The Client Letter
December 13, 2013
The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 54 Degrees
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My son (who is 9 going on 23) has all of a sudden become obsessed with guns…
First it was knives, then it was martial arts, now it’s guns.
We’re still in the BB gun phase so it’s far less complicated than it might be about 6 years from now.
He really enjoys shooting. He enjoys working on his accuracy and improving his ability to hit the target. Today, the target was a couple of potatoes.
After watching him shoot, I started thinking about how many things there are to think about when you’re shooting.
Press the trigger smoothly, exhale, yada yada…
There are a lot of details to remember when you’re just getting started. So many things to think about, in fact, that it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the goal… which is to hit the target.
This is a whole lot like business. There’s a lot of stuff to work on in order to succeed. A lot of things to learn, a lot of things to do.
So many, in fact, that it’s easy to get caught up in doing all of them so much that you forget the point.
Do you know what the point of your business is? Do you know the target you’re trying to hit? Or are you so busy you haven’t had a chance to think about it?
I have no idea what your target is, that’s your job. But it’s really difficult to make decisions if YOU aren’t clear on what your target is.
It’s hard to know which clients are right and which clients are wrong when there’s nothing governing those decisions.
Your target begins with how you want your life to be (thanks to my friend Mike for reminding me). Then you work backwards from there until you get to your business.
I know this, because I did it the opposite way for too long 🙂
All I wanted to do was “succeed.” The rest, to me, was just details.
Boy how bass ackwards that is for a life strategy.
In my case, it turns out that “success” isn’t what I’m after. That means, I’m NOT willing to do anything it takes to succeed. (I know this is entrepreneurial heresy to admit.)
The traditional entrepreneur is supposed to make any necessary sacrifice to succeed, right? It took me a while to realize that I’m not willing to do that.
There are certain priorities I have in my life and every time I betray those, I’m sorry.
So I do that less.
I wish I had had the clarity to know this years ago, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache.
The clearer you are about what your life is supposed to look like, the quicker and easier it is to create it.
It doesn’t matter what your goals and priorities are. It only matters if you have some and whether or not you have the discipline to make decisions that support them.
Take time to figure that out for yourself. It’ll make your journey into 2014 much smoother.