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Shane Parrish shared five types of hard work that I loved, but will apply toward a different outcome, achieving competitive advantage and success in life.

Five ways to achieve competitive advantage and success in life:

1. Outthink Others
2. Give more effort than others
3. Be more opportunistic
4. Be more consistent
5. Focus and prioritize more

Outthink Others

Use mental models. Update them regularly as life gives you feedback. Always test what you think compared to reality. Better thinking, decision-making, planning, and strategy over time will put you in position to stand out from average and take advantage of opportunities when they come (see #3).

Give More Effort

Work more and harder than others. I’m not talking about a competition composed solely of hours, but I am talking about putting in the effort and care to be great. And being great requires more effort. Always look for smarter ways to work, efficiencies, but don’t kid yourself that working hard for 4 hours a day will put you on the top of your game. Excellence requires time and quality repetition.

Be More Opportunistic

Position yourself to take advantage of change, i.e. a promotion at work, real estate prices dropping because the economy just tanked, etc. comes from better thinking, decision-making, planning, strategy, and behaviors over time that has improved your ability to spot opportunities, to have the needed skills, or to have the cash or opportunity to leverage assets.

Be More Consistent

Do the key behaviors daily and over a sufficient period of time.

Don’t miss workouts if your goal is health, and be aware of the underminding effects of eating in ways contrary to your goal.

Show up to work prepared for the day. This means knowing the meetings you have, their objectives, risks, how people attending may show up, etc., and prepare for this. Most people just show up. That’s good. But it’s not enough.

Add whatever scenario you want to consistently and think about what this key behavior means in that context.

Be More Focused

Know the outcome you want. Know the behaviors needed. Know the risks that may undermine your success. Focus on the plan that will achieve your objective. And say no daily to distractions that will undermine you and the organization. Too many times people and organizations are afraid to say no. They lack the courage and the discipline. Be hyper focused on what success looks like, and go after it. Protect that space at all costs from intrusion.

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A few years back while studying business at the University of Oxford, a colleague of mine made famous the response, “It depends.” He enjoyed the humor it brought to the classroom, and he was also spot-on. 

We live in a world that is complex, ever changing, and highly competitive. How we think and make decisions today must be more sophisticated than our method 10 years ago. We must adapt more quickly and effectively to new thinking and different challenges and opportunities. We must deeply understand the context in which we live and work, and be highly flexible and practical in our thinking (mental models) and decisions.

Context is the set of circumstances that surround someone or something. Context increases in relevance as volatility increases (and you move from optimal to suboptimal). Understanding and adapting to context increases the likelihood of better decision-making and better results. 

Flexibility is the willingness and ability to change as new information becomes available or as situations (context) change. Flexibility allows us to survive and even thrive during difficult times and to be in a position to leverage new and appropriate opportunities as they arise. Flexibility requires that ego doesn’t get in the way, and that we learn and adapt quickly.

Suboptimal conditions may require greater flexibility and urgency. It may also dictate no action if the risk profile changes from what is acceptable. 

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To truly excel, we must strike a balance between two types of business processes:

1. Those that ensure consistency in daily output and quality for the organization.
2. Those that push the boundaries of thinking, innovation, excellence, and personal accountability.

Excellence demands both consistency and experimentation, predictability and growth. While adhering to business processes that yield reliable outcomes, we must also allocate time each day to step outside of those processes. Only by exploring uncharted territories can we discover new ideas, expand our capabilities, and propel our businesses forward.

Seek shelter when shelter is needed, but don’t remain confined. The path to excellence lies in braving the storm, venturing into the unknown, and continuously pushing beyond existing horizons.

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Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy (The Gap and The Gain) call this tendency to see what’s lacking as GAP thinking. GAP thinking comes from a fixed mindset (Carol Dweck) focused on the need to be perfect or to be better than others (superficial), instead of focusing on being our best selves and continually learning and improving based on what’s important to us (meaningful).

