The Two Things You Need To Succeed

My 15-?-year-old dog has taught me more lessons about business than any course, book, or seminar I’ve attended over my 20-year career.  He’s taught me the two golden rules that are key to any companies success.

As a construction business owner, you know what these two things are, and you have the very best of intentions when it comes to following them.  But far too often something or someone gets in the way. Hiccups in the project or an issue with a client can derail an otherwise ok day into complete chaos.  It’s like everything stops until you reach a resolution. Sometimes that can be a full day ‘wasted’ dealing with one issue.

This is what we refer to as ‘being in the weeds’.  Or not being able to see the forest for the trees.

My dog, Tyson, is a 15-?-year-old Puggle (pug bred with a beagle).  He is as stubborn as they come. We got him as a tiny puppy all those years ago, and he’s been nothing but trouble ever since.  

Here’s what he’s taught me.  If you want something in life, you have to be persistent.  If there was ever something that could illustrate the definition of persistent, this dog is it.

But persistence alone won’t get you where you need to be.  What this dog is great at is creating routines. My wife and I always joke about this because he has some sort of internal alarm clock when the time comes for making his food at night for the next day.  It’s a 20-minute process I do each night to prepare his food, stuff it into these rubber toys called kongs, and put them in the freezer.

But why is he so regimented with getting me to do this?  

Because several years ago my wife one night had made too much and decided to give some to each of the dogs (we have a cattle-dog cross as well) to ‘clean the bowl’.  

Little did she know that this would start a routine that has not stopped for even one night since.  When I say it hasn’t stopped for one night, I mean it. Tyson had knee surgery in February and we brought him home the same day, and even heavily sedated he fought to stand up and wine until I made his food and gave him his bowl to clean.  What a guy.

So here is what he’s taught me, and this is good advice for anyone running a business.

Lesson #1.  You can't achieve a goal without a plan.  You can’t get to the summit of a mountain without knowing HOW to get there. What route will you take? What obstacles will you face along the way? How will you deal with the obstacles? What equipment will you need?

Similarly, a pilot sitting on the runway has a complete flight plan detailed out.  They know where they might run into turbulence, how much fuel they have on the plane, what potential weather concerns they might face.  They would never take off without having everything planned out.

So why do so many business owners operate their businesses like a pilot without a flight plan?

Many people I speak with on a weekly basis tell me the same thing.  They are curious to hear how I can help them in their business, but then they disappear.  They resurface three weeks later and always start off their message with something like this:

“Sorry Bryan, it’s been a busy few weeks and am just coming up for air”

OR

“I’m so busy right now because we are in our building season”

OR

“We are trying to finish up some projects and when things settle down I’ll have time to work on this”

The last one is my favourite. A great indication of how busy you will be “when things settle down” is how busy you are today.  There is no such thing as things settling down in your business.

I’m always amazed when I talk with people and they have no vision, no goals they set, nothing.  I always want to ask them how they will achieve a goal they haven’t set, but that seems a bit rhetorical to ask.

Lesson #2.  Ideas are great but the execution is everything.  You can make all the roadmaps you want but if you don’t follow them, and be disciplined about shutting out everything else to allow you to succeed, you will NEVER reach your goals.

Tyson creates routines but he then forces himself to follow them, every single day.  He even gets new ideas here and there and tries to create this new routine. Like for instance just yesterday he decided he would like me to also make his food in the mornings.  If my wife or I embellish him on these new routines, then they are set in stone for the rest of his life.

So what makes this dog so persistent?  He has burned these behaviours into his neural pathways.  He persists until something happens for him to reach his end goal.  For him, all he needs is for it to happen once. Like how a dog will jump up on a counter 100 times if just one time he got something.  Or how people will sit at a slot machine for hours feeding the machine on the promise of hitting the jackpot.

How many people reading this have signed up for a gym membership in January with the internal promise to themselves that “THIS is the year I will get into the best shape of my life”.  And what happens by about February? (Yes, that is also a rhetorical question).

Changing your behavioural patterns is REALLY, REALLY, REALLY tough.  I know it because I fight like hell with myself on a daily basis when I don’t want to workout, when I want to eat something unhealthy, when I want to put the laptop away and do anything else but work.

But, for me, I know that my success is tied to these two lessons:  

1. Creating a plan of where you want to end up.
2. Persisting like hell to get there.

I know what you’re thinking… this isn’t earth-shattering news Bryan.  And guess what, you’re right.

But here’s what I know…

1. You will read this, agree with it, and then go about your regular day because your phone just rang.
2. You will follow all of your regular routines you have including working IN your business as opposed to ON your business because you’ll tell yourself that you don’t have time or you have no choice.
3. At night when things quiet down and you are reflecting on the day, you’ll think about how when you hire this next person who can handle some of the load, and you finish up some of the projects you are working on that you will take some time to work on your business.

Guess what.  These are all lies.  You are fooling yourself each and every day because you will do exactly the same thing as you did the day before because you are human.  Change is incredibly hard, it takes the ultimate grit and determination to force yourself to experience. And it’s too easy to simply stay with the status quo.

Tyson is 15-? years old.  By all accounts, he should have passed years ago.  But yet, year after year this dogs zest for life keeps him going strong.  If you met him you wouldn’t know he’s an old guy. He seems like a 7-year-old.

Tyson gets what he wants because he thinks about the end goal and he persists until he reaches his goal.

Be like Tyson.

If you’re ready to take charge of your future and stop rolling the dice on success, get in touch today.  Don’t put it off until tomorrow, because it won’t be any different.