I don’t know about you, but most of the things I do I’m … barely competent at.

Not incompetent, mind you, but enough to get by. There are a few things that I’ve gotten quite good at, and during my life may have even excelled at something.

So I was heartened today by seeing a thoughtful quote that:

The purpose of doing things isn’t to “win” at everything. It’s to have a life that was well lived.

I find that to be quite encouraging because it’s so true. Our culture tends to focus on the “winners” who of course become rich and famous. But that disregards the 99.999% rest of us who don’t really strive for fame, but instead just want a good life.

One that was worth living.

I find that the same is true of businesses. We seem to honor those who achieve stellar growth, or huge societal impact, or dominant market share. But that’s ignoring the 99.999% of businesses who never achieve that.

Indeed, they may never have even had that in their goals.

In my opinion, that definition of “winning” should rarely be driving a business. Instead, it’s the corporate equivalent of a “life well lived”: Did the business have an existence which delivered value to people?

Perhaps it means that the business:

  • Was just a little shop on the corner
  • Gave a bunch of people useful work and good income for many years
  • Manufactured a piece which is hidden down inside the guts of a lot of houses
  • Helped make peoples’ work easier

Those are modest contributions to society in the traditional sense. But I would argue that the business had a “life well lived” by contributing to peoples’ happiness.

Perhaps without ever achieving a million dollars a month in revenue or dominant market share.