Are you balanced?

Make no mistake about it, you are much more important than anything in or around your business.

You are so much more important than a few extra sales, a bit more profit or some cash in the bank.  You are also far more important than any demanding customer, ungrateful employee or a needy supplier.

Money can’t buy you health and happiness so everything you do about planning and growing your business needs to make sure you are happy at every level. There is no point having loads of money without having anyone to share it with. As the saying goes, no business success makes up for a failure at home.

So, the first numbers we need to consider are what I call you your personal numbers. These are a combination of financial and non-financial numbers.

To help us I’d like to introduce you to the Your Life Circle.

Draw a circle with four lines through the middle. At the centre write zero and where the line touches the circle write ten. Each line from the centre to the outside represents something that is important to you. These could be health, money, family and friends.

The idea is that you score each category from 1 to 10 and join the dots up. In the ideal world you would have a perfect circle but the chances are your circle will have some dents. Use this to help you focus on what is important.

You could create lots of circles, one for each category. So, you could create a circle for your children with:

• Fun this week
• Reading a book with them
• Listening to them
• Time on the floor playing

For money you could have these categories:

• House
• Car
• Holidays
• Entertaining

You can also use circles in your business. For example, you could have a overall business score which could have these categories:

• Sales
• profit
• Cashflow
• Enjoyment

And, just like your personal circle you can break them down into more specific circles.

I’ll leave you to decide what is on your Life Circle. But, what I would say is that perhaps the scores should come from other people, as well as yourself.

Your spouse can tell you how well you are doing as a husband or wife, your kids can tell you how well you are doing as a parent. Your own parents can tell you if you are a supportive son or daughter and your doctor can assess your health.

In business your employees can score your management style, your customers can score your services, Google can score your Website and your sales and marketing metrics can tell you if your business strategy is effective.

But, only you know if you are truly happy doing the things you REALLY enjoy. As far as I know, we only have one life….take some time to think about what you really want to do. And, make sure you do it.