Greed and Fear are the two of the strongest human motivators, including for us entrepreneurs. When your business is on a roll, it will wet your appetite for more growth and success. 2007 was the best year for my investment banking business, and as we moved into 2008 with a full pipeline, I decided to pull out all the stops.  I got greedy, moved my firm into a large and posh office space and hired several analysts.  By the summer, we were bleeding cash, but hell, we had 5 sizable deals under due diligence and were going to make a killing…

You already guessed how this story ended.  In September 2008, markets went into a tailspin and fear took over.  Our buyers pulled the plugs on 4 of the 5 acquisitions we were working on and renegotiated our single remaining project down by 40%. We lost a pretty penny that year…

The 20-Mile March

So what has the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS or Traction®) to do with my folly of 10 years ago?

One of the principles underlying EOS is what Jim Collins (Good to Great) calls the “20-Mile March”. Collins coined this expression after the strategy of polar explorer, Roald Amundsen, who consistently walked 20 miles each day irrespective of weather conditions, while his competitor, Robert Falcon Scott got…