What’s Next?
We’ve heard the story many times. An entrepreneur successfully navigates past and through all the obstacles on the course of starting, growing, and scaling their business. They plan and execute the sale of their business. Against overwhelming odds, they arrive at the end of their journey with a life-changing pile of cash! It wasn’t simple and it wasn’t easy. They poured their life into the business, financially and emotionally.
Messages of congratulations and words of admiration poured in from their network of colleagues, associates, and friends. The celebrations lasted a couple of weeks, then came a much needed international vacation with their spouse.
Then, on a random Monday morning not long after music faded, they wake up and ask themselves, “What am I going to do today?” They’re at a loss for answers. How does a person fill the 60-hour weekly void previously occupied by running their business? Suddenly there are scarcely few telephone calls to take and e-mails to answer. It seems like no one wants to talk to them anymore.
They’ve discovered that their life’s purpose and fulfillment was tied to their business, along with their social network, community status, personal identity, and self-esteem.
Unbelievably, after achieving the goal of selling their business, the apex of entrepreneurship, for an amazingly large amount of money, they’re lost and a bit depressed.
This isn’t what they expected.
They’ve hit the moment where they ask, “What’s Next?”
Our founder, Jeff Sandene, is writing a book to help entrepreneurs answer this question, in advance, as part of their life planning process. Relevant Living: Your New Beginning of Growth, Purpose & Fulfillment addresses the issue of “What’s Next?” by giving entrepreneurs, executives and other high-performing professionals seven exercises to complete to help them determine and create a new beginning that fills the void left by the change in their career path.
His full book’s a work-in-progress, but we thought it would be great to share the framework in a series of articles on LinkedIn, “Seven Exercises for Relevant Living.”
The series begins tomorrow.
Follow our Sandene Strategies LinkedIn page for this series and more!