When I joined up with my business partner, our first goal was $10k monthly recurring gross profit. At that point we agreed to reassess our goals and overall direction. Those conversations ended up happening earlier than we thought, and the $10k milestone came with other, unexpected realizations.
At $10k MRGP, people see you as legitimate. An uncomfortable respect surrounds you like the stench of a hand-me-down t-shirt. They give weight to your opinions that have little reason to weigh more than anybody else’s. This isn’t imposter syndrome — this is math. I can’t live long enough to back my business decisions with statistically significant data, which means my opinions are just as likely to be wrong as they are right. The mentors in my life just as often share contradictory advice — the common denominator is having confidence in your decisions. I am confident, but also realistic, and realistically have no reason to believe that our success is replicable.
All of this is new. This is the best I’ve ever done, and since I’m the least prepared I’ve ever been, it also means I’m at my worst. I will mess up more than I have ever messed up before, and the only way to mess up less is to consider this the peak and back down. Our best relationships are with our clients who are in the exact same spot. We’re growing into our achievements. There’s a mutual understanding and forgiveness not shared among those who have never experienced it. The industry or niche doesn’t matter — the combination of novel success and self-awareness has a transcendental empathy.
Sometimes we haven’t become the person other people need us to be yet. Our business relationships that failed (even our personal relationships that failed) might not have if we had met a year or two later. Maybe we would be more prepared, or maybe we would know enough to call it off before we even started.
The main thing I’ll take away from this is people experiencing their professional best are, in a different way, at their professional worst. Rather than have others point out their success, maybe they’d prefer a wider margin for error.
I would.