I have had the privilege of working with many brilliant people throughout my career. Many of them have come up with some of the greatest ideas. Some have implemented those great ideas into businesses or wowed the masses with their innovative prowess.

Then they fade away, and their brilliance if not a faint memory is eventually forgotten and replaced by someone else.

There are many brilliant people. But most of us never hear about them because they lack something critical:

They lack the discipline to sustain.

I see this happen in those who have short bursts of success, sometimes big success, but it never lasts.

I saw this exact trait in myself. In fact, after two years of real estate investing I was ready to move on to my next brilliant idea. I felt like I achieved success in real estate and I wanted the excitement of a new challenge. I wanted something bigger and better.

But the reality is I didn’t really have success as a real estate investor, at least not yet. I successfully navigated getting started, ramping up, but never at that time did I enjoy the fruits of having built a successful business. That doesn’t come in two short years. Those years were start up. The next phase is perfecting, and then after that is sustaining for success.

I took a moment to examine myself and realized that there was a pattern. I moved on to something new every couple of years, never giving anything a real chance to make a significant difference in my life.

I realized that those who I admired for their success had a trait that I did not. They found something that worked and then they had the discipline to do it over and over again for a long period of time.

They had the ability to sustain!

It takes a conscious decision.

I deliberately decided to stick with what I was doing and sustain. I created a new challenge and that was to stick with it for another two years to see what it could do for me before I even thought about moving on to something else. It forced me to focus and concentrate on the business that was starting to work well for me. This concentrated and sustained discipline altered my life.

Many of us say that we don’t have the time, but we all have the same amount of time.  We need to learn to sustain in the areas that are important to us and not fill our time with things that are not important.  Brilliant people that can’t sustain and concentrate their efforts never make significant contributions because they don’t see things through.

So before you think you are ready for the next level, or the next challenge, consider challenging yourself to sustain and stick with what you know already works.  Years of sustaining pays handsome dividends.

(Note: We’re seeing more assumptions challenged, beliefs built, and lives leveled-up than ever before from people reading Lifeonaire for the first time. 🙂 )