3by9

Discipline and Ambition

I talked earlier about knowing who you are and understanding your personality traits. I said that there are traits needed to become rich (versus the person that hits the lottery or is given an inheritance). Let’s look at an example of what I meant.

Sprinters

These people are enthusiastic and hit strong. Hyped about their project/venture they seem to be unstoppable. Unfortunately, they have no endurance. Enthused in the beginning they jumped into the project and started running without having any idea on how to get to the finish line. When my daughter was younger I’d tell her “Sweetheart, would you go get me…” and she’d take off. I’d patiently wait for her to come back because she left without knowing what I wanted. Her intentions were sincere but she had no direction. A large amount of people on the internet fall into this category. The barrier of entry for online ventures being low makes it very easy (and tempting) to dive in but, with no endurance, lose steam and fail to reach their goals.

Unfortunately some never take off at all

These people never “really” get started. The attempts are there, but they really never “do” anything. The internet is filled with people like this and a good example is when people see success, are briefly inspired by it but when they get a taste of the work involved, the desire fades and disappears. How many blogs do you see that never make it past six months?

Long-distance runner

These people realize they need to keep the same pace going through the entire journey. Enough to keep ahead of most but not too much to wear themselves out so they don’t have enough energy to finish a race. With online projects/companies the “race” isn’t over when success is achieved, the success has to be maintained and many times the work is harder maintaining success than trying to achieve success. If you achieve and maintain success, you’re lucky because most people that make it this far quite frankly get stupid and think they don’t have to work anymore, particularly if they look around and see no “real” competition.

If you want a successful site/company you must realize three crucial points:

1. Sprinters are nothing to worry about (they throw themselves out of the race).
2. If you don’t have consistent endurance (discipline) to run the race you won’t win.
3. If you win the race (achieve success) then the real work comes maintaining it (beating all the people who will want to race you).

Of course, knowing which person you are will determine the odds of your success. That’s why understanding and knowing who you are plays an important role. If I am one to procrastinate starting projects, a short-term fun project would be better suited for me than a “this is what is cool right now” long-term project.