The airline CEO teaches me a new idea.

When we start something new, we come up with goals. We want to make a certain amount of money or grow a business or get a book published. But one day, my friend Bob challenged my understanding of goals.

Bob started an airline. He told me that story at dinner, like that was a normal thing people just do. He said that he’s a lawyer, so he’s used to filling out paperwork and that’s all it takes to start an airline.

So he filled out all the forms in Canada, and then they reminded him that he needed a plane.

“Oh, that’s right!” He said, “So we got a plane put together. It was a beaver, one of those planes that can land on water. We painted it Krispy Kreme colors because we figured they knew what they were doing. We hired a pilot and made him wear an official uniform with a thin black tie, shoulder straps, black hat. The whole works. We had one ticket counter girl and we started making flights up and down the inlets of British Columbia.”

Apparently, starting an airline is one thing, growing it is a completely different thing, but Bob had a plan.

“We decided that our mission was going to be bringing free fresh fruit and free newspapers every morning to every hunting lodge and logging cabin in the area. That was it. Two years later, we had ten planes and ten pilots. We broke even. It didn’t make any money, but the goal wasn’t to make money. The goal was to be awesome. And it was!”

The goal was to be awesome.

What if that was enough in life? What if you didn’t have to have it all figured out? What if you didn’t have to know exactly what your dream was and how to achieve it? What if you didn’t have to be the perfect student, perfect boss, perfect parent or perfect anything?

What if your goal was to be awesome and that was enough?

How awesome would that be?