Bigger is the wrong goal.

There’s a story behind that.

This is your daily message from Chad number 1211 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. This message is dedicated to Mark Miller.

Here’s the upgrade:

You may think your problem would be solved if you were just a little bigger, but upgraded thinking knows better comes first, and bigger follows.

Here’s the story:

In 1946, Truett Cathy and his brother Ben opened a little diner in Hapeville, Georgia. They called it the Dwarf Grill. Ten stools. Four booths. They started another restaurant with a really funny name. The first Chick-fil-A restaurant didn’t open until 1967. Twenty-one years later. And that first Chick-fil-A, in an Atlanta mall, was 384 square feet. Twenty-one years of work, learning, and persistence, followed by another small beginning.

Fast forward to the 1990s. A chain called Boston Chicken went public in 1993, raised a pile of money, and started opening restaurants at a fast pace and was a serious competitor to Chick-fil-A. And Chick-fil-A’s leaders started talking about how to respond. How to grow faster. How to get bigger. Truett Cathy, who was not a table-pounder, started pounding the table. When the room went quiet, he said, “If we get better, our customers will demand that we get bigger.”

Here’s how it played out. Boston Market, as it was called by then, filed for bankruptcy in 1998. McDonald’s bought it in 2000. That same year, Chick-fil-A passed a billion dollars in sales. One meeting didn’t decide all of that. But the contrast is hard to miss. One chased bigger. One chased better.

Truett understood two things. First, bigger isn’t in your control. Customers decide that. Better is completely in your control. You decide that every day. Second, bigger before better breaks things. Growth you’re not ready for doesn’t build you up. It exposes you. Getting better is how you get ready for bigger.

John Wooden, the great UCLA coach, built his Pyramid of Success. Near the very top, just under Success, he put Patience. His note under it was four words: “Good things take time.” Wanting bigger isn’t bad. You probably want a bigger audience, a bigger paycheck, bigger influence, a bigger team. That’s fine. But you don’t control bigger. You control better.

The better story to tell yourself is, “Get better. Bigger will find me.” These messages aren’t the bigger story to tell yourself. Focus on improving and bigger opportunities are sure to follow. Pick one thing you do and make it a little better today. Then do it again tomorrow. Let your work get so good that people demand more of it.

Tell me a story of a time getting better mattered more than getting bigger to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and ask them, “Just out of curiosity, what’s one thing you could get better at this week?” You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at http://www.fromchad.com.