Rion, my 11-year-old son, plays tennis.
He first set foot on a tennis court when he was 18 months or so. His cousin was practicing back then, so he would tag along with his aunt to the tennis courts.
Recently he started playing tournaments, and with each tournament, he sets a small goal for himself: winning a game, winning a game on his serve, no double faults the entire match, and so forth.
This past weekend, he had a great match.
He did not close it with a winning result but completed it with an excellent performance and, more importantly, with a great attitude throughout the match, especially by quickly forgiving himself for missing an easy winner or hitting the net.
Driving back home, we talked a bit about the match, what was great, and what his goal for the next tournament could be.
As we talked, I showed him my appreciation for what he did on the court and how he handled himself — and as he keeps improving his game, winning will be a natural byproduct of all that. And how winning cannot be the sole goal, but progress should.
My exact words were: You keep progressing with each match and practice, and eventually, winning just happens because it's a natural progression of your improvement.
And as I was saying that, I realized how I have been focusing on the end goal all along — specifically speaking, dollars and MRR, and not the most important thing I was preaching to my son: progress!
Everything in the last few months has been about how to get to $10K MRR, increase revenue, or any combination of that.
And that is not the right approach.
Yes! We need money to live and do what we love, but money cannot be the end goal. And that's precisely what I've been focusing on.
$10K MRR and beyond happens after naturally progressing towards it:
- Keep creating a killer product by listening and iterating
- Focusing relentlessly on improving the customer's life
Guess what happens after those two simple steps have been covered?
Yeah!
It's incredible how when giving someone else advice, we mainly advise ourselves first and foremost.
Advice taken!
