Do you know what success looks like to you? You have to know how you want your life to look like. It’s not about overworking yourself out because there’s always a smarter way to do things. Listen up and be inspired!
Episode Transcription
Den Lennie (2s):
Howdy, guys! Den here with this week’s shorty episode 181 of the How to Scale a Video Business podcast. So today I’ve got a question for you. Do you know what success looks like to you? This is a fundamental. So, the question that I think is important to consider ’cause, if you don’t stop an ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing, then why are you doing it? And I’m in that from the sense of, are you truly living the life you wanna live doing the things you love every day?
Den Lennie (47s):
You know, one of the very first modules there, all of my clients do inside of the VBA is what does success look like to you? And there’s a visioning exercise to get very clear on what that looks like. And I have an amazing conversation with a new client yesterday, and we were talking about this very, very subject. And that subject was, you know, what, what does success look like? Because it looks like different things for different people. And so when we consider this, you know, what happens is often times we start a business and we just want to make money, but I have this amazing conversation with Don yesterday and Dom’s 22 years old.
Den Lennie (1m 31s):
He said to me, you know, I it’s really important to me that I have the right lifestyle. You know, I, I wanna enjoy a balance between work and life. I want to buy a property, grow my own veggies and, and, and do great work. And I was really inspired by Dominic and his maturity in knowing what he wants. And he joined our foundation program actually. And, and certainly going to be really exciting watching his journey because he straight, he is ready to, to grow up. And he said he had been stagnant for the last two or three years. I know he listened to the show. So dumb. How are you? Hope you weld great to speak to you yesterday. But what was inspiring was we were so values aligned and actually died when I was put in the chat last week, I’m on Thursdays, but are Soler was growing.
Den Lennie (2m 18s):
And then they pulled the power side of the pool power and kind of cancel last minute. And it was interesting was Dom is really into green energy and low impact and, and being self-sufficient. So it was kind of a, like a, a perfect storm, if you will, that we had to cancel that call. We had a phenomenal chat yesterday, and it was really, it got me thinking a lot about my philosophy in business in life. Because when I started this business, I was all about, you know, getting to the big numbers. And because I felt that if I got all those numbers in that cash, I’ll be able to do all these things and, and that would somehow make everything worthwhile. But what I discovered as I observed a lot of other entrepreneurs that I, that I know in some circles with the ones that are truly happy are not chasing crazy numbers, they are, they are they’re there.
Den Lennie (3m 6s):
They’ve got a very clear idea of what success means to them and, and they get to live that life every day. And it reminds me of the story of the Mexican fishermen, where, and I’m sure if you Google the story, you will find that the store or Google, or the story of a Mexican fishermen. And it talks about the importance of, you know, knowing what you want and, and, and you may already have it. And so what this process enables you to do is to get very, very clear on doing just what you need to, to get the results you want. And that doesn’t necessarily mean killing yourself to scale too big, you know, scaling a video business isn’t about necessarily getting bigger.
Den Lennie (3m 48s):
It’s about scaling the work that you do, making sure you are doing them more profitable work and not just seeing yes to everything. And one of the ways in which you can do that is by focusing on a targeted nitch. And that’s actually what Dom does Dom works in the cycling industry. So he was in a perfect niche for expanding and going very deep into that market. And, and he just joined the foundation program and he is going to be kind of getting access to a lot of great content to help him really accelerate that process. But first of all, you gotta be clear on what you want. I feel very, very fortunate that, that I know live almost my path in life. You know, I walk for about three and a half days a week all up, and I have amazing clients.
Den Lennie (4m 31s):
I don’t have too many, but I have great clients who I enjoy walking in the fact, we just come off a call where we did an amazing training and a game-changing training on how to respond to calls, inquiries, or referrals in a, in a semi-automated way, whereby you, you have a kind of set of templated responses that have links to really key areas of value that become evergreen marketing content. And we just share that with her mastermind members. And then everyone’s like, this was a game changer. I mean, I was going to make my life is so much easier, and that is what we’re always thinking.
