Intentional Growth #199: How to reinvent yourself in times of transition and find your life's purpose
This is officially the last episode of this podcast under the name of “Life After Business.” Starting with the next episode, this podcast will be renamed, “Intentional Growth” and it will be all about how to grow the value of your company with the end in mind.
In today’s episode, I’ll be talking with entrepreneur and author, Mike Lee. We’ll be talking about how to reinvent yourself in times of transition and how to find your life’s purpose.
What is your purpose and what are your definitions of success in your key roles as a human being? These descriptions represent your requirements. That way when a new opportunity does arise you have something to evaluate it against. Without this intentional work you are at risk of taking the next thing that comes your way and missing the opportunity of a lifetime: you risk not fulfilling your true God-given purpose.
What You Will Learn in Today's Podcast Interview:
- Mike’s personal and professional backstory
- The importance of purpose and how to write our life purpose statement
- Live life backward from your obituary
- How to get unstuck if you are not feeling good about the work you are doing
- How to identify if your ego has crept into your role as a leader
- Why retirement is a false and misleading mindset (especially for entrepreneurs)
- How to lean into tough times, use your creative thinking and find your life’s purpose
- How to get over yourself and fix your situation
- How to look deeper into the meaning of your role as an owner and leader
- Life is a balancing act and there is no perfect situation
- How to determine where your true identity resides
- How to avoid the frying pan all together, and get intentional before something bad happens
- What is false retirement?
- Overcoming stress and fear in order to become intentional
Main takeaway / Why I liked the episode –
Mike is the perfect guest to talk about intentional professional rebirth and the intentional journey of building something. With COVID as our catalyst, now is the time to define what you want out of your business and what your true purpose in life is.
Remember that next week’s episode is going to be the first of “Intentional Growth.” Check out our Intentional Growth Assessment on our website. Go to ARKONA.IO/Assessment or text 66866 to take a two-minute, twenty question assessment that we’ve created to help you shift your mindset and focus on value-creating activities that will help you get what you want with your business.
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What You'll Learn in the Mastering Your Cash Flow Video Series
- How to Build a 13-Week Cash Flow Statement: Get clarity on where and how your cash is coming from and being used and then build a plan to manage it wisely. Learn how to build a 13-week cash flow statement from the top CFOs in the marketplace.
- How to Build and Revise Your 2020/21 Budget and Forecast: 2020 and 2021 are most likely not going to look like you thought they did back when you built your budget and forecast. Learn how to model out different scenarios using forecasting best practices.
- Create a Strategic Plan to Grow Company Value: Increase the chances you come out of the gates and capitalize on future opportunities when our new "normal" sets in. Start thinking about how you can create a strategic plan to grow a valuable business that gives you choices.
About the guest –
Mike has started and sold his own consulting company and spent nearly three decades of experience leading business transformations for Fortune 500 companies and Public Sector businesses, he brings deep expertise to strategic planning, finance and HR function development, process improvement, and enterprise resource planning systems.
As the former president of North Highland, a global consulting firm with more than 1,200 professionals in twenty-five cities around the world, Mike was a key driver of North Highland’s international expansion and Cordence Worldwide partnerships. He joined North Highland in 2003 and played an instrumental role in the growth of the company from $40M in revenue to over $400M in 2015.
Throughout his career, Mike has managed cost efficiency programs, product development, shared services and over 50 successful merger integration engagements. His industry experience includes the financial services, media, life sciences, retail, manufacturing, distribution, and utilities sectors.
Quotes:
13:37 – “Instead of going out and finding a job, I need to articulate what it is I should be doing with my life.” – Mike Lee
18:00 – “It was really important to me to write it in a way that anybody would want to read it.” – Mike Lee
19:32 – “Until things get hot, or stressful, or tough, you’re not really willing to change. You’re not willing to change your business. You’re not willing to change what you’re doing personally. But when things get hot, you get creative.” – Mike Lee
45:51 – “I think that false retirement mindset is part of what has hurt so many people in these last couple generations that ‘retire’ and typically don’t live that long cause they’re not fulfilled and busy and happy.” – Mike Lee
16:56 – “Until you sit down and intentionally say, ‘This is what I want for my life and my legacy and all these different things,’ things are just going to happen to you.” – Ryan Tansom
Links and Resources:
Mike Lee’s email: mike.g.lee@theguidedjourneybook.com
The Guided Journey Book website
The Guided Journey: Finding Faith, Purpose, and Joy in Life, by Mike G. Lee
Finish Big: How Great Entrepreneurs Exit their Companies on Top, by Bo Burlingham
Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems, by Duflo Esther and Banerjee Abhijit
Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course
Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!
You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.