Discipline = Decision + Accountability

By Scott Sambucci | March 5, 2021

A question I get all the time is – “How do you stay so disciplined? I see you get up at 4am every morning. You’re training for these crazy ultramarathons. You’re posting on LinkedIn every day,”

(BTW – Be sure to read to the end so that you can join me for a private Sales Masterclass this month. You won’t want to miss it…)

I don’t think about being “disciplined.”  Instead, I think about it as making a DECISION to get to a specific outcome, then building a structure to keep myself ACCOUNTABLE for that decision. Once I’m clear on the decision and I have that structure in place, discipline is the outcome.

Maybe you’ve got an action you’ve been wanting to take for a while or one that needs more consistency –

• Sending 20 outbound messages and LinkedIn requests every day.
• Holding a 10-minute “Sales Standup” meeting with the team.
• Running team pipeline reviews every week.
• Spending time every week recruiting for your VP of Sales.
• Scheduling 1:1s with your team.

Here a few examples of how I go about my process –

I made a DECISION to post on LinkedIn every day. The structure I created is pretty simple – I wake up at 4am every morning because the house is quiet and I can knock out my writing time. That gives me the time and space to develop ideas, shoot a video, and write a post like this one. I avoid email until after I’ve got the post finished.

Depending on the day, I use part of the morning time to knock out a workout. This morning, I’ll be out the door by 6:15am for a run so that I’m home by 7:15am, so that I can make breakfast and help my son with his schoolwork before his 9am Zoom class. By blocking out my calendar before 9am, the team knows not to schedule calls or meetings before then – that’s the structure that enables me to knock out these responsibilities to myself and my family.

For my ultra-running, I’m slated to run the Western States 100 in June. The Western States 100 is like the Super Bowl of the sport – it’s on every ultra-runner’s bucket list. My training for this year’s race started 11 months ago when I learned that 2020 race was canceled.

With the COVID lockdowns last Spring, I DECIDED that I was going to work out every day, no matter what. I organized my own ultra-marathon, running 46km on my 46th birthday on May 25th. Over the summer, I paced my friend Kelly on his solo 110-mile trail run. In October, I attempted to establish a record on a 200-mile route from Squaw Valley to Auburn and back.
Those decisions to train and the structure of these events held me accountable to staying fit and pushing my limits.

When I started my training for this year’s race, I DECIDED that I’m gunning for a sub-24-hour finishing time. I’ve taped a sheet of paper with “23:59:59” to the bathroom mirror to remind myself every day of that decision. As I start the day, it helps me focus on what I could do that day to hit that goal – from my training to diet to mobility to my sleep schedule. I write down “23:59:59” in my journal every morning when I do my Morning Pages.

I started working with a running coach that’s giving me structure to my daily and weekly workouts to a new level. This month, he gave me a challenge to do a strength training workout every day in March – 31 days straight of core work and weight-lifting – planks, wall sits, Russian twists, Bulgarian split squats, and 16 other exercises to do every day this month. Today is Day #5 and it sucks.

But he created the structure and accountability, and I made the decision to take the challenge.

Sticking to these decisions gets tough some days. I remember a Friday night in mid-April last year. It was 10:30pm after a long week. I was exhausted from a week of early mornings and late nights while pretending to homeschool in between. I told myself it was okay to skip a workout that day and just get some sleep. I was laying in bed awake with my mind racing about all of the stuff still on the to-do list.

So I crawled out of bed, changed my clothes, and headed to the garage. Pull-ups and kettlebell swings are never fun, and they’re worse at 11pm on a Friday. But those 15 minutes in the garage kept me to that decision.

If you’ve got a decision you want to make, whether it’s professional or personal, but need some structure and accountability, I’ll help you.

Just reply back to this email and share that decision with me. While the marketing elves send out these emails, every reply comes straight to my inbox. We’ll work out a structure and plan to help you keep to that decision.

Even better, if that decision is about the work and discipline you need to help your startup grow faster this year, I’ve got a place for you to start.

I’m teaching a one-day Sales Masterclass this month that I only offer 3-4 times a year, designed specifically for B2B startup founders and CEOs.

Your spot in the Masterclass includes:

• A RESERVED SEAT for both you and your co-founder or head of sales to participate.
• A PRIVATE 1:1 COACHING SESSION to build a personalized 12-month sales plan-of-action for your startup.
• FULL ACCESS to our Sales Playbook Library for 3 months – all of the selling playbooks, frameworks, templates, and recorded trainings on everything from running your lead qualification calls and product demos, to complete systems for implementing paid pilots and your customer success strategy.

We’re keeping this Masterclass small so my team and I can work with you individually throughout the day to help you build and implement a repeatable, scalable sales process for your startup.

Here’s the link for the rest of the details, including a detailed agenda, testimonials, and what to expect when we spend the day together.

I’m giving your the structure and accountability – now it’s just up to you to make the decision.

Let’s do this, shall we?

Go Farther.

-Scott