We’ve journeyed through A, B, and C of the things that truly move the needle in a career, and today, we hit one of the toughest letters: D is for Discipline.
It’s about doing the hard things—the tasks everyone knows should be done, but few actually get around to.
Early in my career, especially in sales, this was my reality. Technology hadn't smoothed out the rough edges yet.
Meeting recaps? Manual.
Proposals? Developed from scratch.
Client reports and reminders? Keyed in by hand.
Pipeline management—Who did I talk to today? What did they say? When will they be ready?—all had to be manually tracked.
To be blunt, I hated it. It was the grind, the administrative quicksand that took time away from "selling."
The Uncomfortable Truth
I didn't like doing those tasks, but I'd been trained early that a job, no matter how ugly or uncomfortable, must be completed. The thought of a pending task—a half-finished report or an untracked follow-up—actually bothered me. I’d also learned the hard way that leaving things halfway done always guarantees more grief down the road.
Now, some of my colleagues? They had a more carefree existence. They’d disappear mid-week for a swim or handle personal matters instead of that extra client visit. And honestly, I envied them. Their sales performance was relatively okay. They weren’t the stars, but they weren't in trouble either. They seemed to put in minimal effort and get by.
Meanwhile, starting out, I felt like I had to run twice as hard. I had to build every connection from the ground up. I had to prove that my word was my bond. If I promised a client something, I got it done—and if I couldn’t, I let them know immediately. I tracked everything. I did the ugly work.
The Pressure Cooker Effect
Then the real shift began. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, my colleagues' performance started to dwindle, while mine began to soar.
That’s when I realized the truth about discipline in sales: It's a pressure cooker.
When you look at a pressure cooker, it might not seem like much is happening. But inside, incredible, fundamental change is taking place. That boring, consistent, day-in-and-day-out discipline—the manual recaps, the detailed pipeline updates, the consistent follow-through—is building enormous, invisible pressure.
My colleagues eventually got laid off. I, on the other hand, was ready to take off.
The lesson? Discipline is the silent engine of long-term success. It's the small, uncomfortable, daily tasks that compound into an unshakable reputation and an unstoppable career. It wasn’t about being more talented; it was about being more consistent.
What is the one "ugly" task you've been avoiding that you need to put under the pressure cooker today?
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