I was listening to Collin Cowherd’s radio show, and he drew a comparison that at face-value is a little crazy, but when you drill down, it’s pretty accurate.

There are a lot of similarities between Anthony Weiner and Tony Robbins. Beyond their first name.

Both are married with families (although one is going through a divorce). Both are extremely intelligent. Both are charismatic. Both get people to follow.

But one is uber successful, and one is a train wreck.

What is the difference? Discipline.

The fine line between success and failure, the difference between good and great, is discipline. Having the discipline to do things and to not do things. The discipline to be creative yet manage expectations.

Whether it’s the military, politics, sports or business, the best teams, the most successful teams have a formula.

Why can McDonald’s set up guarantee revenue and sales but other restaurants can’t? Discipline. They fry the fries the same way everywhere. The McDonald’s way.

Cowherd went on to say it’s the same in sports. Discipline. This is how we do it. The Patriots versus most other teams. Head Coach, Bill Belichek, leads by example. He doesn’t search out the spotlight, he has very “dull” press conferences and they have a system.

The best QB in NFL history buys into the system. He doesn’t give random interviews and comment on his political beliefs. He plays the company line and is disciplined like his coach.

They cut good players when they aren’t so good, and don’t get sentimental. They take high potential players who came out of a bad system and put them in their disciplined system, and then they succeed.

Other teams pay huge amounts to free agents, and have huge expectations and big let downs. They bring these people into an undisciplined system and the result is a lack of consistency.

Look at your business. What are your team’s best practices? Is the communication consistent?

Managers may vary; they may have different communication and management styles, but are they consistent with holding their teams accountable? Do they have the meetings they say they are going to have? Do they have the discipline to repeat those best practices without being asked to?

Are they having brutal truth one-on-ones with their direct reports weekly? Brutal truth. Not dancing around a topic, but the discipline to directly address an issue with their direct reports and to acknowledge when someone fails to hit baseline metrics time over time.

That’s the mark of companies that grow, and maintain their quality and staff. Discipline.