Rosamund tells a wonderful story early in the boo
k about TOSE TO NOES! She repeats it so many times you HAVE to remember it. But the lesson is, in a stressful situation you aren’t going to have time to think, you must just “do”. A reminder like “Toes to Noes!” serves as an order if something bad happens. And sure enough, she falls out of the boat and the first thing that comes to mind is TOES TO NOES! In that moment it may have saved her life.
Remember, we don’t rise to the expectation, we fall back on our training.
When Benjamin started learning a new music piece as a child, he remembered this story.
After about three minutes of struggling to learn a new piece of music on the piano, he sat unamused and dejected from his toils. His music professor approaches him and says: “You mean, you’ve been playing for THREE MINUTES and you STILL haven’t mastered it?” In an exaggerated tone of course. Benjamin remembered this moment fondly.
Are you putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to achieve something that isn’t humanly possible?
Don’t take yourself too seriously. that’s it. All troubles in work, life, and social situations, all come down to this rule. And only this rule. Taking yourself too seriously increases your blood pressure, and it makes you miserable. When plans change you get angry instead of letting it roll off you like water on a duck’s back.
Stop taking yourself so seriously. Oh, you’re a professional? You wear fancy clothes, drive a nice car, and work in a beautiful office? Stop taking yourself so seriously. People don’t want to approach you because you even SMELL intimidating!
Stop taking yourself so seriously. Life’s to short not to enjoy yourself. Remember what Ferriss Buhler said? “Remember, if you take life too seriously, you’ll never get out alive.
Nearly everyone lives in The Measurement World without realizing it. Everything we do is based on measurement in our lives. How much money we make, whether our team wins, how beautiful our spouse is. Everything is based on some form of measurement. But we’ve invented all these measurements. Everything is invented. Everything is made up.
It’s all invented. Everything in life is an invention. The way we see things. The way we measure things. The way we compete. The way we judge ourselves.
It’s all made up. So why care so much? Why base your life on other people’s opinions of you? Reminding yourself that it’s all invented keeps you grounded, maybe even more so during major successes. It’s a way to justify that what you’re experiencing is all made up and in an instant could be taken away.
So enjoy yourself. Be like Stan Lee. Every time Stan got to take the stage when Marvel was touring around the world he’d say to his friend who was there with him “Aren’t we lucky? Us two guys getting to do THIS?” Stan was humble until the day he died.
If it’s all invented, then you might as well invent a way of viewing life that benefits you. You might as well invent a frame of possibility.
This is Steve Job’s reality distortion field. He had a belief that took over, that he made into reality. It’s all made up, so you may as well make up a fun narrative about your world, it is yours after all.
How much greatness do we expect of those around us? It matters. Giving an “A” means exactly that, give strangers an “A”, and give them the benefit of the doubt. Meaning, see the positive in people and assuming the best about them. If they are mean or rude view it as an exception to the rule, like they’re normally not like this, and they may have some sort of disease.
Expecting the best out of people isn’t a new concept. We’ve known about this since 1968 when the Rosenthal and Jacobson study was released. We live up to the expectations people (teachers, bosses, managers, parents) give us.
In university in my favourite class, Sale Force Management with Al Derges, he gave us a handout on the first week and told us every Harvard Undergraduate gets this case study when they arrive at Harvard. The now famous case study, “Pygmalion in Management” references the play Pygmalion in which Eliza Doolittle mentions she’ll only ever be whatever her master expects of her, nothing more.
In the working world this means generally, whatever you expect of your team, new hire, or intern, that is what they will become. Giving people an “A” is a subtle way of expecting more from people because you hold them in such high regard.
Try it for yourself. Next time you meet someone, and in your mind you say, “I don’t need to care about this person” try instead to assume “this is a very important person” and see how you change your demeanor.
We all could give people an “A” more often. If you automatically assume the best and give everyone an “A” in life, then you let the best come out in them and you remove a lot of the barriers that have been the relationship back.
If you’re worried about making a mistake then you probably are taking yourself too seriously. Remember rule 6. When you are performing or have a performance coming up, don’t let the nerves get to you. Imagine something so ridiculous if you mess up and it may just change your attitude about how you perform.
What do you have to change in your mind to make this assumption correct? Redraw the box in your mind to create a reference frame that embraces the way things actually are and allows you to see them in a new way. Everything in life is based on your reference frame. Look at things in a new way and suddenly your problems fade away. Remember, you live in the world of possibility, not the measurement world!
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