Coffee with Mike – What projects are you excited about?

The future of my business is always something I’m thinking about; there’s always going to be some risk-taking involved, as well. I’m 60 years old, and I’m still planning the next 30 years of my career, like I’m going to live forever. And the thing is, there’s always something good that you can offer people. You’re never past a point where you’ve lost your value, unless you decide you have nothing to offer. For me, I have something to offer to people of any age--just because I’m 60 doesn’t mean I can’t help someone who’s 25. It doesn’t mean I can’t help someone who’s 88, and anyone in between. The point I’m thinking about is, how can I be most effective in helping as many people as possible make their own decisions, help them make good decisions that they know are good, and still be available to my family? Still be available to the things I believe are important so that I don’t miss today? I don’t want to be so future-focused that I miss today. 

So, how do I do that? I think that part of it is going to be video training; we’re going to be able to offer people a way to think through their individual situations, we’re going to be able to take general, generic principles and teach you how to convert them into principles that are meaningful to you. You’ll be able to identify which of those principles are ones you should embrace, which of those are principles are those you can just walk on past: when they shouldn’t be yours because it just doesn’t reflect your values. You’ll be able to identify and differentiate between the two, and once you get a basketful of those principles you know belong to you, I think you begin to start the process of being your own decision-maker. Even when you hire other people to help you, whether you go buy a car and you have a salesman, or whether you buy a house and you have a real estate agent, or whether you get a loan and you have a banker--you’ll know how to evaluate what they’re doing and whether they’re doing what you want them to do. Whether they’re affecting the change that you want to experience. Whether they’re affecting the future that you want to create. That’s what I hope that we can do in our business. I’m looking forward to working with people who are just out of college and they made some decisions that they regret, like maybe having some student loans that are bigger than they ever thought they would be. Maybe they’re 35, and they’ve had these student loans now for 15 years and they don’t know how to get rid of them. Maybe they’re 45 and they’ve spent all this money trying to get a life, and now they don’t have anything towards retirement. Or maybe they’re 55 and they’re still in that boat where they don’t have enough for retirement and they’re not sure what to do. Maybe they’re 65 and they still don’t have enough money, or maybe they do have enough money but now they’re 65--how do we begin to experience a part of life that we haven’t experienced yet, or haven’t experienced enough of yet?

How do we enjoy who were are, how do we enjoy who we have around us, and how do we enjoy what we can share? I’m looking forward to working with people of any age, and helping them learn the one thing that’s really important: how do I make good decisions for me? How do I do that? I spent a lot of time learning that. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. If I can just be blunt about what my training is, it’s “look at all the mistakes I’ve made, and you don’t have to make them because I’ve learned from them--and you can learn from them, too!” And that’s really what it’s about: learn from me, because I’ve learned everything the hard way so that you don’t have to.