How Fear Stems from Lifestyle Imbalances

with guest Sean McCormick #MakingBank S5E32

Success means nothing without fulfillment. Without a sense of purpose or direction, an entrepreneur can find themselves unsatisfied with their lives at the end of the day, despite making money and running a successful company. Why is that? How can you ensure fulfillment?  

Take advice from Sean McCormick, a successful life coach, and entrepreneur, who joins us on this episode of Making Bank. Sean has entrepreneur experience and followed his gut instinct to succeed. Eventually, he realized that his calling was a life coach. While being a life coach, Sean realized that the most common thing stopping people from succeeding was fear. And this fear really stemmed from purpose. Learn how Sean became a successful life coach, and how to achieve fulfillment in your business life.  

Becoming a Life Coach  

At first, Sean didn’t start out as a life coach. He built up his entrepreneurship experience through building up his Float Center business, which was successful in the first year that it was open. He was spending a lot of time there, opening to close. So, he would get to talk to a lot of people. In the case of his business, a lot of the conversations that he had with people were about improving their lives. 

With the advice that he read, did research on, and knew, he would help these people. “So, I’m then like making suggestions to people about how they can improve their life while I’m working at the float center. I thought, you know, they should pay me for this. So, I went and got my coaching certificate.” Sean says that he had imagined that being a life coach was giving people a one-on-one pep rally.  

With this certification, combined with his knowledge of running a business and building websites, he could have a wide variety of clients. Clients have ranged from the principal of the venture, capital companies, cannabis companies, John Hopkins doctors, high up Amazon executives, and more. People all over the country go to Sean for his experience and his energy.  

Sean wants to be a coach that holds clients accountable but also motivates them to get up and go after what they want. In turn, this rewards him because he becomes satisfied with elevating people to allow them to see their own potential. Creating personal connections, Sean drives his clients to achieve what they need to.  

Fear: The Ultimate Roadblock  

Sean notes that there is one thing that is most in common with the people that he works with, the thing that seems to trip people up the most. And that’s fear. “I think everything boils down to fear. I mean, at the end of the day, the mistakes that you make, how long you stay in a slump, how your life is affected…etc. I work with people who are professionally crushing it. But their relationships are a little wonky or maybe their health is a little bit wonky and they’re not nourishing those other parts of them.”  

When you are a successful entrepreneur, you have a balanced life. You cannot simply thrive in one aspect while lacking in others. Your professional success can become compromised by other forces in your life. You can be working the hardest that you’ve ever worked before, but still come home to relationships that are falling apart and it will affect how your business is ultimately doing.  

“You’re not being truthful with yourself,” Sean says about not acknowledging the other parts of your life that could be driving away success. “You’re pre-diabetic, you’re not sleeping, you’re drinking too much…then all the money that you’re making and all the successes that you’re having is at risk.” That success won’t last long if the foundations of your life aren’t solid.  

There are tools that Sean created that allow people to get to the bottom of what they need, what aspects of their life need more work and attention. A lot of the time it’s other relationships or its health. A big thing is also the purpose. Why are you doing the thing that you’re doing? If you’re great at what you do, but you don’t know why you are doing it, how are you being fulfilled? “If your professional trajectory isn’t aligned with your purpose, well then what other areas of your life can you nourish so that you do feel more purposeful?”  

This can be volunteering, giving back to the community, mentorship. Sean says that it really affects higher up people that want to leave a legacy, they want to know their purpose and feel like what they are doing is the only thing that they should be doing.  

However, know that balance is relative. “I’m not saying everybody should live a balanced lifestyle because that’s not realistic. You know, the thing that makes you successful, the thing that really makes people wildly successful is an imbalance…and that’s fine if that’s still working for you, but if it’s no longer working for you and you’re unhappy, then it’s time to reassess your values.”  

This stems from what you’re afraid of and hiding from. Sometimes, you don’t even realize that it’s affecting other parts of your life until you take that step back and look at things from a broader perspective – pulling away from the day to day reflecting and allowing yourself to key in on the bigger picture.