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Discipline will not make you successful

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The tortoise wins.

I ran a marathon 30 years ago. While training, my wife, Diane, started casually jogging with me at the end or beginning of my runs. A few weeks before the marathon she ran a half-marathon with me.

Since I had never run more than three miles, I had a five month schedule for preparing for the marathon. I was very disciplined about it, it didn’t matter if it was late at night or raining, I kept to my schedule for those five months and finished my marathon.

20 years later I was only running casually one or twice a week, sometimes less. I was able to keep my exercise going with other sports, but really didn’t have a long term commitment to running. 20 years after the marathon Diane was running four to five times a week faithfully, every week.

Discipline vs. Diligence
I had been DISCIPLINED to prepare for the marathon for five months, but Diane was DILIGENT to keep running a few miles every day, year after year. We hear a lot of talk about discipline, but diligence trumps discipline every time, and is much more desirable in growing a business that lasts.

Tony Robbins says we over estimate what we can do in a month, and greatly underestimate what we can do in a year. Diligence takes the long haul into account and sets us up for long term success. It’s about being the tortoise, not the hare. Diligence keeps us from getting distracted by each new shiny object.

Discipline is motivated by short-term goals. Diligence is motivated by long-term goals, deep values and belief systems.

Discipline is about building a habit. Diligence is about building and sustaining a life and a legacy.

Discipline is about WHAT WE DO. Diligence is about WHO WE ARE.

Things are great; things are not great; things are great…
Why are there so many peaks and valleys in businesses? Too often it’s caused by being too committed to very short term impact (discipline) and not having a good grasp on how to do anything about the long term (diligence).

The priority – the long term
Henry David Thoreau said “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” In business, we get a shot at quiet desperation every time we commit to a short term shiny object that we just got excited about. Emotion and shiny objects are a great for recipe for short term shooting stars, but diligence keeps us grounded, stable, shooting for something significant with our business.

Short term goals that aren’t connected to any significant future for our business contribute to quiet desperation – moving from one short term, random, unconnected objective to another. We can look very disciplined about short term goals and never get anywhere. Longer term objectives for our business get us focused on something significant and create quiet resolve.

Investor owned and publicly traded businesses rarely get the opportunity to actually build a business on what would be good for the long term. As a privately owned business, you have the ability to build something that will make an impact for decades to come and create a great legacy by simply being diligent to make decisions that are best for your future, not just your present.

The tortoise really does win. Keep moving, plod along, never give up, stay the course – be diligent.

Diligence beats discipline every time.

What Do You Want to Be Known For?

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An empowering vision.

What are you building with your business? Do you know? If not, it’s never too late to get this answer. Stop for a moment and get it, because every decision will fall from this one if you have it answered. People who try to make money rarely make very much of it. People who answer this question understand it is where significance begins.

We sometimes confuse what is good for us with what works for big business. We see Giant Corporation, Incorporated focused on return on investment (ROI) to it’s shareholders and think that we should do that. They are a lousy example of what you want to be known for. They have a legal responsibility to focus on making money, we don’t. And I can tell you that people who focus on something bigger than making money always make more of it.

What do you want to be known for?

And it’s even true with a very few Giant Corp. companies. As Raj Sisodia found in his book Firms of Endearment , 28 of the Fortune 500 have declared to their shareholders that they are about something bigger than making money – they want to be know for something else. You would think that might distract them from making money, but you would be wrong.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collin’s identified 11 companies that beat the S&P 500 profit standard by at least 300%. Raj’s 28 Giant Corporations that focused instead on something bigger than making money do 1,072% better than the average S&P 500 company.

This relationship between focusing on something bigger than making money and actually making a lot is even more clear with small businesses. Why?

Making money is not an empowering vision.

People make money for two reasons:

1) Survival – survival is a very strong instinct. It is not surprising that most people make just enough money to pay their bills. And the only way that they can motivate themselves to make more is to constantly increase their lifestyle so they can ensure there is always more money going out than coming in. Staying in this Cycle of Poverty, even when you’re making millions, is a great way to ensure you will always be motivated only by survival.

I have a former client who lives that way. His house is beautiful and his cars are gorgeous, and he doesn’t sleep at night. He is in survival mode all the time. He bought the 80’s lie “He who dies with the most toys wins”, and is a hostage to his business and his lifestyle.

