Consistency is Its Own Form of Greatness
This is another favorite lesson and reminder – also picked up from James Clear and his amazing book Atomic Habits. I see reminders of this lesson every month within our peer groups through some of the amazing success stories I get to sit shotgun for.
Essentially, we love the overnight success story. The athlete who achieves an amazing feat. The founder who grows an amazing business. The friend who transforms their life or body and leaves us saying, wow! The salesperson who makes President’s Club year after year.
But that’s not how most great things happen. The more common story is less glamorous: someone just keeps showing up and doing the work.
Consistency doesn’t get the credit it deserves. It’s not exciting. No one wants to hear about the writer who writes 500 words every day, the salesperson who makes his or her sales calls every day without fail, the engineer who chips away at a problem for years, the golfer who hits 5-foot putts each day until their back hurts.
But that’s what greatness usually looks like. The real magic is in doing something well, over and over, for long enough that it adds up.
The problem is consistency feels ordinary. It doesn’t give you the rush of a big win. So, people look for shortcuts. We skip the hard, boring parts and go straight to the end. But the hard, boring parts are the point. They’re what make the difference.
Think about anything impressive—great companies, great athletes, great books. What they have in common is someone who stuck with it. That’s what consistency is: a kind of quiet persistence. It doesn’t seem heroic, but it is.
Lesson Learned: The trick is to keep going even when it feels like you’re not getting anywhere. Over time, the little things you do every day become the big things you’re proud of. It turns out greatness isn’t a burst of brilliance. It’s the stacking of effort, one day at a time.