In this gritty episode, Corey Dissin, Owner of The Corey Dissin Companies, LLC, shares why most early-stage founders fail—not from bad ideas, but from quitting before their habits compound. If you struggle with consistency, get distracted by shiny objects, or feel like entrepreneurship should be easier than it is in stage 2, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What it really takes to go the distance instead of quitting too early
– Why discipline beats talent and strategy when nobody is watching.
– How to keep swinging when results don’t show up immediately
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the start, scale and succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a founder, I’m your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and here’s what nobody tells you about starting a business. The hard part isn’t the idea. It’s showing up every single day when nobody’s watching. And this is especially true for those of you who are still in that startup entrepreneur stage, because early stage founders, I really believe this. They don’t fail because they lack talent, or they lack good ideas, or even that they lack a market but, but they fail because they quit before their habits have time to compound. Today’s guest, Corey Dissin is going to help us in this area a lot, because he’s the no nonsense force behind knockout life and high performance coaching, helping driven pros ditch the fluff and finally get unstuck. After 30 years of leading massive media projects, he flipped the script and built a coaching system rooted in grit, structure and relentless action. He’s also the author of going the distance, part memoir, part plan for building a life that actually hits back, and he’s here with us today. Corey, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here. I want to jump in just right out of the gate with a question, and that is that I’ve heard you say that most founders that you work with don’t necessarily have a strategy problem, but they have a discipline problem. What do you mean by that, and why is it so critical at this early stage?
Corey Dissin
First, thank you for having me, Scott, that’s point number one. Point number two. Discipline is spelled D, i, s, s, just make sure we got it spelled right for people. Got to keep the branding involved in there. Talent is a dime a dozen. I mean, hard work stick to itiveness and consistency are in short supply. And, you know, I work with people of all different stripes, and it never ceases to amaze me how off, how quickly off track they can become. And in your intro, you kind of set it all. It’s not because they’re unable or unwilling to take a journey. They’re unwilling or unable to take the journey far enough. You know the you know, I always refer to the stone cutters credo. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that. It’s written by a man named Jacob Riis R i i s In the early 1900s observing a stone cutter at his work. And he would say, you know, I’m going to paraphrase it. I don’t, I’m going to butcher it a little bit. But the the gist is, when they’re in times of distress, I watch a stone cutter at his trade and, you know, swinging and hitting that rock with the hammer, and on the 100 and first blow, the rock splits. But it wasn’t the 100 and first blow that did it. It was the accumulation of the 100 before it. And that’s what I teach, to have that resilience, to have that discipline and that consistency, to take relentless action without an immediate result.
Scott Ritzheimer
Here’s the thing that I think of makes this harder than it should be, and that is, when we look at how entrepreneurism is described, like on on social media, Facebook, Instagram seems to be the worst of it, but what I see there doesn’t match what I’ve experienced myself in the several businesses I’ve started, or the folks that I help. And what you see is this idea of, like, the entrepreneur life, being sitting on a beach after your four hour work week, sipping my ties, but like, that’s just not the real world. And so what happens is, when folks get into the world thinking that that’s what normal is, they get punched in the face a couple times by life in the entrepreneur stage, and they feel like they’re doing something wrong. And I actually had a guy gave me some fantastic advice. His name is Scott, which is probably why he was so wise. But he was not me, by the way. But he said, Hey, just because it’s not working doesn’t mean you’re not doing the right thing. And, and, and it’s what I hear you saying. So why? Why is it that we’re so afraid of doing the wrong thing, and how does that keep us from actually doing the right thing?
Corey Dissin
Well, human beings are innately magnetized by comfort. When you are putting out a tremendous effort not getting a result that is grossly uncomfortable, so it’s easily avoided. It’s easy to get on the off ramp and say, I don’t want to drive on this road anymore. And entrepreneurship is boring, and that’s another thing. Folks don’t want to be bored. They they’re they want to see they’re like the cat with a new toy. They want to go to the next flashy, shiny object, and go to that because it’s cool, or it gets sexy, or it has a lot of attention online, and the real gritty, muddy, dirty work of entrepreneurship is boring and repetitive, and that’s the other piece of the puzzle too. You got it a lot. God, thank goodness I live but live a charmed life. I get to live some of that stuff that’s advertised. Of that what’s sexy about entrepreneurship, but people forget that I spent 30 years building up to that. Folks have spent 30 days and want what I’ve achieved in 30 years. That’s where the major dis Connect is, and I said it that,
Scott Ritzheimer
Right, Yeah. I like, yeah, there’s, there’s so many different ways. I won’t go with that, but I want to, I want to stay in this how, how do you know, or do you know, where to put your massive action, right? If you’re going to go hit the rock 100 times, how do you know where to hit it.