2)Significance – An empowering vision – People who see money as a means to an end that is bigger than the toys it can buy are much more likely to make a lot more of it.

You should have as the objective of your work to move from SURVIVAL right through SUCCESS (the imposter of toys) to SIGNIFICANCE.

What do you want to be known for?

I address this in Making Money Is Killing Your Business. Answer that question and you’re likely to get up tomorrow a lot more motivated regardless of the economic climate. And you’re likely to be a lot more successful because you have committed movement in a purposeful direction.

Get out of my way. I have somewhere I have to be.

It’s a lot more motivating than, “I made 6% more this year.”

What do you want to be known for?

Wouldn’t it be great if…

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Random Hope is a lousy business strategy.

Chapter Six in my next book, Bad Plans Carried Out Violently, is about Conation, the most important business word you’ve never heard. Its antonym is just as obscure and just as critical for you to know – velleity.

Our whole community of business owners use this phrase all the time:

You get what you intend, not what you hope for.

Nothing could describe the above better than two of the 1,000 most obscure words in the English language – conation and velleity (vel-lee-ity).

Conation is “Committed Movement in a Purposeful Direction”. The dictionary says its the desire plus the volition at the same time. I know I want to do it because I already am. I don’t need to desire it and get all motivated. I just do it because I want it.

Velleity is the desire with no intention of ever doing anything about it. It’s the exact opposite of conation. Wouldn’t it be nice if things worked out better next year? Wouldn’t it be nice if I only worked half as much as I do now? Would it be nice if… that’s velleity.

What’s the difference between a visionary and a dreamer? A visionary is already doing it (conation) and a dreamer is talking about how nice it would if… (velleity).

You get what you intend, not what you hope for.
CONATION < – – – – – – – – – > VELLEITY

Conate.

Commitment is the Engine of Your Business, Not Motivation

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Committed people make history.

Imagine building a boat without an engine or a sail. We call that a raft. You could build a gorgeous multi-million dollar 60’ cruiser, but if there is no engine, it’s still just a raft. And if you actually want to have some control over where you’re going, drifting around aimlessly in a raft isn’t the best way to get there. Or the fastest. Or the safest. You get the idea. You need an engine.

In 30 years of building my own businesses and in watching other people build hundreds more, I can tell you without reservation that the foundational thing that separates the successful business owner from the always-struggling business owner is commitment. The bigger their engine of commitment is, the better chance they have at getting where they want to go. And the quicker they are likely to get there.

Motivation is not Commitment.

That’s an important distinction. I’ve seen plenty of people pound their chests, do their chants and mistake “motivation” for commitment.

I’m not a big fan of motivational stuff. Motivation too often masquerades as vision, but is almost always based in emotionalism – seeing the promised land on a map, hearing the music, dancing the dance, hugging somebody, then going home and settling back into our regular routine.

So motivation is too often based on how I feel, not on whether I’m committed to really doing something. Commitment is unaffected by feeling, and only uses feelings to help understand what has already happened. After all, emotions are a much better indicator of what has already happened then what might happen in the future.

We should be responding to business more like a stream running down hill. It doesn’t need to get emotional to get moving and when it hit’s a beaver dam, it doesn’t get emotional, either. It just turns left and keeps finding a way downhill. A stream has quiet resolve.

Commitment is demonstrated not by excitement, or by spending time in the office, or even by dollars invested, but by full on abandonment to getting to the goal, and daily plodding to get there. Commitment is much closer related to steely, quiet resolve than to ginning up the “right” feelings.

Quiet resolve is committed movement in a purposeful direction.

Do you have quiet resolve to get where you want to go, no matter what you run into along the way? If you do, you’ve got a great shot at going from survival right through success to significance, both in your business and in your life.

A Business Plan Will Not Make You More Successful

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Palo Alto Software, which makes business planning software, just did a survey to their own users to show that those who completed business plans that they started with Palo Alto were nearly twice as likely to successfully grow their businesses or obtain capital as those who didn’t finish.

This research is a classic example of “there are lies, damnable lies, and statistics” (stolen from Twain who got it from someone else). An even more reasonable conclusion – people who DO SOMETHING and follow through on it are twice as likely to successfully grow their business.

