It’s a sunny Sunday morning on the last weekend in August and 5-6 people are queued up at the entrance to our local bookstore waiting for the doors to open.
Before the clerk can turn the key and fully open the door, an older woman made her way through the half-open door while very loudly proclaiming “It must be nice to have people waiting at your door to buy things from you.”
As she sweeps past the young woman who’s now holding the door open for other shoppers, her comment hangs in the air like an accusation, not a compliment.
“It Must Be Nice” always sounds accusatory, with a tinge of jealousy and dismissiveness mixed in. It implies that someone is enjoying an unearned or perhaps fair privilege compared to the rest of us and should feel contrite about it.
Perhaps someone has said something like this to you
How did it make you feel?
Not great right? But why?
Why are they trying to make you feel bad about what you worked so hard to achieve? And why do you feel the need to defend yourself or explain how hard it was to get where you are?!
The thing is, just because you are able to enjoy those things - less worry, a flexible schedule, financial freedom, peace of mind - doesn’t diminish anyone else's capacity to have the SAME THING. Anyone can build a business that fulfills their personal, business and financial goals.
Most people never do.
The best, perhaps only, response to ‘It Must Be Nice’ is, ‘Thanks, yes it is.’
If you’re looking at your peers and ‘It Must Be Nice’ is creeping into your thoughts, it might be because your business is running you, you’re not running it.
A business that fulfill your deepest desires requires a future-focus, intentional planning, and relentless execution. What’s NICE to have or be didn’t just happen for those owners - it was earned. Ideally, it was earned through a combination of clarity, intention, consistency, delegation, leadership and personal accountability and not through brute force or a belief that success requires sacrifice and suffering.
If you feel some resentment fueling your feeling that ‘It Must Be Nice,’ I suspect your 'keep your head down, nose to the grindstone, work harder, and make more sacrifices for an eventual payoff approach' isn’t working for you anymore.
Likewise, if you have been able to hit some of the ‘It Must Be Nice’ milestones but you did it at great personal cost - to your physical and mental health, finances, relationships - and feel like you just can’t summon the strength to do the next push,
You don’t have to.
What got you here doesn’t have to be and may not be able to get you where you are going.
Even if it can, you can choose another way.
That’s what we do at Purpose First Advisors - we help you build a business that will make you say things like “It’s SO Nice to”
Learn more about how our growth coaching and consulting services can help you spend more time on white sandy beaches (or on ski slopes, whichever you prefer!) and less time in conference rooms.
