By many measures, I succeeded as a corporate marketing executive. I moved steadily up the ladder, earned an excellent income, and helped turn around two household-name brands that are still prosperous today. I also made some pretty serious mistakes.
I’m not talking about my mistakes on the job, though I made those, for sure. I had campaigns where I ran over budget, times when my ideas flopped, and quarters when I didn’t quite make revenue targets. But I’m talking about mistakes in the most important parts of my life: my family, our financial security, and my own health.
Thankfully, however, franchising has helped me correct those errors. That’s why I say that leaving my career as a corporate executive to become a franchisee was the smartest decision I’ve ever made. Keep reading for the details on those big mistakes, and how franchising helped me point my life in a better direction.
Mistake No. 1: Putting company before family
I also call this the “blind loyalty” mistake. As a worker who climbed the ladder at the same Fortune 50 company for more than 20 years, I was devoted to my job. I worked long hours, traveled extensively, and uprooted my family every 2-3 years for a new leadership assignment.
As you might imagine, this kind of lifestyle was hard on my family. Overseas assignments, especially, could be socially isolating for them. I missed milestones and important events. My wife Lauri had to solo-parent our two children for weeks at a time. I was choosing the company over them, and they knew it.
Mistake No. 2: Sacrificing my health
A high-demand corporate schedule is bad for both the body and the brain. With so much travel on my schedule and long hours in the office, I struggled to eat healthy or exercise consistently. I also battled old injuries from my days as a college athlete–I had no time to tend to them properly.
In addition, I neglected my mental health, opting instead for an ask-no-questions, success-at-all-costs mindset. Emotions were a weakness that distracted from profit-driven decision-making. And the worst part of it all? My schedule literally almost killed me before I realized what I was doing to myself.
Mistake No. 3: Single-threading my income
As a corporate executive, I put all my financial eggs in one basket. My employer was the sole source of my family’s financial security. They controlled the purse strings to my salary, my pension, and our insurance.
We couldn’t even diversify with two incomes. My schedule was so demanding that Lauri had to focus full-time on the domestic side just to keep our lives running. Once our children were a bit older, she was able to do some side work in her trade as an interior designer. But my job required us to relocate every 2-3 years, which limited her ability to maintain her business.
To be clear: the company did take care of us financially. But we were always one layoff away from losing 100% of our income, insurance, and retirement funding. And there was a hard limit on how much I could earn. Past a certain point, it didn’t matter how much revenue my work produced–it all went to the company’s bottom line.
How Franchising Became My Solution
After I had a significant cardiac event (remember what I said about my career almost killing me?), I realized I needed to find a new path. That’s how Lauri and I found franchising. We decided to become multi-unit owners, with the ultimate goal of earning a full-time income from part-time work. To pay our bills until I could draw a salary from our business, Lauri went back to work full-time, and I took a leadership role at a small, locally based company.
Even with two jobs on my plate–my day job and launching our franchises–my schedule was lighter than it had been when I was a corporate executive. And when executive franchising became my sole occupation, things got even better. I could fulfill my responsibilities to my business by working about 10 hours each week.
The result: I’ve been taking better care of myself and my relationships. I have time to exercise consistently, eat better, and tend to my mental health. Lauri and I started spending so much time together that we had to start planning our time apart, instead of the other way around. I’m also able to enjoy plenty of down time with my now-grown children, extended family, and friends.
Executive franchising has also allowed me to multi-thread my financial security. First, as a multi-unit owner, I have redundancy in the money coming from my franchise business. If one or two locations have a slow month, the others are likely to cover the gap. Second, the low demands on my time enabled me to launch another income source: The Empowered Franchisee.
The Biggest Lesson I Learned
The ultimate lesson I learned through all this? It’s never too late to course-correct. I was 50 when I signed my first franchise agreement. I work with candidates who are just about to retire–or who retired years ago and are feeling bored or isolated.
Plenty of candidates also contact me after late-career layoffs. I love being able to show someone that their best career years are still ahead of them, just when they think everything’s finished! In fact, as long as you’re still alive, you can change direction to improve your life, your health, and your financial future.
But that doesn’t mean you should wait. The sooner you redirect, the longer you can enjoy the benefits of your choice. I’m grateful I didn’t wait any longer than I did to choose franchising, and I wish I’d done it earlier. Don’t let waiting become the mistake you make. Book a call with me today to take the first step toward a better future for yourself and your family!
Comments are closed