My second book (to be published in December 2010) is titled “Bad Plans Carried Out Violently” and promotes the idea that DOING SOMETHING trumps pre-planning almost without exception. I’ve talked with hundreds of successful business owners and asked them two questions:

  1. Did you do a business plan before you started your business?
  2. If you did, how well did it project what actually happened over 1 yr, 3 yrs and 5 yrs?

The number of successful business owners who do a business plan before starting their business is statistically insignificant – well less than 1%. The only reason the small minority gave for doing one is because they had to in order to get money from a bank or investor (almost no one does one just for themselves). That should tell you something about the classic “pre-planning” Business Plan we’re all taught is so important.

Of those very few that did do a Business Plan before starting, virtually none of them say their Business Plan projected accurately what actually happened in the next 12 months, or 3yrs or 5 yrs. To the contrary most said their Business Plan was wildly off from what actually happened in the real world.

The conclusion is that successful business owners don’t do a classic Business Plan unless banks or investors are involved, and that they never look at it after that. So it has real value for getting a loan, but not for running a business.

Stop planning and get moving! Do a simple 2-page Strategic Plan and revise it every month with the input your business gives you – you’ll be better off.

“Committed Movement in a Purposeful Direction” and “Implement Now. Perfect as You Go.” – two concepts from my next book – are much more instructive to success than pre-planning. Knowing the end goal is extremely important – knowing beforehand the path for how you will get there is fortune-telling.

See the new book from 37Signals called Rework for others affirming this as well.

The Law of Intentionality – it’s no secret.

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More often than not, we catch what we pursue, not what we envision. Contrary to a commonly held popular narrative, we aren’t successful by just envisioning what we want. There are three legs to the Success Stool, not just one:

1) Vision

Know where you’re going and when you want to be there. Don’t know that? Don’t bother with anything else. If you didn’t know where you were going on vacation and when you wanted to be there, how would you know when to start packing your car and what to put in it? It’s a big duh, I know. Yet we never think to apply the same duh to our business.

Do you know where you’re going in your business (what does it look like at Maturity), and when you want to be there? Of course not. Yet you’re out there every day packing your business car with no idea where you’re going or when you want to be there. Until you know the outcome you are shooting for a few years from now, can describe it in detail, and know exactly when you intend to be there, you’re not building a business, your just making money.

And making money is killing your business. Stop making money and figure out what your business will look like when it’s making money for you. Put a date on when you intend to be there and watch the fireworks begin. Put a time of day on it, too, that will really get the Business Maturity clock ticking in your head. My Business Maturity Date (BMD) is Friday, February 18, 2011, at 10am. What’s yours?

2) Skill development

There isn’t a golfer on the PGA tour that doesn’t know their statistics, which makes it clear what their strengths and weaknesses are so they can train with a purpose. We call them professionals. We all want to be called business professionals, yet most of us don’t have any numbers we follow religiously, and as a result, have no clue what skills we should be developing. We wing it through every business day, putting band-aids on broken legs and wondering why The Tyranny of the Urgent rules our day. If we were truly professionals we would have a plan for professional development and be committed to it. We all want to be the best in our class, until we actually have to practice to get there. Too many of us are just playing air guitar – we’re faking it.

3) Diligence

Diligence is the mature form of discipline. Discipline is the short-term act of preparing for a marathon by following the training schedule. Diligence is the act of running all your life to stay fit. If you develop the art of diligence and not just discipline, you’ll be much more likely to be successful over the long haul and get to your Business Maturity Date.

Discipline can get us to a short-term objective, but diligence will take us all the way to the end. Diligence breeds quiet resolve toward long-term goals. And it is founded in conation – the will to succeed that manifests itself in single-minded pursuit of a goal (John McClintock’s definition in Self-Made in America).

Vision isn’t enough to get us where we want to go. It’s a map. We still have to get on the trail and walk in the right direction.

Having a plan to develop our skills isn’t of any value if you don’t have a “big why” for doing so, and the diligence to develop them for the long haul.

Discipline and diligence aren’t enough. I know plenty of people who are committed to doing the same things every day who have know idea why, and have never thought about where it’s taking them.

We need Vision, Diligence, and a plan for developing the right Skills. Put all three of these together and that is the Law of Intentionality – I know where I’m going, I know what I need to do to get there, and I’m committed to whatever I have to do to make it happen.

You’re much more likely to get somewhere if you put all three of these legs on your business stool.