How to Set an Intention and Make It Real
After putting another $10,000 into my struggling business, I set a clear intention: we would create $8,000 in sales that week. By Friday, we had done it.
The Entropy of “We’re Good”
On Sunday morning, I transferred another $6,000 from our line of credit to cover payroll and operating expenses at Apple Spice.
Two weeks earlier, I had transferred $10,000.
I understood why we needed the money. We had been closed for six weeks while moving into our new location, interrupting both our revenue and our sales pipeline. I had also hired another salesperson because rebuilding sales requires an investment before it produces a return.
I wasn’t panicking.
But moving that money forced me to confront something I had been avoiding.
Apple Spice had not suddenly become unhealthy. It had been slowly deteriorating for four years.
Nothing dramatic happened.
That was the problem.
The False Comfort of “We’re Good”
Before COVID, Apple Spice was a strong business. I had spent ten years building it. We had loyal customers, experienced employees, repeatable systems, and a good reputation.
Then COVID destroyed it in essentially two weeks.
Ten years of work disappeared almost overnight.
When I began rebuilding, I reached a point where I needed the business to prove something to me. If Apple Spice was going to be worth doing again, it could not require every piece of me just to survive.
I needed to know it could function without me.
So I stepped back. I worked mostly from home and tried to manage the business remotely. I trusted that the team knew what to do and that the systems we had built would keep working.
For a while, the fact that Apple Spice kept operating seemed to prove that I was right.
Orders came in. Food went out. Employees got paid. Customers continued calling.
We were good.
Except we weren’t.
Survival Is Not the Same as Success
We didn’t fall apart. We stagnated.
Delivery volume declined. Customer relationships cooled. Our systems stopped improving. Bad habits took root. Problems were solved for the moment instead of becoming better processes.
The business kept moving, but it wasn’t moving toward anything.
That is the dangerous thing about business complacency. It rarely announces itself as a crisis. It sounds reasonable:
The team has it covered.
Our customers know us.
The systems are already in place.
We’ve been doing this for years.
We’re good.
But “we’re good” creates a false reality. It treats success as something permanently achieved rather than a condition that must continually be recreated.
Apple Spice survived without getting 100 percent of my attention. That proved we had built something real.
But the business could produce orders without me and still slowly become weaker. It could not consistently strengthen its culture, improve its systems, develop its people, deepen customer relationships, and create new growth without someone supplying that energy.
I had confused proving that the business could operate without me with proving that it no longer needed my attention.
It could survive without me doing everything.
It could not become its best version without intentional leadership.
Nothing Stays Good on Its Own
There is a principle that explains what happened: entropy.
Entropy is the natural tendency for things to move toward disorder unless energy is continually added.
It happens everywhere.
A clean house becomes cluttered. A strong body becomes weaker. A close relationship becomes distant. A skill fades when we stop practicing it.
A business works the same way.
Customers leave. Employees change. Costs increase. Equipment breaks. Systems become outdated. Competitors keep selling. The market continues moving whether we move with it or not.
Nothing valuable remains in good condition simply because it was once good.
Maintenance requires energy. Improvement requires even more.
That doesn’t mean we should live in constant fear that everything is about to collapse. I don’t want to lead that way, and I don’t want my team to feel as though nothing they do is ever enough.
There is a difference between panic and hunger.
Panic says the business is always one step away from disaster.
Hunger says there is always something we can make better.
Five Questions to Fight Business Entropy
Entropy often becomes visible only after the damage has accumulated. Fighting it requires us to examine the things we have started taking for granted.
Here are five questions I am learning to ask:
- What are we assuming will take care of itself?
- Where have our standards quietly slipped?
- Which relationships have we stopped strengthening?
- What problem keeps returning because we never built a process?
- Where are we staying busy without moving forward?
Customers, culture, and good habits rarely maintain themselves. What are we no longer tending because we believe it has already been handled?
Most decline doesn’t happen through one enormous failure. It happens through small exceptions that slowly become normal.
A customer who was loyal three years ago still needs attention today. Past trust does not guarantee a future order.
Solving the same problem repeatedly is not maintenance. It is evidence that the system has not been improved.
Activity can make a business feel healthy. But answering emails, completing orders, and solving daily problems are not the same as creating direction.
For me, fighting entropy means being close enough to see what is actually happening. It means talking about our values, recognizing greatness, developing our people, strengthening customer relationships, and turning recurring problems into processes that produce better outcomes consistently.
It does not mean I need to make every sandwich, answer every phone call, or personally solve every problem.
The goal is still to build a business that can operate without me.
But it can never operate without leadership.
Entropy Explains the Past. Intention Creates the Future.
Recognizing entropy explains how Apple Spice got here. It does not determine where we go next.
That requires intention.
I recently wrote about how setting an intention can change what happens next. A North Star gives us direction. A goal measures our progress. Intention is the decision to start moving.
Entropy pulls everything toward disorder. Intention is how we push back.
At Apple Spice, we have stopped waiting to see what kind of week happens to us. We are deciding what kind of business we want to build and applying our energy in that direction.
There will be setbacks. Some ideas will fail. New problems will appear. That doesn’t change the intention. We learn, adjust, and keep moving.
I can feel bad about allowing the business to deteriorate, but that won’t rebuild it. The better response is to understand the principle and act on it.
“We’re good” can be something we pause to recognize and appreciate.
It just can’t become a place where we stop.
Nothing valuable stays good on its own.
Good is something we have to keep creating.
“Know what’s enough. Build what matters.”
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