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The Quest for 1%: Where Are Your Priorities?

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My fellow riskologists,

How quickly a month passes when all cylinders are firing and the train is barreling down the tracks. So much happened so fast in September that I hardly remember all the details. Luckily, though, the details are rarely as important as the results, and the results were good.

Have you experienced a time like that?

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Welcome to the 1% Club Update for September, 2011. This is the place where I discuss the strategies I use and trials I face as I take on some of the biggest challenges of my life.

If you’re new here, you may want to get familiar with the 1% Club first and read a few previous updates to see how things have progressed over the months.

Thanks for being here. I hope you’re able to take some of the lessons I’ve learned and apply them to your own big challenges

Where Are Your Priorities?

After a month that felt more like a day, one question I found myself asking over and over as the calendar flipped to October is “Where, exactly, are your priorities, Tyler?”

This is a question I try to ask myself on a regular basis, and I recommend anyone else with big goals do the same.

While the answers have always been consistent, my actions haven’t always been. And action trumps intention every time.

The three main priorities I am constantly trying to juggle (in order of importance) are:

  • My 1% Club aspirations
  • Riskology.co growth
  • Business development

In some ways, they all fit together, and that’s by design. But the order of importance still exists, and the logic behind them is fairly straightforward.

Business is fun and important, but it’s more of a means to an end for me than a means itself. For business to thrive, Riskology.co needs to thrive. For Riskology.co to continue to grow and expand, I need to create excellent content and work to build the community. To be able to do that, I need to have interesting and meaningful experiences that help me to grow as a person and help me connect with people like you that are taking risks in your own lives.

Basically, making sure that I’m taking risks and challenging myself on a regular basis is the fundamental building block behind everything else. It’s the key ingredient and, without it, there’s little purpose for the rest.

This month, I found myself working almost entirely on The Bootstrapper Guild, my new business project for do-it-yourself entrepreneurs, at the expense of my other priorities.

This is okay in small doses—I prefer to obsess over one thing at a time than try to juggle many things at once—but it probably shouldn’t take priority for too long.

If you find yourself wondering why things aren’t working the way you think they should, it’s probably a good idea to give your priorities a once over.

The Million Dollar Business

Speaking of The Bootstrapper Guild, the very soft launch a week ago went fantastically, and I can’t wait to let more people in. I’m extremely hesitant to even suggest it because it feels borderline reckless to even consider at this stage, but after running the numbers on a few different scenarios, I’m starting to believe that TBG could, with a considerable amount of work and time (we’re talking years here), become the million-dollar business that I’m targeting.

As I like to describe myself to my friends, I’m the world’s most optimistic pessimist—always planning for the best but unsurprised by the worst. I’d never planned on TBG achieving that, and it may never, but it feels more realistic than anything else I’ve considered before.

The real target for the million-dollar business is another project that hasn’t even been birthed yet. I’ll probably be announcing it later this year or early next. I don’t have a timeline at the moment, but now that I’ve fully jinxed myself, I’d better get to work!

All that to say: Don’t be surprised if the thing you expect to be successful falls flat and something else you never considered presents itself. And certainly don’t ignore it.

Athens Classic Marathon: 5 Weeks and Counting

Last month I announced that I’d be running in the Athens Classic Marathon in November despite the fact I wasn’t registered, didn’t have a flight scheduled, had no accommodations booked, and I hadn’t started training.

Well, nothing like a little public accountability to get the ball rolling. All of those things are now in place, and I’ve been faithfully building my training mileage back up over the last four weeks. I’m ready to eat some gyros and subsequently donate them back in the middle of the course.

As I learned the other day, the Athens Classic Marathon is a “net uphill” course, meaning that for most of the race you’re slogging it up a hill. So, I’ve diligently added a very difficult hill to my training routine to prepare for it.

Remember: You can’t prepare yourself to climb a mountain on a stair-stepper. If you have a daunting challenge ahead of you, don’t forget to step up your preparation.

I won’t be in Greece for long—this is only a “business trip” (yes, you may laugh out loud at the idea of that)—but perhaps I’ll have a little time to scout out which Greek island I’d like to buy once their economy collapses in full.

Maybe we could start an Riskology.co pool and create our own nation. That’d be fun, right? Free healthcare with a qualifying donation.

To date, I’ve completed 2 of 7 worldwide marathons.

Your Stories of “Giving Up”

Last month I asked you to tell me about a time in your life—good or bad—when you decided to give something up, and you answered the call in droves. We got many very meaningful stories, and here are some of the best ones:

And dozens of others left their stories about giving up in the comments section of last month’s update. You can read them all over here.

Thanks to everyone who participated. These “reader challenges” have grown bigger every month thanks to you, and I’m always excited to read and share your stories.

New Reader Challenge: Where are Your Priorities?

This month was all about recognizing and re-organizing priorities for me, and now I want to hear about your priorities.

What are the top three priorities in your life, and why? Why are they important to you, and how do you make sure you give them the attention they deserve? What do you do if you notice you’ve been neglecting one?

If you have a blog, write your story there for your own readers and leave a link to it in the comments below.

If you’re not the blogging type, just leave your story in the comments below. There’s no word limit, so make it as short or long as you like.

I’ll share everyone’s story in next month’s update.

Yours in risk-taking,

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Images by: jercraigs, GenBug, dr_paul_szczypka