Procrastination
Procrastination is a very powerful signal telling you that it is time to involve someone else.
It signals that your path is blocked and that you need help. Will you look for someone who can help, or stand by alone? That is the question.
The larger your personal ambition, the more often and the longer you will experience procrastination. Anyone with ambition procrastinates. It is a default consequence of having a goal far greater than yourself. But for most people procrastination does not produce results. Instead it leads to laziness, regret, and frustration. And when the strength and confidence to push forward run short, ambition soon disappears entirely.
When procrastinating, there are only two options. The most common first approach is to ask yourself, 'How do I do this?' Generally this only makes you procrastinate more. 'How?' is the question society and the public education system have trained us to ask the moment a goal or wish arises. The more effective second option is to shift the question to 'Who can help me do this?'
By the simple method of changing your question, you can stop procrastinating and step out of discouragement. Instead, you will experience an increase in energy, confidence, and creativity. You can also vary this question slightly: 'Who can achieve this goal for me?' Who has the skills, knowledge, network, and expertise to achieve it as fast as possible?
Having an ability does not mean you must use it. Before that, every time you think of a new goal or wish, the question 'who' should pop out automatically. By asking newer and better questions, immediate progress will begin even on your biggest goals. You will make use of other people's time, knowledge, networks, and capabilities, and you will no longer limit possibilities by insisting on doing everything alone.
To eliminate procrastination by asking 'who' rather than 'how', two essential steps are needed.
• Make the goal extremely clear.
• Ask yourself: Who can help me accomplish this goal?
"When you say what you want, and even one person hears you, a productive cycle can begin."
– Joshua Wolf Shenk
Summary. Procrastination
Procrastination arises when, given a goal, you ask 'How?' instead of 'Who?'.
People waste a substantial portion of their lives on procrastination.
Procrastination blocks well-being, brings on the feeling of frustration, and ultimately costs you your ambition, among other negative effects.
Yet, paradoxically, procrastination is a wise act.
Your inner genius is telling you, 'This is an amazing goal. But you are not the right person to do everything related to it!'
Summary. Leadership
Leadership includes articulating a clear vision.
The Impact Filter is written on a single page.
The Impact Filter is a tool that defines a vision or goal and specifies why it matters to everyone involved.
If you have never truly committed to a massive goal, asking 'Who can help me accomplish this?' can be difficult.
There are countless bright and capable people waiting who want to help you.
All they need is to hear and understand your vision.
Cautions
Diligence is a necessary virtue, but it must be handled with care.
Don't miss more important things because you pour effort into work you don't need to do yourself or work you are not good at.
Far too often people treat effort itself as the highest honor.
But when there is someone who can do the work more easily and effectively, why must you, who are not good at it, insist on doing it yourself?
If there is someone who can produce the desired result faster and better, it is far wiser to entrust it to them.
"No one has ever been put at a disadvantage by being humble, attentive, and useful."
From a cost-centered mindset
to an investment-centered mindset
"Only when you stop trying to do everything,
and stop wanting everyone's approval,
can you truly make the greatest contribution to what really matters."
– Greg McKeown
If you are investment-oriented, you will form transformative relationships not only with yourself but with others.
You will take the long view, prepare for the future, and form an ever bigger vision.
By investing in the talent you work with, you will come to see that your future can develop dramatically.
And every decision you make will be transformative rather than transactional.
For example, suppose you take a day off work to spend time with family.
Taking a day off is not a cost going out; it is investing a day in the people you love.
When you shift your focus from cost to investment, you stop worrying about what you are giving up.
Instead you come to see that by making more valuable, more important decisions you can gain enormous returns.
Summary. Investment
"You can survive without a community, but you cannot thrive without one."
If you focus on 'how', your ability to earn money is limited.
Abandon the belief that it is noble always to wrestle with and execute 'how' yourself. It is never noble.
If you focus on 'how', you fixate on scarcity and cost-avoidance and miss the big picture.
