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The Short Straw of Failure

One Simple Thing

For years I’ve been hunting down reasons why people are successful, or why they aren’t. In the last few weeks an over-arching single reason seems to be forming for me.

The Long List of Success Attributes
If you break it down to the smaller reasons, there are so many why people succeed – clarity of vision, solid values/beliefs/principles, speed of execution, commitment (never giving up), discipline, getting back up/bouncing back, taking good risks vs bad risks (& knowing the difference), being organized, optimistic, being flexible, embracing challenge, seeing the big picture, rising above offense, seeing yourself as successful, being willing to be wrong often…

…and so many more.

The One Big Success Attribute
But as I look at the long list of things that make people successful or keep them stuck, they almost all seem to roll up under one simple, over-arching reason. I’ve been testing it against all the other reasons for weeks, and can’t find one that doesn’t fit under the one big one.

The reason we get where we want to go or don’t is simply this:

Short-term vs. long-term decision-making.

Not very glamorous, but absolutely transformative if you embrace it.

People who make their decisions based on what will help in the short-term are almost never successful. People who make decisions based on what will be best in the long run are almost always successful. Is it that simple? Let’s test it and see.

Testing It Out
Take a look at the list of success attributes above (or any of the dozens I haven’t mentioned) and ask yourself which ones are based on short-term gain and which ones are based on the long-term gain. Success attributes are all about the long-term.

In stark contrast, the following reasons for failure all help us address short-term symptoms, but keep us right where we are:
– survival: I have payroll to make
– feelings: I don’t feel like doing that right now
– fear: I’m afraid they won’t like me, or I might fail
– lack of discipline: shiny object syndrome – oooh! – let’s do that, TOO!
– being tired: the #1 reason businesses fail
– lack of learning: we’re too busy DOING to be learning
– inflexibility: change is messy, we’ll just row over the falls
– lack of vision: I’m too busy making chairs for that woo-woo crap

…and on and on. We do them all for one very simple reason. We are short-sighted and not thinking about how we will ever get to where we want to be.

Ask yourself two long-term questions:

1) What would I be doing right now if I weren’t (in survival, afraid, undisciplined, tired, etc – put your own short-term problem here)?
2) Am I making decisions based on where I am, or where I want to be?

Decisions based on what helps me now, create long-term failure. Long-term success is based on a life pattern of making many small, daily decisions, one after another, that stack up to success down the road.

Our VALUES determine our thoughts
Our thoughts determine our actions
Our actions determine our habits
Our habits determine our character
Our character determines our DESTINY.

Do you value being on the treadmill the rest of your life, making decisions that address short-term symptoms but never solve the long-term problems? Or do you value getting off the treadmill and living a life of success and significance?

You Are Not a Victim of the Short Straw
In business and in life, the short straw is not a guessing game. Nobody’s fist is hiding it. The long straw and the short straw are both laying on the table right in front of us. If we want to be successful we will see clearly that short-term decision-making is just willingly picking the short straw instead of the long one.

Make one decision today that will make you more successful later. It likely won’t make you any money or save you any time TODAY (short-term). But it just might change your life down the road.

Choose the long straw.

What to Obsess About in a Maturing Business

Not survival.

You found a viable product or service. Then you grew the business into a stable, healthy profit-generator. Now what?

A company owner approached me a couple months ago to get help with his business. When we talked it was apparent his business had grown to a nice size, providing a good income for him and his employees.

When I asked what he wanted to accomplish in our one2ones he said, “I need a reason to keep going. I’m making good money and the business is doing a few million a year, but I can’t seem to grow it, and don’t seem to have the clarity I need to move forward.”

Make Meaning, Not Money
The Industrial Age taught us the lie that if you got money, that money would naturally give you a great lifestyle. “If I just had a million bucks life would be great.” No, it wouldn’t. Business owners who work to make money rarely make a lot of it because making money is not an empowering vision. Those who chase something bigger than just making money are much more likely to make a lot of it. We call that a Big Why. A Big Why moves you from Survival right through Success to Significance.

Significance Rocks
Startup and growth are about viability and money, sacrificing time and present significance to get there. This was my sixth business (I’ve started another one since). When I started it, I worked seven days a week the first year, then six the second, then five the third. But once we had a viable product and the money was coming in, I wasn’t done. It was now about ensuring that the business created both time and money for me (and others in the business), because it is the combination of these two resources that set us up to create Significance in the world around us.

The Poverty Mindset
Survival is a very strong instinct for starting a business. I’ve got a mortgage to pay. The fascinating thing is that most business owners live in survival throughout their entire 40 year career – poverty mindset – always living at the end of their two main resources – time and money.

They don’t have a Big Why, a reason to grow their business, so if they happen to make money, they just buy a bigger house or more toys to ensure they are completely out of time and money, and then the need to survive kicks back in to help then grow the business to support the new poverty level they’ve set for themselves.

The Big Why Mindset
Business Owners with a Big Why take paying their mortgage as a given, it’s just background noise for getting something done much bigger than making money. A Big Why is so motivating that it makes you want to get out of bed even when you’re not making money, and it drives everything you do.

Another client of mine said, “I knew when I had my Big Why, because it had me.” He went on to explain that once he had something much bigger than just making money to drive him forward, that he found himself making every decision, from buying a copier to opening a new location, based on whether it would get him to his Big Why or not.

The Big Why – something you can never check off as done
A Big Why is a goal you can never check off as completed – being the best parent, solving poverty, giving every month to a charity, making an ongoing impact in the world of technology (Bill Hewlett’s Big Why for starting HP). Those who have made the biggest impacts always do it with a Big Why, not with a desire to make money.

What is Your Big Why
What is your Big Why, that motivator that you can never check off as completed? Every great business owner has one. If you’re wondering why your business is stagnant or that you’re just going through the motions, don’t look “out there”. Look inside and ask yourself, “What is my Big Why”?

If you do that, you’re much more likely to grow a very successful business that leaves a legacy that will endure. If you don’t get Utter Clarity on your Big Why, you’re likely to stagnate and go through the motions.

Run and grow your business with a Big Why. It’s a lot more fun.