In his business career, Mike Michalowicz has seen the highest highs and the lowest lows. His challenging journey has helped him find his current mission: to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. The world’s perception of entrepreneurs is that they are all millionaires and do very little actual work, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
The reality is most entrepreneurs are not rich. They are not making much money and struggle from check to check, while working long hours and worrying where the next dollar will come from.
Most are exhausted and stressed out suffering from entrepreneurial poverty.
Mike told us, “I believe entrepreneurs deserve to be financially successful. Entrepreneurs set the pace for the global economy. They provide a standard of lifestyles for their employees and colleagues.”
Helping business people is personal to Mike. He built and sold a very successful business in his early 30’s.
“I sold a business and thought: I’ve arrived. I’ve got it figured out. I’m successful now. “
He took his profits from that sale and became an investor. He invested in several new businesses, but they all failed. Combined with arrogant spending, he lost his wealth and was forced to sell his possessions, his house, but worse had to face his family with the terrible news.
“I saw myself as the provider, but I wasn’t providing, I had actually lost everything.”
When he told his nine-year-old daughter, that he could no longer pay for horseback riding lessons, she ran out of the room. Mike thought she was running away, but she quickly returned with her piggy bank that had the money she was saving to use to buy a horse.
“She ran back to me with the piggy bank and put it down and said, Daddy, since you can’t provide for us anymore, I’ll do it.”
That simple act was a dagger to the heart. Understandably, Mike went through a depression and started to drink. Because he’s been there, he can relate when other entrepreneurs, who have failed fall into self-destructive behavior.
It took a friend, who suggested he write a journal, to help Mike begin to climb out of the abyss.
He scoffed at the idea at first but began and it worked.
“I wrote down thoughts about my anger and disappointment. How could I have been such a fool? I was angry at others just because I didn’t want to take all the blame myself. By journaling, I was able to release the anger and pent up frustration.”
Mike’s journaling helped him gain clarity and relief.
“I became more and more focused on this mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.”
The difficult journey from a successful entrepreneur to a failure, became the most important experience of his life. Journaling was the answer. It provided an emotional outlet, an internal therapy source, plus it provided clarity of what needed to be done.
Mike says now, “I make the highs really high and try to level out the lows. When you’re going through hell, just keep going, maybe you can get out before the devil knows you’re there.”
That phrase from a country song speaks to the truth of entrepreneurship. There will be deep valleys, but you can’t give up.
“Sometimes you just need to keep your head down and keep the process going. Take the bad as a learning experience and get ready for the next ride up again. It’s all just part of the journey.”
Mike’s journaling also became a basis for six books, including popular titles, The Pumpkin Plan, Profit First, and Clockwork. His latest book, “Fix This Next,” will be released on April 28th.
“I feel it is the most important work I’ve done. I believe the biggest challenge entrepreneurs and business owners face is that they don’t know what their biggest challenge is.”
Business owners are so caught up in dealing with daily problems, they fail to identify the most impactful action that will move the business forward. In his new book, Mike develops a system to pinpoint that biggest challenge and fix it NEXT.
Just as human beings have a hierarchy of needs to live, survive and prosper, identified by Abraham Maslow years ago, a business has levels of needs that must be met to continue to be profitable and thrive for a long period of time.
Mike gave us a quick peak into the concepts of his hierarchy, that is the basis for Fix This Next:
The base level need for every business is Sales. Nothing can happen unless something is sold to generate cash for the business. Cash is the oxygen that every business must have.
The next level is Profit, which brings about stability for an organization. Once a business is profitable survival is not the main issue. It brings relief to the owner.
Then the business needs to become Efficient. It can operate on its own with little or no input from the owner, so that is the next level.
Impact, or transformation is next. Companies can aspire to a higher level of creating transformation. People aren’t buying your product; they’re buying the impact on their life.
The highest level is Legacy, or the creation of perpetuity, absent the founder’s leadership. The business is intended to live on and have impact well beyond the years of the owner.
If you would like to learn more about this hierarchy of business needs and “Fix This Next,” visit: https://fixthisnext.com/. Click on the free evaluation to pinpoint what your business needs to work on right now.
Mike believes the most important work he does now is writing, but he has a passion for addressing large groups.
“I love speaking and sharing knowledge, but I also love the connections that are made. Meeting with groups of business people at an event provides me with more stories to include in a future book.”
Mike is a big believer in the benefit of knowing the Improv skill of “yes, and” and enjoyed the experience of learning Improv with his wife at a nearby class. He shared that it’s useful, not only on stage, but in leadership environments.
Mike’s greatest joy now is spending down time with family. His kids are nearly grown. The youngest is finishing high school and will attend Rutgers in the fall. The oldest will graduate from Rutgers, ready to find his own way in the world. In his downtime, he enjoys slipping into a nearby forest for a quiet walk with his wife.
Mike is on a mission to ‘eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.’ He has written down several ideas and concepts that will lead to more books that hopefully will help future generations of entrepreneurs, Soar to Success. We thoroughly enjoyed our conversation with Mike; you can listen to the podcast on Spreaker for even more information that we could include in this short article.
To learn more about Mike visit: https://mikemichalowicz.com/
