Clarity Is All You Need to Succeed in Everything

The Power of Clarity in a Chaotic World

Cla la la rity, oulala, Cla la la rity, oulala. Get up, dance with me, shake that ass, and show me some moves. Clarity is what makes or breaks people in this cluttered and noisy society. Without clarity, I don’t think I would achieve any success, be it financially or professionally.

Every week, I spend an entire day doing nothing but hunting mosquitoes, running after butterflies, and, of course, reflecting on my process, gaining more clarity, and restructuring my strategy. If I lack clarity about why I’m doing what I’m doing, I get frustrated and have an itch in the ass; I can’t sit quietly and execute my work. My effort is pointless and a total waste of energy and time.

Aside from one sexy area of my life, I don’t like to move a lot because I’m lazy, and it takes a lot of effort and energy to create something, only to find out that it doesn’t drive delicious results. The idea of clarity means knowing what I want, why I want it, and how to get there effectively and efficiently.

If I’m unclear, I won’t stop, but I will go through a quick and fast process and experiments to find out the point behind my project as quickly as possible. I call this process a discovery phase; the purpose of it is to learn about my goal as fast as possible and to decide whether I have to include it in my plans or ditch it altogether.

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As a business consultant, I communicate with many entrepreneurs and business owners and help them uncover and deal with their business challenges. One of the biggest problems these business owners have is that they share a lack of clarity and purpose behind running or growing their business.

Many of them try to impress me and say they want to impact the world through entrepreneurship, yet in the middle of the call, they complain that they earn little to no money from their new venture. If what they said tells me two things, these things will be a lack of clarity and accurate business structuring.

It’s extremely tough to make a significant impact socially and earn money simultaneously. Entrepreneurs seeking to go after social impact need to structure their business as a non-profit or low-cost and expect their earnings to be minimal as they focus on improving the lives of as many people as possible. Other entrepreneurs start a business to earn money but neither know how to make money with their current business model nor how much they want to earn nor know what sort of business earns them the most for their budget.

Oh man, I have so many bedtime stories to tell. I could write a ‘one thousand and one business problems’ book just talking about failing businesses due to a lack of clarity. Last week, a seven-figure business client gave me a consultation call; he was frustrated and overwhelmed about growing his business. He doesn’t seem to figure out how to scale his business. He worked with other consultants; they offered him some sophisticated models he couldn’t read and understand.

As I was on the call with him, I found out that the guy doesn’t know what he actually wants or how to get there; he thinks he must grow, but he is clueless about the reason behind growing his business. I asked him, ‘Why do you want to grow your business?’ He said: ‘It’s a natural process for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.’ (Generic answer) I continued; ‘Why now?’ He said: ‘We have been selling an extensive collection of products for years, and this year our sales went down by 70%, so we need to expand our product line and enter a new market.’ I asked, ‘Is the problem making more profit or growing the scale of the business and market share?’ He said: ‘Hmm, I think both.’ I said: ‘Pick one.’ He said: ‘Bringing more profit.’

I asked, ‘What makes you sure that expanding to new products will increase your business's bottom line?’ He said, ‘Well, more products, more sales, right?’ (Traditional retail mentality) I said, ‘Have you thought about growth from a different perspective? What do you think if you eliminate the majority of the products that don’t make noticeable sales, and focus on a few ones, 10X the quality of the products, increase the price, then use the budget you saved from cutting on other products to double down on marketing? Do you think that would grow the bottom line of your business?’ He paused briefly, then said: ‘Are you asking me to shrink my business?’ I said: ‘I’m asking you to define the essence of your business, double down your effort, and increase your profit from your existing business without spending extra money on things that might not work.’

He said, ‘Oh my god, I never thought of growth as cutting down on things to expand on other things. I was focused so much on scaling my business but never defined what growing meant; I would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on product research and buying new machines. Deep down, I don’t want to add more work for myself; I want a larger piece of the pie, but what will make my business stronger is having a more robust income statement at the end of the year; now, things make sense.’ Two hours call, five thousand dollars for a strategy session that saved the guy years of trial and error and a pile of money. Clarity is everything.

Many of us get stuck with tactics and tools or listen to little tips here and there to achieve something imaginary, but we have no clue what it is. To be clear, you have to see your aim with an eagle’s eye and perspective; You have to know which target to hit and how to beat it; you have to know your target’s strengths and weaknesses and how to attack it effectively.

If I’m not clear, I don’t dive down and end up wasting my energy for no delicious meal; I would fly longer, look for something that I can grasp and clarify in my mind, and then I will go all the way in, never giving up or looking back. For me, clarity is everything. What about you?

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— © Nour Boustani 2024