Phil Garland

When do most people take vacations? In the summer. Holiday weekends. Spring break.

When do most people work? Monday thru Friday, 9 am to 5 pm

How do most people spend their mornings and evenings? In traffic.

What do most people use for cleaning in their houses? Showers. Dishwashers. Washers.

What do all of these have in common?

There’s a better option!

I’d like to summarize betters option for all four questions posed.

• Vacation Planning – If you’ve ever traveled to a tourist destination during “off-season” then you’ll know it’s far cheaper when everyone else isn’t trying to go. Some of that might be weather related, like visiting Southeast Asia during monsoon season or visiting Florida in the summer, but traveling during non-peak times is far cheaper and probably the better option.
• Working Monday – Friday, 9 – 5 – This one ties into the traffic equation, but it’s still questionable that everyone is most productive during normal office hours. Not following the 9-5 workday would allow people to work during their most productive hours whether they’re larks, owls or hummingbirds.
• Traffic – If we were all on different schedules then we wouldn’t have as many cars on the road at the same time. Adapting to remote work is also a better option (at least a couple days a week).
• Cleaning Houses – Although it may seem like our showers clean our bodies, our dishwashers clean our dishes, and our washers clean our clothes, they actually have gotten worse over the years. There are tons of better options, but bureaucracy stands in the way.

Society is Slow to Change

All of these have alternatives to make the situation better. However, none of us have solutions to all of these questions. Even if we’ve tackled some of them, we haven’t tackled improved plumbing in our houses. Society, especially society supported by bureaucracy, is very slow to change.

Even when better options exist, it’s hard to make these options a reality. As technology progresses faster and faster, it’ll be interesting to see if society implements better options or we stick to our norms.

 

I posted on Facebook the other day that I’m nearing 80,000 words written in the past seven months. Additionally, this is my 200th blog post. Although those numbers seem pretty staggering, at least to me, they have taken SEVEN months to get to. I’m still not an amazing writer, I don’t have a big blog following, and I rarely think my words are having a huge impact. But writing every day (or every weekday) has taught me so many lessons on forming habits and resisting resistance.

Checkmark Resistance

Slowly, I have been able to turn my ideas into words. When I’m really in a groove I can turn my thoughts into beautiful prose. Most of the time I don’t get to achieve groove “status” and settle on sub-par writing (at least in my standards). But the point that I am trying to get at is every day that I write is another day to check the box next to “Write a Blog Post Today.” There is so much value that comes from that little check box. It’s also important in other aspects of life whether it be completing a book or flossing before bed.

Forming Habits of Taking Small Steps to Big Outcomes

Some tasks may seem daunting, but if you break them down into chewable pieces, and take steps forward daily, eventually you arrive at staggering outcomes. For example, me writing 80,000 words. I couldn’t have imagined I was capable of writing that many words, but over time it’s become a part of my daily life. I have also read 10 books this year, surpassing my total from last year, and it’s only March. I plan on reading at least 30 books in 2017 and hopefully more. All of these come down to forming habits and resisting resistance.

Before blogging I had an idea of what habit formation looked like. It was unclear, a spaghetti approach (throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks). But habit formation from blogging has given me a proof of concept approach to making it actually happen. Blogging has taught me the importance of continuing to do, even on my off days. Instead of looking at daunting tasks as stuff I may never accomplish, I look at it as a massive puzzle that I won’t complete until I put the first two pieces together. Slowly, but surely, I’ll connect the dots and achieve my wildest dreams.

Today I read a post by Derek Magill The Best Investment I’ve Ever Made: Why Strategic Spending is Better than Passive Saving. It reminded me of a time I spent $30 on a Google Mail Merge which saved me over 30 hours of time.

Spending For Efficiencies

The thought never crossed my mind to claim my purchase for an expense reimbursement. I also never asked permission. I saw a problem and a mail merge was the easiest solution available. Dealing with bureaucracy to get a $30 purchase pushed into the budget seemed wasteful. All I needed was the time-savings the purchase would create.

Spending on a mail merge taught me a simple lesson: Spending for efficiencies, which will save time (time is money, right?), is worth it.

Don’t ask for permission. Spend on efficiencies.

Part of philosophy is breaking down situations into separate parts and looking to see if the statement flow is logical. In the abstract that looks like:

If A
And if B
Then C must be true

A more concrete example is: If I’m a man, and I have brown hair, then I am a man with brown hair. At the same time, we can check if a statement is false by using the same framework. If the conclusion is I am a man with blonde hair but statement B says I’m a man with brown hair, then this conclusion is false.

