Success & Significance with Aaron Walker

What this episode covers

Every small business owner out there wants to be successful. Nobody starts their own business and puts in hours of blood, sweat and tears to just do ‘OK’. We all want to do the very best we can for ourselves and our families. Success means different things to different people, of course, but entrepreneurs often measure their success in pounds or dollars. Is this the best way to measure our successes? Or is there more to life than growing your business and making money? Joining me once again on Excellence Expected is Aaron Walker from View to the Top. Aaron has created a string of successful businesses throughout his 35 year entrepreneurial career but in recent years, he has also focussed on living a life of significance and sharing his wisdom with others. Significance, like success, is defined differently by each of us. What would a significant life look like to you? Perhaps you’ve never even considered it as chasing success often gets in the way of everything else. Well, don’t worry, because Aaron is going to talk us through some topics that can help us take the blinkers off for a moment and take in the bigger picture. It’s easy to get caught up in your work, especially if you have a small business. You feel that the best way to look after your family is to make as much money as possible. Is this really the best way to go about it though? As the old adage states, ‘nobody dies wishing they’d spent more time at the office’. Making time for family, friends and your community can lead to a more significant life. Aaron’s going to help us pause, honestly assess our current situations and make an action plan for achieving both success and significance in the future. Issue Challenged in this Small Business Podcast: How can I live a successful and significant life? About Aaron: Aaron Walker is a serial entrepreneur with over 35 years’ experience of building and growing successful companies. He now works as a life coach and business mentor as well as being the driving force behind View from the Top. His site aims to share Aaron’s experience and wisdom and help businessmen live both a successful and significant life. Actionable Tips: * Take Aaron’s personal assessment. Be as honest as possible. * Find out what you really want. Work with your partner and identify what it is that you really want to do and work backwards from there. What do you want in 3 months, 5 years or 10 years from now? * Read Steps to a Productive Day. This document will help you work through your day in a regimented way. Top Quotes: * “It’s not all about success, it’s also about significance.” * “What is success? You have to ask yourself these difficult questions.” * “In business, we strategize, but we also need to be helping people who can’t repay us.” * “Peoples’ attention spans are dropping and to actually listen to someone is becoming more of a lost art.” * “We do it backwards. We go out and make as much money as we can and then we go out a buy a house on which we can afford the payments. And we tie our total identity up with what we do and what we have. Then something catastrophic happens and you can’t afford the payments, so they take the house away and your personal identity’s gone. I teach guys not to tie their identity up with their tangible possessions or their positions. I help people discover who they really are.” * “People don’t want to expose themselves to this kind of scrutiny. They want a façade. Let’s just admit it, we’re all just a bunch of knuckleheads! We’re just trying to figure it out and go through life. We need help, we need people to help us with areas in our lives that are difficult.” * “People think they can work hard and then they can get a bigger house and a faster car and then they will be...