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"Love is nature's psychotherapy." - Eric Berne
This was fun last time.
So today, I thought we'd take another cruise through some of the best posts that dropped in our Path community over the past two weeks.
(#2 was a crowd favorite)
Let's begin:
1. The Most Important Thing
I'm convinced that the single most important factor for success is simply how much you enjoy what you do.
It's not discipline or work ethic or intelligence or anything other than:
"I love this sh*t so much I can't stop doing it."
The hours spent in total absorption, the endless fascination with every single detail, the single-pointedness of mind that comes from deep enjoyment just cannot be replaced by any amount of hard work.
That obviously doesn't mean every moment will be spent in pure bliss and there will never be hard days or aspects of it you don't like.
And it certainly doesn't mean you're guaranteed success just 'cause you like doing it.
It just makes all that stuff secondary, because simply doing the thing is enough.
The game rewards the player who needs no reward other than the game itself.
2. Never Argue, Raise Your Voice, Or Defend Yourself.
As soon as you do, you buy into the frame that you have something to defend or argue against…
Which is an unconscious admission that the other person is right, and immediately puts you in a position of reacting to (ie. following) them rather than leading the interaction.
Paraphrasing Einstein:
You cannot win an argument at the level it was created.
You must go up a level, which means changing the frame and context of the argument itself.
Example:
"Why do you keep working so late?" (negative, blaming frame)
"I know, thank you so much for your patience… It's been so helpful — we're growing faster than ever, it's been really stressful but it's finally all paying off." (positive, grateful frame)
To continue arguing, the accuser now needs to admit:
They actually aren't helpful or patient
They don't support your growth or success
Which they will never do, because that would mean attacking their own identity.
In other words:
Do not fight them on their territory. Lead them to a new, more favorable territory.
Almost nobody does this. So following these simple rules can help you communicate better under pressure than virtually anyone you know.
3. "You Can Only Fail If You Quit" — Is A Lie.
It's become popular to say, but it's objectively untrue (you can always just keep failing forever) — until you add the nuance:
"You can only fail if you quit, and/or fail to adapt from your failures."
Persistence is only one piece of the larger equation.
Persistence + adaptation → ie. correcting what's not working + perfecting what's working = success.
Plenty of people beat their head against a wall trying the same thing over and over and never quit but also never succeed because they never iterate.
IMO the ability to spot errors and correct them (quicker and more efficiently) is one of the single most important skills in human life.
It still doesn't guarantee you won't fail. Nothing does. But it will stack the odds heavily in your favor.
Bang.
If you'd like to join us inside The Path, reply to let me know.
Maybe we'll open it back up one day soon.
(If you're new here, The Path is where we hold our vault of masterclasses & programs, and offer personal coaching to up and coming founders. Not currently open to the public.)
Either way, have an awesome one over there.
You deserve it.
- T
P.S. If you're still hungry (you savage), cue this up:
Build Focus So Deep Distraction Becomes Impossible
"I used to think that intelligence came from books and knowledge and rational thought. But that's not intelligence: It's just information and interpretation. Real intelligence is when your mind and your heart connect. That's when you see the truth so clearly and unmistakably that you don't have to think about it. In fact, all thinking will do is lead you away from the truth and soon you'll be back in your head, groping with a penlight in the dark again." - Neill Strauss
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