16d • Journal Entries
The Goal That Wasn't Earned
Lesson: Not every win is real.
Living Louder Journal
Entry 9
Score.
There’s nothing quite like watching your favorite team fight for a goal like their lives depend on it. The kind of play where every pass matters, every tackle matters, every inch of the field feels like hand to hand combat.
I’ve always loved football, especially the NFL, but over the last few years the teams I followed haven’t given me much to cheer about. So recently I started watching the English Premier League and found myself rallying around Manchester United.
And this season has been incredible to watch.
They’ve gone from the bottom of the standings to climbing their way back toward the top. Yesterday’s match was another example of that fight. Every time they moved the ball forward it felt like the stadium was holding its breath.
Old Trafford is something else.
When a goal is scored there, the roar of the crowd is almost physical. You can practically feel the vibration through the television screen. The fans erupt like the moment means everything.
Because in many ways it does.
You know those players trained all week for that moment. Strategy, conditioning, repetition, preparation. The goal is the visible outcome of a massive amount of invisible work.
But here’s the interesting part.
Sometimes a goal happens that doesn’t quite feel right.
Maybe it came from a bad referee call. Maybe the opposing team made a ridiculous mistake. Maybe the ball deflected in some odd way and somehow rolled across the line.
The goal still counts.
It goes in the books.
But everyone watching knows something about it wasn’t quite… earned.
Even the home team sometimes knows it.
They celebrate because that’s the nature of the game. But deep down there’s an understanding that this wasn’t a clean victory. It wasn’t the perfect execution everyone trained for.
It was a technicality.
And oddly enough I’m dealing with something very similar in business right now.
Most of the clients I have today came through hard work. They were relationships built slowly over time. People who learned from me, trusted me, and eventually decided to work with me because they understood what I could do for them.
Those relationships are solid.
Some of them have been with me for ten or even fifteen years.
They’re like goals scored after a full field build up. Good passing, smart positioning, a clean strike into the net.
But occasionally a client comes in a completely different way.
They parachute in.
A random referral. A strange introduction. Someone saying “You have to work with Matt” even though the person hasn’t really spent any time understanding who I am or how I work.
They show up suddenly.
And at first it feels like a win.
But if I’m honest with myself, sometimes those relationships are a little like those questionable goals in soccer.
They weren’t scored through the normal effort.
They landed in the net through some strange angle or deflection.
And when that happens, the foundation of the relationship isn’t always as strong.
I’m dealing with exactly that situation right now.
A client who arrived a few months ago through an unusual connection. They were educated, trained, set up, and put into production. But now suddenly they’re becoming flippant about the relationship.
And if I step back and look at it honestly, I knew from the beginning that this was a bit of a technical goal.
It wasn’t built through the normal trust building process.
So now the other side wants the penalty reversed.
Sometimes the right move is to simply give the goal back.
Not every point on the scoreboard represents real progress.
The clients who come through my own work, through teaching, through direct relationships, through trust built over time… those are the ones who stay.
Those are the goals scored through actual play.
The strange referrals and random parachute clients sometimes look exciting at first, but they can disappear just as quickly as they arrived.
That’s an important reminder for me.
I need to keep fishing with my own gear.
I need to keep building my business through the process that actually works. The process where people understand what I do, respect the effort behind it, and come into the relationship with the right expectations.
Not every opportunity that appears is a real opportunity.
Sometimes it’s just a lucky bounce.
And in the long run, the goals that matter most are the ones you earned through the work.
Interpretation
This entry explores the difference between earned success and accidental success.
The sports analogy highlights something every competitor understands instinctively. A goal scored through discipline and strategy carries a very different meaning than a goal scored through luck or a technical error.
In business the same pattern appears.
Relationships that develop through education, trust, and direct engagement tend to be stable and long lasting. They are built on understanding and mutual respect.
But relationships that begin through random referrals or indirect introductions sometimes lack that foundation. Without the slow process of trust building, the client may not fully understand the value being delivered.
When challenges arise, those relationships can dissolve quickly because the connection was never deeply rooted.
The lesson is not that referrals are bad. The lesson is that strong business relationships require alignment, clarity, and mutual investment.
When those elements are missing, the result may look like success for a short period of time, but it rarely lasts.
Lessons From This Entry
Not every win represents real progress.
Trust built slowly produces stronger relationships.
Accidental opportunities often carry hidden instability.
Long term success usually comes from consistent effort rather than lucky breaks.
The goals that matter most are the ones you truly earned.
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The Goal That Wasn't Earned
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