The Goal of This Post
This post is a synthesis from the book The Diary of a CEO, by Steven Bartlett, sharing some of the key lessons and wisdom around how to thrive in your personal and professional life.
I hope you enjoy it!
PILLAR III: THE PHILOSOPHY
If you know someone’s philosophy or beliefs, you can accurately forecast how they’ll behave in any situation.,
Your philosophy is the set of beliefs, values or principles that guide your behavior.
1. You must sweat the small stuff
- It is the smallest improvements that will cumulatively push the business forward.
- Ask everyone to find ways to improve the standard and repeat this process forever.
Your success will be defined by your attitude towards the small stuff.
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2. A small miss now creates a big miss later
- ‘Winning is not always the barometer of getting better.’
- We all need simple rituals to assess our course and make the necessary small adjustments.
The smallest seeds of today’s negligence will bloom into tomorrow’s biggest regrets.
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3. You must out-fail the competition
- ‘Whenever an individual or business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.’
- Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment.
The higher your failure rate, the higher your chances of success.
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4. You must become a Plan-A Thinker
- ‘The only way you go forward, is because you can’t go back.’
- ‘There is no reason to have a Plan B, because it distracts from Plan A.’
When the human mind excludes all other possibilities and fixates on a single path, that path draws in every available ounce of your passion, perseverance and power, leaving no room for hesitation or deviation.
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5. Don’t be an ostrich
We are hard-wired to avoid discomfort.
- In business, the person with the fewest blind spots stands the greatest chance of victory.
- We think better, make better decisions, and achieve better outcomes when we’re closest to reality.
You cannot reach your highest potential without a better relationship with discomfort, bad news and inconvenient truths.
We must recognize what isn’t right, assess what we can do about it, share our findings and get to the truth, however challenging that might be.
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6. You must make pressure your privilege
‘Pressure is a privilege – it only comes to those that earn it.’
- Pressure we view as voluntary, meaningful and high in autonomy is received as a privilege.
- You are most susceptible to feel like a victim of the pressure in your life when you forget the context of that pressure.
The evolutionary goal of stress is to push you to perform at your best both mentally and physically; to raise your game and meet the scenario or the problem you face.
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7. The power of negative manifestation
The pivotal question is: ‘Why will this idea fail?’
- There’s no chance of prevention without having a humbling conversation with the prospect of failure.
- By contemplating failure in advance, we can better comprehend its potential origins and take proactive measures to avoid it.
You can predict someone’s success in any area of their life by obsessing how willing and capable they are at dealing with uncomfortable conversations.
Your personal progression is trapped behind an uncomfortable conversation.
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8. Your skills are worthless, but your context is valuable
- Value is what someone is willing to pay.
- Every skill holds a different value in a different sector.
- The perception of a skill’s rarity influences how much people value it.
To be considered the best in your industry, you don’t need to be the best at any one thing.
You need to be good at a variety of complementary and rare skills that your industry values and that your competitors lack.
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9. The discipline equation: death, time and discipline!
On Death & Time (Finality, Infinity, and Insignificance)
- Be conscious of what prizes you bet your chips to win. Prioritize the things that bring you joy.
- Place every chip you have with clear intention, on the things that truly matter the most.
- Your time, and how you choose to spend it, is the only influence you have on the world.
On Discipline
Discipline is the ongoing commitment to pursuing a goal, independent of fluctuating motivation levels, by consistently exercising self-control, delayed gratification and perseverance.
- Get crystal clear on what your goal is.
- Establish exactly why accomplishing that goal intrinsically and authentically matters to you.
- Do everything you can to enjoy the process. Deploy tactics to keep your engagement high.
- Limit the psychological friction and material hurdles associated with the pursuit of your goal.
Discipline = the value of the goal + the reward of the pursuit – the cost of the pursuit
One Final Quote
Being selective about how you spend your time, and who you spend your time with, is the greatest sign of self-respect.
All content credit goes to the author(s). I’ve shared the bits I’ve enjoyed the most and found most useful.
Cheers ’til next time! Saludos!
Alberto
Beto's Blog 