Obsessing over 'how' while trying to avoid cost ends up imposing enormous costs on you and your future over the long run.
If you see collaborators as investments rather than costs, you can grow your revenue and profit ten or one hundred times faster.
If you see collaborators as investments rather than costs, you can build transformative relationships, not transactional ones.
In a transformative relationship, everyone receives more than they give.
You must see your own time as an investment, not a cost. Then you can expand your freedom of time, money, relationships, and purpose.
Not perfection but completion—just put it out there
The courage to share fast.
All progress begins by telling the truth.
There is no true 'perfection', only 'completion'. Rather than holding on to work trying to do it perfectly, it is better to complete what you have.
Be fully open, communicate quickly, and ask for help.
"A painful emotion ceases to be painful the moment we picture it clearly and precisely."
– Viktor Frankl, citing Spinoza's Ethics in Man's Search for Meaning
"Anything human can be spoken of, and whatever can be spoken of is easier to handle.
When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.
When we can share that important story with someone we trust, they can remind us that we are not alone." – Mister Rogers
As you push hard toward a goal, there comes a moment when you get stuck.
It may be because you are using too hard a method, or simply because life won't go your way.
At such times, it is better to reveal your feelings faster. The more honestly you open up to those around you, the faster the situation moves forward.
When you are struggling or exhausted, the worst thing you can do is hide it and keep it secret.
When you stop resisting your emotions and are honest about them, you feel less crushed by them.
When you show emotions to others, you can actually see them differently.
If you try to avoid painful feelings, they grow into a larger shadow that swallows you.
But if you face them head-on, you see a way out and gain the strength to move forward.
Dan Sullivan said, "All progress begins by telling the truth."
I learned this lesson while writing this book. The schedule while writing it was tight. For several weeks the work felt a bit overwhelming. But I didn't tell anyone that progress wasn't happening or that the work was too heavy. I just struggled alone, procrastinated, piled up stress, and eventually fell severely ill. If I'd had the 'courage to share faster' about what I wanted, the work would have been much easier.
"Getting results does not take that much time. What eats up time is failing to get results."
Wherever outstanding work is seen, collaboration is happening.
You do not have all the answers. It is wise to admit your ignorance and seek others' perspectives and solutions with an open mind.
Do not get locked inside the project you've taken on and obsess over it. Get feedback quickly and move forward.
Communicate openly and honestly. Ask for help when you need it.
Try to be a hero to those you work with.
Then they will try to be your hero too. And together you will pool your strength and do your best.
Winners help each other; losers compete
Victory comes through collaboration, not competition.
Isolated inside your own goal, the door of opportunity closes.
"An overly self-centered attitude leads to isolation. As a result, loneliness, fear, and anger fill you. Extreme self-centeredness is the source of suffering." – Dalai Lama
From our elementary-school years we were taught that getting help from others is a shortcut. So we are not used to asking colleagues for help or asking to borrow their capabilities. But in business and in life, collaboration is enormously important. Getting help from others not only enables success but also brings deep meaning and a sense of belonging. What we can achieve alone in life is smaller than we think.
When you focus on 'method', you become isolated inside your goal.
The mistaken notion that 100 percent of the responsibility to complete the work lies with you is what drives the focus on method. This may lead to diligence, but ultimately it is unwise. By ordinary means, doing countless tasks and working yourself to death does not bring commensurate reward. What matters is not the process of spending time and effort but the result.
You must produce proper results, not merely work hard. If you are isolated alone inside your goal, your perspective is damaged. You develop a limited view of your own and others' possibilities, and you twist into a cynical person. You fail to recognize others' contributions and at the same time underestimate even your own capacities. You cannot properly grasp what you can do and what you can become.
You even restrict the scope and possibilities. Your vision shrinks, and you focus on what you can do alone. Failing to get along with others is the natural next step. You view others, yourself included, with a dogmatic, inflexible attitude. If you continue like this, your thinking closes up and you cannot grow into a leader or decision-maker.
