“He wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer." Goal setting: careful what you wish for…

If only John McClane hadn’t messed it all up, the real hero of Die Hard would be “sitting on a beach, earning twenty percent.” It’s clearly a better alternative than spending Christmas morning being scraped off the pavement outside the Nakatomi Plaza, but would Hans Gruber really have been perpetually happy if his carefully planned heist had been a success?

The full, awesome Hans Gruber quote stated that “when Alexander (The Great) saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer." He goes on to famously attribute his wisdom to the “benefits of a classical education.” It turns out that quote itself never appeared in the classics, but the sentiment stands strong, in that one needs to be careful what one wishes for.

The danger of an overarching definitive goal is that, depending on the type of goal, one might reach it and then feel very much lost.

Over the years I’ve enjoyed watching friends reach some epic goals. One set the goal of creating and selling a business, so they could build their dream house. Another wanted to prove that they could become a successful entrepreneur in their chosen industry, as a woman. What’s interesting is that, when the dust settled, after accomplishing their dream, the novelty didn’t last. After selling his business, that friend soon started looking for another small business in which to invest and work. The friend that made countless sacrifices to become a successful female entrepreneur realised she had achieved this, lost interest in her business and gradually exited.

I had a similar experience earlier in life, when I hit a personal goal that I’d been looking to achieve over many years. After celebrating with friends, I felt deflated and without direction. Almost immediately I started looking for a new goal to achieve in that area of my life to replace it. It felt more like I had lost something than found success.

Therefore, perhaps the answer is in the adage that life is a journey, not a destination. When I set up Dataphoria, 10 years ago, it wasn’t to build a big company or to quickly scale and then sell it. I wanted to build a company that would be ethical, fun and fair. I wanted to wake up happy that I would be going to work in the business day in, day out. Because the goal was to look forward to going to work each day, reaching it became a sustainable achievement. One that did not expire when accomplished. It is also a goal that needs to be continually worked on.

This got me thinking about great companies that stand the test of time, without losing their buzz. The overarching mission of each company was not a finite goal. They didn’t seek to become the most referred business in their industry, or the company with the highest market cap. They certainly weren’t built around a finite, personal goal of their leader. 

Google is a great example of a goal built around the journey, with their simple, concise mission statement: “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  As long as there is intelligence on Earth, this idea will stand. At no point will the teams at Google decide that their mission is complete, that no more can be done and that it’s time to stand down. And this is a good thing, for while it is import to set goals and celebrate success, if we attain our overarching goal too soon, it may be to our detriment.