Josh Steimle – Get Your Priorities Straight and Remarkable Things Can Happen

Josh Steimle is an entrepreneur, author, and speaker, best known for his framework The 7 Systems of Influence and the 300+ articles he’s published in more than two dozen publications like Time, Forbes, Fortune, Mashable, and TechCrunch. Get started on writing your book with Josh at Publishedauthor.com.

“Business should never be your highest priority. If it is, you will lose the business along with everything else.”

Josh Steimle

Worst investment ever

Wanting to be like the greats

Josh was a college student when he made his worst investment ever. At the time, he had what he thought was a great job making $13 an hour. The company Josh was working for was growing like crazy. And so he thought he should leave and start his own business.

Josh would look at the company executives flying around, meeting with venture capitalists, having all the fun and making all the money, and think to himself, “I could do that too.” So he quit his job and started his own business.

Doing what he knew best

Josh knew how to design websites and hence started a web design business. He thought this would be as easy as launching a business, and then people line up and hire him. But nobody lined up. Soon enough, Josh had no money to pay rent and sold everything he owned on eBay to pay the rent.

Things start to looking up

After a while, Josh got a few clients and was able to survive. The business continued to grow steadily. Then he brought on a partner and then another, and the company grew a little bit more. It was tough, but he made it along.

Heading separate ways

Josh and the partners kept fighting and disagreeing on how to run the business. Eventually, things got so bad that they had to sell the business.

Josh restarted over again in 2003. Things went back to being tough. Because of the bad experience he had with his partners, Josh decided to do this by himself.

Giving business his all

Josh went out and got a $100,000 loan from the bank. He also borrowed money from family and friends. He invested all the money in his new business, and for the next four years, he drowned himself in work.

Josh would work 100 hours a week. He would go to sleep at three am on his office floor, wake up at 6 am and go right back to work six days a week. Josh didn’t take holidays; he worked Christmases and birthdays. He missed weddings and family reunions. Josh thought he was investing in himself, the business, and his family’s future. He believed that everything was going to pay off eventually, someday.

Four years of nothing

For the next four years, Josh immersed himself in his business, but he made absolutely no profit. He didn’t pay himself a dime all this while because he couldn’t afford it and was drowning in about $500,000 of debt.

Josh’s family had gained nothing from all the time and energy he put into the business. He was now at risk of losing his wife and family if he kept going down this path. It took Josh four years to realize that this was not working; it was not a good investment, and that he was losing everything.

Taking it a notch down

Josh decided that he would not continue working like this anymore. He started working 40 hours a week, spent more time with his wife, and didn’t work weekends anymore.

A funny thing happened once Josh set those boundaries and said no more. Within two months, he was paying himself for the first time in four year