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I sat in a dim conference room in a fancy hotel in Mexico City listening to Paul talk about his business. Around the table, other entrepreneurs listened carefully as he laid out his challenges. We were at a group discussion that preceded a business conference.

Paul shared that he was a solopreneur who was a remote version of a real estate agent. He would go through a specific process that took two months and would generate a predictable number of sales each time. He said that he was stuck and couldn’t grow because the process required his involvement and he had finite time and energy.

When he finished explaining his situation, everyone was silent as they thought about what they would do.

I asked Paul, “Do you think you have fully optimized this process?”

I spent a month wandering Japan and following the changing colors of autumn as it made its way south in 2018. I traveled by train and as I sat by the window staring out at the shifting colors, I thought about my recent failures to achieve goals.

Prior to the trip, I had set some challenging objectives. I threw myself into achieving them and failed. It was disheartening. The reason I was unsuccessful was because many of the goals weren’t in my full control. They were dependent on external and unknown factors. But if I didn’t set goals beyond my current abilities or knowledge, I wouldn’t grow. That meant I wouldn’t expand my capabilities to take on similar larger goals. It was a catch-22 where any useful goal would likely end with disappointment.

When it comes to growing your business, much of what you want to do is in the category of uncontrollable and unknown. Because if it was controllable and known, you would have already achieved it.

In this way, our business reality is a reflection of our current capabilities.

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