Things seen by Shane Reiser

Many of the strategies employed in competitive and recreational sports are applicable in business and our personal lives. One lesson I learned from alpine ski racing was the “40-30-30 Rule.” During training, early on, I tried to go fast, and I also focused on not falling. On a ride up the ski lift, my coach told me I was missing the point. He explained that success in ski racing, or most sports for that matter, was only 40% physical training. The other 60% was mental. And of that, the first 30% was technical skill and experience. The second 30% was the willingness to take risks. With ski racing, specifically, that meant taking the risk of leaning harder into turns, balancing at a steeper angle to the slope, and placing greater pressure on the outside ski edge – all of which increased the chance of falling. My coach explained, though, that if I wasn’t falling at least once a day in training, I wasn’t trying hard enough. Indeed, to improve at anything, we must at some point push ourselves outside our comfort zone. Body builders call it the “pain period.” Only by trying something new, struggling, learning, and then trying again do we improve our performance. It’s a simple matter of acclimating to unchartered territory.

To improve at anything, we must at some point push ourselves outside our comfort zone.

And when we come out the other side, we often can’t help but wonder why we were so timid in the first place. Questioning this fear is not unfounded. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has shown 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 fail a contest, they consistently overestimate how awful they’ll feel and how long they’ll feel awful.” In other words, “we overestimate the intensity and duration of our distress in the face of future adversity.”

While we tend to focus solely on building our skill sets or expanding our knowledge, the greatest advancement and learning most often comes from action, experience, and taking risk. And our regrets in life reflect this. According to Gilbert, studies show that “in the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did.”

Although playing it safe makes sense in some professions such as financial services and healthcare, for our own creative development, we need to focus on the last 30%. Our inhibitions have evolved to protect us, but, in many cases, they limit us. The challenge is to rebalance our nature. Ultimately, it’s the ones who barrel through the discomfort, are resilient in the face of failure, and master the last 30% of taking risk who reach the highest levels of performance.

Lifestyle Creep

It is a very subtle occurrence that is closely related to the “Keeping Up With the Joneses” phenomenon. It happens so quickly that you don’t notice until it’s too late.

First, there’s an initial event…

You earn a promotion or raise at work, receive a windfall, or free up a little cash flow by paying off a lingering debt.

Then, of course, you have to congratulate yourself. Except, the one time celebration continues.

Feeling the wiggle room, you begin dining out more often and attending more social activities that don’t seem too expensive.

Next thing you know, you’re shopping in more upscale stores because you think you can afford better quality. Yes, you’ve adopted the mantra that more expensive equals better. Besides, you loved _____’s new shoes/handbag/sweater/etc. and you must have one.

Next up is a new car. You’ve changed your style, so you have to keep up with all other outside appearances. Actually, you tell yourself you want one because you can “afford” it now. The truth is, you really can’t, but you think your college car looks raggedy compared to your friends’ luxury cars.

Now, as you park your brand new car in front of your old apartment, you think your place is a dump, so you decide to redecorate for a new and refreshed look.

After you finish redecorating, you throw a dinner party to show off. By the end of the night, your apartment feels way too small and you hate your neighbors for blasting their strange music all night. So you make a mental note to begin searching for a bigger place on the better side of town.

Instead of looking for a bigger/better apartment, you find yourself in the car with a Realtor looking at houses because your friends have convinced you that paying rent is a waste of money. Everyone else owns a home, so you should too.

And the cycle continues…

Are you guilty of lifestyle creep?

I have been and it was a constant internal battle. Want to know how I fixed my problem? I found some poor(er than me) friends! LOL! No, I’m just kidding. Next post, I’ll explain what I did (and continue to do) to avoid lifestyle creep and maintain self control.

The One-Month Launch

On its own, “just launch it” is pretty crappy advice. After all, launching a big project can be scary. Often, the way people deal with that fear is to spend months locked in circular planning cycles instead of taking action. Perhaps they hope that, if they put things off long enough, the wind might change and all their problems will be carried up the chimney on the breeze, like watching Mary Poppins in reverse.

What happens instead is this: The Plan consumes them. Their business becomes the business plan. Their company, grand scheme, or trip around the world never happens.

The problem with planning:
There are times when plans are worth making. But, more often than not, they’re simply a waste of time. There is no watertight plan. Leaking is part of life.

A week after you’ve stapled your 50 pages of slaved-over manuscript complete with five-year projections, it will be almost meaningless. Planning is a dynamic thing – there is no such thing as a finished plan. You can’t print it out and be done. You have to plan while you’re running your business and adapting to the environment, not before you even know if it’s going to work or not.

A week after you’ve ‘finished’ your plan, your competition will have adapted; that ski resort will have been booked up; a new product will have changed the game; those designer stilettos you saw in Oxfam will be out of fashion.

How to launch faster:
Forget great big lists. Forget what you know about business. Forget start-up school. Forget plans. Forget endless preparation. Forget the “what ifs?” and the “but what abouts?” When it comes to launching fast and reducing fear, there’s only one rule you need to remember.

To make it easier, I’ve cut it down to three words and spent four whole seconds of my life making sure that the only rule you need to remember very nearly rhymes:

Less is best.

It couldn’t be less complex, could it? But it’s true: less is best. Here’s why.

The magic of less:
When you reduce your launch time to one month and force yourself to start thinking in terms of less instead than more, the magic of less flutters into life:2

* Less means no excuses to sit around dreaming
* Less means you can make it better later
* Less means less unnecessary planning
* Less means less emotional investment
* Less means less procrastination
* Less means less perfectionism
* Less means less upfront costs
* Less means less to go wrong
* Less means less questions
* Less means less decisions
* Less means less features
* Less means less risk
* Less really is best

What are you waiting for? Dream. Scheme. Simplify. You’ve got a month to launch something. Anything! Just make it something that you love.