Building The Nucleus, A Series of Articles: (Follow Through) Chapter 9 of 25

What does it take to scale a business? I have been working as an entrepreneur for over 1500 days. I have learned a lot of things about business and people. I still have so much to learn. Number one, I have continued to learn what things are most important in life, and number two what is most important to a business needing to grow and scale and how these two things intertwine with each other.

Sales

People

Relationships

Having an abundance mindset

Persistence and Resilience

Leadership

Ability To Withstand Pain

Curious Mindset and Complacency

Follow through

Commitment (Desire vs Motivation)

Urgency (Time)

Physical Fitness

Focus

Crafting and Forming (Molding Your Own)

Non-Conformity

Total Self-Reliance

Networking

Education (Structure vs. Unstructured)

Personal Branding

Confidence vs Arrogance

Economics (Trends and Diversification)

Manpower strategy (Different Types of Strategies)

Processes and Infrastructure (How Much)

Branding + Marketing + Advertising (What Are They)

Fitting Business Roles

CHAPTER 9: Follow Through

Control, consistency and discipline.

In golf your hands, arms, legs and hips all need to follow through together within the shot in order to consistently hit the ball for optimum results. Hitting the ball correctly is the goal. Hitting the target is the result. In order to do either, one must perfect their follow through.

In the Marines, when taking a shot one must follow through. Positioning, sight picture, breathing, control, timing, evaluation, consistency and discipline all lead to a perfect shot time and again. Follow through requires all these steps in order to have proper aim and hit the target.

If a shooter is not positioned correctly, the shooter may be totally misaligned with the target no matter how good the other shooting fundamentals are in place.

If the shooter does not have correct sight picture, then their whole outlook would be off, therefore causing them to misjudge the target and resulting in missed shots.

Breathing can set the shooter off by more than a few feet if shooting at long distances like 500 yards, so a shooter must breathe and pace theirselves accordingly. Other factors I mentioned like control, timing and focus all contribute as well.

Mindful control of one's physical faculties all fall into how well you are applying trigger and breathing fundamentals.

Timing in conjunction with one's respiratory cycle has everything to do with when a shooter takes their shot. 

Evaluation is important because we should always be analyzing ourselves against the environment around us both existentially and in theory. A great shooter or sniper plans courses of action in contingent theory by analyzing the weather, smells, sights, sounds, organisms around them. These are called operant conditions of which the shooter evaluates correct courses of actions within existing conditions. A shooter only takes a "pre-planned" shot once they have evaluated and calculated the potential for inhibiting or contributing factors in existence and in theory.

Control, consistency and discipline of all these things lead to the perfect shot whether it be in golf or the Marines. Control, consistency and discipline. Once we can develop control, consistency, and discipline then we can follow through.

We only get so many shots in life. Some of us get one. Michael Jordan had well more than 9,000, but to play pro ball he definitely did not get that many chances. We should think about context for hitting our targets.

Why are you taking the shot? What is the context of the shot you are taking? Is it in line with your purpose and mission?

Developing our purpose is the first step to taking our shot. Just like a sniper or a shooter has their mission. If we don't have our purpose then we will certainly take the incorrect shot or miss the shot altogether every time. Purpose should start with you. Who do you want to be? Who is First Name Last Name?

For example, I am not an entrepreneur. I am not a Marine. These are nouns in the encyclopedia or dictionary. I am Paul Claxton. If you were to lookup Paul Claxton in a dictionary let's see below what it would say:

\ ?p?l 'kl?kst?n \

Definition of Paul Claxton

A servant leader of the community or one who gives back consistently with a focus on improving lives and advancing society forward

Similar: A heretic, a protector and fighter

Every shot I take has to do with the definition of who I am. I am not a brother, boyfriend, son or entrepreneur. Those are just roles or titles and not who I am. I only take shots that align with my mission to improve lives and advance society.

My mission means more to me than anything else. That is why every shot I assume, I take it seriously like a life or death matter as if I were back in the Marines serving in a combat ground fight.

