described in this series took place: from early 2017 to February 2019, when I sold my company.
With hindsight I‘ve been able to see, clearly, how the pain I endured for those 3 years over a decade ago helped shaped my character and helped me develop the qualities of empathy and compassion that I acutely lacked. Time, as it passes, has a way of uncovering the truths and gifts that are at first slow to reveal themselves.
With these more recent struggles, I am only now beginning to see the first furtive glances at the lessons and gifts that they have given me.
A gratitude has begun to emerge, and a recognition that pain has real merit if we will allow ourselves to open to it.
This series is my account of struggle, of the lessons I learned, and the actions I took that eventually soothed my suffering. It is a series about business and about entrepreneurship yet it is also my story. I hope it will provide you an immense amount of value.
In each article in this Autopilot stream you will find 2 components:
Lessons Learned: my story, and the systems I put in place and tools I used, to create a self-managing company
Prescriptions: Stuff that you can use right away in your own business
The Lessons Learned are interesting insofar as they may mirror your own. I know that they mirror the stories of so many of my friends in the chaotic and often devastating world of entrepreneurship. I suggest you read through them in full as they give important detail and context for the prescriptions I suggest for your business.
In the Prescriptions section of each chapter, you will find instructions for how to implement the same systems and structures into your business that I implemented into mine, along with links to downloads for tools and additional information.
Where I Am Now
The heart of the series - and likely the reason why you are actually reading it right now - lies in the actions that I took to get to where I am now.
Where I am now - as in right now, while writing this post - is sitting on the front porch of my house while the sun beams onto my face.
Where I am ’now’, in a more general sense, is at a place in my life with a lot more free time on my hands and far fewer worries. [UPDATE: I’ll write more shortly about how my business has managed the covid-19 situation smoothly, and why I’m set up for future success].
Two months ago was the one-year anniversary of having sold my previous company (the one which this Autopilot stream is devoted to, which I took from stressful-and-chaotic to calm-and-easy-to-manage).
I spent the better part of 2018 following the processes in this series to extricate myself from the day to day and daily grind of the business.
By the end of the process I’d brought my commitment to the company down to 3 hours a week: an hour for a team meeting, and 2 hours for one-on-ones with key team members.
Having a company that required very little of its owner - almost as fully turnkey a business as is possible - made the company a lot easier to sell, and made my exit much easier and more rapid.
Some exits require months or even years for the transition from one owner to another because so much of the company is built around the founder(s), and the company requires so much of them in order to operate. My transition involved a one-hour weekly checkin with the new owner for 4 months (with a 2/3 salary), and then a complete exit.
The reason I was able to extricate myself from my business, and have it run smoothly (and thrive) without me, was that I implemented a number of systems and structures that enabled me to step back.
And they are the entire point of why I am writing and publishing this series.
A Note About These Systems And Tools
Many of these systems and tools have been gleaned and learned from other sources. In most cases, I edited and changed the systems to suit me – often simplifying them to make them easier for me and my team to use. In every case I give credit to the originators of the ideas, and I encourage you to dig deeper and explore the original sources.
[NOTE: I have laid out the chapters of this series according to the actions and decisions that I followed in order to develop a hands-off company that could run profitably and smoothly without me.
The posts are laid out in an order that I think would make sense for most entrepreneurs to follow, and although it seems as though the process was linear, moving from step 1 to step 15, it was anything but: processes from post 7 took place before post 3, for instance, and a lot of these processes were happening concurrently.
If you’re reading this series and wanting to apply this to your own business, my suggestion is to follow a more linear progression according to the outline of the series – I have laid them out in a more natural progression, with each new Prescription building upon the previous ones]
Although I am now enjoying a much more relaxed existence now, life wasn’t always this carefree.
Two years ago it was its polar opposite.
My business consumed and almost destroyed me.
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