Strategic Discipline Blog

After hearing Darren Hardy of Success Magazine speak I went to Amazon to check out his book The Compound Effect and read the reviews.  It’s interesting to read the negative responses.  Most of them offered that what Hardy offered was nothing new, just a rehash of success formulas and ideas provided in books like Think and Grow Rich, etc.  

Is that so surprising?

All success strategies have links to foundational elements from the beginning of time.  Hardy offered three strategies which he found differentiate the over achiever from the super achiever.

1. Consistency.  Most people get excited, join or begin and then quit.  It’s where and why most fail.  It’s the same theory that Jim Collins applied in Good to Great.  The Flywheel Effect.  Think of business momentum as a well that requires you to prime the pump in order to produce water. At first you pump vigorously but generate very little water. Stall at this point and you’ll have to start over. But if you continue pumping through the initial lackluster results then you’ll generate a steady stream. With momentum established, less effort is required to maintain water pressure. Sustained consistency creates big momentum.  Fits and starts are why we fail.  Most people look at companies like Wal-Mart and Apple’s iPod and only see the success they have, yet each of these companies were not overnight successes.  iPod was not an instant success that we now see.   The point Hardy made is that consistency breaks inertia.  You need to apply continuous pressure to the pump to keep your success moving forward.

 

1. Love Failure.  IBM founder Tom Watson said, “The key to success is massive failure.”  Life is like a pendulum.  You must push through the pain to get to the positive.  To understand this better visit Darren Hardy's Stretch goals Pendulum article.  Every failure moves us closer to the success we desire.  It’s swinging in the direction of pain in discomfort in order to swing back to the success we want.  Everyone from Richard Branson to Michael Jordan has experienced failure.  “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Allow yourself and your people to fail.  It’s the fastest way to success.
   
   
2. Get Scared.  Hardy feels leaders are not paid to work; they are paid to be scared.  Eleanor Roosevelt said, “We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.”  And, “I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.”  How much time are you doing something scary each day?

Hardy’s MTF – Massive Transformation Formula is:

• Get Scared
• Fail A Lot
• Make "No" A Goal. 

Next blog we’ll discuss Hardy’s ritual for bookending his day.  It’s another discipline that brings success.