My mission provides a framework for my follow through. Just like shooting is based on a framework developed in training, that framework is a process applicable to not just shooting, but other areas of the Marine Corps. It is also an application for life that can be used over and over to hit various shots consistently time and again. Similarly in an artillery mission or any shooting endeavor there is some calibration that is needed. This is why training is so important in the military because it gives you time to calibrate around a framework. Every Marine has to calibrate differently around the framework and make it their own. Going through the calibration phase helps you build the discipline and confidence necessary to follow the framework. The discipline helps maintain the consistency to follow the framework in controlled and consistent fashion.

Anyone who's been overly successful in life probably has some values similar to those values derived out of people who have served in the military.

Outside of shooting, in real life we have to build our own framework. Our boss can't do it, our parents can't do it and neither can our spouse or partner. That is part of finding your purpose and your inner spirit. Purpose would come from something selfless inside of yourself and then finding a way to activate it in your everyday life. Your purpose should be something that you would do for free if you weren't getting paid. Your purpose cannot be based on anyone, anything, or any place. It has to be something intangible and intrinsic. Purpose is a feeling or aura. Purpose is "being".

After we have found our purpose then we can begin to focus on the fundamentals of following through. So below I will give the shooting fundamentals and their equivalent to day-to-day life.

Positioning - Are you positioned for your purpose? Are you surrounded by the right people? Are you in the right job?

Sight Picture - How is your perspective? Are you focused on and doing things that align with your purpose?

Breathing - Are you anxious? This usually means something is out of alignment with our purpose. We need to evaluate here and recalibrate. Are you cool, calm and collected when crisis hits or when you are little off target so you're not making radical decisions? Focus on relaxing and enjoying the process.

Control - Are you in control of the things that you can control? Are you not worried, but aware of the things you can't? Things like the orderliness of your house, your fitness, the things you eat, the information you consume etc. are all things you can control. You cannot control what others think (you can persuade, but you cannot control), the weather or who wins the Presidential Office.

Timing - Think about collateral damages and how one decision or indecision can be a lifetime game-changer. Some shots are just muscle memory. But other shots require a bit of judgement in terms of timing. Some decisions require pre-planning and the perfect timing, but for the most part the present time to take action is as good as any. However one should definitely think about timing from a long-term planning and decision making agenda. In other words where do you want to be in 3,5 and 10 years. Focusing on long-term goals helps you persist the short term and make the right decisions. There might be some trade off here i.e. short-term risk and failure in exchange for long-term success. How much can you sacrifice in the near-term to achieve the grander mission at hand? Sometimes in the Marines taking a good shot means compromising your entire platoon's position. It was a good shot in the short-term, but in the long-term maybe not so much. Remember it is all about the context of the shot.

Evaluation - This is a constant. The world around us is constantly changing, therefore we are constantly changing. The change around us can knock us off alignment from our target. For a shooter this could be something as simple as a strong gust of wind. A shooter needs to constantly reevaluate their position. A fire team needs to constantly reevaluate their position in support of the mission. Same thing in life. How is your position in alignment with your purpose?

Discipline and Consistency - Discipline and consistency encompass the framework. In the Marine Corps, training is built around the entire framework (mission and purpose) of the Marine Corps. Without the framework, the training is irrelevant. A Marine, no matter how good they are cannot follow through without the proper training. In life we have to train ourselves according to our purpose or mission. Just like training in the Marine Corps takes months and years to become a totally efficient Marine leader, so does our purpose in life. Discipline and consistency works in both negative and positive ways. Some people are disciplined in breaking the law, overeating. Follow through is habitual in nature but you need a catalyst to do it. The Marine Corps is a good catalyst because it has a framework and a mission or purpose.

The Marine Corps will discipline you, I can guarantee you that. They will make you find something you never had. Born again. Will you discipline you?

I found my true purpose in life one month before I turned 35 years old in 2016. That is who I am today, and that is who I will always be i.e. the definition of Paul Claxton.

Many people do not reach their goals, because they have no framework, no mission and no definition of who they are today and in the future. They are just floating around slowly dying, taking up breathable air from the rest of us. Don't be that person.

Follow the framework and with consistency, eventually I guarantee you will hit your target every time, if not the first.

Who are you? What is your definition? What is your purpose?

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