Mike Brown argues focus beats every other skill in business. He uses the "closest alligator to the canoe" analogy to show how solving immediate problems can wreck your future. His fix: pick a five-year target like $10 million, then work backward to decide what matters today.
One of the most valuable frameworks that I use in my own business, and I encourage a lot of entrepreneurs to use, is rather than thinking short-term, and look, all of us wanna solve the problems that are immediately in our face, or as we say in the Navy, the closest alligator to the canoe. But if we're stuck always solving the next problem that's ahead, we can sabotage the long-term success of the company. What I really like to think about is, hey, if I wanna be a $10 million company in 5 years, what would need to be true today in order to reach those goals. And that can really help eliminate a lot of the noise and showcase what it is you need to be focusing on in order to grow the company in the right direction. I always try to align my thinking to a long-term outlook and then work backwards in order to create the sequences and processes that I need in order to reach those goals.
