WIN OF THE WEEK

The End…

If I’m being honest with you, writing this ’win of the week’ has always been my least favorite part of the process.

The reason I included it here in the first place was have a sort of forcing function to ’work harder and achieve more’.

But at the same time, I’m realizing it’s a burden, and here’s why:

Not all progress is created equal.

You have visible progress and you have invisible progress.

Visible progress is the one that can be easily measured. The one that people and your ego crave.

Then there’s the invisible progress. The one that can’t be measured, and doesn’t sound nearly as cool when you mention it to other people.

Here’s the thing though - just because you can’t measure something, it doesn’t mean it’s not valuable - contrary to what society forces us to believe.

Seriously though - I feel like I’ve been making tons of invisible progress lately - but because it didn’t feel like anything worth mentioning in the newsletter, I always felt like I’m stuck in the same spot, and it led me to put too much pressure on myself in areas when there’s no need to rush (like business or content).

So for now, I’m gonna be replacing the win of the week with something else.

We’ll see what it is the next week :)

3 HIGH-IMPACT IDEAS
1) The Daily Highlight

Although this is something I already discovered a few years back, the subtlety of this concept never ceases to amaze me.

It works as follows:

Instead of flooding your to-do list with minor tasks you aBsOluTeLy need to get done (but you know very well it’s all just work disguised as procrastination)…

For each day, determine just one thing that if you’ll be able to check off of the ’to-do list’, you’ll be satisfied.

Plain and simple, yet works better than 99% of the all productivity hacks out there.

Why?

Because it forces you to focus more on:

1) Doing less, but at the same time doing more of what matters

2) Allowing yourself to be satisfied with the stuff you’ve done

A few tips for setting your daily highlight: 

1. Block it off in your calendar & protect that time at all costs

2. Wake up earlier & do it the first thing in the morning

3. Set the goal of getting the highlight done while having the most amount of fun possible

P.S.: If you want to hear more on this, I highly suggest you pick up the book Make Time by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky, or watching this YouTube video.  

2) Slow Success vs Fast Success

Throughout the history, we’ve seen so many people rise up out of nowhere, only to experience an intense fall shortly after that.

Someone that comes to mind for me is Conor McGregor - no doubt that this guy is a legend. But success getting too deep into his psyche was ironically the thing that caused most of his failures.

There’s one epiphany I’ve been trying to wrap my head around lately related to this:

Attaining success is one of thing; maintaining it is a whole different game.

Think of broke people winning the lottery - no matter how much money they obtain, they’ll sooner or later end up broke again.

That’s why in this sense, slow success achieved with consistency and compounding is better than immediate success achieved with intensity and brutal sacrifices. 

When you learn to enjoy the daily iterations of the boring stuff you have to get done (working out, reading, writing), you build the mindset, habits and skills that will eventually help you amplify & enjoy your achievements more once the compounding hits.

Long story short: 

No need to rush anywhere. 

Choose to play in decades, but act in days. 

And remember:

“The fast way is the slow way. The slow way is the only way.” - Steven Bartlett

P.S.: This idea was inspired by a brilliant essay written by my friend Tyler Cho.

3) Changing Your Beliefs

One story I think about quite often:

A baby elephant gets chained to a wooden stake.

And obviously - when they’re little, they lack the power to break out.

So they stay like this for years, but never try again - even though 5 years later, they’re fully grown and 10x heavier than the stake itself, and could escape with ease.

But the belief of „I can’t do it“ that was once installed in their mind is keeping them tied to the ground. 

Literally. 

The founder of Google Larry Page once said: 

„Any law more than fifty years old has to be re-examined“

Now - remove the word ’laws’, and think your own beliefs. 

The reason it’s crucial for us to conduct these „belief“ audits is because our beliefs determine everything else we do. They’re the algorithms on which the software of our minds is running on. They are the foundation of words we say, things we do & goals we accomplish (or don’t accomplish). 

The caveat is - most of them are created on autopilot. 

So from time to time, ask yourself:

What is one you belief you’ve been holding for more than 6 months? Is it still serving you?

Remember what Elon Musk said:

“Who wrote that software running in your head? Are you sure you want it there?”

FAVORITE QUOTE