When people look at the Mabel’s Labels story, they often see the milestones: an idea that became a recognizable brand, eight-figure sales, major retail distribution, and eventually, an acquisition.
Those milestones matter. I’m proud of what we built.
But they don’t tell you everything you need to know about how we got there.
Behind those achievements were thirteen years of building. Years of experimenting, making uncomfortable decisions, learning new things, and doing work whose outcome we couldn’t yet see, and could not yet understand how it would impact our path forward.
From the outside, success can look like a series of confident steps toward an inevitable result. From the inside, you’re making decisions without knowing how the story ends.
That distinction matters when you’re thinking about your own next stage of growth.
Success leaves clues. But you must know what to look for and be willing to act on what you discover.
Look beneath the surface
In Big Gorgeous Goals, I use the iceberg metaphor to explore success. We see the small portion above the water; it is just 10% of the total. What you see is the achievement, the recognition, the business that has been built.
Much more lies beneath the surface.
There are conversations that changed a founder’s thinking. Opportunities she declined. Capabilities she developed before they delivered a return. Moments when she realized she couldn’t keep leading in the same way.
When you admire another entrepreneur’s success, you’re usually seeing the visible portion of her iceberg.
Meanwhile, you know every inch of your own submerged effort. You know the difficult staffing decision, the unresolved question, and the initiative that is taking longer than you hoped.
It’s easy to feel behind when you compare those two perspectives. It’s an unfair comparison, like apples and oranges.
Getting curious about what happened beneath the surface gives you something more useful. It gives you a chance to learn.
Choosing where to focus
As your business grows, more opportunities can become available. Each one may have a reasonable case behind it. Together, they can stretch your attention and your team beyond what either can sustain.
Strategic focus requires choices. Look at what an entrepreneur stopped doing as her business grew. Which customers, offers, or responsibilities did she move away from? What did those decisions make room for?
A decision to narrow your focus can feel surprisingly bold, especially when it means walking away from revenue. Understanding the reasoning behind that choice can be more valuable than studying someone’s latest launch.
Learning from a setback
Resilience involves knowing when to persist and when to change your approach.
A disappointing result deserves examination. Perhaps an assumption was wrong. Perhaps the team needed more support. Perhaps the opportunity wasn’t as strong as it first appeared.
Ask what the entrepreneur learned, and then look for what she changed.
That second part matters. A lesson becomes useful when it influences the next decision.
Seeking wise counsel
Growing a business brings you into situations you haven’t navigated before. Previous success doesn’t remove the need for perspective.
Wise counsel can help you examine an assumption, recognize a blind spot, or see an option you hadn’t considered.
Pay attention to who an entrepreneur turns to, the questions she brings to those conversations, and how she uses the advice she receives.
You can borrow someone’s wisdom without borrowing their definition of success.
Become a student of success
The next time you have a conversation with a woman whose entrepreneurial journey you admire, move beyond asking how she became successful.
Try asking:
What decision changed the direction of your business?
What did you have to stop doing to grow?
Which capability did you need to develop before you felt ready?
Who helped you see something you were missing?
What would you approach differently now?
These questions invite a conversation about judgment, uncertainty, and learning. Listen for the thinking behind the answer. That will help you assess whether the lesson applies to you.
Notice the clues in your own journey
You also have experience worth studying.
Think about a period when your business made meaningful progress. What helped create it? A clearer priority? A stronger leader on your team? A decision you had delayed? Time away from daily operations to think?
Then consider something that continues to feel difficult. Is there a recurring decision or behaviour contributing to it?
Give yourself twenty minutes to reflect:
What is working, and what is making it work?
What have I learned that I haven’t yet acted on?
What needs to change for my next stage of growth?
Choose one answer and turn it into a concrete next step.
The Clue Worth Noticing
Some of your most important progress will happen before there is an impressive result to share.
A clearer decision, a stronger boundary, or a more capable team can create the conditions for growth long before that growth becomes visible.
What if the next clue to your big gorgeous goal is hiding in something you’ve already experienced?
If you’re ready to explore that question and turn what you’re noticing into action, I invite you to learn more about my Pocket Coaching program. Bring your next big gorgeous goal—and the questions that come with it.
