Being careful what you wish for
“On second thought, maybe I should have been more specific about what I had in mind here.” (Image by Stefan Keller)
It was March of 2010, and things were looking bleak.
Or maybe it was March of 2011. It could have been either — I had a lot of bleak years. Anyway, on this particular occasion, I had sat down with my mother to go over the financials for my music school, Eclectic Music.
Revenue was fine. But revenue is not really the important number, is it? What really matters is profit, and mine was nonexistent.
By the time I had finished paying for the operations of the school, I was making about $20,000 — coincidentally, about the value of the music lessons I was teaching, which I was still doing despite running the school as well.
For free, as it turned out.
“Okay,” I said. “I need to make another $25K to make my life work. Let me figure out how many more students we need.”
“Hold on,” said my mother. “You need $25,000, not necessarily more students.”
She pointed out that more students might lead to greater expenses. She encouraged me to remain open to different ways that this additional $25K might show up.
It didn’t take too long. In 2012, I decided to start a second school, The Little Middle School. And that fall, we made about $25K in profit.
By no means do I wish to suggest that The Little Middle School was some easy road to riches. But it provided a solution for me when I really needed one.
More importantly, I’ve never forgotten the lesson my mother offered me on that day in her sunny living room. As efficient as it may seem to go straight toward the solution we’ve already figured out, we benefit from keeping clarity around the problem itself so that we can explore all possible solutions.
Otherwise, we may narrow our focus so much that we miss out on better ways to achieve what we actually want.
Of course, the irony of a long term project (a business, a career, marriage, kids) is that it’s surprisingly easy to lose touch with what we wanted in the first place and settle for a proxy without even realizing it.
That’s why, with clients, it’s often my role to remind them what they are doing and why — to help them keep steering toward the north star they identified way back when so that distractions and discouragement don’t knock them off course.
It’s often the case that apparent shortcuts and shiny objects appear. Sometimes, these options can be more appealing than what we were going for. Other times, the going is rough enough that settling for less seems like the better choice. But if we remember our initial vision, we will have the fortitude to persist until we are sure that we’re truly reaching our goal, not just a sorry substitute.
Over the years, it’s gotten easier for me to question my assumptions. (For one thing, starting a school is no longer my go-to solution for needing more income.) I’m able to suspend judgment and be more strategic in solving problems, finding a wider range of tactics to deploy in order to get what I am really seeking. It requires a bit of faith, patience, cleverness, and confidence, all qualities that are worthwhile to develop in and of themselves.
The old cliché is spot on: Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. Make sure that what you’re wishing for is your heart’s desire or at least a clear and unambiguous positive contribution to your life. Keeping things general and vague for as long as you can may make it a lot easier for you to satisfy your needs in the end.
