I write a lot about getting better, and this is important to get. Not just on a logical ‘yes, Conor, I know this’ level, but on a deep, emotional, ‘with every fibre of your being’ kind of level. You really need to examine how committed you are to this, and you endlessly need to coach your team on being committed to the value of Constant And Never-Ending Improvement.

Constant And Never-ending Improvement (CANI). It’s pretty clear-cut. There is little room for misunderstanding what I am talking about when I say CANI. Yet nevertheless, as good as the people I have on my team are, I need to remind them about CANI on a regular basis. 90% of the world does not use CANI as their modus operandi. They don’t believe in it, think about it or have any expectations of themselves to keep getting better. If you pressed them on it, they would think you are mad. Why do you want to get better? That sounds like hard work. Why don’t you just slack and do the bare minimum to get by? That is most people’s modus operandi. My point regarding your team and my team is that when they leave the practice, pretty much everyone they will interact with will not subscribe to CANI. So over the weekend, and evenings, and life in the real world, it’s easy to fall back into the old ways of thinking. Everything is someone else’s fault. Life isn’t fair. This is too hard. This is impossible. Why bother? And on and on.

How we think in our practice is NOT normal. We are weird. That’s why our results are not normal either. You can’t behave in average ways and expect way above average results. So our job is to keep re-programming and re-training and re-aligning ourselves and our teams with CANI. You must commit to getting better every day. Not just for now and the foreseeable future, but for the rest of your life. As I like to say, the best is yet to come. You need to live that.

It’s a simple choice. Looking at everything you do in your practice through the lens of ‘how can we improve’ can be seen as you being a nit-picking, negative, unrealistic, never-happy, miserable git, who doesn’t appreciate all the things that we got right. Or it can be seen as a commitment to constant and never-ending improvement, appreciating everything you have to be grateful for and proud of, but knowing that the best is yet to come. And being determined to find ways to improve.

I choose the latter. But I often have to remind the team that this isn’t me being unhappy. This is what CANI looks like. And ultimately, if we all commit to getting better, we’ll be more fulfilled, we’ll achieve more, we’ll have more to look back on and be proud of. It doesn’t matter where you are now, what the starting point is, where you were last year, or where you think you’ll be next year. All that matters is your decision to take personal responsibility for getting better, day in and day out. Even when the going gets tough. Even when it’s hard. Even when you’re having an off month. If you need to vent and let off some steam, fine. But as long as you know deep down inside, CANI is the better way to look at everything. Playing the victim doesn’t serve any of us. Pick yourself up, look for the lessons, and move forward.