Before you can build the business of your dreams, you have to understand what you want out of it. To do that you need to understand what you like and don't like, and then you need to understand the lifestyle you want to live (location, income, hours worked, etc.).

Keeping your nose to the grindstone makes it hard to see clearly, though, so I'm going to share some of my likes and dislikes, how I came to understand them, and how I used them to create my dream business. Hopefully this will help you envision yours.

Build your business from the ground up like you're planning to sell it and you'll make better longterm decisions, develop better processes, and be more likely to not try to do everything yourself (nobody wants to buy a job). Chances are, these same things that make your business more sellable will also help you be better positioned to work with who you want, doing what you want, at the prices you deserve, so you'll get more out of the business while you own it – not just financially, but personally as well.

You didn't start your business with dreams of working all the time doing stuff you hate and answering to a ton of bosses, better known as clients, who don't understand what you do but want to tell you how to do it anyway. (whew – run-on sentence!)

Unfortunately, most people who start a business end up in exactly that position, especially if it's a service business. I'll bet you have, too. It's just so easy to get stuck in a rut that it's hard to take a step back and think things through.

Nobody else has the knowledge and experience that you do, though. They may have similar, but they'll never have exactly the same. That's what makes you so valuable to the clients who are the best fit for you to work with and not valuable to those who aren't. And that's great! You only want to work with the ones who fit, right? Unless you're a masochist, I already know the answer is yes.

You may not know it, but we're already in the Third Wave of the internet, or the Internet of Things (IoT), as it's come to be known.

Yep, that's right, and if your business is typical of most, you're still stuck at the end of the First Wave – at best.

You're probably thinking “not only do I have no clue what the Third Wave is, but I don't even know what the First and Second were.”