Since releasing Is ‘Good Enough’ Good Enough, I keep hearing the same question: “Where do I start?”
I get it. The book lays out seven mindsets and behaviors for moving from mediocrity to excellence: Curiosity, Purpose, Accountability, Learning, Customer-Centricity, Embracing Change, and Discipline. It is overwhelming!
It’s like being confronted with a map of the US, when all you want to do is plan today’s drive.
Ironically, the search for the perfect starting point becomes its own form of going through the motions. You might spend weeks debating whether to work on Curiosity or Accountability, trying to find the “best starting point.” In the meantime, you haven’t moved an inch.
What do you do? How do you get started?
This may be counterintuitive, but as Nike says, Just Do It! There is no wrong starting point.
It Doesn’t Matter Where You Begin
These mindsets aren’t seven separate muscles you train in isolation. They’re interconnected. Work in one area and the others come into play.
Let’s look at a couple of examples:
Some people want to start with Curiosity. When you look at a prospect, you shift your thinking from simply qualifying the lead, to understanding the customer, their problem, and what they are trying to achieve. You ask deeper questions, not the scripted ones. You probe, learning with the customer, resisting the urge to pitch. You build trust and help them navigate their buying process.
Look at what’s really happening. You aren’t just focusing on Curiosity!
Those deeper questions reveal problems you and they didn’t know existed; your curiosity is driving your learning. You’re discovering things about their business, their industry, their challenges that change how you see the opportunity. You realize your standard pitch doesn’t solve their actual problem, so you pivot, focusing on them; that’s Customer-Centricity. You’re not selling to them anymore. You’re working with them. Then you help them navigate their buying process. That’s Embracing Change.
But it goes further.
Because you’re genuinely curious, you start paying attention differently. You notice when something doesn’t add up. You dive in deeper, talk to others at the customer. And when that follow-up reveals a political landmine you almost stepped on, you don’t make excuses about why no one told you. You realize you hadn’t been asking the right question or engaging the right people. That’s Accountability, rather than missing this land mine and blaming the customer, you took ownership for changing it. Curiosity made you see what you’d been missing, and now you own it.
Genuine curiosity requires you to slow down. You can’t be deeply curious while racing through your call list. So you start being more intentional about where you spend your time. You prepare differently. You prioritize differently. That’s Discipline emerging, not a rigid checklist, but as a natural consequence of caring enough to understand.
You started with a simple commitment to be more curious. You became a learner, a customer-centric advisor, a change-focused professional, more accountable, and more disciplined.
But maybe curiosity isn’t the right starting point for you. Your calendar and inbox overwhelm you. You might choose to start with Discipline
You make one small commitment: 15 minutes planning your day before you open your inbox.
That’s it. Just 15 minutes.
But watch what happens.
You’re not scrambling anymore. You’re not reactive. That structure creates space. In that space, you stop going through the motions and start acting with intention, that’s Purpose. Because you’re not rushing, you notice problems, challenges, or opportunities you previously missed, others missed; that’s Embracing Change.
But this simple shift in discipline starts snowballing. Because you’re planning your day, you start seeing patterns. You notice you’ve been avoiding that difficult conversation with a person on your team. Or you are constantly rescheduling your prospecting block. Or you are in react/respond mode. The discipline of planning forces you to confront what you’re actually doing versus what you tell yourself you’re doing. That’s Accountability. No more hiding behind “I’m so busy.”
And here’s what’s interesting. When you’re not in constant reaction mode, you make the time to think and reflect. You look at the difficult conversation, instead of just moving it to tomorrow, you pause. Why am I avoiding this? What don’t I understand about this situation? What question haven’t I asked? You create the mental space to be genuinely curious, not because you forced yourself to be curious, but because discipline cleared that space.
Discipline didn’t just organize your calendar. It created the space for Purpose, Accountability, Curiosity, and Agility to help you in executing with discipline
What this means is that it doesn’t matter where you start. Once you choose a place to start, all the other behaviors come into play, strengthening what you are trying to achieve.
The person who starts with Discipline and sticks with it will vastly outperform the person who spends a month trying to design the perfect excellence strategy. The person who commits to Curiosity and practices it daily will find themselves becoming more accountable and more disciplined without ever putting those words on a goal sheet.
Let your “pain” guide you in choosing where to start.
If you’re stuck, stop strategizing. Ask yourself: What’s costing me right now?
- Feeling disconnected from buyers? Start with Curiosity.
- Feeling scattered and reactive? Start with Discipline.
- Feeling like a victim of your territory, your product, your leads? Start with Accountability.
- Going through the motions without energy? Start with Purpose.
Your pain will tell you where to begin.
This is a nice discussion, but is meaningless unless you put it into action (oops, there I am talking about Accountability, Discipline and Change!)
Here’s how to turn this into real change:
- Pick ONE behavior. Whichever one is the biggest roadblock for you right now. If you don’t know, just choose one that interests you.
- Define ONE small daily practice. It could be: Fifteen minutes of pre-call research. One genuinely curious question per meeting. Taking time to update CRM. Five minutes of reflection at day’s end. Make it specific. Make it small.
- Commit for 90 days. Not a week. Ninety days. That’s how long it takes to build a habit that sticks.
- Get accountability. Tell someone. Your manager, a peer, a mentor. Check in weekly. What gets measured gets done.
- Review and adjust through the process. At 90 days, assess honestly. What shifted? What’s next? Then pick another behavior and go again.
When you choose and commit to this one thing, you will see the ripple effect into developing your capabilities in every dimension. Excellence isn’t a single transformation. It’s continuous improvement, one 90-day cycle at a time.
The Real Question.
“Where do I start?” sounds practical. But sometimes it’s a delay tactic.
The real question is: “Will you start?”
Afteword: As always, this AI generated discussion looks at this article from a different point of view. It’s outstanding, Enjoy!
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