The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 74 Degrees
My business career has been marked with far too many follies to pack into any one issue of The Client Letter.
I haven’t been the victim of fate, mind you. I don’t believe in victims. Instead, my experiences have been little more than the education I should have gotten early on in life but didn’t.
Basically, I had to move through the “remedial” program to catch up on some basic living skills that were mysteriously skipped over.
Fist, I had to realize that what I was trained to do wasn’t to think critically, it was to obey.
Next, I had to rebuild the spine a critical thinker would have already developed to actually take action based on his own convictions-despite the possible ridicule or scorn of others. Why wasn’t I trained to do this? Hmmm…
Finally, I had to realize my life is not intended to be a hamster wheel on which I run for someone else’s gain. Instead, it is a script I’ve been gifted the authority and responsibility to write.
Had I learned some of these skills earlier, I imagine the journey would have been a bit smoother.
I could have seen things a bit more clearly for myself instead of just listening to others.
Take goal setting, for instance…
Goal setting is good, yes? Goal setting is how you get things done. Right?
It took me a long time to discover the folly of typical goal setting.
To make this short, the folly is this:
Setting goals concerning things out of your control is not really the mark of a clearly thinking person. In fact, I’d say it’s a short route to a type of insanity.
I want to make $X dollars this month, this year, etc.
I want to have [xxxxxxx] number of customers by [xxxxxx] date.
I want to go to [xxxxxx] by [xxxxxx].
By [xxxxxxx] date, I want to be X.
How funny it is to set “goals” over which you have little control. And yet, I did that… for years.
I’ve discovered a better way. I’m not saying it’s the right way for you. That’s your responsibility to figure out. But I’m happy to share what works for me.
I’ve given up on manipulating outcomes. I have little control over those.
I’ve focused all of my energy on manipulating INPUTS. I control those.
I’ve gone from “wishing” that my goals would be achieved to actually achieving my goals. And I made the shift in an instant simply by shifting the definition of the goal.
The “goal” is no longer the outcome, it is the input.
You want more clients? You want better clients? You don’t get them by wishing, you get them by focusing on changing what is under your control.
INPUTS are under your control.
Think about it…