The Backwards Mistake That’s Stealing Your Time and Money

You started your business to have more time with your family, but somehow you’re working more hours than ever. Most entrepreneurs are making one backwards mistake that’s stealing both their time and their money, but it’s not what you think.

Everyone tells you to work harder. Hustle more. Put in the hours. But what if I told you that working harder is exactly why you’re stuck? What if the very thing you think will set you free is actually the prison that’s keeping you trapped?

I’m Chad Carter, and for over two decades I believed the lie that success required sacrificing everything else. I worked 80 to 100 hour weeks thinking that was the path to freedom. But all it did was steal time from my wife and daughters while keeping me stuck at the same income level for nine years straight.

Here’s what’s crazy. I thought I was doing everything right. I was the hardest worker I knew. I outworked everyone around me. I hit six figures after just five years out of college when my starting salary was only $24,000. But then I stayed there for nine years without asking for a single raise because I thought I had already made it.

The harder I worked, the more convinced I became that hard work was the secret. But hard work without the right foundation is just spinning your wheels faster. You end up like I was: making decent money but working so many hours that your wife jokes you’d make more per hour if you worked at McDonald’s. You end up being physically present at family dinner but mentally solving work problems. You end up wanting to spend more time with your kids but feeling distracted because there’s always more work to be done.

But then I discovered something that changed everything. There’s a backwards mistake that 99% of business owners make. They try to HAVE success by DOING more work, hoping they’ll eventually BE successful. But that’s completely backwards.

The real path to transformation follows a different order. You have to BE the right person first, then DO the right actions, and only then will you HAVE the results and freedom you’re looking for.

This isn’t just theory. This is the exact process that transformed my life. When I finally understood this backwards mistake, everything changed. I stopped working 100-hour weeks. I started being fully present with my family. I began enjoying my business instead of being enslaved by it.

Today I’m going to show you exactly why most business advice keeps you trapped in this backwards cycle. Then I’ll walk you through the six-step framework that finally breaks you free. I call it the RIDARC method, and it’s the same process that took me from working 100-hour weeks while missing my family to spending a Tuesday afternoon shopping and having lunch with my wife and youngest daughter.

By the end of this, you’ll understand why chasing results first always fails. You’ll know the exact six steps to transform not just your business, but your entire life. And most importantly, you’ll have a clear path forward so you can finally have the business that serves your life instead of a business that consumes your life.

But first, let me tell you about a conversation I had 30 years ago that planted the wrong seed in my mind and cost me decades of missed family time.

The Seed That Cost Me Decades

I remember being back in college three decades ago, having a conversation with a coworker named Doug. We were working grounds for the college, digging large holes to plant trees in front of the newly constructed Sports Center. As we took a break from the hot Florida sun, I told him that to get ahead, you had to put in the work. You had to work harder than everyone else. You had to put in the hours. I was expecting to put in at least 60 hours a week to become successful in business.

But Doug wasn’t convinced that was the right approach. I knew it was. I knew hard work was key.

That conversation sprouted a seed that would cost me decades of family time. Because what I didn’t realize is that I had it completely backwards from the very beginning.

Most of us have been conditioned to believe in the Do-Have-Be formula. We think we need to DO things first. If we do things, then we can HAVE things. And when it doesn’t work, we think that the issue is that we aren’t doing enough. So we need to do more. We need to work harder. But doing more of what already doesn’t work leads to frustration. It is ineffective at helping us have what we want. We want to have more money. We want to have more clients. We want to have more revenue. Then we’ll BE successful. Then, we’ll be able to take vacations, spend more time with family, and enjoy life. We’ll be able to enjoy our success and just BE.

But here’s the problem with that thinking. When you start with trying to DO all you can to HAVE all you can, you’re building on the wrong foundation. It’s definitely better than just trying to HAVE without DOing anything, but barely. Wanting to HAVE without DOing keeps you stuck and dependent on others. Wanting to DO in order to HAVE but without BEing the person you need to be also keeps you stuck. You work harder and harder every year but don’t really have anything to show for it. You’re chasing an outcome without becoming the person who naturally creates that outcome.

