What does “Always Living” mean?
If you have had any dealings with CCSalesPro you know that we have 4 core values. 3 of them are pretty straight forward and I don’t get many questions about them. “Always Learning” pretty much means you are always learning new things and you have a passion for growing in knowledge. “Always Leveraging” means that you are willing to use technology and procedures to get more done in less time. Basically it just means you are constantly thinking about how to get more done in less time. “Always Adding Value” means that you try to bring value to every relationship. The one where I get a lot of questions is, “Always Living” and I think there are two reasons for that. First of all, it means different things to different people and secondly it is by far the toughest value to live in practice. So what does it mean?
First of all, let’s talk about when and how I came up with our company’s core values. I didn’t create them when I was doing great and making a lot of money. I created these core values when I was broke and struggling to get my business off the ground so the roots of the “Always Living” core value are set in that context. Here are some of things this core value means to me and I hope this can serve as a guide to help you apply it to your life.
#1 – Live the other three core values even when you don’t want to. The last thing you want to think about when you are broke is “How can I add more value to my customer relationships?” or “What new organizational system should I use so I can save myself 30 minutes per week?” or “What new book should I read this week?” You just want to survive the week! “Always Living” means no matter what else happens in my life, I am going to hold true to my core values and keep learning and improving my knowledge and my relationships.
#2 – Decide what is important and then pursue those things over the “Urgent” things. Again, this sounds obvious and easy in the context of having money and good relationships but when you are broke or struggling in a certain area of your life this is the hardest thing to do. You have to commit that you are going to do things each and every week that are going to matter 10 years down the road. Of course you will always have urgent tasks that must be done but if you go from one fire to the next and never take time to do the things that are important you will never accomplish anything meaningful with your life and at the end of your life, you will not be happy about all the fires you put out.
#3 – Decide who is important and spend time on those people even when you don’t have time. One of these days I am going to get my wife on camera with me to talk about the tough times we went through. She would tell you that if she called me on a busy day and said, “I can’t take it anymore” my response wasn’t, “Deal with it.” My response was, “I will be home in 10 minutes.” She did the same for me when I was having a rough time. We were committed to each other more than we were committed to the business or to any particular course of action and if you want to truly succeed, keep in mind that success is as much about who you succeed with as it is about how much money you make along the way.
#4 – Refuse to live a “Someday” sort of life. I refuse to talk about, think about, meditate on or delay big future plans that have no real tie to today. This whole idea that many networking marketing companies pitch and that is widely accepted in business that “Work hard now and play later” is ridiculous and destructive. The logic makes no sense. They say, “You need to focus on work now so that someday you can focus on your family.” Guess what, when someday comes, which is rarely ever does anyway, you will not have a family to focus on. Rather than working 90 hours a week so that you can someday work no hours per week, why don’t you just work 45 hours a week at something you love doing and build a life from which you don’t need to escape! Get into a rhythm of life that includes lots of hard work, lots of time with those you love, lots of time giving back through your church or community programs and then just keep improving your life as long as God gives you life.
I have news for you, if you make 10 million dollars and then decide to stop working and give it all away and spend time with friends, you are going to feel lost, your friends will not want to be your friends anymore and you will waste all of your money because you will have no idea how to give effectively. It would be better to start making the giving, relationship building and general life improvement part of your daily routine and then by the time you have a lot of money you will be ready and able to give it away effectively while continuing to improve your relationships and the revenue engine allowing your generosity.
I hope this short article has helped you to add “Always Living” to your personal core values and has given you a map of how to apply this core value to your life.
Have a great day!
James Shepherd
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