The jet ski versus the aircraft carrier, getting emotional plus a helping of Newton
Welcome to September. Last week I talked about designing your personal flywheel, and the importance of food for a healthy mind. I saw the power of food firsthand Sunday. I didn't eat well: oatmeal with pepitas for breakfast, three protein snack bars for lunch during the day. And dinner of the most amazing bread with goat cheese, salami and red wine for dinner. While all very tasty, it left me with a headache come Monday morning. A banana and coffee did the trick to remove it. Today I'll get back to my normal healthier approach to food. Sometimes a long enjoyable drive gets in the way of food. Good food takes a little effort after all. Like being intentional about designing your work and cultivating your personal cow.
This week I want to talk about the benefits to being a jet ski, some interesting thoughts on how you're not your mind, but how your mind influences all you are. Like this song says, your mind and body are the most important tools you'll ever have. Use them wisely. Keep them maintained like you do your home and car. It's too bad there]s not a central body improvement store. Why is it you can go here for most everything you need for your home but there's not such a place for your body? I end with embracing Newton's Third Law.
The benefits of being a jet ski
I've talked about the challenges of standing out in the job market. And the crowded business world. We all receive too much information with too many choices all the time. There's little time for quiet. But there is a benefit to you being you rather than a big company. Did you know you're actually a jet ski? You can go fast. And turn fast. A big company cannot. Because a big company is an aircraft carrier.
Why does this matter? Because you can adjust on the fly. You can quickly test and iterate. You can find out what works and doesn't work fast. And stop what's not working and do more of what is. A big company cannot because it has a lot of infrastructure. It can't turn fast. It can't react fast to rapidly changing inputs. It takes a lot of coordination and effort to turn it. Which requires more advance planning because it can't adjust as quickly to a poor decision.
An aircraft carrier requires a much larger flywheel than you do. One that is harder to get going and even harder to stop. Let that sink in for a bit. On the surface you may say, 'so what'? Beneath the surface you can look at that as your competitive advantage.
On a smaller level, compare the person laid off from their corporate job versus the financially comfortable but unhappy person. The former has more flexibility to try things that may or may not work. Less to lose. The other may dream of making a change yet the risks are far greater. It’s hard, and may be extremely painful to give up financial security for something unproven. Yet even then, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
That person and test and iterate on the side to generate a proof of concept before going all in. In other words, create that side hustle. Goes back to the stories we tell ourselves about what's possible and not possible. And how bad we want it. It's about reframing your perspective.
Emotions influence outcomes
Which brings me to how our emotions influence our outcomes. You've likely heard about self-fulfilling prophecies. And I talk about the impact of negative self talk. For your benefit as much as mine!
My friend John, who serves as a back-up CEO advising high growth businesses on strategy, shared this video on a call this past week. I've watched it three times, and think you should too. In the video, Dr. Joe Dispenza, a neuroscientist focused on meditation, talks about heart-centered emotions which is where you feel a love for life.
This is the most explicit explanation of how your thoughts influence your outcomes. How it seems the universe conspires to create what we strive for when we are intentional. Why coincidences seem to pop up. Or how you see more red cars when you start thinking about buying a red car.
Many people wait for something outside them to change how they feel inside, which leaves them feeling at a loss. Trying to exert more control which keeps them trapped in a downward cycle. It brings on more feelings of stress. Yet when you express gratitude you feel a sense of possibility and growth. Your body doesn't know that what your mind is thinking isn't actually happening.
When you embrace the emotion ahead of your future vision, you spark a physical change in your body. This physical change creates a magnetic force out in the world. When you do this repeatedly, you attract opportunities.
The opposite is also true. This I know from personal experience when feeling grumpy or irritated at the world. I'm less creative. Less willing to interact and more pessimistic about what's going on around me. I find all the negative in a situation rather than what's working. And it's rarely as bad as I make it out to be. This sabotages success. While I've done a lot of work on reframing and stopping the negative spiral, this concept crystalized for me how we become what we manifest inside.
It's why the self-help industry flourishes because we look for the next quick fix externally rather than doing the hard work on changing ourselves. Many people get rich on the promise of their advice. That if you just do what they do, you'll be cured. But what's missing is the internal belief. The internal acknowledgement that you deserve it. That you can change.
Change is hard no matter what. Especially when it's a lifelong habit. You only break it through repetition and focus. You habitually want to revert to what you usually do.
The upshot is you are not your mind. And you need to do the work to get your mind focused on what you want to become. Where you want to go. If this doesn't connect the dots, here's another metaphor that I discovered this week from Mel Robbins. You got to see life through the windshield rather than the rear view mirror to get where you want to go. And there's a reason one is bigger than the other.
Of course, you also want to be the windshield rather than the bug, per one of my favorite songs.
We interrupt this newsletter for a little fun
With all of this talk about driving and windshields, I thought I'd share the latest Cannonball. For those not familiar with it from the movie, it's about getting from downtown Manhattan to Los Angeles as quickly as possible. As it requires exceeding the maximum speed without getting caught, it requires a lot of coordination. And people even willing to get a ticket on your behalf. Given my penchant for stopping to capture an image, I might have a tough time passing on some cool shots. Grab your history lesson here:
Newton was on to something
Let's wrap this week's newsletter with Newton's Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Also known as reciprocity. When you run, your feet strike the ground and the ground strikes back. Sometimes this injures your feet. I discovered this when I ran six half marathons without working up to it properly.
Took me out for two years. Same as punching a wall. The wall gets damaged and so does your hand. Don't punch walls. The trick to successful running is using the least amount of force required to propel you forward. And I've learned to both ease into it and also ensure I'm not running hard on my heels.
But this isn't a fitness newsletter. The key point here is to seek the win-win in business. You deliver value in exchange for value in return. While reciprocity, Newton's Third Law, always works in the physical world, it doesn't always work out that way in business. Yet the more value you deliver, the more that becomes what you are known for. And the more sought after you'll become.
Sometimes giving value returns a good mental state. Giving enhances your mindset and creates positive emotions within. A posture of giving becomes part of your reputation. A part of your personal brand. It's far better to adopt this than one of constant taking. Who wants to be Scrooge?
What gets in the way of giving? Loss aversion. We are predisposed to avoid losing $100 than making $200. The pain of losing is stronger than the pain of not winning. But this is looking only at an individual situation.
The power of reciprocity is in looking at the bigger picture where a single loss recedes into the background in favor of more upside to giving.
Of taking the risk of giving and putting yourself out there. None of us can do this alone. With 'this' being creating and owning our own cow. We need the help of others. You increase the odds that people want to help you by showing up as a good human and helping others too.
To learn more about loss aversion, explore Daniel Kahneman's work.
PS: One Big Thing
Until next week, go out there and create. To get you focused, try this approach from Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal: pick the one big thing you can do today. It need not take much time. It just needs to have a big impact on your work or life. Anything above that is gravy. That forces you to prune and focus. And also make progress without burning out.
Too often we give ourselves a dozen things we need to do in addition to everything else, and feel like a failure everyday when we never get through the list. This creates momentum and a subtle reward. You know how it takes a lot of little steps to get to your big goals? Think of one big thing as each day's little step.