I lived this backwards approach for over two decades. I worked hard in college. I worked hard at my first job. I worked hard in my first side gig as a consultant. I worked hard at my second job. I worked hard writing technical books. I worked hard architecting software systems. I outworked everyone I knew. I was doing and doing and doing, trying to have success.

Now, I did have some success. I went from that $24,000 starting salary to six figures in five years. But then I got stuck there for nine years because I was operating from the wrong identity. I had achieved what I thought success looked like, so I stopped growing. I didn’t ask for another raise because I thought it would be greedy. In my head, I had made it. Also, even with the work, it didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t know anyone making that kind of money, and definitely not anyone my age. So I continued to work hard to prove to myself I was worth the income I was making.

I hadn’t made it at all. I was trapped in a cycle of working 80 to 100 hour weeks for months on end. My wife was right that a fast food worker made more than I did if you looked at dollars per hour worked.

The problem was deeper than just working too many hours. The problem was my identity. I had believed Satan’s “lie-dentity” about who I needed to be to succeed. The enemy whispered that I wasn’t enough as I was. I was a fraud. I was making too much money and was definitely not smart enough to be in the field I was in. Of course, he would say that. He wants to destroy.

To combat that, I created my own “my-dentity” to fight the lie. I definitely felt stupid, and I assumed I had to work twice as hard as anyone else to make up for the fact that I wasn’t as smart as others. So I became the guy who worked harder than everyone else. The one who never said no. The one who could handle any workload. I became Superman in my mind. I hated feeling dumb, so if I couldn’t figure something out, I’d work and work until I did. I thought this self-made identity of a hard-working bulldog would prove the lie wrong, but it actually reinforced it. I was still operating from a place of not being enough.

But God’s word tells us something completely different. Genesis 1:28 says, “God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion.”

I first saw this from my mentor, Myron Golden. Notice the order in the verse. BE fruitful first. That’s our identity that God gave us. We are already blessed. We are already enough. We are already fruitful.

When you start with God’s identity for you, everything changes. You’re not working to prove your worth. You’re working from your worth. You’re not hustling to become successful. You’re operating as someone who is already blessed and fruitful.

Now, to be clear, being blessed here does not necessarily mean wealthy. We are here for God’s glory, not our own. If it is His will for us to not know where the next meal is coming from, then nothing we do will change that. However, I don’t see that as His desire for most people. He detests idols. I finished Isaiah the other week and am in the middle of Jeremiah currently, and God detests idol worship. Of course, we don’t bow down to little wooden statues and worship them in 2025, but it can be easy to worship some celebrity, business icon, or desire to have great riches so we can feel secure. These are just a few examples of modern-day idol worship: being so concerned with a sports team or individual, hanging on every word of a successful business person, or chasing after wealth because we think we’ll actually have enough someday and feel secure that no matter what happens we’ll have enough money to be okay.

When you ignore God’s identity and operate from either the lie-dentity Satan feeds you or the my-dentity you create to fight it, you end up in the backwards trap. You chase having results through doing more work, hoping you’ll eventually be successful. But you never get there because you’re building on the wrong foundation.

That’s why I stayed stuck at the same income level for nine years despite working harder than ever. That’s why I missed so much time with my family. That’s why even when I was physically present at dinner, I was mentally solving work problems. I was operating from the wrong identity, so no amount of doing would ever get me to where I wanted to be.

The backwards trap doesn’t just steal your time and money. It steals your peace. It steals your presence. It steals your joy. Because you’re always chasing something you already have access to through your God-given identity.

The RIDARC Method: Six Steps to Transformation

So if the backwards trap keeps us stuck, what’s the real path forward? It starts with understanding the correct order that God established from the very beginning. Be fruitful, do multiply, do replenish, do subdue, and have dominion. Be, Do, Have.

But knowing the right order isn’t enough. You need a practical way to actually transform your identity and your actions. That’s where the RIDARC method comes in. These six steps will take you from operating out of the wrong identity to walking in the fullness of who God created you to be.

The first three steps focus on BEING the right person. The fourth step is about DOING the right actions. And the final two steps help you properly HAVE and maintain your transformation.

Step 1: Revelation

Transformation always starts with a revelation. You can’t change what you can’t see. Most people stay stuck because they’ve never had a clear revelation of what’s actually possible for their life and business. This revelation can be spiritual, but most of the time it is simply being made aware of something you didn’t know before. Or it could even be something you heard before, but it didn’t hit you in the same way.