Corey Dissin
What I tell clients is you always need to be putting yourself out there. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re trying to build a client base, you have to be less consumed with I am an expert craftsman, or I am superior at this service, and then I need to network. That’s what most people approach it that way. I turn the tables and say, you need to become a master networker that happens to do said service, because at that point, you have proven that you’re willing to do what others won’t and daring to do what others don’t. Right. Does that invest heavily in marketing, in creating visibility and creating Attention. Attention that is the metric, that is the currency. Everything else is off of that. And I always tell people, you can be I mean, I tell them to think about their favorite music act. Who would you pay pop baller to sit front row to watch, and whether that’s Metallica or Lady Gaga or Beyonce, whoever it is, it doesn’t matter how good the music is. If there’s no one sitting in the arena, learn how to sell tickets. I teach people how to sell tickets. Everything takes care of itself, because when you sold the tickets, you’re developing the know, like and trust. You’re cultivating a relationship with that person. Because ain’t nobody spending money with someone they don’t like, they don’t know, and they don’t trust. If you have that built up first, eventually they will open their wallet to you for whatever you’re so good at, because you throw a rock. There’s people good at what they do.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love this interplay between intensity, which is easy to manufacture, but over time. And one of the things in your book that struck me is how you capture the time of this in the the metaphor, if you will, of the boxing round, like going 10 rounds. And so tell us a little bit your book going the distance. Why’d you choose the boxing analogy? And what does this hit that the conventional business books miss?
Corey Dissin
Oh, man, so many good questions for you to unpack there. Let me dig in here. So first, I’m a boxing fan, a boxing nerd. That’s number one. Number two, I trained as a fighter. Never fought professionally, but I trained with EX heavyweight champion of the world, Tim Witherspoon. Was very lucky to do that. Got my head knocked around by him, too. That wasn’t very fun. And his son, who was a professional fighter, who was very good. I was a trainer, or I trained MMA people on how to condition themselves. So I’ve always had a connection to the fight game and even running the production company for 27 years, one of our biggest clients, top ranked boxing Don King productions. So I was doing commercials for Tyson and Roy Jones Jr and Oscar De La Hoya. So you add all those things together. And by the way, I’m from Philly, and what famous fictional boxing character is from Philly, Rocky Balboa, baby. And if you’re from Philly, you take that stuff serious. That’s for real. And the whole underdog story, all that stuff resonated with me just since I was a little kid. So that’s one of the reasons how boxing played a part in the framework of my book. Number two is, I, as you can tell, I’m not your typical stuffed shirt academic. Nothing against those people. It just ain’t me.
I’m a ham and Egger. Okay, you know, you’re lucky you got me in sleeves today. Let me put it to you that way. And because of that, I wanted a book that reflected my authenticity, that was clearly me. It wasn’t some theory that I took in a class or some seminar, because there are a lot of self help books that are dry and they’ll put you to sleep. I wanted something that you could read quickly, that would, you know, keep you interested and engaged in a format that was unlike any other book you’ve ever read. And that’s how I kind of landed. I took all. Those ingredients, stirred them up in the soup. And here we have, you know, this book that has this boxing thing. Oh, and it helps that going the distance is a metaphor. You know, boxing has that double entendre meaning too. So, and quite frankly, Look, man, life’s a fight. You say that in the book, Life is a fight. You’re going to get punched. You got to know how to throw punches. You got to get up off the canvas. And if you want to be a champion, you got to be willing to get in the ring and mix it up, because the success is not just going to meet you halfway. You got to get in there and mix it up and be challenged. So all these things factored into me putting this book together, and obviously it’s on brand. Like I said, I’m not your typical science teacher type guy.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And when you’re writing the book, who Who were you trying to? Who are you trying to help? Who are you writing to, and what do you hope that they get from his pages?
