Have you participated in competitive and recreational sports? The way you think when you are playing those sports is also applicable in business and our personal lives. When I was talking to a good friend about his involvement in alpine ski racing, he mentioned the ‘40-30-30’ rule. Earlier days, he always tried to go fast and focused hard on not falling. Later on, his coach told him he was missing the point. He explained that the success in ski racing, actually for most sports, was only 40% physical training. The other 60% was mental. The first 30% was technical skill and experience, and the second 30% was the willingness to take risk.
Specifically, ski racing means to take risk of leaning harder into turns, balancing at a steeper angle to the slope and stress on the outside ski edge – all of which increase the chance of falling. So if you can’t falling enough, you aren’t trying hard enough. To excel in anything, you need to push yourself beyond the edge. Body builder will know that as ‘pain period’. Only by trying something new, struggling, learning and then trying again do we improve our performance.
When we come out from the other side, you can’t help but wonder – why didn’t I try earlier? The question of fear isn’t something. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, reveals that we deal with failure better than we’d expect. In studies, ‘when people are asked to predict how they’ll feel if they lose a job … Or a fail a project, they constantly overestimate how horrible they will feel and how long It will last”. I reckon it’s probably a biological trigger that stops us from trying harder and risking our lives (if we are talking about the stone age).
We are now so focused on building skills and knowledge, but the missing ingredient is taking action and risks. That’s why people tend to regret not doing something rather than the things they did.
Perhaps playing safe is reasonable when you are in the health care and financial industries. But for our own creative development, we need to take a step further and focus hard on the last 30%. Our little bubble is comfortable, but restricts us from getting any better. The challenge is to rebalance our nature. Expose yourself to some positive randomness and take some unexpected turns. Afterall, it is the person who pushes through the barrier of fear that reaches the highest level of performance.
To nail your coming mid-sem exam, you will need creativity – learn how to bullcrap right. To start up a great business idea, you will need creativity. To execute a grand marketing campaign, you will need creativity. Of course analytical and logical thinking is also important, but being creative seems to have a cooler vibe. Why not pick up this skill and capture it into something great?
The Trouble of Free Time
Monday’s post I mentioned the need to underschedule. Now you are probable asking how are we going to make the most out your free time. One of the best things you can achieve out of the free time is to expose yourself to positive randomness, the key to stumble upon existing opportunities.
The benefit is easy to see, but to put it into practice can be problematic. I know, through your emails, some people have already given it a try, but don’t know what to do with all that free time.
The result: doing nothing, which makes them unhappy and unmotivated, which made them procrastinate more than ever.
So to make sure all your free time counts, I have some recommendations for you.
(1) Once a week do each of the following:
- Walk around your neighborhood
- Go to your nearest bookstore, grab a stack of books that interest you, spend at least an hour with a nice coffee reading through them
- Identify one person who has done something you find interesting and send them an email asking them a concise and specific question about how they started down it
These tasks are simple but it will fuel your curiousity immensely.
(2) Start a Saturday Morning Project
A Saturday morning project is a big ambitious project (making people ‘wow!’) that has not external deadlines or outside pressure for your complete. For example: writing a book, grow a blog or launch a business.
The key is to make sure you conduct this project at the same time every week. Saturday is usually a good time because in the morning you will have minimal distraction and you can focus hard. After that you will be able to reward yourself with a great night.
Something that makes progress consistently has a super rewarding vibe to it. It energises you for the rest of the week. So shake loose interesting opportunities as you make progress.
(3) Plan Adventures
Free time can be draining on your energy because you will feel demotivated without anything to do. This must be avoided at all cost.
Instead plan adventures for your free time. In the short term, gather a crowd to see a movie or check our trivia night. Whatever rock your boat, just organize something with a goal that involves other people.
In the long-term, seek out and register to attend as many interesting events as possible. Some of the most interesting people I have met are those who are constantly moving to explore different conference in the next suburb . There is no better way to bathe yourself in positive randomness.
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