For me, the revelation came years later when I finally understood that my approach was completely backwards. I had been trying to prove my worth through work instead of working from my worth. I realized that God had already declared me fruitful, but I was operating like a hollowed-out husk of a tree.

Your revelation might come from reading a book, having a conversation, observing someone else’s life, or simply having the Holy Spirit open your eyes to a new possibility. But until you have that moment where you see clearly that there’s another way, you’ll keep doing the same things and getting the same results.

The revelation isn’t just about seeing what’s wrong. It’s about seeing what’s possible. It’s about understanding that you don’t have to stay trapped in the cycle of working harder and getting nowhere. There’s a different path that is available to you.

Step 2: Intention

Once you have the revelation, you need to set your intention. This is where you move from “that’s interesting” to “I desire that for my life.” Intention is about getting clear on what you actually desire and making the decision to pursue it.

Think about the four-minute mile story. For decades, everyone believed it was impossible for a human to run a mile in under four minutes. Then Roger Bannister broke that barrier in 1954. But here’s what’s fascinating: within just one year, 37 other runners also broke the four-minute mile. What changed? They had a revelation that it was possible, and then they set their intention to achieve it themselves.

Setting intention means you’re no longer just observing the possibility. You’re claiming it for yourself. You’re saying, “If God made it possible for them, maybe He made it possible for me too. I think I want this. Yes, I intend to pursue this.”

But intention alone isn’t enough. I intended to spend more time with my family for years while still putting in 100-hour work weeks. Intention without decision is just wishful thinking.

Step 3: Decision

This is where most people get stuck. They have the revelation. They set the intention. But they never make the actual decision. They make choices, but they don’t make decisions.

What’s the difference? A choice is picking one option among many while keeping your other options open. A decision is cutting yourself off from every other possibility. The word “decide” comes from the Latin “decidere,” which means “to cut off.” It’s the same root we see in words like suicide or homicide.

When you make a choice, you’re saying, “I’ll try this for a while and see how it goes.” When you make a decision, you’re saying, “This is happening. Period. I’m cutting myself off from the old way of doing things.”

After years of working insane hours and missing family time, I finally made a decision. Not a choice to try to work less or work differently. I made a decision to become the kind of person who was fully present with his family when he was with them and fully focused on work when he was working. I cut myself off from the option of being mentally absent while physically present.

That decision changed everything. Because when you truly decide, taking action becomes exciting instead of overwhelming. You’re not constantly second-guessing yourself or keeping backup plans. You’re all in.

The first three steps of RIDARC help you BE the right person. You have the revelation of what’s possible. You set your intention to pursue it. You make the decision to cut yourself off from the old way. Now you’re operating from a new identity. You’re no longer someone who has to prove their worth through endless work. You’re someone who works from their God-given worth and calling.

Taking Action, Reflecting, and Celebrating

Having the right identity through revelation, intention, and decision is crucial, but it’s not enough on its own. You have to DO the right actions consistently, and then learn how to properly HAVE and maintain your transformation. The final three steps of RIDARC ensure your new identity actually produces lasting change.

Step 4: Action

This is where you move from BE to DO. But here’s what’s different now. You’re not taking action to try to become successful. You’re taking action because you already are successful in your identity. You’re not working to prove your worth. You’re working from your worth.

When I finally made the decision to be fully present, I had to take specific actions that aligned with that new identity. I had to set boundaries around my work time. I had to learn to shut off work thoughts when I was with my family. I had to create systems that allowed me to be effective during work hours so I didn’t need to work constantly.

But here’s the key difference. These actions weren’t overwhelming anymore because they flowed from who I had decided to be. When you’re operating from the right identity, the right actions become natural expressions of that identity.

Think about it this way. If you truly believe you’re someone who values family time, then protecting that time isn’t a sacrifice. It’s just what you do. If you truly believe you’re someone who works from their worth rather than for their worth, then setting boundaries isn’t scary. It’s necessary.

The actions you take will depend on your specific situation and business, but they all flow from the same principle. You do what aligns with who you’ve decided to be. You multiply your impact. You replenish what needs to be restored. You subdue the chaos and bring order to your business and life.

