The Client Letter
August 27, 2012
Sedona, Arizona
Sunny 84 Degrees
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Over the weekend, I came across this post by Stu McLaren, the creator of the WishList Member software (which I use).
His post was asking a question about what makes a business successful.
Here’s the reply I posted:
I think what makes a business successful is whether it leads you closer to living your life as you want it or farther from it.
The rest is just a story we make up.
Some stories say you have to have an 8, 9 or 10 figure exit. Other stories say it’s working 4 hours a week that’s important.
Neither are your story, unless you make them your story.
I don’t care how much money you make, how many employees you hire, how many rounds of investing you’ve been through… if you can’t wake up in the morning and say, “I’m living the life I want to live,” then I know that wouldn’t be success for me.
Life is too short to call that successful, even though the world might.
The world is made up of individuals. And as individuals, we’re responsible for one thing: ourselves.
Who’s the business really serving? Whether or not we like to admit it, I think we’re all serving ourselves. Because that’s how we’re wired.
There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s in our nature.
Even the business owner who donates all his profits to charity… he does it because, in some way, it makes him feel good. In that way, he’s serving himself. He just understands that the best way to do that is to serve others first.
If our language had a word for “Selfish” that carried a good connotation, I’d use it here. I don’t think there is one.
I think it all comes down to individuals.
Businesses aren’t successful, people are.
And people are successful by becoming who they really are.