To Gain Maximum Returns in Life, Seek Asymmetry. 8 Lessons From 3 High Net Worth Builders.
⚡️ Today’s level up ⚡️
An asymmetrical life is playing to win, not to not lose. That takes bold moves. This edition unpacks learnings from former high-end revenue generators (SaaS, consulting, and finance) who each generated an 8-figure+ sum personal net worth after experiencing trials and tribulations. Now they have the freedom to evolve and shape their time around the things they deem most important.
Let’s go!
Read time: <5 minutes
If you missed last week’s edition, read it here.
8 things they all agree on
1. Success is not linear
2. You have to do your thing
3. It all starts with your mindset
4. Write the story you want to create
5. To win big, you have to do hard things
6. Create systems to accomplish big goals
7. Stay patient and give yourself enough time to win
8. Your non-working time is as valuable as your working time
Let’s unpack each one.
1. Success is not linear
Anyone in the revenue generation business is uniquely positioned to leverage entrepreneurial tendencies to generate generational wealth.
Take it from a former colleague, and now a good friend, Rick who was adopted and raised in the middle of Oklahoma to go on and parlay selling men’s suits in his local town to becoming a trader to becoming a failed entrepreneur to eventually being a hyper-creative and successful seller and global division leader in SaaS:
“Struggle builds success.”
There will (and should) be ups and downs throughout your career. The lessons you learn on the way up should be used to help you when you experience a dip.
Ask yourself: What big struggle did I overcome recently? What can I learn from it?
2. You have to do your thing
Graham, a former consultant turned VC who just gave Stanford’s final lecture for the year, states it like this:
“Life is suffering. So figure out something worth suffering for.”
The revenue generation world will chew you up and spit you out if you don’t have a personal why driving you forward. It’s this innate obsession that grows a power in you over time – like a muscle getting trained – it’ll develop bigger if you actually like showing up to do the necessary work.
Ask yourself: What is worth suffering for?
3. It all starts with your mindset
Upgrading how you think is necessary to try big, bold things or pick yourself up after a major collapse. Learn from Ron, a former Goldman Sachs partner turned investment hedge fund head:
“When things bust, you must be radically candid with yourself.”
It takes mental strength and resilience to understand what’s truly important and focus on that masterfully. To overcome obstacles, you need the skillset to make high-quality decisions. To handle pressure, you need a mind that understands the bigger game.
Ask yourself: What’s one area that causes me stress or fear of failure? How can I think about it differently? (Try the inverse)
4. Write the story you want to create
Graham hired his first coach during the 2008 Great Recession, and he had him suspend all details and self-doubts on how to transform one of his worst-performing portfolio businesses.
But they did just that – they wrote the ideal state first and worked backward step-by-step based on everything that had to be done to design the ultimate company he wrote about.
“No matter where you are in your life right now, you can write a new story.”
Ask yourself: What does my ideal meeting, account win, client, or side business look like? Write it down without thinking about the how. Once you have it written perfectly, write down the how steps.
5. To win big, you have to do hard things
So much of the way society is designed, it’s all built to make us seek comfort. But to achieve really big things in this life, you’ll have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Graham reminds us that because success is not linear (lesson 1), things go down before they go up, so “everything you want is on the other side of worst first.”
“When you get comfortable being uncomfortable, you can have nearly anything you want in this life.”
Ask yourself: What makes me really uncomfortable? What’s one small step I can take to face it and do that thing?
6. Create systems to accomplish big goals
I once believed that winning big in life was down to raw talent, luck, or connections. Once I was forced to climb out of steep valleys, like bankruptcy, I had forced constraints that taught me to systematically and step-by-step work on rebuilding my credit and growing my net worth from a bad spot.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
Ask yourself: What does my ideal month, week, and day look like? How can I design it and use systems to make it come to life (knowing it’s not about achieving it 100%, but developing a North Star for the life you want).
7. Stay patient and give yourself enough time to win
Graham says it beautifully:
“The equation for returns is X = (1+R)^N, where N is quadratic. Consider this equation where X represents your competence in any given role. The R represents everything you’re doing to improve yourself: coaching, reading, learning, writing out your goals, using your imagination, etc.
The most powerful part of the equation is the N, the number of years you are in your role. If you love what you do, you will do it for a long time, and your N will be large. And if you improve at a reasonable rate over a long period, you can become the best in the world at what you do.”
“There is almost no obstacle that won’t yield to you at full power for a decade.”
Ask yourself: Am I doing work I could do every day for a decade? What about just the next 3 years? Pass the 3-year test and you’re in a valuable spot – keep going. If not, there is no shame in moving on.
8. Your non-working time is as valuable as your working time
When Rick was young and making a lot of money, he regrets the time wasted in bars having expensive drinks and smoking cigars. Playing the status games didn’t get him any further in life – instead, it took him further away from what was really important.
“Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.”
Ask yourself: What’s a bad or unhealthy habit in my life that serves no purpose? How can I make it easier to eliminate it?
Use this simple framework to help across all 8
Here’s a great exercise to do:
- Take out a piece of paper
- Draw a line at the top
- Above the line, write “Standards”
- Draw a line at the bottom
- Below the line, write “Expectations”
- Tape it somewhere you will see it often.
Why is this framework so effective?
In every situation you face and every decision you make, if you only focus on raising your standards and lowering your expectations, you create the widest gap possible for success and satisfaction – on your terms. Design all of the principles you use for making decisions always to be pointed at raising your standards higher (”how do I make this the best meeting of their year?”) and your expectations lower (”the worst that can happen is they don’t do business with us.”)
Try it!
BTW, I was able to invite Rick to join our last Make More Hustle Less Club Monday session. It was so insightful we went over for an additional 45 minutes to answer all the questions. For members, the video is waiting for you in your hub page (MMHL 17). If you’re not a member, join here.
See you next week!
🐝
Here’s how I can help you right now:
1 | Unlock the 7 Figure Seller OS
Learn how to use design and systems thinking to become a 7 figure seller. There are 3 options to allow you to customize your learning journey.
2 | Download The 7 Figure Open Letter
Get the creative strategic selling strategy that landed a $5.9M deal with a top 4 major global airline. Bonus inside!
3 | Book a 1:1 coaching session right now
You can book a 60-minute coaching session with me (although the Pro above option provides access to 1:1 coaching with me at a 70% discount.