But taking action consistently over time can be challenging. That’s why you need the fifth step.

Step 5: Reflection

This is where most people sabotage their own transformation. They start taking the right actions, but when they don’t see immediate results, they get discouraged and quit. Or they see some progress but focus on how far they still have to go instead of seeing how far they’ve come.

Reflection is about focusing on the gain of what has been accomplished, not the gap that is still present from where you want to be. It’s about measuring your progress against where you started, not against where you want to end up.

Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy talk about this concept in their book The Gap and the Gain. Most people live in the gap. They’re constantly measuring themselves against their ideal and feeling like they’re falling short. But successful people live in the gain. They regularly reflect on how much progress they’ve made.

For me, reflection meant looking back at how present I was with my family compared to the previous month or year. It was seeing the fact that I could now enjoy lunch with my wife and daughter on a Tuesday afternoon without feeling guilty or distracted by work thoughts.

Reflection also helps you course-correct. Maybe you’re taking actions that seem right but aren’t producing the results you expected. Regular reflection helps you adjust your approach while staying true to your core identity and decision.

Step 6: Celebration

This might seem obvious, but most entrepreneurs are terrible at celebration. We achieve something and immediately move the goalpost. We hit a milestone and barely acknowledge it before chasing the next one.

But celebration is crucial for transformation because it reinforces your new identity. When you celebrate progress, you’re telling yourself, “This is who I am now. This is what I do. This is what’s possible for me.”

Celebration doesn’t have to be elaborate. It can be as simple as acknowledging your progress, sharing it with someone who matters to you, or taking a moment to thank God for the growth you’ve experienced.

When I first started being truly present with my family, I celebrated those moments. When I finished work early to spend time with them, I didn’t just rush into the next task. I acknowledged that this was evidence of who I was becoming.

Celebration also fuels the next level of transformation. When you regularly acknowledge your progress, you build confidence for the next challenge. You start to believe that if God helped you transform in this area, He can help you transform in others too.

The beautiful thing about the RIDARC method is that it becomes a cycle. As you celebrate one transformation, you often receive new revelations about what else is possible. You set new intentions, make new decisions, take new actions, reflect on new progress, and celebrate new victories.

This is how you move from being trapped in the backwards cycle of working harder and getting nowhere to walking in the fullness of who God created you to be. You start with BE, then DO, then HAVE. And you use RIDARC to make it sustainable.

What’s Your Next Step?

Let me recap what we’ve covered because this could be the revelation that changes everything for you.

We talked about the backwards trap that’s keeping 99% of entrepreneurs stuck. They’re trying to HAVE success by DOING more work, hoping they’ll eventually BE successful. But that’s completely backwards, and it’s why you’re working more hours than ever while having less time for your family.

The real path follows God’s design from Genesis 1:28. BE fruitful first, then DO multiply, replenish, and subdue, and finally HAVE dominion. When you start with the right identity, everything else flows naturally.

Then we walked through the RIDARC method that makes this transformation practical and sustainable:

Revelation shows you what’s possible.
Intention moves you from “that’s interesting” to “I desire that.”
Decision cuts you off from the old way of operating.
Action flows naturally from your new identity.
Reflection keeps you focused on the gain, not the gap.
Celebration reinforces who you’re becoming while fueling the next level of growth.

The question now is: What revelation did you receive today? What intention are you setting? What decision are you ready to make?

Here’s what I know. If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten. But if you’re ready to stop operating backwards and start walking in the fullness of who God created you to be, transformation is absolutely possible.

If you need more inspiration, check out The Gap and the Gain or any of the other 30-plus books I recommend. They’re sorted in the order I’d read them in, so you can start with the most foundational concepts and build from there. https://chd.to/amz

But here’s the thing about revelation. It’s not enough to just receive it. You have to act on it. If what you discovered today is that your current approach is keeping you trapped, then the next step is to look at how to actually restructure your business so it serves your life instead of consuming it. Because the truth is, if you don’t have time for your family, it’s not because you’re not working hard enough. It’s because your business model is fundamentally flawed.

Your family is waiting for the new version of you that emerges when you finally stop doing transformation backwards.

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