Philosophy is a way to break statements down in order to arrive at the truth. Even if both the abstract and the more concrete examples don’t make much sense, don’t worry. Philosophy is kind of hard to make sense of, but today I had a practical example.

Client Assertions Aren’t Always True

Today I had a client email their assessment of a particular situation that went something like this:

I’m having trouble with this software. It’s because of the version I’m using, right?

In a moment of high-speed responses I looked at the way the question was posed, and my understanding of the software, and agreed with the client’s conclusion. Upon further inspection I realized the client had led me astray, I fell into a logical fallacy trap.

Basically, the client said:

If A
Then B

Looking at it quickly, I said, “Yes, you’re right.”

But the client wasn’t right because A and B weren’t even related. Instead, the issue was a little more complicated and required doing a little bit of research. By following a logical fallacy that I had assumed was correct, I was led to making a mistake. I remedied the situation in a timely manner, but learned an even more valuable lesson: Don’t always trust the client to follow logical steps correctly.

Fixing the issue required thinking through the steps, surveying the possible solutions, and doing the task myself. In the future, I know to trust my ability to guide myself through logical steps, even if the answer seems to be apparent. After all, the client’s not always right…

This winter I have spent quite a few days on the slopes, seven so far and probably more to come. At the beginning of the season, I was timid, scared of wiping out and only looking to go down only the easy slopes. As the season’s progressed, so too have my abilities. I can now manage more difficult blues, and make my way down black diamonds, but it didn’t come out of luck. Although I’ve had instructions, most of my improvement has been self-taught and a good portion of it comes from asking questions.

Falling and Being Out of Control

We all know the number one fear of skiing is wiping out and a) making a fool out of ourselves or b) having a serious injury. My biggest fear of falling is the fear that it happens because I lose control. If I’m not in control of myself jetting down a mountain who knows where I might end up. The first thing I taught myself was how to stay under control, and how to regain control when I lose it.

With not losing control my top priority, I started questioning every turn. Was that right? If it was, what did it feel like? When did I start my next turn? When I’d lose control, I’d ask what could I have done differently? Everything was a question of what am I doing right/wrong, and what can I do to make myself better.

Asking these questions have been valuable in my improvement on the slopes, but also is something I do regularly in day-to-day life.

Ask Yourself Questions Daily

Teaching yourself valuable lessons requires asking yourself questions at all times. No matter what’s going on with your life, questions will always bring improvement. Maybe it’s not improving an ability like skiing, but no matter what you want to improve, questions will help lead you to success.

The Lottery Mentality in a nutshell: “One day, when I win the lottery, I’m going to buy a nice car, live in a mansion, and marry a beautiful spouse.”

Some people seem to believe they’ll find fulfillment in their lives if only something happens that allows for it, like winning the lottery. They forget to see the fallacy in their logic, but still, believe that happiness will come from a lucky set of circumstances. After following many entrepreneurs, reading a multitude of business books, and seeing how successful businesses are run, that mentality couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Create-My-World Mentality

Instead of having a lottery mentality, all successful people have a mentality that they’ll create the world they want to live in. If they perceive success will come from starting a business in a certain field, they start a business in that field. If they see infinite riches in their future, much like the winnings from a lottery, they’ll go about finding ways to make it happen. They don’t cross their fingers and hope the balls fall in their favor, they create the world they want to live.

Life Isn’t About Getting Lucky

A lot of people seem to have a belief that one day their dreams will come true. They don’t have a plan of action or steps to take to get there, they simply believe their ideal future will eventually come true. That is The Lottery Mentality.

The life you want doesn’t come from a lucky break, it comes from hard work, dedication, and creating that life for yourself. Dreams don’t have to be overly ambitious, but they do need to be solidified by a plan to get there. You’ll never achieve dreams by believing they’ll “just” come true, you’ll achieve your dreams by taking steps forward every day towards your ideal future.

If you want your life to look a certain way, stop thinking you’ll win the lottery and start putting the odds in your favor through meaningful actions.

Dream!

A “Gut” Decision

Ever get that gut feeling that something’s right or something’s terribly wrong? Well, that feeling isn’t coming from your gut, it’s coming from your limbic brain.

We don’t make decisions based on our what our stomach feels. We make decisions on what our oldest piece of the brain believes. It’s the best at making fight or flight decisions and knowing when something “feels” right or wrong. What so many of us believe to be a feeling is merely our evolved brain coming to a split second decision.

