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17/07/2024
Extract from SMACHT: The Discipline of Success
For all of his gruff exterior, Reilly is an out-and-out softie when it comes to dogs. When his Labrador, Potter, emerged from the frozen lake like a drowned rat, Reilly noticed there was something wrong with the dog’s tail.
As the day wore on, it seemed the pain intensified as the dog’s moans escalated from whimpering to barking to shrieking.
Reilly called his old buddy, Séamus McManus, an iconic Galway vet, and explained the situation.
Having listened attentively to the facts, Seamus diagnosed that it was most likely a case of ‘limber tail syndrome’, a condition that Labradors are prone to, but one that would heal up quickly.
In the short term, however, it might help to give him a buffered aspirin – not paracetamol – to ease the pain and reduce the inflammation.
Reilly procured the tablets and proceeded to give the dog the pill. But try as he might, that dog refused to swallow the pill.
Reilly pushed it down his mouth, shoved it back his throat, and held his mouth closed but every time Potter would squirm out of his clutch and spit the pill out.
In desperation, Reilly called Séamus back and explained his quandary.
Séamus is a man of few words and calmly replied, “Hide the pill in peanut butter”.
“What?”, said Reilly.
“Hide the pill in peanut butter.”
You’d want to have seen that dog’s first experience of peanut butter. First he sniffed it. Then he licked it. And as large globules of drool fell
from his jaws, he proceeded to scoff the entire lot, pill and all.
It took about 20 minutes for the moaning to subside. Then the dog
turned on his back and commenced to snore loudly and sonorously.
INSIGHTS
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That’s the thing about pills. They can reduce pain, solve problems and virtually save your life. But in their raw state, they can be hard to swallow.
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Your ideas and communications are exactly like the pill in the story above. Your messages can solve great problems for your audience
but, first, you’ve got to get them to swallow the pill. In order to do that, it will help greatly to ‘hide the pill in peanut butter’.
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The single most powerful, effective and impactful way to make your ideas and messages stick is to present them in story format.
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Think of the last presentation you attended. The chances are it was a PowerPoint presentation, loaded with facts; 90% of all business presentations are fact-based.
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The problem with facts are that they’re hard to swallow and digest.
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For all his idiosyncrasies, Reilly was a skilled facilitator. He dived straight into the first of three questions he had built his consulting career upon: “What are you worried about?”
The answers didn’t make for pretty listening. Successful and proactive business people had seen their fortunes destroyed by falling sales, bad debts and negative equity.
“What can you do about it?”
The response was almost unanimous. Extreme discipline would be needed to survive: the discipline to make extra sales calls each day; to wage a relentless war on costs; and to have uncomfortable conversations with customers, employees and suppliers alike.
“What will you do about it?” It was here that big Paulie O’Connell from Crecora Mills – not the rugby player, but equally as big, competitive and successful – threw a spanner in the proverbial works. “There’s one fundamental problem with all this discipline caper, Reilly.”
“What’s the problem, Paulie?”, said Reilly tetchily. “The problem, Reilly, is that I love the concept of ‘discipline’. It’s just that I hate the word ‘discipline’.”
There was widespread approval for Paulie’s argument. Reilly feared losing the dressing room and might well have, but for another intercession from Paulie.
“Reilly, you were always a great man for the Irish. What’s the Irish word for ‘discipline’?”
“Paulie, the Irish word for discipline is smacht and there’s an ancient Irish proverb that proclaims: Ní bhíonn an rath, ach mara mbíonn an smacht (There’s no success without discipline).”
The group loved the word ‘smacht’ (pronounced smokt, where the ‘k’ is a soft throaty sound like the ‘ch’ in loch) and, out of sheer desperation, a mindset was agreed.
SUCCESS IS A FEW SIMPLE DISCIPLINES PRACTICED DAILY.
Over the following years, hundreds of business owners would participate in SMACHT Mastermind Groups throughout Ireland.
Almost all of them survived the recession. Many of them would go on to become super-successful and legends in their communities and industries.
What began first as a word and a mindset went on to become an operating system and a body of stories designed to make the understanding and application of those disciplines more palatable.
This book shares 52 ‘pills’ or simple disciplines, all presented as stories, that will help drive your business and personal success.
• • • • •
The six simple disciplines that developed into the Smacht Operating
System are contained in the SMACHT acronym:
Strategy: The discipline of conscious choice and focus.
Marketing: The discipline of attracting and retaining customers.
Attitude: The discipline of living the best version of yourself.
Cash: The discipline of becoming financially free.
Human Beings: The discipline of attracting and retaining great
people.
Time: The discipline of living life to the full.