Your Own Worst Enemy In Breaking the $5 Million Barrier

I spend a lot of time talking on the subject of breaking that five million dollar barrier. And it's a bit of tough love, but let's talk about why you might be the thing holding you back from that magic number.

Key Takeaways

• The Five Million Dollar Milestone
  • The Flywheel and the Journey
• Self-Sufficiency Made Real
  • Identify. Invest. Hire. Cashflow
• Being Your Own Worst Enemy
  • Cue the music
• Pride and the Five
  • Don’t let a lot of small spends keep you from the magic number

The $5M Milestone Journey

We all have to start somewhere, don’t we? And just as important as that starting line is a goal--a destination. It’s not that I think The Lord of the Rings was wrong in focusing on the journey, rather than the destination.

Far from it! But, in order to stay hungry, keep focus, and strive for success, we need to have milestones in mind. In the case of home business growth, that destination is the magic number of five million.

This is the number where meaningful reinvestment becomes a reality. It’s also a goal that means you can step back more and watch self-sufficiency begin to occur. It’s a thing we like to call ‘the flywheel’ in action.

If you want the full scoop then you’ll just have to visit us in September for the workshop, but the flywheel is a simple idea. It’s a series of processes that flow into and out of one another, helping you propel and grow.

At a certain point, you become your own perpetual motion machine of starting up, growing, acquiring, hiring, and starting it all over again.

Eat. Sleep. Invest. Repeat.

There’s a point in your scaling where you can hire managers, find sustainability, and be so efficient as an organization that you gain some freedom from being that micromanager.

It’s the big number where you meaningfully reinvest and take a step back from the business.

At that point you have managers, lead generation to sustain, and things are moving smooth. And if you’re in a hurry to hit that five million mark and achieve these things then you’ve got to stop and take a sort of audit—not of the business, but of yourself.

The most important way that you can personally control how fast you scale is asking “What do your personal expenses look like?”

Because, guess what:

“I Am My Own Worst Enemy”

Is there a better song that represents the sound of the 1990s? Fight me.

And while 1999’s minor radio hit My Own Worst Enemy by SoCal band Lit is about being self-destructive in love it also applies to the business world.

It's no surprise to me, I am my own worst enemy
'Cause every now and then, I kick the living sh*t out of me

Sound familiar to you? It’s often that our own self-destructive spending is a thing that puts a glass ceiling on five million and you start hedging. “Well, three million isn’t nothing to sneeze at?

So what if I drive the nice car, buy myself the best things, splurge on stuff that don’t raise the ship. I’m the captain, haven’t I earned it?”

Friend. I realize you don’t want to talk about that reality but it doesn’t stop it from being true. I’ll walk into and see businesses that are doing solid—that three million bucks mark.

The owner is decked out in a high-end car. His wife is pulling up in a Range Rover. He thinks he’s fine—its covered.

I’m here to tell you on the other side of it all: Three million dollars is not a lot of money. But, that’s also contextual. If you came from zilch, if you lack the perspective afforded from success, then you’re impressed by that.

But let’s look at that three million. A third of it is payroll. Minimum. And half of another third is materials. See how quickly things are getting eaten up?

Pride; Falls

But that list keeps going. Marketing. Ad spend. Rent. Cars. Upkeep. Surprise costs because, inevitably, something explodes. Oh, and you also want to keep growing, right?

Then that profit you made should stay out of your pocket and go back into your business. Forget pride, forget keeping up, forget appearances. Do you want to grow? Do you want to hit the magic number?

Or are you in it to prove something to a younger, more naive version of yourself that you’ve “made it”?

Don’t be your own worst enemy. Give yourself the time to grow and learn what real money looks like. Remember, you’re building something not just for yourself, but for the people around you and maybe even generations to come.

How much money do you cost your business? Food for thought.

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