There is a famous existentialist play that ends on a dour note.

The protagonist concludes, after a tortured process of introspection, that Hell is not a place but instead, its other people.

Im not convinced thats true, but in business Hell is a situation in which youre helpless to select your own customers.

That is one of the perks of being in business, being able to serve a niche that you find gratifying, financially and otherwise.

For example, I know another business coach who aims at improving the performance of attorneys and law offices. He likes hanging out with his clients, and I suppose, for him, the law is the path not taken, and by serving attorneys he can still feel hes part of that world.

Fair enough, as you can imagine, there are numerous folks who would pay good money to avoid having lawyers on their books!

To each his own, but I do know this: If you permit yourself to serve people you consider to be bad clients, by virtue of their personality or behavior, youre going to under perform, not only with them, but with the good ones, as well.

And to put it starkly, the bad clients push out the good.

Lets say you decide to serve basket-weavers. Whats going to happen, whether you like them or not?

Youre going to learn the ins and outs of basket weaving and youll speak the language of these folks. Theyll become your references, and whenever someone else considers working with you, theyll call them to see how you performed.

Non-basket weavers wont find basket weavers credible sources, so youll get stuck in a cycle, serving mostly them.

In this way, basket weavers will fill up most of your time and conscious thought and keep you stuck in a vicious circle.

The only way to take charge of your future is to identify who constitutes the WRONG client for you, and then thin out their ranks, and dont replace them with others like them.

This can be a scary process, because you feel youre throwing away money, and in the short term, you are. But in my experience, when you lose bad clients, almost right away, you gain better ones.

And you can feel especially good, having bitten the bullet, and taking the heat for making a counter-intuitive decision.

By having better clients, you might also find that Heaven just may be a situation in which youve created the luxury of interacting with good people.