Today is Day 2097 of my daily running streak. Total distance so far is 16,147.13km, which leaves 23,927.87km of the 40,075km lap of the world still to run. Barefoot-style, one day at a time.

Today I made one of the hardest business decisions of my career. I decided not to launch Operations Director, the digital operations director service I have spent the last 18 months building. We were weeks from launch.

I still believe in the product. That is the part people find hard to follow. I did not stop because it was weak. I stopped because of a pattern I have been repeating for twenty years, and the data on it is plain.

The pattern

Statistically, around 90% of businesses fail. I have had somewhere between 10 and 15 businesses over the years. One is still trading. That is my property business, which is over 20 years old. If one in fifteen survives, my failure rate is worse than the statistic I was quoting.

The reasons vary. Some ideas were never tested. Some failed through partnerships or operations. Some ran into legal or compliance problems. Each one had its own cause. The common thread was me. Each time, my head was turned by the next opportunity, and I looked for a second business to sit beside the first.

Meanwhile, the property business was the one I neglected. It carried on in the background and kept performing. I find that uncomfortable, and I think the message in it is clear.

What I left on the table

The real cost of a lack of focus in business is the profit you never go after. There is more profit in my property business than I have ever pursued, purely because my attention was always on building something new. I have never given the core business my full effort.

So I spoke to my team and gave them the reasoning. We will not launch Operations Director. We will put everything into the property business and make it fully optimised and efficient. That is what I built the system to do in the first place. I will test it on my own business first and tailor the systems and processes to property. There may be a future revenue stream in that. It is not the plan today. The plan is the property business, and nothing else.

How we will measure it

The main metric is gross monthly cash flow. I use the term loosely. Strictly, gross profit comes after cost of goods sold and before overheads. My version covers the cost of goods and all fixed overheads. The variable overheads sit outside it, and we monitor those against budgets. That makes financial performance easy to predict, which is why we use it. One number, reviewed monthly, with the whole team pointed at it.

The team's reaction

I expected resistance. I got relief. The team have watched me chase new ideas for years, watched each one grow and then fail, while the property business ran on without much attention. A clear direction was welcome. People like knowing what they are working towards.

Why Richard Branson's advice does not fit most of us

Sir Richard Branson's advice is to say yes when an opportunity arrives and worry about the risk later. That works if you run a group with hundreds or thousands of employees who take an opportunity and bring it to life without much of your involvement. Most of us do not.

Micro and small businesses make up the large majority of businesses and are the lifeblood of the economy. For an owner in that position, saying yes to everything splits the one resource you cannot replace, which is your attention. I think the most successful people had a core business that received 100% of their focus. They invested elsewhere only after that business was strong. I tried to skip that step. It took me 20 years to see it.

What the running teaches me about this

The streak is the opposite of a head-turning idea. There is one thing to do each day. I run, and I do not reopen the question of whether to run. Consistency over intensity is the whole method, and it has carried me to 2,097 consecutive days.

Business needs the same rule. A decision to focus is only worth something if it holds on the days a shiny opportunity appears. Those days will come. I expect to be tempted. I would rather write this down now and hold myself to it.

The mission behind it

This daily vlog is part of a fundraiser. I am running the distance of a lap of the world, 40,075km, on consecutive days, to raise £1M for children's causes including Great Ormond Street and BBC Children in Need. The streak only works if the rest of my life is stable enough to support it. A strong core business is part of that foundation. A scattered one threatens it.

Lessons for me today

First, the data does not lie. One in fifteen is a number I have to accept.

Second, neglected assets often hold the most value. Look at what already works before building something new.

Third, a difficult decision is easier when you state your reasons plainly to the people it affects.

If you are an entrepreneur who struggles to stay focused, ask yourself what you are neglecting while you chase the next idea. Tell me in the comments. If you believe in the mission, please subscribe, share, like and comment, so more people see the fundraiser. I will be back out running tomorrow.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/cn3Nk_603rM