Distracting Ideas – The Discipline of Staying Put
I learned the hard way that my entrepreneurial creativity was my biggest liability. I had so many good, but distracting ideas. When I started out, I was trying to do a thousand and one things at once. My initial business was progressing brilliantly, but I couldn’t help myself – I started working on three or four new ideas simultaneously. The result? My original venture, the one actually making money, took a nosedive.
Distracting Ideas
It took way longer than I care to admit to refocus my attention on that first business. Only when I did – when I recommitted, scaled it, built a team, and systematized operations – did things really start taking off. And only then could I actually start looking at other avenues without everything falling apart.
This has allowed me to build a growth partner, a content agency, a digital revenue agency, a coaching business as well as a newsletter that has around 47K subs.
The Moment When Reality Slapped Me In The Face
The wake-up call hit me right in the profit margin. We’d gone from astonishing client results with new customers coming in purely through word of mouth to a mess of frustration and complaints. Client success dropped dramatically once I started dividing my attention between multiple ventures.
We went from huge income and substantial profit to regressing back to where we started in those early months. Year zero to year one had been exceptional growth. Then year two to year three – when my focus wandered elsewhere – everything tanked. It wasn’t until year three to year four, when I pulled my head out of my arse and got back to focusing on the core business, that things really started to take off again.
How To Know When You’re Actually Ready To Step Back
Now I use two primary markers to determine if a business is ready for me to pursue something new: solid systems and the right team.
The business needs to actually run itself day-to-day. If taking a break means everything grinds to a halt, you know full well that business is nowhere near ready for you to leave it in others’ hands.
What these systems need to include is straightforward but not easy. You need proper SOPs and documentation so new people can get up to speed quickly with minimal supervision. You need trustworthy people performing without your constant intervention. No micromanaging – instead, you want them coming to you with what’s happening and what they’re planning to do about it. They should already have a solution in mind, and you’re just giving advice rather than telling them what to do.
Trust is non-negotiable, alongside accountability and real autonomy within your teams. Without those elements, you’ll never be able to step back without the whole thing collapsing.
Productive Pivots vs. Shiny Object Syndrome
There’s a crucial difference between a necessary business pivot and just getting distracted by the next exciting idea. Ask yourself: if you continue doing what you’re doing now and nothing changes, will the business still grow?
Shiny object syndrome happens at the founder level – it’s about you getting bored or excited about something new. A genuine pivot is about what the business needs to survive and thrive.
Your business might legitimately need to pivot if the market changes, client desires shift, or your current approach simply can’t scale further. That’s fundamentally different from you as an entrepreneur looking at a completely new business idea while your existing venture still needs your full attention.
The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurial Failure
Most entrepreneurs don’t fail because of shiny object syndrome. They fail because they can’t handle how boring success actually is.
The absolute brutal truth is that most aspects of business are boring as fuck. It’s the repetition of doing the same thing over and over and over again – making small adjustments, learning, implementing changes based on what you’ve learned – but essentially just repeating the same processes day in, day out.
Most people find that mind-numbing and uninspiring. They’re too focused on short-term excitement rather than long-term gain. If you’re only thinking in 3, 6, 9, or 12-month timescales, of course what you’re doing will quickly become tedious, especially when you don’t see the exponential growth you imagined happening within a year.
Truly successful people think on 10, 20, 30, 40-year timelines. They’re willing to do the same shit repeatedly, gradually getting better and gradually building systems. Once you get good at something, it starts to pay off, and then you can start subbing out your low-level tasks – the things taking hours of your time that you can delegate for a fraction of what your time is worth.
Most entrepreneurs fail because they simply cannot think long-term and do the boring, mundane tasks consistently enough to see real results.
My Framework For Handling New Ideas Without Abandoning Ship
When a new idea strikes, I first evaluate whether it can be incorporated into the existing business. If it’s a new angle or service extension, we’ll absolutely look at implementing it. If it’s an entirely new business, that’s a different scenario.
I’ve built my business like a decentralized network. Rather than the standard structure with marketing, sales, and operations departments, everything runs with autonomy. Our marketing department is a business in itself that takes on other clients as well as handling our group’s work. Same with sales, operations, and C-suite functions.
This decentralized model means each element operates autonomously as its own entity – a business within the business. When new ideas come along that don’t fit our core, we can utilize existing people within the business, offer partnerships, and bring in new external team members specifically for that venture.
We pool resources and approach it like a new project or client, when really it’s a sister company with completely different services. This structure allows us to explore new directions without abandoning what we’ve already built.
The Psychological Game Of Staying Put
With everything we’re doing currently, it never gets boring – but it does get tough. What’s crucial, especially for top management, is effective time management. Our C-suite directors need to stay on the ball while utilizing existing resources so they’re not doing work that should be happening at lower levels.
That doesn’t mean we won’t sink our teeth in when necessary. The priority remains business progression and delivering A1 service to clients. But what makes it sustainable is that everyone owns a piece of the business. It’s in their best interest to see it grow, which creates natural accountability, pride, and purpose in moving forward.
My biggest reminder to resist temptation comes from that hard lesson early on when the business took a huge dip due to my divided attention. I take full responsibility for that mistake. Having that experience in the back of my mind, combined with open discussions within the team, helps maintain focus.
Because we operate as a group and include a coaching component within our business, we can identify potential weaknesses before they cause serious problems down the line. This preventative approach keeps us from chasing distractions that would ultimately harm what we’ve built.
The Right People Make All The Difference
The biggest misconception about entrepreneurship varies between beginners and veterans. People just starting out have vague, unrealistic ideas about what building a business actually involves. They don’t understand it’s about having a good idea and then doing the repetitive shit over and over until it flourishes into something tangible.
It’s about visualizing something that doesn’t physically exist yet and turning it into something bigger than yourself. Most entrepreneurs simply can’t do that.
Seasoned entrepreneurs, however, know how to find the right people early and delegate effectively. They realize you can grow effectively with a small team – but that team must have the right people, resources, ideas, and attitudes. With those four elements in place, you can take any concept and build something substantial.
The first quality I look for is attitude – specifically how they handle problems. Can they work independently on day-to-day tasks? Can they take an idea and run with it? When faced with a challenge, do they crumble, need constant guidance, or find solutions on their own?
The people you want are those who spot problems, seek solutions, and implement them before issues even reach your attention. They work autonomously on repetitive tasks while handling situations as they arise. When they’ve already fixed something before you’re even aware of it, that’s when you know you’ve got the right person.
Managing The Creative Mind
For the creative ideas that still come (and they always will), I make notes and then review them at the end of the week or month. For ideas with substantial potential, I analyze what resources we’d need. If it’s an add-on to existing services, I’ll give it to the team to implement.
The approach depends entirely on the scale of the idea. Is it a minor enhancement to what we already do? Or is it something completely separate that might require different resources but could meaningfully impact the business?
This systematic evaluation prevents impulsive jumps while ensuring good ideas don’t get lost in the daily grind. It also maintains our focus on building something substantial rather than chasing every exciting possibility that crosses my mind.
The discipline of staying put isn’t about suppressing creativity or settling for less. It’s about channeling that creative energy effectively so you can actually build something that lasts. In my experience, that’s the real challenge of entrepreneurship – not coming up with great ideas, but having the patience and discipline to see one through to completion before moving to the next.
As Always, Hope This Helps,
