If You Can Do These Four Things You Can Do Anything

Derek Sivers, author of Anything You Want and the person who taught me the benefits of slowing down.

He has a great story about how he always biked to work. Every day he biked as fast as he could to be sure not to waste any time. He had a pedometer connected to his watch so he knew how long it took him each time.

One day, he thought for some reason to slow down and enjoy the ride. It was beautiful, the sites, the sounds; he finally realized how amazing the ride was. Then, when he got to work, he looked down to see how long this trip took him.

Two minutes longer. He was simply two minutes longer than usual, meaning it didn’t really matter. He was rushing all those times for an extra two minutes.

Try slowing down, you never know how happy it might make you. 

Recently on a Tim Ferriss podcast, he had this cool moment where he says, “if you can do these four thing, you can do anything”. And he makes a good argument for each.

1. The skill of managing your state, your emotional actions and reactions.

Understand that you can’t control many situations but you can control your attitude in every situation.

2. Knowing what people need in general and what you need in particular.

Having an understand of humans and how you relate to the pack. Having self awareness as we go about our day interacting with others.

Specially in a time of crisis this in incredibly important.

3. People skills, how to see peoples point of view and how to communicate from their point of view.

Having empathy in everything you do. The more we try and put ourselves in others’ shoes the better we understand their point of view. Communicating the way others want to be communicated to is the future of how you’ll finally get through to your customers.

4. The ability to focus, learn, practice, and apply what you learned.

Learning new things is incredibly valuable. As we become experts we stop trying new things fro fear of failure. That’s why we must fight the expert mindset and remember what it was like to be a kid.

Kids don’t care if they suck at something, they’ll keep trying and trying until they learn it.

Be a kid, focus, learn, practice, and focus a bit more.

Combining a growth mindset, connecting with people, managing how you react to situations and trying to be more self-aware, all create the perfect recipe for approaching any problem, new or old.

Or summed up focus on:

Attitude, Empathy, Relationships, Learning.