The Gap

When we think in a GAP mindset, nothing is or ever will be enough. Thus, we will always see what’s lacking and what isn’t going right in our lives, in our relationships, our businesses, etc. The GAP is a toxic mindset that stops us from feeling joy and appreciating the good in our lives.

The GAP is based on an unhealthy “need” or attachment to something outside of yourself. The GAP means you’re still trying to free yourself FROM something, and until you do you won’t be happy. When you’re in the GAP, you’re avoiding “here” while trying to get “there”—but never actually arriving “there.”

Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

When we think in the GAP, we compare ourselves to ideals (states of perfection) that in many cases don’t exist. Yet, these ideals are helpful to provide direction, meaning, and if used properly, inspiration in our lives. Therefore, ideals should never be used as a measuring stick or to show how often we might fall down.

Sullivan and Hardy visually explain the problem with ideals:

Ideals are like a horizon in the desert. No matter how many steps you take forward, the horizon continues to move out of reach. Psychology [calls this] moving horizon, hedonic adaptation. It’s the tendency … to never being satisfied, and to constantly seeking the next thing. … When your happiness is tied to something in the future, then your present is diminished. You don’t feel happy, confident, or successful. … When you’re chasing happiness externally, it’s because you’re disconnected internally. And when you’re disconnected internally, then you’re trying to fill a GAP.

Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Gap, Parenting, & Marriage

When I’m in the GAP about my son, I’m measuring him against where I wish he was as a person. I’m measuring his behavior against my ideals. By seeing my son through the lens of the GAP, all I can see are his flaws. I don’t see him for who he truly is, right now. I don’t see his growth. I don’t see his progress.

Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Why do many parents tend to look at their children through GAP lens? Or, to look at our spouses using these toxic eyeglasses? In my experience, it’s one of the following:

• We don’t understand or have forgotten the characteristics of charity lived and taught by many great leaders, including Jesus Christ, who teaches kindness, patience, and love unfeigned
• We see what’s lacking in others because there is something similar lacking in ourselves

People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.

Gary D. Chapman, The Five Love Languages

Consider

What is the horizon in the desert that you’re chasing?

What is it about your life that makes you unhappy? Why do you believe this future state or future thing you’re chasing will finally make you happy?

If you see your life as lacking without noticing the progress you’ve made and the good you’ve lived, your present will continue replicating your future.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

Theodore Roosevelt

The Gain & Positive Emotions

“Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.”

Zig Ziglar

Positive emotions are the starting point of learning, growth, and high performance (Dr. Barbara L. Fredrickson, Broaden-and-Build Theory). Thus, positive emotions are more likely to be felt when you are the person determining how you will measure yourself, and not others. While you may not be in control of choosing how you will be measured at work, you are in control of how you will measure your life.

Free yourself by refusing to be compared to others. Set your own high standards. Love yourself. Recognize your goodness and feel the positive and energizing emotions that will strengthen and sustain you.

Measure Yourself Backwards

“Being in the GAIN means you measure yourself backward, against where you were before [not what could have or should have happened]. You measure your own progress. You don’t compare yourself to something external. You don’t measure yourself against your ideals. … Use the reality of where you currently are and measure backward from there to the reality of where you started.”

Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Why measure your progress backwards? Recognizing how far you’ve come gives you hope that you can continue on your journey, and builds your confidence and generates positive momentum.

Wanting Instead of Needing

When you’re in the GAP, you have an unhealthy attachment to something external. You feel you need something outside of yourself in order to be whole and happy. You need to have a million dollars. You need that person’s approval. You need that position or promotion. You need to be a particular size or shape or to look a certain way. When you’re driven by need, rather than want, you have an urgency and desperation to fulfill that need. The problem is that “needs” are unresolved internal pain, not something you can solve externally.

Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Wanting means you’ve identified something yourself that is an important value to have in your life. Thus, what you want isn’t dictated or pushed onto you by some thing or some one external to you.

