Better Than Your Best? Don't Be Silly.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty”
Virginia Satir
You’ll find the quote above from Virginia Satir in various places - most notable at the beginning of our two favorite books; Super Duper Profitable Ads by Laurel Portie and Bumpers by Nic Peterson. It explains what makes a person successful by illuminating why most people are not.
In This Week's Success Drop:
Are you looking in a window or a mirror? Weird question, right? Not really.
Better than your best is…stupid. Yes, we said it. You’ll see.
The secret to getting people to say “yes”. Two trigger words that get people to say “yes”
Productivity tip from a Champion maker (it’s so simple and effective). Rocket fuel for your brain from the one and only Dr. Jeff Spencer.
AI is cool and all but…sometimes the old-school tools do it better.
Listen: Good things take time. Here’s a couple shortcuts to profits
SUCCESS PHILOSOPHY
Are you looking out a window… or into a mirror?
Imagine that you know exactly where you want to go. You pull up Google Maps on your phone and enter your desired destination. The app is unable to determine your current location and you're not sure where you are, so you can't enter it. Without an accurate starting location, Google Maps can't help you.
Even the most advanced navigation tools are useless without an accurate starting location. It's the “you are here” sticker on the map. Until you can see where you are, you cannot get to where you want to go.
We must learn to look at ourselves as we would look at others. Imagine looking out a window and seeing everything that you love "out there". Now imagine looking out the same window and seeing everything that you hate "out there". This is the perspective of an Entitled traveler; always looking out the window to see the world. The Earned traveler understands that what seems to be a window is actually a mirror. What we love or hate in others, we actually love or hate about ourselves.
The problems "out there" [the window] are actually problems "in here" [the mirror].
Seeing yourself is like locating the "you are here sticker" on a map. If you do not learn to see yourself, nothing else will work.
Once you can see your true self, you can Guard Your True Self.
SUCCESS STRATEGY
Better than your best is…stupid.
Nothing happens in a straight line. The rolling average tells us the story that we care about. There are no straight lines in nature.
Expecting them is nonsensical and forcing them can be disastrous. I believe that the most practical way to measure progress in the real world is the rolling average. Complex and adaptive systems tend to be cyclic, they ebb and flow. They have peaks and valleys; ceilings and floors.
The goal is not to force a straight line by removing the cycles. It's to reduce the volatility and increase the reliability of the system. Volatility is the average distance between the ceiling and the floor. The lower the discrepancy between the two, the more volatile the system and the more control we have over the outcome.
We cannot eliminate the floor. Some days will always be a little worse than others. But we can raise it. If the ceiling stays the same, but the floor rises, the rolling average improves.
Raising the floor is also efficient. Most people strive for higher highs, which is the least efficient way to make progress. By definition, your best is the best you can do. Could you maybe do better tomorrow? Sure, but the lifetime of data suggests that it will be difficult, otherwise it wouldn't be your best. Pushing yourself to do better than your best often leads to exhaustion and burnout. It's during these times of burnout we spend time on the "floor" and lower our rolling average.
It’s not always obvious, but the key to sustainable success is in Raising The Floor.
SUCCESS STRATEGY
Two secret trigger words to get people to say “Yes”
Because. According to Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”
When you make a request just add a “because” in the sentence. We’re huge fans of Cialdini and his work.
No. “Yes doesn’t always mean yes. This is why shrewd negotiators don’t aim for yes, but instead try to get their counterparts to say no.” - The Black Swan Group
Getting a “No” from someone dramatically increases the probability of them being honest with you. There is nobody better to learn “No Oriented” questions from than our friend Chris Voss.
SUCCESS TACTIC
A productivity tip from a Champion maker (it’s so simple and effective)
Thee lists. Five minutes. That's all it takes. The “Three Lists” is one of the best productivity tips we’ve ever heard, it comes from Dr. Jeff Spencer. You can implement it today and it will take just a few minutes to give it a try.
Don’t be fooled by the simplicity.
Here is the Three Lists exercise, a bonus, and a short video breaking it down.
SUCCESS TOOL
AI is cool and all but…
Image-generating AI is pretty cool. See the images in this email? None of them are AI-generated because sometimes the old-school tools get it done better.
If you need images and need them quickly, check out Unsplash. Easy to find, royalty-free, high-resolution images.
INTERNET STUFF
On this day: in 1431, 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Rouen, France
Aww: Ever see a hedgehog grow?
We still can’t get over: that time Russell Brunson punched a kid.
Did you know: Alligators have four-chambered hearts… that never fibrilate? It trips us the eff out.
(There is a reason we are focused on Alligators lately. IYKYK.)
SHARE THE SUCCESS FINDER
Hey. You. Don’t keep us a secret.
Bring your friends along for the ride and you get cool free stuff as a thank you.
Get your referral link and see the leaderboard here.