Corey Dissin
So I had two audiences. One was very selfish and one was very unselfish. Selfish. Version was written for my two sons. They had the legacy. They didn’t get a chance to grow up with me. They heard the stories at Thanksgiving. And, you know, all the times and the rides in the car, all the lectures and whatnot about how to do this and why this happened, and who I met, and this guy and the other guy, I wanted them to experience what it was like when I came up, so they knew where they came from. So I know that when I’m not here anymore, they can keep this book with them and reflect on it, and they can pass that along to their kids and so on and so forth. Because legacy. We talk a lot about legacy in the book too, because I was passed down from my father. I wanted them to be able to have that story, or series of stories, and then, you know, the other piece was letting people, allowing people to benefit from the people and the advice that I got, so they could take it, put it put it in their own hip pocket and use it for their own success, whether they’re starting a small business, whether they’re working for somebody else, whether they’re a student getting ready to go to college or graduate, they can there’s pieces, there’s sections in that book that apply across the board, and because I talk about it in a very direct, regular way. It’s very relatable. So I wanted to be able to share and pay it forward, the, like I said, the experiences, the advice, and the people, the shoulders that I stood on. I’m it’s a love letter. I’m paying homage to these people. You know, they helped me. Let me allow them to help you through me.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. Corey, there’s this question that I have that I ask all my guests. I’m very interested to see what you’d have to say to it. And the question is this, what is the biggest secret you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Corey Dissin
Ooh, that’s a good question. I would probably say it’s going to take longer than you think it always does. You know, they say patience is a virtue. It’s very cliche, but you got to be able to put forth that maximum effort. Championship rounds are championship rounds at the end of the fight, not in the first round. I’m trying to tie it all together. And my whole life, my story is all about still standing when the bell rings, because, believe me, I got my butt kicked. And, you know, with respect to how you wanted to address the show, I would normally say that in a much more graphic way, but I got my butt kicked. I wasn’t, you know, I didn’t even work a 40 hour week till I was in my 40s. I didn’t even know what that was. And plus all the little twists and turns along the way, and I try to communicate with everybody, you got to hang in there. It you, there’s no you can’t come up with this artificial goal post and go, if I don’t get to my goal in a year, or 18 months or two years, I’m going to try something else. It’s the thing you can do. Yeah, you want it bad enough, and you’re passionate about it, you will see it through to the end. So if you’re seeing it through to the end, you gotta, you gotta go until it’s done. It’s not done till it’s done.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. Corey, I love that so much, because I think the other aspect of this, and I’d love to have been able to explore it a little bit further, but one of the things that I hear in that, that I don’t want to overlook or assume is understood, is like, because it’s worth it, right? That’s the on the other side of this. Yeah, so it’s going to be harder than you think, but it’s going to be more worth it than you know. And I love that, because it comes out in who you are, comes out in in the book, and I hope people capture that as well, because it’s not just hard for hard sake. It’s because of what that hard. Creates in us,
Corey Dissin
Anything worth having or doing requires pain and sacrifice first. Not everyone is cut out to withstand that. Yeah, and you know, if I can help someone push through that difficult period, absorb some of that kind of figuratively, get your back and push you back out in the ring, and let’s go sign me up.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Speaking of which Corey, I know there’s founders that are listening today that would love to know more. They’d love to get a copy of the book or connect with you. Where can they do that? How can they find out more about you and the work you do?
Corey Dissin
Easiest way. CoreyDissin.com, C, O, R, E, y, d, i s, s, I N. And you know, the big joke that I say in a lot of these interviews is, hey, I’m a marketing guy. If you type me into Google and I don’t show up, then I’m a fraud. I mean, I’m out there. I’m not hard. There’s pages and pay if you can’t find me, something’s wrong. Maybe the power doesn’t work on your computer. I’m very in tune with social media. LinkedIn is my jam. I’m on the other platforms too, but I drink the LinkedIn Kool Aid. So you can find me on there as well.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic, fantastic. Well, Corey, thanks so much for being on the show today. Really was a privilege having here. Totally fun conversation. I loved it, and I’m glad you’re able to join us today. For those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Corey Dissin
Corey Dissin is the no-nonsense force behind Knockout Life and High-Performance Coaching, helping driven pros ditch the fluff and finally get unstuck. After nearly 30 years leading massive media projects, he flipped the script and built a coaching system rooted in grit, structure, and relentless action. He’s also the author of GOING THE DISS-TANCE — part memoir, part fight plan for building a life that actually hits back.
Want to learn more about Corey Dissin’s work at The Corey Dissin Companies, LLC? Check out his website at https://coreydissin.com/
Connect with Corey through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreydissin/
Get a copy of his book Going the Diss-tance at https://www.amazon.com/GOING-DISS-TANCE-Championship-Lessons-Tribute-ebook/dp/B0BYTGVW62/