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:

- Why discipline beats talent and strategy when nobody is watching.

- How to keep swinging when results don’t show up immediately

- What it really takes to go the distance instead of quitting too early.

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 2 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

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

Mentioned in this episode:

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Founder's Quiz

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?

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.

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?

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,

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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,

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.

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?

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.

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.