7 Costs Of Creating A New Business Part 2: The Real Side Of Success

In 7 Costs Of Creating A New Business Part 1, Bryan Miles shared some of his struggles and realizations from starting several growing companies including MAG Bookkeeping. This post connected on a deep heart level with many business leaders.  As a follow up, Bryan further shares with you how he and his wife Shannon handled these struggles and his reaction to these realizations.  Trust me – his thoughts will make you a better leader.

Lessons Learned

A surprising phone call in 2013 from our accountant informing me that my federal tax bill was 10 times what I was expecting, due to restructuring a business as a corporate entity. I sought to understand why our tax bill was so high from our accountant and with the response I received, I decided that it was time to get a new accountant. Then I drank a beer and devised a plan to pay off this ridiculously high tax bill. I also have a better tax strategy in place today so that “gotcha” moments with taxes are less and less. 
Spending two days in a hospital in 2012 because I thought I was having a heart attack. Come to find out, I was just under an insane amount of stress. Looking in the mirror I realized I was not in college anymore playing soccer. I was approaching 40 and needed a new strategy for taking care of my body and my stress levels. Today I consistently workout at least three times per week and I feel like I’m back in college – but I don’t look like I’m back in college. 
Discovering that not everybody you work with is excited about your success. I won’t lie, this hurt when I realized it. The realization of this is the hardest part, but quickly I’ve moved past this because I cannot control how others perceive my success. They have a limited view of all that’s gone on to get to their perception of my success. 
Getting two junk law suits thrown at us almost at the same time by an ambulance-chasing attorney and spending way more than I thought to beat the trolls away. We did an internal assessment of other areas to see where we could be at risk. Out of that assessment, we bought additional insurances and hired an ornery intellectual property attorney who eats trolls for lunch.  
Realizing that certain friends enjoyed watching me fail in new business attempts. I realized that I needed to redefine my definition of the word “friend.” Genuine friends are very hard to come by. Do everything you can to find them in your life. 
Making senior leadership hires from the outside where there is an insane amount of investment of time and energy, and not seeing the business result I was expecting. Not every business decision you make will be perfect or right. Showing myself grace was important because I’m very hard on myself and I expect a lot of my own leadership. Course corrections in your org charts should be handled with great care, a good amount of prayer, and a long-view strategy that gets you the result you’re expecting. 
Facing down tough business decisions throughout the last five years and finding myself up at 3 a.m. way too many times. In many of those nights, God has been silent and fear has tap danced in front of me. Before starting these businesses, I never had nights like these. God is always with me. Just leaning into that realization makes me breathe easier and punch fear in the throat. God’s awake and He understands why I’m awake at that time as well. 
When people see Shannon and I in pictures with Richard Branson, traveling to Necker Island, celebrating a recent press release on a business achievement, seeing my social media highlight reel of my vacations with my family … it’s easy to assume this is what success looks like. The things I’ve shared above don’t get shared on Facebook or Instagram, because they are ugly. But taking risk comes with equal parts of struggle and reward. This has been my attempt to show the real side of success … not-often shared. It’s mixed with failure, fear, unknown, and trials … all of which I am grateful for … and make success all the sweeter.

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