🦉 3 Controversial ideas 🦉
You can only control what you understand deeply
Focus on outputs, then inputs.
Many people work hard but don’t achieve much due to a lack of correlation between inputs and outputs. - Andrew Grove
Your calibrated morning routine is the reason you are not productive. Would you be more productive if you started your day with the work that moves the needle instead of taking your morning cold plunge followed by meditation and yoga practice?
Inputs can give us an incorrect signal of productivity. You can find 'busy work' like checking emails and responding to Slack messages. If your outcome is losing weight, then the input needs to be exercising and controlling your food. Researching the best exercise equipment may feel directionally correct and even productive, but it won't result in weight loss.
Stress is the signal that you are alive.
Growth is stressful
Stagnation is stressful
Decline is stressful
So, in a way, stress is the signal that you are alive. It’s the most real reality check of reality. Hidden behind this veil of stress is the opportunity to stay focused and keep plowing toward a better life.
Successful people see opportunity in every failure, while ordinary people see failure in every opportunity. Both are right; only one gets richer. - Alex Hormozi
Imagine the energy, the anxiety, and the stress you will save if you understand that stress is a part of being alive. Not stress from being in a terrible, violent relationship or experiencing a tragedy. But day-to-day stress that is slowly killing us all.
If stress is a prerequisite for reality, then it’s somewhat irrelevant. Stop using stress as the default excuse for not working on things to build a better life.
This is related to the notion of inputs and outputs. Instead of giving into the daily despair of being stressed, focus on the correct inputs to achieve the desired output.
Perspective, context, and how you frame things bend your reality.
Things are not what they are; things are what we think they are - Rory Sutherland.
On your way to a job interview, you will be furious if you miss your train. But, if I told you that the same train caught on fire after leaving the station, your fury would turn into relief from a lucky escape. You experienced a reframing of the same experience.
This is not a new concept. Marketers use it all the time. Marketers know that human consumption is largely based on emotion and seldom on true need. So, they reframe the context to suit their product.
Politicians use the same concept to masterfully manipulate the masses. This is not new, either.
Frederick The Great wanted his fellow Germans to consume potatoes instead of bread so that he could have two crops to hedge against any future famines. But, the Germans hated, no despised, the potato. They won’t even feed potatoes to their dogs. So, Frederick The Great reframed the potato as a food only royals ate. He grew a patch of potatoes that was heavily guarded. This was a masterful PR campaign for the poor ol potato, and you guessed it, the potato was now more popular than the porridge.
Atatürk, the ruler of Turkey in the 1930s, wanted to ban the face veil in Turkey. Instead of dropping the hammer and banning the face veils, he made it mandatory for all street prostitutes to wear a face veil. You know what happened next.
Reframing bends the reality.
How can you use it in your life?
As mentioned above, successful people see opportunity in every failure.
Spend some time reframing your current challenges to create a positive perspective around them.
Rather than choosing a default version of reality, reframe it to a better one.
Source: Alex Hormozi, an entrepreneur and educator who reached 100 million + in net worth by the age of 32, shared some controversial truths on Modern Wisdom Podcast
Hope you found this useful,
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Thanks for a very well written article. I like to check my life from different perspectives.
The same story told from a zebra or a lion sounds very different...🤔