Sales Requires Pitching to the Limbic Brain

In Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff refers to the limbic brain as a “croc” brain. Basically, he’s claiming we make decisions with the brain that evolved from prehistoric times. The croc brain is the most important piece to the puzzle when trying to sell something to a potential buyer. Although you may be able to pitch WHAT the product is, or HOW it’ll benefit their lives, the croc brain only listens to the WHY.

Selling is important to everyone which makes the limbic brain important to everyone. We don’t make decisions on hard data or all facts, we make decisions based on the limbic brain’s desires. Everything we want in life, and everything others want in life, is based on their feelings.

When Making Decisions, Listen to Your Limbic Brain

Next time you’re trying to get someone to make a decision or make a decision yourself, rely on your “gut” decision. Although you might want to believe that’s your gut speaking, it’s really the oldest brain you possess. The evolutionary wisdom within your brain is far greater than the facts and data you might fill it with.

Don’t Do Stuff You Hate, Start with WHY. Lessons from Isaac Morehouse and Simon Sinek.

Don’t Do Stuff You Hate

This isn’t a lesson in don’t do stuff. This is a lesson of giving lots of things a try and finding out if you like it or not. It’s also not a lesson in don’t do stuff that’s hard. Usually, the hardest stuff is the most rewarding. Don’t do stuff you hate is a lesson in finding your passion by eliminating the stuff that isn’t getting you there. The lesson: Instead of struggling with the routine nature of life, start tossing things out that aren’t meaningful. By becoming a minimalist in habits and lifestyles, you allow yourself time to grow the things you’re most passionate about.

Without avoiding things because you might hate them, try lots of new things and reflect on their capabilities to make you feel fulfilled. As soon as you learn it doesn’t make you come alive or doesn’t have the potential to make you come alive, chuck it out and continue searching. Eventually, throwing out the stuff you hate will light up your passions so bright that they’re impossible to ignore.

Start With WHY

Part of the path is learning what you hate, stop doing that stuff, and start pursuing your passion. The other part of the path is to start asking yourself WHY. Both asking yourself WHY you’re passionate about something and WHY you do what you do. By starting your exploration with WHY, you are sure to figure out what makes you come alive and start with a true-bearing north. When you get stuck, or the going gets tough, you’ll know the direction to travel. Without knowing your WHY, your passion is wasted. Instead, make sure you couple them together because WHY is what will get you through the toughest times.

When you’re doing stuff you don’t love, but know you need to do, WHY will be your most important motivator.

A question I have been grappling with for quite some time is why people get praise/admiration for working long hours. One reason I believe is because it’s easy to quantify hard work. “I’ve worked 12-hour days since I can remember,” is basically saying “I hustle 100% of the time.” But scientists have found that working non-stop is bad for us, and we’re really only capable of a maximum of 45 hours of productivity a week. So why then do people continue to “work hard.”

Working Smart Isn’t as Rewarding

When I have my best workdays, Pareto efficient, I knock a ton of stuff off the to-do list. I also find my best days are when I work eight hours or less, but cram a ton into the day. A lot of times, at the end of the day, I might knock a lot off my to-do list, but a nagging feeling of “I could’ve done more” remains.

I believe part of that is we’ve been trained to believe hours quantify success. It’s believed the person who puts in the most hours is the person most passionate about what they’re doing, and thus, eventually, they’ll lead a path to success. At the end of the day, the person burning the midnight oil to achieve their goal can quantify how much time they spent producing their outputs.

Conversely, when we spend time working smart, it’s much harder to quantify work. A lot of my working smart projects take time, they’re long-term projects, and the bearer of success on these projects is far off (a month, three months, even a year or two away). This means when I work smart I (a) don’t know if my work will lead to success, and (b) what quantifies as rewarding. I  try to make the quantifier on how good I feel, but it’s far more ambiguous than “I worked 12 hours today.”

Work Smart, Feel Accomplished, Live for Tomorrow

Although it’s counterintuitive to the daily “hustlers,” I have a mindset to work smart, feel accomplished, and live for tomorrow. Each day is both a fight for the best outcome for today, but also striving for a better, energized tomorrow. There isn’t a quantifier that I can reference to know if I’m going in the right direction beyond “this feels right,” but that’s all I can go off of.

If I don’t keep the work smart, feel accomplished, and live for tomorrow mindset, then I fall into the trap of working “hard” for the sake of working hard. For me, I want an accomplished life, but I refuse to make the quantifier the hours I work. Instead, I try to quantify my life in the way that I feel, as hard as that is to judge.