He Was Charging $85. He Should Have Been Charging $140.

Ten days.

That was how long it took Rich to close it.

Then this came through.

I had given him two months.

Here is the part worth sitting with. Rich did not learn one new thing in those ten days. He had read the books. He had listened to the podcasts. On most of this material he could have taught me.

What he was missing was a number and a date.

Every week inside Perfect Day Living, my clients score themselves one to five across six areas. Family. Fitness. Finances. Future. Faith. Freedom. Five means the best version of that area you can picture.

Most owners have never defined what a five actually looks like. They only know they are somewhere below it.

I lived there for years.

My finances sat at a two or a three for most of a decade. I told myself it was because we were reinvesting everything back into the business. That was partly true. The rest of the truth is that I had no take home clarity. I knew what the business made. I could not have told you what my family actually needed.

We carried credit card debt the whole time and called it strategy. It was bad money management wearing a nicer word.

We cleaned it up. I have not carried debt since.

Today I can tell you exactly what a five out of five looks like for us. Our kids in the school we want them in. The home we want to be in. And a number that says when we start giving back. We revisit it every year, because the definition moves as life does.

That is the thing nobody hands you in a book. The definition has to be yours.

Rich scored his finances low. So I asked him the question that changes everything.

What would a five out of five look like?

He ran the numbers. He was about $2,500 a month short. At $85 a visit, that math was never going to work.

So we looked at what the work was actually worth to the person on the other side of it. I challenged him to go to $100.

He came back at $140. Five times a week.

The target was 18 visits. He brought back 20.

Two months to get there. He got there in ten days.

Three things I believe about this

Define the five before you chase it.

You cannot score yourself against a number you never set. Most owners rate their finances a two and go hunting for a strategy. The rating is meaningless until you can say out loud what a five would be. Rich's five was $2,500. That one sentence turned a mood into a target.

Shrink the number until it becomes a behavior.

$2,500 is a feeling. Eighteen visits is a thing you can do on a Tuesday. Every goal you are stuck on is a big number that has never been divided down into an action small enough to start today. Do the division. That is the work.

Give it a date, and give it to a person.

Rich had the knowledge for years. He moved in ten days because someone was waiting to hear about it. A deadline you set alone is a suggestion. A deadline someone else is holding is a commitment.

I used to believe people were stuck because they were missing information. Twelve years of building and seven years of mentoring taught me otherwise. The bookshelf was never the problem.

The gap was always the definition, and the person standing on the other side of it.

Try this

Pick your lowest F. Write down what a five out of five would be as a number. Then divide that number until it becomes something you can do before Friday.

Where to start

Pick the F that scores lowest for you right now. Family, Fitness, Finances, Future, Faith, or Freedom.

What would a five out of five look like? Say it as a number.

Want to know where to start? Take the free 6F Focus Quiz: https://pages.perfectdayliving.com/6f-quiz

Thinking about mentorship? See if you're ready: https://pages.perfectdayliving.com/readiness-page

Peter