What are you chasing in your life? Is what you’re chasing really what you want, or something you feel you need because you’ve seen someone else posting about what they have or pretend to have: maybe it’s a new car? investment success? beauty? a large social following? perfect children? a vacation to a tropical island?

What do you really want? What’s really important to you?

Ponder these questions and write down what you feel. You may want to take a vacation from all social media if necessary to be able to see clearly what’s deep within you.

• How have I been measuring myself? And why?
• What’s really important to me? What do I really want for myself? For my family?
• Will this thing help me become who I want to become?
• What will I do beginning today, to start acting on what I really want?

Summary

Our happiness is dependent on what we measure ourselves against.

Thus, when you’re thinking in a GAP mindset, nothing is or ever will be enough because you’re comparing yourself to ideals (states of perfection), perhaps to someone else’s strength, or perhaps to something that doesn’t exist at all.

However, being in the GAIN means that you measure your progress looking backwards, and you aren’t comparing yourself to others or to a future ideal.

Therefore, you can see things happening FOR you, for you to learn, for you to improve, and for you to become the individual you were born to become, or you can see things happening TO you and processing life’s experiences through a victim mindset.

Why does this really matter?

When you view life’s experiences as opportunities to grow and develop and to become who you really want to become, you act with greater conviction, confidence, excitement, and commitment. You see yourself as in control of yourself. And feeling in control of yourself feels good.

How will you choose to live and measure your life?

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The point, after all, is not just to read. The point is to read in a way that leads to better thinking, and to think in a way that leads to better living.

Reading is a very practical experience for me. Because I strive daily to live an 80/20, essentialistic life, I work daily to eliminate everything in my life that doesn’t fit my priorities and which aren’t the most important. I’m not perfect in this, but it’s a focus of mine. This means that I read what best fits my priorities and that will in theory impact my priorities the greatest.

For example, my daily reading will pull from the following categories and examples of books I’m currently reading:

Religious/Spiritual

• The Book of Mormon
• The Old Testament, New Testament, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price
• General conference talks of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• The Infinite Atonement (Tad Callister)
• Hearing the Voice of the Lord (Gerald Lund)
• Simply Jesus (N.T. Wright)
• Paul (N.T. Wright)
• Teachings of Russell M. Nelson (in Portuguese)
• God and Stephen Hawking (John C. Lennox)

Strategy

• Good Strategy/Bad Strategy (Richard Rumelt)
• Playing to Win (A.G. Lafley, Roger Martin)
• The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy (Carl W. Stern, Michael S. Deimler)
• The 33 Strategies for War (Robert Greene)

Leadership

• The Power of Positive Leadership (Jon Gordon)
• What You Do Is Who You Are (Ben Horowitz)
• CEO Excellence (Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, Vikram Malhotra)

Change

• Made to Stick (Chip Heath, Dan Heath)
• Thinking in Systems (Donella Meadows)

Culture

Thinking | Decision-making | Excellence

• The Great Mental Models (Farnam Street)
• The 80/20 Principle (Richard Koch)
• Clear Thinking (Shane Parrish)
• Hidden Potential (Adam Grant)
• 10x is Easier than 2x (Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy)
• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (John Mark Comer, John Ortberg)
• Who Not How (Dan Sullivan, Dr. Benjamin Hardy)
• Move Fast and Fix Things (Anne Morris, Frances Frei)
• Be Your Future Self Now (Dr. Benjamin Hardy)
• Simplify (Richard Koch)
• Understanding Complexity (Scott E. Page)

Real Estate Investing

• Raising Private Capital (Matt Faircloth)
• Wealth Without Cash (Pace Morby)

Health | Mental Health

• Healing (Thomas Insel, MD)
• The Diabetes Code (Dr. Jason Fung)
• The Obesity Code (Dr. Jason Fang)
• Personality Isn’t Permanent (Dr. Benjamin Hardy)

Reading must be an adventure, a journey. It must be much more than something to do. It must be something I look forward to, anticipating what I’ll discover and where it will take me and what I’ll become as a result.

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