How You Can Balance Ambition and Meaningful Pursuits

Newsletter · Feb 02, 2025

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An entrepreneur's recipe for sweet success

And how to analyze different lawn care deals

60sec Read***

Today is both motivational AND practical.

I promise I’ll deliver on both. And if I don’t, please let me know, feedback is good regardless of the vehicle it comes in.😉

There’s a book called The Second Mountain by David Brooks.

The basic premise is the idea that there are two mountains. The first mountain is through the pursuit of success, independence, achievement and superficial goals that are “fleeting”.

The second mountain is after you’ve reached the top of the first mountain only to find yourself in a “valley” with the desire to seek something more meaningful and with deeper purpose.

And while I couldn’t agree more with this idea, this ISN’T the case for everyone. At least it doesn’t have to be.

ESPECIALLY if you pursue the first mountain the right way.

I’ll explain:

The problem here is that MOST don’t ever reach the top of the first mountain.

THAT is what we’re pursuing.

We’re in a JOB we aren’t in love with
We have a passion that we’re trying to monetize.
We see opportunities that we believe can change the lives of our families for generations
We KNOW we were meant for more
We’ve seen behind the curtains and know what’s possible…

Any / all of the above….

If you’re still trying to reach the summit and experience the success of the initial climb, THAT is what you’re focused on.

So how do you climb the first mountain without getting lost in the superficial chase of all the things that in the end don’t REALLY feel the void?

And as someone actively climbing the first mountain, I personally don’t want to wait until I get there to realize I want a deeper more meaningful pursuit.

How about I just align what I’m doing now with that and then build an empire on top of the first mountain?

It’s not easy, but it can be done. And this is what you can do to make sure of it:

WRITE, READ, VISUALIZE— Be intentional and extremely CLEAR on what you’re working towards. It’s really easy to be vague and ambiguous. But it’s important to completely define what you’re trying to achieve. Write it all down (even if it might change or pivot) read it daily, visualize it and memorize what you’re going after.
FIND OUT WHY— Ask yourself WHY you’re doing after those things. And the answer can totally be “because I want to make more money”. But then follow that up with answering WHY you want more money. Get to root of it.
RECORD YOURSELF— Document the progress. This doesn’t have to be posted or shared with anyone, but the idea here is to take these thoughts out of your head. Set up a video or just a the voice memo on your phone and actually record yourself stumbling through VERBALIZING what you’re doing. There’s a lot that gets sorted out when you have to talk about it.
FAST FORWARD— This one is a big one. Put yourself in your future state. When you’ve made X amount of money or when you’ve achieved X thing… then actually try and feel that moment. THEN, ask yourself “now what?” How has that achievement changed anything? What are you doing differently NOW? What do you want to do with this new found success? More often than not, this isn’t ever thought about and then that time comes and just like Brooks wrote about, we fall into a valley of being unfulfilled.

There’s so much more, but I’ll keep it at that!

Now for the down and dirty practical stuff:

I’m looking at a ton of different lawn care businesses to buy right now. Most on market, some off. Here’s the flow that I use to sort through the weeds and streamline the process

A deal is found. This might come from a listing or from a connection on the industry that we’ve heard from
Data is entered into the spreadsheet.
Based on the FCF PDS (free cash flow post debt service) we eliminate most. We want $400k or more.
If it passes the sniff test, we contact the seller (or broker) and have the first convo.
LOIs are then out together and sent out
Negotiations and due diligence starts

For reference, this is my Google sheets and the formula we have built in to filter the deals as they come in.

Until next time...

Stay in the fight,

My best tweet this week:

@kevinasrx

Right before my eyes I’ve watched a little mom and pop donut shop down the street completely transform their business AND revenue by super simple improvements.

It sounds too simple, but it’s worked.

Here’s what they’ve done

🧵

12:20 PM • Jan 27, 2025 ↗

My favorite tweet this week:

@Doctrepreneury

@trentjhughes

This question is a good starting point for being intentional in your goals.

TL;DR: I'd like to make >450k/year.

For those that have 3min to read:

I'm going to avoid discussing the distinction between happiness and contentment and focus on how I have aligned monetary goals…

https://x.com/i/web/status/1884258925383672306

Trenton Hughes

@trentjhughes

Entrepreneurs, real talk:

At what income level will you be happy?

7:15 AM • Jan 28, 2025 ↗