The Thing We All Avoid But Shouldn’t
A closer look at the unglamorous force that separates amateurs from pros
I want to start with a preface. I am the person who champions passion at work. I push people to love their craft, to bring real energy to the office, and to leave at the end of the day a little more proud than when they arrived. Which is exactly why today’s thesis might sound odd at first. Give it a fair hearing. It matters.
Two tribes, one truth
There are at least two big tribes in our working world.
First, the makers of the new. Founders, entrepreneurs, inventors, creative strategists. We chase novelty. We love that early heartbeat of an idea, the sketch on a napkin, the first user who says yes. We build new products, new companies, new ways of working. That’s our oxygen.
Second, the operators of the machine. Process builders, production managers, administrators, controllers. They keep the trains running and the quality high. Without them, the lights go out, the line stalls, and customers feel pain.
Both tribes are essential. This essay is not a plea for one against the other. It is a case for a truth that applies to both: long-term success lives in the heart of the mundane. Not instead of passion, but alongside it. Often, because of it.
Rainmakers and the messy day
Let’s talk about Rainmakers, because many of us live in that world. Sales in particular does not gift you a calm calendar. You can arrive ready to write a proposal and discover a client has delayed the project. Targets move. Something breaks. You need a new plan by 10 a.m.
That chaos is real. The advice here still applies. In fact, it is the antidote to that chaos.
Everyone says they want a sales engine that runs like a well‑oiled machine. I have heard this from global enterprises, from heads of sales, from founders, and from leaders who swear they will “operationalise” revenue any day now. Yet we keep romanticising days that feel like a rollercoaster. We tell ourselves we love that no two days are the same. We repeat the story so often that a calm, repeatable day starts to feel foreign.
This is the trap. We claim to want predictability, then design our working lives to avoid it.
What newness is really for
If you love building new things, ask a simple question. What is the end game of newness? The honest answer is this: making the new thing business as usual. The best outcome for a new product, process, or company is that it becomes repeatable, teachable, and runnable without heroics. In other words, boring.
You launch, you learn, you stabilise, you document, you train, you scale. The arc of progress bends toward boring. That is not a downgrade. That is the win.
Where excellence hides
Look at any high performer. They de‑risk their craft until the spectacular looks ordinary in their hands.
A striker drills the same movement a thousand times, then a thousand more, so that the top‑corner finish is not a miracle. It is muscle memory under pressure.
A pianist plays scales long after they can play the concerto. Scales remove noise from the hands so the music can speak.
A chef repeats prep work until the knife becomes an extension of the arm, which makes room for creativity on the plate.
Practice is not only about getting better. Practice removes chance. It strips randomness from the motion. That is what professionalism is. You reduce variance on the basics so that when real uncertainty shows up, you have capacity left to handle it.
The seller who outgrows chaos
Picture two sellers.
Seller A lives for the rush. They brag about the 2 a.m. party and the 8 a.m. pitch. Every win feels like a movie scene. Every loss has a story to tell.
Seller B is different. She studies her accounts every week. She can recite her funnel in numbers, not vibes. She runs a drill each morning, one role‑play objection before the first outreach. There is a checklist for discovery, a checklist for demo, a checklist for negotiation. She reviews call recordings and writes down phrases that worked. She tracks them. She learns.
Over time, the daily, weekly, and monthly game becomes quiet in her head. She can do it in her sleep. That is the signal that she is ready for a larger arena. Bigger quota, tougher territory, more strategic accounts. The risk did not vanish. It moved to a higher order. She earned the right to face it.
The real limit on growth
To the degree that we worship chance and unpredictability, we cap our professionalism. When the appetite for novelty dictates our day, we never stay long enough in one game to remove chance from it. We keep experiencing the surface‑level thrill of the unknown, instead of the deeper thrill of mastery.
Chance never disappears. It graduates. Master your current level and you qualify for the next level of chance, where the stakes are larger and the impact is greater. That is a richer form of excitement than the endless first‑date buzz of new projects.
Make boring your operating system
Here is a practical way to turn boring into your advantage. This applies whether you build new things or keep the machine running.
Pick the game. Name the one activity that moves the needle most. For a seller, it might be first meetings set with qualified prospects. For a founder, it might be weekly customer interviews or shipping one product improvement per week.
Define a core loop. Write the five to seven steps that produce that result. Keep it visible. Run the loop daily or weekly at a consistent cadence.
Create a drill deck. List the ten conversations, objections, or scenarios you face most. Practice one per day. Rotate. Record the lines that land.
Count reps, not hours. Reps build predictability. Calls made, proposals sent, demos run, interviews completed. Set a rep goal for each cycle.
Instrument the line. Build checklists, templates, and small automations. Not heavy bureaucracy. Just enough structure to make the right action the easy action.
Schedule the review. Same questions, same day, short and sharp. What worked, what failed, what gets changed in the loop, who is accountable.
Protect the line. Time blocks, no‑meeting windows, clear rules for interruptions. Make it slightly harder to break the loop than to keep it.
Use novelty as seasoning, not the meal. Assign a small weekly slot to explore a new idea. Keep exploration on a leash so it does not steal the week.
Set a boredom bar. When the core loop feels easy for several cycles in a row, level up the challenge on the same game. Bigger accounts, tighter service levels, tougher quality metrics.
Celebrate boring wins. Ring the bell for 30 straight days of the loop. Reward consistency in public. Culture grows where attention goes.
What this is not
This is not an argument for dull work or grey offices. It is a call to aim passion at the right target. Creativity belongs in the design of the system, in the sequencing of drills, in the wording of the checklist, in the small improvements you discover through repetition. Your art survives, and it matures.
This is also not a denial of the buzz that comes with the new. The buzz has its place. Just do not let it run the calendar.
A word to founders
You can be a builder of new things and still respect the factory. In fact, you must. The founder who scales is the founder who can convert breakthrough into routine. The work evolves from heroics to systems. Your team cannot rely on your cape forever. Give them a line they can trust.
A word to operators
If you already love process, this idea is home. One caution though. Process exists to create outcomes, not paperwork. Keep your loop as light as possible while still being strong. Measure the result and prune anything that does not move it.
A word to the dopamine crowd
Endless novelty keeps the nervous system excited and the scoreboard empty. If you crave stimulation, do not create a new game every month. Raise the stakes inside your current game. The excitement remains, the learning compounds, and the outcomes grow.
Choose boring on purpose
Mastery does not feel like fireworks in the moment. It feels like Tuesday. Show up, do the reps, lower the chance, and then accept the promotion to a bigger arena where chance is larger and you are ready for it. That is how careers are built, how companies grow, and how pros are made.
Strive for boring. It is not the enemy. It is the doorway to your next level of success.
Make it rAIn, KG