I think I’ve come to the conclusion that most success is just flat out stubbornness.

We like to think that the best strategy wins. We think that the people who are successful just figured out a secret or some special tactics or a shortcut that others didn’t know.

The natural conclusion we’re led to believe is if we just had that, we’d be good.

But the longer I watch people win, the more I’m convinced the real edge isn’t that they’re the “best” (which is relative anyways). It’s that they just genuinely decided what they wanted, and they flat out refused to stop.

We overemphasize the value of a cleverness. In a perfect world, the better product or the smarter team or the better-funded company wins. And look, sometimes that’s true.

But more often than not, the company that’s still standing five years later isn’t the one with the best idea. It’s the one that’s laser focused and too bullheaded to walk away from the mission.

Of course, there are plenty of companies that were stubborn all the way into the ground because they refused to adapt when the world changed around them.

Stubbornness for its own sake is just a slower way to fail.

But if we can learn what to be stubborn about and where to bend on the way to getting there, then I think that’s 80% or more of the battle.

So what should you be stubborn about?

Start with the values you stand for and the mission you’re driving toward.

Iterate on the product, change the pricing, rework the messaging, swap out the channels, move people around on the team, but hold on the core convictions.

So what’s more valuable than a clever strategy is…why are you doing this in the first place?

Have you taken time to say that out loud and commit to it?

Because if you know why, and you write it down somewhere, then the commitment at least gets a framework to hold onto when it feels like the walls are collapsing in other ideas and competing priorities.

The sneaky part of this is, most people don’t outright quit on their convictions; at least not in the clean, dramatic way we imagine.

But we do compromise. We let practicality or comfort or competing visions chip away at the mission until its unrecognizable. If you do that enough, then you’ll look up 2-3 years later and wonder why nothing ever caught.

It wasn’t that you quit. You just kept negotiating yourself away from your commitment until you slowly let go altogether.

So why are you doing what you’re doing? Have you written it down somewhere you can look back at it?

Now what’s the cost and is it worth paying? Write that down wherever you write down the mission.

So when Tuesday rolls around and nobody’s watching, instead of pivoting to something more exciting, you have the foundation needed to do the next thing on the list.

It will be boring, and that’s why most people don’t do it.

But if you decide what you want before you get there and you just don’t quit, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll eventually win.