There’s a reason that only dedicated magicians succeed. Learning sleight of hand is frustratingly hard: your fingers don’t move correctly, you drop things, and that last move never goes right. Many people don’t want to put in the time to master the discipline needed for success. 

But when your first audience gasps in awe, you know you’re on to something, and you’re hooked. 

This applies to business as much as to magic acts. When Steve Jobs was on stage and introduced the iPhone in 2007, he made it seem as if the iPhone were inevitable – but it took two-and-a-half years of experiment and failure, and a whole lot of confidence, to even consider making that kind of exponential growth happen. 

Growth is about getting to the next stage. Growing means using muscles you haven’t exercised in a while, if at all. Growth is about entering into relationships and going places where you might have no experience. It’s a constant state of discomfort, and that’s good, because comfort is the death of success. Comfort means taking the easy way out, like competing on price and charging less instead of figuring out what differentiates you from the competition so you can charge more.

You know what they say: if it were easy, everyone would be doing it, so many people do the easy thing. If you look at it that way, you can see that something that makes you uncomfortable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something to avoid. In fact, when you recognize that discomfort is usually just a reaction to something that’s unknown, feeling uncomfortable could be a useful way for you to realize that something is not necessarily wrong, it’s just new.

For a lot of companies, the process of asking questions and seeking answers about goals for business success is new. It feels uncomfortable. That’s especially true when leaders are complacent or ask questions that could reveal problems long ignored.

But that doesn’t make it wrong. It actually makes it necessary. 

Asking hard questions is the difference between good companies and great ones.

Here are the questions to ask yourself: 

• How do you define business success?
• What process do you follow to make business decisions?
• What’s the possible impact of exponential growth on your business, your team, your community, and your personal life?

For us, asking questions like this is the difference between the companies that are merely good and those that are great.

You may believe that some companies are born great or some have greatness thrust upon them, but we think you achieve greatness with a clear idea of where you want your business to be and a sound strategy for getting it there. This happens through decisive action, conscious choices, and disciplined leadership.

We’d love to hear from you. Have you ever come across a company whose success seems phenomenal and almost magic, until you realize how much work went into that success? What examples have you seen? Contact us today to learn how to implement discipline for growth in your organization.