I’ve been talking to my personal trainer for the last couple of weeks about an event I’m keen to sign up for later this year. When he asked me about what time I wanted to do it in, I told him, “I’m not fussed about the time. I just want to finish strong with a smile on my face.”

And I mean it. The result for me is not about what time I do it in; it’s all about how I want to feel.

Now to be clear, I’m still going to have to work really bloody hard for the rest of this year and on the day of the event if I want to finish feeling strong with a smile on my face. I promise you; my goal is not a cop-out. 

Back in 2019, I had the same goal when I ran (my one and only) marathon in New York. And I met my goal. When I crossed that line, I had the hugest smile on my face, and I felt fierce and could have run further if I had wanted to. But had my goal been about finishing in a certain time, I would have been disappointed. I didn’t have a perfect race day; while my first 20 km were a dream, I ran into some trouble at the 20 km mark, but I fought through it, and by 30 km I was good again. But for those 10 km, I was not feeling strong, and there certainly was no smile on my face. Luckily for me, I had done the training, and I tend to be very determined, so I pushed past it, and the smile and strength came back in those last 12 km, and I met my goal. #finishstrong #withasmile

In recent years, I’ve applied this principle to my business too. Up until a few years ago, I was quite hung up on meeting certain revenue targets in certain timeframes. Sometimes I’d meet these goals, and sometimes I wouldn’t. Whether I met these goals or not, I found myself feeling dissatisfied. If I met them, I wanted to do more, and if I didn’t meet them, I’d feel like I had failed. 

Last year, Amber Kingsley and I wrote our Human Experience story. Our goal is for everyone in our team to feel capable, confident, and happy in their work. We strive to provide our clients with valuable insights that empower them, drive results, and motivate their teams. Both Amber and I are aiming to run a profitable business while having a beautiful balance between doing work we love and spending lots of quality time with our families. 

My goals are all about how I want to feel and how I want the people around me to feel, and the more I focus on that, the more success we experience. 

I promise it’s not a cop-out. We still do the hard work to feel like this. We still fail, and we still learn, and we certainly don’t “feel the feels” 100% of the time.

Interestingly, if I ever tell someone that I’ve done a marathon, to date, no one has ever asked me what time I did. No one has ever seemed to have cared. Just the fact I ran it and finished seems to be enough for everyone else. It’s the same in business; no one has ever asked me what my revenue or profitability is (besides my accountant, of course). Just the fact that I run a business, with a great team and awesome clients, is enough for everyone else.

Nic McClanachan, May 2025