Even apart from leadership, no one with a self-righteous, narrow perspective is welcomed. In such a state you cannot experience the joy of work, the power of teamwork, or growing success. Beyond that, not only freedom but all possibilities become restricted. What is the solution that keeps you from being isolated inside your goal? To ask, 'Who can help me accomplish this?' All you need is to find the right person for the job.
There is no need at all to feel guilty for not doing everything yourself. Getting help does not make you incompetent or lacking in skill. It is not cheating. And there are plenty of excellent, talented people who want to help with your goals and purposes. There are also plenty of people who want your help for their goals and purposes. Why spend time feeling guilty and frustrated when the right person exists?
Instead of clinging to what you are not good at and capping your own capacity, gladly accept people who are willing to help you and want to help you. Conversely, you can be that kind of person for someone else. Then you will feel grateful that such wonderful people exist.
"The only way to be remembered fondly is to build up the abilities of others."
"Competition is for losers." – Peter Thiel
Humans have survived and flourished because of their ability to communicate and cooperate with other humans. Yet most people have not developed the ability to set a vision, make decisions, become a leader, or build a team.
Over the past 100 years, the culture of the United States in particular has overemphasized and forced competition and its methods. This is because the traditional education system has supported an industrial model.
Instead of teaching students to cooperate, lead, and work collaboratively, it made everything uniform. It taught them to take meaningless ranking tests, fostered a competitive mindset, and failed to properly value the individual. The basis of self-worth was placed on how well one performed against others on tests and assignments. Given this, it is not at all surprising that the dominant culture of American corporations is highly individualistic and competitive rather than collaborative.
According to research by Dr. David Logan, a professor of management at the University of Southern California, most companies have a 'Stage 3 culture'. This culture is summarized as internal competition where each individual steps out only for themselves and, to rise above their colleagues, is willing to do anything, including slander and gossip. Organizations with a 'Stage 4 culture' that emphasizes teamwork and cooperation and focuses on the excellence and qualities of the group rather than the individual are much rarer. In fact, in business and sports, a Stage 4 culture is far more productive and brings greater success than a Stage 3 culture.
Henry David Thoreau famously said in Walden, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." We believe the main reason people live such lives is that they have been taught to think individualistically rather than cooperatively. With rapid changes in technology, information, and globalization, the world is gradually moving away from existing ways of thinking and living.
The teaching methods and principles of the public education system are also being re-examined. More and more people are looking for work that is collaborative, flexible, and meaningful. People who are skilled at forming relationships with mentors, teachers, and partners have a growing chance of creating astonishing wealth and freedom. Moreover, as technology rapidly advances, tasks once performed by specialists are being handled by outsourcing or by machines. No matter how outstanding your technical skills are, in five years those skills may be worthless. But the ability to connect with people, to learn, and to collaborate is becoming more and more valuable in today's society.
We no longer live in a world of 'method' with many limits. Instead, we live in a world where 'collaborators', including technology, deliver faster, larger results and more freedom than ever before. The era of relying only on competition and method is vanishing, and as a result we can generate far more freedom of purpose. We have more choices. It has become easier to find what we want, build a team to support us, and have a visible impact on people across the world.
"The only way to change the present is to change the future."
Summary. Don't ask how to work, ask who to work with
Focusing on 'how' makes your thinking rigid and uncooperative.
Focusing on 'how' brings stress. You are too busy to juggle everything.
Focusing on 'how' isolates you inside your goals and slows progress.
Focusing on 'how' isolates you inside your goals, and your dreams shrink.
'Competition' obstructs creative innovation and limits the future.
'Collaboration' expands the freedom of purpose and vision. Because there are many times more things you can do with others than you can do alone.
'Collaboration' helps you focus on what you want to focus on. And it frees you from feeling guilty about getting help.
'Collaboration' brings better and more astonishing results than planning and working alone, and lets you have a bigger impact.
'Collaboration' expands vision, and thereby expands the freedom of purpose as well.
Other key sentences and keywords
"When you enter a new situation you must know what is non-negotiable."
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