This is another concept from my favorite book of the year so far, Good to Great. I’ve talked about the Hedgehog Concept and Level 5 Leaders in previous posts. Today’s topic is the flywheel and the doom loop.
If you’re not familiar with a flywheel consider a large heavy wheel that’s difficult to move. In the beginning, you can barely move it. It’s a struggle to make the first revolution. The second revolution is difficult too but a little easier because you have some momentum working in your favor. Over time, it gets easier to move the flywheel until you ultimately reach a point where the weight of the flywheel is working for you instead of against you and the it continues to revolve at rapid pace with little effort on your part due to the momentum you’ve accumulated.
Now imagine someone asking you: What was the one push that got the flywheel moving so fast? It’s a ridiculous, nonsensical question that has no answer. It’s a question commonly asked by unsuccessful people who cling to the false hope that there is some closely-guarded “secret” to success. There wasn’t any single push that mattered any more than the others. It was the cumulative effect of the sustained effort that got the flywheel to the point where it rotates on its own.
People on the doom loop never get the flywheel moving because they keep changing directions. Maybe you get one revolution out of the flywheel and decide it will move faster if you rotate it in the opposite direction. When that doesn’t work, you decide maybe it was moving better in the other direction and change course again. The flywheel never reaches the point of rotating itself because you change course so often.
Unsuccessful people are on the doom loop. They have no plan and even if they did have a good plan, they don’t have the persistence to stick with it. They change course every time the newest get-rich-quick product is released only to drop it and change directions again next week when the latest make money online membership site opens its doors. And they can’t understand why they never make any money online.
People who have successful Internet businesses are on the flywheel. They have a definite plan and stick with it until they succeed no matter what obstacles appear. They understand it takes time to build a successful Internet business. They know what needs to be done and they get it done every day. They are not overnight successes but they can see the momentum build every day until one day they have a successful Internet business that practically runs by itself. Just like the flywheel
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4 Comments
This series of posts is pretty interesting stuff… I guess after all this time I need to finally go get and read Good to Great.
-J
Jim,
You won’t regret reading it. It’s my favorite book of the year so far and I read quite a bit. I’d say it all relates to kaizen.
Robert
Wow. This is one of the simplest and most important posts anyone wanting to “make money online” can read. I was the person changing directions and trying everything but doing nothing. Once I stopped trying everything and started doing just one thing it all came together. What a great way to describe what most people do when they start out. Thanks!
Patty,
Thanks for your comment. I suppose most of us have been on the doom loop to some extent at one point or another. Hopefully we realize it and learn from our mistakes sooner rather than later. But unfortunately some people never get off the doom loop.
Robert
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