Think Big

"It is better to aim for the stars and miss, than to aim for a pile of manure and hit it." -Anonymous

How often do we do just the opposite of this quote? I have always loved this quote because I have to shoot high. I know no other way, otherwise I find myself up to my eyeballs in stuff that frankly just gets sticky. How does that saying go, "the air is better up there."

Let me illustrate.

I once owned a restaurant. Now let me say right off the bat, holding all the liability for something of this nature was no easy task. I thought that just because I had worked for many years in the restaurant industry, I was now an expert in the matter. I have since learned, I have plenty to learn, and I am able to keep my mind open to the idea of constant learning.

When I first opened my restaurant I had big goals. I hired 16 employees right out of the gate and we opened the doors. I was a business owner now, and I needed plenty of hired help to keep my business humming for all the customers that would come through my door, right? Wrong! To make a long story short, it only took about one payroll period for me to realize that I had over hired and overstaffed my new restaurant. I quickly came to the decision that half of the staff that I hired would need to be let go. The worst part was, with no fault of their own, only the bad judgment of myself to blame, I had to let them go. It took me a good 3 years to build up a healthy staff again, and I never reached that mark of 16 employees before I sold that restaurant 5 years later.

What I want to point out here is not the fact that I did not reach a goal of churning customers through my store in mass quantities, but I dreamed about it. I did not reach my goal of staffing 16 people, ever while I owned my restaurant, but I dreamed that one day I would. I even got to the point that I was going to expand my business and move it into a 2400 sq ft building doubling the size of it, but I never made the move. So, what then did I achieve? I grew revenue 400% and sold the business for 450%. I did not achieve this by aiming for a pile of manure, I achieved this by setting my sights much higher, maybe they were to high, but now I can look back on my experience and see the successes much easier.

Each one of us has great potential. I think that too often we don't see that potential in ourselves and we settle. We lower our sights and we land right in the nice warm pile of manure, maybe we are more comfortable there, but let me reiterate, "The air is better UP there!" Let's set our sights higher and expect more from ourselves. One day we will be able to look back and realize we achieved more than we ever thought possible.