2024 has some milestones that I think are pretty cool.
Next month will be 17 years since I started SEO National.
We still even have some search engine optimization clients that have been with us since year one. That means also extending our client retention milestone to 17 years. That’s a long ass time for any business to survive, let alone thrive.
Sure, there are people that made more and faster than me. But where are most of them now, and what did they sacrifice to no longer have any of it in the end? The sustainability of having slowly grown my business, not rapidly, was proudly intentional.
I built something special that impacts my clients’ quality of life, their employee’s lives, and supports several dozen of my own team members and their families.
I’d take a good chunk of sustainable cash that predictably increases year after year any day over being a slave to myself and sacrificing availability with my wife and kids, while sacrificing my sanity along the way.
I’ve never missed my kids birthdays, basketball games, soccer games, or dance recitals. Been to every single one.
2024 also marks 20 years that I’ve been with Hottie, and I love her more than ever.
I’m so proud of how much we still madly desire and appreciate each other. My wife and I still go on dates. We do big ones every few months, including a weekend in Mexico in a few weeks.
We’ve also done extreme dates, including renting a private plane to join the mile high club. Because, duh… don’t act like that’s not the coolest couples date that you’re now not considering. (LoveCloud in Las Vegas 😉)
She deserves to know that she’s worth thoughtful planning of time together. I want her to know I want her, not just in words, but in actions.
Entrepreneurship + 3 kids is a lot. But even today I just stopped for an hour mid-day and we sat in the sauna together. That’s it. Just me and her, no agenda other than to be with her. I’d like more mid-week dates, so acknowledging I still want more of her is powerful.
And every night that we go to bed we both go out of our way to ensure physical touch. We either fall asleep holding hands, my arm is over her chest, her legs laid over mine, or as little as my foot touching hers. But there’s always a constant connection.
From 2004 until 2020, we had never been apart more than a day. Can’t exactly fly to the Philippines and back in a day, so that was a first. And since then there’s been maybe two other times we’ve been apart more than a day.
To a lot of people, that’s weird. I get it. To us, it’s normal, and it’s weird to not be together.
I love her, and I love our kids.
All of that background is said to make a point that, despite what I’ve accomplished in business, and the family legacy my wife and I have built, I feel like I’m just getting started.
Like everything so far in business was just a practice run, and shooting for the moon is now the real game. What can I reallllly accomplish now that I have experience? That I’ve seen what’s possible? And where do I focus to create an even greater legacy?
And 20 years with a babe was just the start of figuring out who we are and how we maximize being together for the later half of life.
