Today is the anniversary of the passing of Thomas Leonard, the father of modern coaching and a mentor to me when I started coaching. He was known for the quality of his questions and one of them, “Is this the kind of life you want to have?” from his blog (yes, he still has a blog, featuring his best work curated by one his mentees, Andrea J. Lee) stuck out at me today. Thomas inspired me because not only did he ask his coaching clients these questions, he asked them of himself as well. He was a master at designing his life. As business owners we get caught up in the day to day rush, constantly putting out fires and the quest for sales and profit, but is it at the expense of your life?

Because I personally saw this happen to someone in my own life, with the death of my dad at 56. I have made it my mission to not just optimize my client’s business, but to help them grow their business without sacrificing what is most important to them, their families. My proudest moments coaching were when a multi-million dollar entrepreneur took his kids on their first vacation to Disney and started taking weekly TaeKwonDo lessons with his son. Yes, I know you want your business to grow and you feel like you need to keep going and working because you want to reach the next level but ask yourself some questions:

Is this the kind of life you want to have?
What would my perfect day look like?
Is the way I spend my time in alignment with my priorities?

These questions are what helped me design my business so I can take the day off when my kids have a day off school, spend 6+ weeks at the lake each summer and still run a profitable six figure business. These questions helped one of my clients realize he wanted to grow his business and create systems so it would be sellable so he could start another business that fit his vision of the life he wanted so he could enjoy his son growing up.

Your business and your life can’t be separated but they can work together, take some time this week to ask yourself the questions.