The Client Letter
May 6, 2013
The Northland
Sunny 36 Degrees
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How can I make a million dollars? How can I build a successful business?
Those are two questions I tried to answer for too long. I fell for the lie that those things were worthy things for me to pursue.
It’s not that money or success isn’t important, it’s that it’s not a smart thing to pursue them directly. THAT’S what I missed for too long.
We pursue the money or the success as the goal, but it is not. Those things are simply byproducts of pursuing the real goal.
What is the real goal?
That, I believe, is the question that needs to be answered. Of course I can’t answer it for you, I can only answer it for me.
But it needs to be answered.
Because if you’re not clear about that, things are hard. And when the money or the success doesn’t come overnight (because it never does, and if it does, it’s often just luck), it can really get you down.
When you’re not clear on your answers to the right questions, you go looking for substitutes.
And so you learn about marketing, and positioning and other strategies and techniques. You load your head with other people’s answers to questions.
We spend a lot of time and invest a lot of energy and don’t really feel like we’re getting anywhere. And that’s because we’re not.
What we’re doing is simply delaying the real work that needs to happen. The real questions we need to answer.
Here are the two questions I find most valuable in my business:
- Am I solving a real problem in the world?
- What am I doing or what am I going to do that the world will pay a million dollars for and still believe IT got the better end of the deal?
Those are the things I pursue. And what comes because of that is the gravy.