Den Lennie (5m 13s):
So I spend my time, I’m always looking for ways to make the lives of my clients easier, but also we’re all very aligned in what we want from life. It’s not just about getting to a big number. That’s not to say the numbers, aren’t a factor, you know, that when we were running businesses and therefore we have to be very clear about the commercial viability of the business. And if a business isn’t making profit than it’s not a, business’, it’s a hobby, but I’m, you know, back in 29, 2009, when I started to have Stop Academy, it was with the ultimate goal. So I could move to Australia and build a business. It didn’t settle on me being in one place and video production, largely involved me being in one place.
Den Lennie (5m 56s):
So I started the business and the training business to allow me some freedom to not be tied, to going to a location. And that was partly forced because I had an accident back in 2001, which crippled my leg and meant, but I couldn’t actually shoot anymore. Not, not with big old beater cam cameras. When DSLRs came in, I was able to kind of get back into a bit of shooting, but still I couldn’t do hand-held all day long. So he knew back to the story. And I got very clear in about 2013 that, that I wanted to move to Australia 2012, 2013, and I put a vision board together. And that vision board had the lifestyle that I was there. I was, I was aspiring to, and by using that vision board, I was able to create a business that supported that dream.
Den Lennie (6m 41s):
So, and I’ve talked to you this before, but it, if you’re not clear on what success looks like to you, you kind of chasing an empty goal. So, so I encourage you to, to spend some time thinking about what your ideal life would look like. No, I know that suits get in the women in 10, for example, one of my clients, I know he’s on a massive day to day, he’s got an eight hour drive for our shoot in the middle. So I figured out was there for our sheet for us was back, but he’s been a phenomenal months. And, you know, he still kinda goes out in the yard shape, but he’s a, you know, he, he, he’s getting very clean a bit, what he wants in his life. He’s just got a baby. He wants to work four days a week. Ideally, he’d like to get a new studio at some point.
Den Lennie (7m 24s):
And he’s got a very clear idea of what he wants his life story. He knows what his future house wants to look like. He knows that the lifestyle he wants to have for his kids, and he is very clear on that. And, and, and, and, and one of the things we talk about a lot in the VBA is, is getting a very clear on that purpose. What do you want your life to look like? It’s not just about going out and get in lots of video work and then killing yourself with long days to make some money. And then, you know, trying to go and pay your taxes and have a bit leftover in the end. There’s a much smarter way to do this. And the smart way to do it is to get very clear about what you want and, and execute that and do what you need. It. I live for a hundred meters or at the beach. Our chooses are very busy day is for me, Monday, yesterday was busy and Wednesday’s a half day for me because I gave myself a Wednesday morning to recover from a full day of coaching.
Den Lennie (8m 13s):
Wednesday afternoon, evening. I did a bit of work and Thursday, early morning, early afternoon is a work day. And then Friday morning, and then I don’t work Friday afternoons, and I didn’t want Monday morning. So I have a three day weekend every weekend. And about another half day during the week, where, when I’m not kind of, I’ve got nothing at my calendar. So that’s a choice I made and we generate is a reasonable revenue and Great prophet. And we do that with minimal effort, but working with great people. And that is what I’ve chosen to be my pathway. Now, I have an amazing, and all the tech I want to buy. I’ve got all the gear I want to buy. I can go and make films and take photographs if I want too.
Den Lennie (8m 54s):
So I feel like I’ve, I’ve my, my passion, my, my reality of late what success looks like, but that may be different for you. So have a think about what success means to you and, and write it down and start sketching out what that looks like. Because if you write it down, it becomes tangible. It becomes real. And then from there, you can really look to explore how to execute that. And if you need some help with that, like a, like Dom did yesterday have a chat to us because it may be that the foundation program can help you accelerate that process and, and, and ask yourself, you know, how are you stuck? And a right. Are you stuck doing the same thing going the same results?
Den Lennie (9m 36s):
Maybe it’s time to start to do something different. And then guys, I am, I’m going to go out and have a wok on the beach. I we’ll see you on Thursday. You’ve been listening to the How to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host Den Lennie. If you’re a Video business owner hit, the ceiling would benefit from mentorship, support and coaching and check how you can work with me over at denlennie.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the shore over on iTunes. And we really appreciate your taking a few minutes to leave a review. And don’t forget to share if you feel you’ve gotten value from this episode that you think it would be useful for other filmmakers, you know, and please do me a massive favor and share it on social media and in groups that you may be in.
Den Lennie (10m 18s):
So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.
