The problem with consistency consistency consistency
jasonleow • 7 Aug 2024 •
All you need is 2 hours of deep work per day to build a profitable business. – @thepatwalls
Yeah I don’t disagree. You’re talking to the consistency guy here. But despite how big a fan I am of consistency, massive caveat needed:
2h deep work *on the right thing.
2h deep work on wrong product/approach can lead nowhere.
Tired of seeing replies like this. It’s an estimate, but probably 80% of my deep work was spent on the “wrong things” - tasks that were not important or projects that didn’t pan out. Even to this day, I’m working on things that will likely fail. All that matters is that I get 20% right, which is just a function of showing up every day and being able to look back critically, and adapt. im a big fan of yours and I don’t mean any ill will with this. yes, i have seen instances where people get so much tunnel vision that they work on the wrong thing for YEARS, but most people are smart, and learn how to adapt on what is/isn’t working. but consistency is the first step to greatness, even if its working on the wrong things. – @thepatwalls
Yeah with consistency and learning/iterating as you go, you’ll eventually get to a profitable business, but that’s assuming that you can last that long.
Fact is, willpower, time, money is limited. We all know friends who tried, was smart and worked super hard, consistent, but ran out of runway.
Sometimes life happens, unforeseen circumstances cut it short. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, how much you iterate, things didn’t work out. Luck was not on your side. You were too early. Or in the wise words of Dwight in The Office US, “Not everything’s a lesson, Ryan. Sometimes you just fail.”
So don’t presume you got time to let the consistency game pay off. I dare say this story is more common than stories of people succeeding.
I experienced the same too. Most things I do fail. I’m all in on consistent deep work too. I pretty much do 2-3h deep work every morning from 5am. I commit code daily. But years on, I realised that consistency alone doesn’t determine the results I want. And on many occasions I almost had to give up. It was only through irrational grit that I’m still here.
Consistency is necessary, but not sufficient in itself.
What we always hear: “Success requires consistency”.
What we often extrapolate wrong: “Consistency alone causes success.”
I guess I felt called to add to the conversation, share a side of the narrative and a personal lesson I learned the hard way.
No ill will intended against Pat here. I just felt we could all benefit from different perspectives on this consistency thing.
Optimist point of view plus a dash of realist is how I like it.
Comments
@haideralmosawi Yes 2nd quote is Pat’s too.
Love that Islamic saying. So true. Luck surface area is a great way to describe it. In entrepreneurship, everything we do seems to point to just - no guarantees, only luck surface area
The second quote is Pat’s, as well? Because it sounds like you responding to Pat’s original point. 😅
I completely agree. Consistency isn’t enough. There is an Islamic saying: “A person who walks without guidance is walking a different path. And the more he walks only leads him further away from his destination.”
So not all consistency leads to the destination we want. When it comes to building a profitable product, it’s understanding the market, what would make people buy, finding the right opportunities, getting a lucky break, etc.
I like the idea of consistency “increasing our luck surface area” because we expose ourselves to more opportunities. But it certainly doesn’t guarantee success.