Are You Really There?

I am writing this post on Memorial Day Sunday 2008 and have really been enjoying the past few days with my wife, 15 year old daughter and 11 year old son. So what you might ask?

Let me give you a little backround. For 23 years I was a mortgage banker, regional vp of a big company ,branch manager and eventually a company owner… Then back in 2002 -2003 I caught the “infomarketing bug” and went on to launch 4 multi-million dollar info-businesses.

Don’t worry — I am not telling you this to brag-that’s not my style– but at that time I was working my tail off. I was traveling alot to do speaking engagements , which I truly enjoyed, and then coming back to create more products, work on newsletters, coaching etc.etc.

My wife and kids were on my case because I wasn’t spending enough time with them… How could I between running 4 info businesses and a mortgage company. For those not familiar with the life of a mortgage banker — I was working 24/7/365 and took my pager , cell phone and calculator with me EVERYWHERE… see in this business most people need you during the evenings and weekends.. and you spend your days working on getting new business and taking care of the deals you just brought in.

I did finally figure out how to only work about 20-30 hours a week and make 5 times more money but I will share that with you in a future post. For now though I just wanted you to get a sense of what life was like…

So I made a real effort to be home more … but there was a real BIG PROBLEM that I didn’t even realize was going on. See in my mind I WAS HOME . But they quickly pointed out to me that even though I was physically home I was not mentally home. I was simply working out of a different location. In fact my home office was set up with all the equipment of my real office and with gotomypc.com it really was just as if I was at work .

Yes my ass was in the chair at home ( in my home office of course) but mentally I was elsewhere….

So ask yourself.. “AM I REALLY HERE?” Here are a few solutions I found you might want to try.

1. Plan this time in your planner

2. Turn off all communication devices while you are home with family.

3. Allow ZERO interupptions. If you allow yourself to be distracted it is your own fault

4. Set expectations with all business contacts of when you will and won’t communicate. This is really important- People will be fine if they know what your parameters are. The problem comes in when you try to portray yourself as accessible when you really aren’t. In fact what Iearned is that the less available I am the more money I make and the happier the clients are when they finally do get me.

5. Stop being so e-mail or blackberry obesessed. Unless you are a physician no one will die if they speak with you a few hours later or the next day.

6. BE THERE– Be fully engaged not just physically but also mentally..

I can never get back the years I missed while my kids were growing up but I can make it a habit ( and do) to be fully engaged NOW during the few years I have left with them before they go off to college.

OOOPS ! I almost forgot number 7- Create streams of income from work you do one time that will continue to pay you automatically ( with little effort on your part) for years to come… I will talk more about that in a future post but it sure is a hell of a lot easier to be “MENTALLY THERE” when you know you have money coming in consistently without doing anything additional for it.

Hope you enjoyed this post and I welcome your feedback.

Brian Sacks

http://www.brian.in12months.com