Fred Hatfield set a world record by squatting 1014 pounds. After the lift, a reporter excitedly ran up to him and asked “What was it like, lifting 1000 pounds?”

Fred asked in response, “How much can you lift?”

The reporter replied, “About 250 pounds.”

Fred then said, “It felt like what lifting 250 pounds feels like to you.”

The simple lesson here is “working at your capacity always feels like working at your capacity”.

But the business lesson is a bit deeper.

Growing a business, by definition, means always trying to push past your capacity. Every quarter can feel like “lifting 1000 pounds”.

What fellow business owners know is the same thing that athletes know: pushing past your limits isn’t a one-time event. It’s a lifestyle. The thousand-pound lift looks impressive, and it is. But it is the result of first having a limit of 250, 265, 300….all the way up to 1000, and continually breaking through those limits.

The difference between the reporter and the world champion is that the reporter leveled up 1 time, and the world champion leveled up 20 times.

The difference between a $1M business and a $10B business is that the founder had to level up 20 times.

“Having a $10B business must be nice. Very easy to coast. Why are they still working?”

Because it feels exactly as hard as having a $1M business. Now with just more on the line.

Understandably, most non-business owners can’t relate.