Elephant + Rider + Path

It’s hard for people who don’t run their own business to truly understand or appreciate all the hard work that is required to move forward toward big picture goals. You find yourself working late nights, trying new things with no guarantee of success (repeatedly falling and getting back up again), weathering seasonal revenue swings, all while trying to stay focused on important things outside of work (like family and community). It can feel overwhelming. 

It’s tempting as a business owner to fall into a bad habit: growth for growth’s sake. We see stories of unicorn businesses scaling to the moon in almost no time at all, and assume that we should attempt to do the same. The reality, however, is that no one definition of success applies to each business or entrepreneur.

If we’re not clear on how we define success, someone else will surely do it for us. 

One mistake we see is that the daily and weekly decisions a business owner makes aren’t always made in light of their long-term goals--there’s often not a clear connection WHY one decision is made instead of another. The ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey can quickly throw us off balance, inviting us to become more reactionary and less proactive.

Dan and Chip Heath use a powerful metaphor to explain the various forces at play as we move toward our long-term goals:

Our goal with every company we serve is to constantly align daily decisions with what matters most in the long run--we want to help every entrepreneur hit their WHY sooner.