A bitcoin whale is a term in the cryptocurrency world to refer to someone that holds a large amount of bitcoin.
That is how change works too.
It isn’t 20% of the population doing 80% of the work. More like 2% of the population doing 98%.
The bottom line is that you don’t need everyone to influence the world. Only a small amount of true believers who really are thirsty for something great to happen.
Why do we say the word Just?
Why don’t we just say, “Do it.”
Do it because it is important.
Do it because it matters.
Just, on the other hand, sends the signal, “What the hell.”
Here’s the thing, we don’t need a narrative around shipping our work.
This blog will ship today because it is a Tuesday. Because that is what professionals do.
Do it.
Merely do it.
Only do it.
But just do it?
Nope.
Your work is more intentional than throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks.
Act accordingly.
If I were to go out of my way to tell you,
“I’m not good enough”
“This won’t work”
“I’m not ready”
…then I wouldn’t need you to tear me down.
Too often, we would rather choose to self-destruct than to open ourselves up to criticism. To share what is in our hearts and souls.
Because when we put everything we got on the table and it’s still not enough, we’re crushed.
Indeed, the fear of failure plays a more powerful role than we like to admit in our culture.
Without taking risks, making assumptions no one will ever love or hate your work.
And if no one loves it and hates it, then you are not doing much of anything.
The problem isn’t that there isn’t enough time in our day to accomplish important things. The problem is that we don’t set aside enough energy to do them.
We focus an enormous amount of energy on busywork. A never-ending checklist of emails, phone calls, chores, bills…reacting from one emergency to the next.
So, let’s be clear: We have a clock management problem, not a lack of time problem.
“I didn’t have time.” No.
More accurately, “I didn’t think it was important enough to do right now.” Bingo.
If we really considered it important we would do it. Be careful what you consider is important.
Do you believe that when people wake up in the morning that they are doing the best they can?
It’s a fascinating question that, apparently, people are very split on. Half of the respondents say Yes while the other half says No.
For the No’s, it really comes down to is this:
Who hurt you?
We become so attached to specific outcomes that when we see our efforts are not working the way we think they should, we begin to feel despondent.
It seems so human, right? To talk about our efforts counting twice as much as others.
When we can morn the loss of a world that could have been, and start to accept things as they are, that people are generally good and want to do the best they can—we begin to open doors of possibility.
If we live in a world where everyone was to be given the benefit of the doubt, that they are doing the best they can, we will, in turn, become happier.
It’s about finding a new way to measure. Focusing on the goal rather than the ideal.
HT Brene Brown for continuing to bring important lessons of our time to the table again and again.
Robin Dunbar theorized that the size of our brains affected the number of relationships one could maintain in their social groups.
That number is roughly 150.
Only 150 people at one given time can you maintain a stable relationship with. That isn’t that many.
Then why do we focus so much of our limited attention on gaining favor with the masses?
What if instead, we made it a priority to take care of the 150 people around us?
You could spend more time making the relationship better with your boss or a long lost family member or your neighbor…instead of looking for other relationships to fill the void.
It’s seductive to talk about the masses because they are so big, so massive, how on earth are you to even begin? But if we were to shrink it down to focus on making our world a better place instead of the entire world, we can begin building the kind of culture we seek to make.
If you can’t change 150 people, how are you to change a million?
I’ve talked about the fascinating research of Barry Schwartz and the paradox of choice. Simply stated, the more choices you have the more unhappy you are. Why? Because you can imagine the other thing you didn’t choose.
I’ve also talked about the default setting and why they matter. When you go to the grocery store and choose to buy cookies, you are now choosing which snack you are going to have later. Another way to think about this is the default station in your car. There is a dial right next to it to search for music, and yet, we go to the default setting.
Indeed, cognitive load is real.
There is a third thing to consider about the illusion of choice. That when you go to the store, you are likely to find 100 different types of toothpaste to choose from.
The interesting thing is that the majority of toothpaste is created by only three brands. Crest, Colgate and Sensodyne make up over 50% of the market. And the same is said about the cereal you eat (four companies control 85% of the market share) to the car you drive (59% by four companies).
Is it any surprise then, that the US has less choice, higher bills and slower internet? Or that 100 companies have been the source of more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.
In a paradoxical manner, we have created this market that the more choice you have the less you are able to choose from.
Choice isn’t about which flavor of toothpaste but who made it.
Is that you think you can make yourself happy.
That with more money, less weight, better title, more status…that somehow we will finally be happy.
It’s the lie that marketers sell and one we are so desperate to believe.
The good news is the opposite is true.
The truth is, you can make other people happy.
Happiness when shared.
Within the first few seconds of your presentation, the audience has already decided whether or not this is something they need to tune into.
The rest of your presentation is spent, confirming everything they already believe.
When we squander the first few moments by saying, “Hi, my name is Josh Allred. I’m here to tell you how to do presentations better.” You are sending the wrong signal to your audience.
And now…
You’ve lost your chance to connect with the ones that could have been persuaded.
Presentations are meant to change the world. Otherwise, why are you doing them?
Act. With more care.
Most of us hold an ideal of what we think tomorrow’s world should look like. We create expectations around these ideals and begin to set up goals to help them manifest.
The problem is that we set the bar so high, we construct a utopia with no mistakes, no blemishes; we forget you can’t create a perfect world.
It’s a destination that can never actually be reached.
Instead of spending our time making something perfect, what if instead we used our time to make things better? What if we could use our ideal as a compass to help set our goals?
Goals have a beginning and an end. They are fixed and measurable, which means they are attainable.
Dan Sullivan has an interesting take on this, called the gap and the gain:
The gap is simply measuring your goals to the ideal rather than focusing on the gains you’ve made from the start to your goal.
When we measure progress to the ideal, it’s easy to become discouraged. It never feels like progress is ever made. But when we can see that we have taken a step forward, by measuring the gain, it gives us the motivation to take another.
It is why so many of us fail to diet. We measure what our bodies should ideally look like and forget to look at the progress we have made. It’s just as easy to do this as a parent or as a writer…
We often measure ourselves by how we are moving forward. But what we should be doing is measuring progress by looking backwards.
Destroy the perfect, the perfect world we have constructed in our heads, and enable the impossible.
HT Dan Sullivan. Worth watching his theory of measuring success over and over again.
