With the end of the year quickly approaching, it is a good idea to recalibrate your business, looking inward to determine where you are, how you got here, and where you want to be. This episode of The Friday Habit is all about this topic and integrating this introspection into your process occasionally. Here are the four questions and where Mark and Ben currently find themselves on their answers:

1. Why do you have your own business? Mark was unexpectedly laid off a few years ago and immediately decided to ramp up his side hustle into a full-time gig. Now that he has been working for himself for so long, he couldn’t see himself going back to working for someone else. Ben knew that he wanted to leave his full-time job to build his own thing, so he tested the waters in order to know whether his business would be viable. He loves the security, control, and freedom of having his own business and he is greatly fulfilled by helping his clients be successful.
2. What kind of business do you want to build? Mark’s long-term vision for Brand Viva Media fluctuates in size and scope, but his overall mission of leaving things better than he found them remains constant. He wants to be intentional with the culture his business has, the services they provide, and work-life balance for himself and his employees. Ben aims to have the optimal sized team to accomplish Knapsack’s mission, working smarter and making lives better along the way. He has enough previous work experience to know what he doesn’t want to do, so he tries to swing the door the other way and serve as an incubator for innovative concepts and business ideas in his community.
3. What kind of boss do you want to be? Mark wants to be the kind of boss that he would like to have, motivated by empathy and able to relate to his team. He wants to be self-aware and generous, lifting people up and providing value in every interaction. Ben wants to leave space for fun and productivity to coexist. He emphasizes the importance of hiring the right people who are motivated and coachable and then trusting them to do their jobs.
4. What kind of life do you want to have? How does your business support that? Mark wants to have autonomy and freedom, providing an environment that allows him and his employees to pay their bills while still having plenty of time with their loved ones. Ben finds freedom in systematizing his business, being innovative within a set of boundaries and enriching the lives of his team members and clients every day. 

Your action item after this episode is to think about these questions and plot a course forward.

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