All You Can Be Is the Best You Can Be

My philosophy has evolved, as I've begun thinking about how we live and if we can truly say we have lived a life well lived. When thinking about what preoccupies us, it seems to revolve around three areas of life: Health, Wealth, and Wellness. Health is our physical health: are we exercising and eating right? Wealth is ensuring we have the resources to live the life we imagined. Wellness is our mental health: are we happy? Are we content?

 In the last two years, I have seen so many business owners, executives, and healthcare providers really struggle with mental wellness. I want to share a story that comes from my upcoming book, Fire Yourself First - Unchain Yourself from Your Business, Create Your Self-Running Systems, and Do What You Love Next, that may help clarify what is truly important to you.

Sarah never showed up to the event. She had planned to be there, paid money for her ticket, and yet her seat remained empty. Her lonely chair was an ominous, silent warning, and it left me wondering what had happened? Perhaps there had been a family emergency? Perhaps she'd gotten tied up at work? What had caused this woman, a hardworking physician who had made her way through medical school and put in long hours, to fail to show? Later I discovered the cause of her absence—suicide. Sadly, Sarah had killed herself just days before the event. But what drove this woman, someone who was known for helping to save lives, to take her own?

            While Sarah's case is an extraordinary one, unfortunately, there are many people out there who are just like her—ambitious, entrepreneurial, and hardworking—yet there is something drastically wrong. Like Sarah, there are many who find themselves unhappy or even miserable simply because they are overworked and stretched too thin. Whether their worlds disintegrate into divorce, some other kind of loss, or in Sarah's case—suicide—many find themselves working too much, stressed too much, and losing too much in the process. I've noticed this pattern over the years while putting on my live events where I teach doctors how to increase revenue at their practices. Along the way, I've discovered that my events sell out precisely because many of these frontline healthcare workers are fed up with being worked too hard without any recognition. The result is that they desire to escape their current workplace pain by leaving traditional medicine and hope to enter the field of private, cash-pay medicine because for them, that's where they might possibly find some workplace happiness.

            Have you noticed the common thread between Sarah's story and these other frontline doctors? These are all individuals who find themselves chained to their work, wanting their time back, wanting their lives back, but they just aren't sure how to do so. Unfortunately, they are not alone. According to a variety of studies done on workplace stress, while stress can come from a variety of places in a person's life, one of the largest stressors, without a doubt, is the workplace. In fact, 7 out of 10 adults reported that workplace stress affected their personal relationships, and the amount of work on one's plate was the most commonly reported cause of workplace stress. One study even noted that 70% of all doctor's visits is linked to workplace stress.(1) No matter how you slice it, people are stressed, and they are stressed about work.

            While you're not alone in feeling overwhelmed by work, you're also not on your own when it comes to a solution. In Fire Yourself First, I'm here to show you how to unchain yourself from your work and create an autonomous business that runs without you in order to free up your time so you can do what you love. While it's taken me many years to develop this system, my four-part plan enabled me to do just that—unchain myself from my business and get my life back. When I did so, I found that I had the freedom to think about what I really wanted from my life while simultaneously having the time to pursue it.

 My purpose for sharing this story is to convey that no matter how beat down or stressed you feel, there is absolutely a better future waiting for you! Often, we feel we must do it all, but I’m here to tell you, no, you don’t. I want you to start de-cluttering your life, and either eliminate or outsource what is not necessary. You may need to hire an assistant for your business and personal life, and that is okay. What are you working for anyway? I hope it’s so you can live a life well lived for you and your family right now! If you are looking for some great reading material, check out the book The Gap and Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. They do a great job reminding us that happiness and growth are not done by continually looking forward, but instead we must look back at our successes!  

 I wish you the best and encourage you to make today an amazing day. Above all, remember to live a life well lived!

Cheers, Jeff Russell

(1) "69 Troubling Workplace Statistics for 2022," Accessed September 2022, https://www.myshortlister.com/insights/workplace-stress-statistics.