Nic Peterson Stuff and Things https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson Not For The Cognitively Lazy. Wed, 29 Jul 2026 13:13:43 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html https://github.com/jpmonette/feed en Nic Peterson Stuff and Things https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/de528b76210c9eb1a5dcb2ce8340517e https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson All rights reserved <![CDATA[ATTN: The Great Migration]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/attn-the-great-migration fovbLUqOK03uf0FvT7kW Sun, 16 Jul 2023 14:15:39 GMT I just dropped a post called "The Burden Of Knowledge And Giant Blue Aliens" over on Substack. At the bottom, as a PS, It explains why it's on Substack instead of Paragraph:

PS. I just moved the newsletter to substack to allow for the option to do some of the things I have been thinking about doing. I am currently working on becoming a better communicator through the written word (see above). I love paragraph for web3 stuff, but substack gives me more options.

Just to be clear, Paragraph has been great and the potential is through the roof. We will still be using it for Web3 stuff in Web3 companies and I'll continue to use it to token gate things that require token gating.

My team and I spent months thinking through the options. The most important to answer is:

"What is the best experience for the people that we can help most?"

Right now the answer is not Paragraph. That's not a knock on them, as people get more comfortable with Web3 I believe many great creators will come to call Paragraph home.

[The New Stuff and Things Is Here]

If you subscribed via email, your subscription has already been moved over, so there is no extra action to take.

I will be moving the posts over one by one, looking for opportunities to improve each during the migration. To save your inbox, I will not send them as emails when they are posted. They will show up as posts and you can peruse them whenever or however you would like.

Onward.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#44 Breaking The Delusion]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/44-breaking-the-delusion ynrgSyGlHmRXE0MrqO4F Tue, 11 Jul 2023 13:57:16 GMT "Most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty"
Virginia Satir

Probably not the first time you've seen me use this quote, certainly won't be the last. Why?

Because it explains why so many brilliant, talented humans stay so miserable.

It also explains why many things don't function the way you expect them to function. When you build a funnel for your business, for example. The physical construct of a funnel works like this:

  • Put a substance in the top of the funnel

  • The substance comes out the bottom of the funnel

Simple.

The problem is the mental construct of a funnel takes for granted a few things - like gravity and the nature of the substance that is being "funneled". The physical funnel works because:

  1. The substance is being pulled toward the earth by the immutable force of gravity

  2. The substance cannot get confused, distracted, or overwhelmed by uncertainty.

For the mental construct of a funnel to make sense, it would need a gravitational pull and to remove as much uncertainty as possible. You may believe that having a life-changing product or service is enough but it's not.

"Most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty"

There are three questions everyone is asking at every step. If you answer those three questions, it will drive uncertainty down. Driving uncertainty down will lead to the reality of your funnel more closely matching the expectation of your funnel.

Note: this is not really a funnel thing, it's a behavior thing. Remember: there is no gravity. Getting people through a funnel, a process, or a system requires them to modify their behavior. These same three questions should be answered in the delivery and implementation of your product or service.

Breaking The Delusion

Full Tweet

The above tweet is the first in a four-tweet series called "Breaking The Delusion". The TL;DR version:

If you can't see yourself clearly, you cannot see the world clearly. Everything you think is "out there" is just a reflection of something in you.

Most people will try like hell to avoid facing themselves. They won't even consider that they aren't what they think they are - or are what they aren't. If they were willing to face it, their lives would improve tremendously but...

"Most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty"

If you can't face the reality of who, what, and where you are, nothing else will work. Like the broken mental construct of the funnel, reality will fail to meet your expectation.

This is the first and most obvious gap; the gap between the "you are here" sticker on the map and where you want to be. This is the first gap we must address. Without the “you are here” sticker, nothing else will work.

From my book, Bumpers:

In my experience, people have a vague idea of where they want to go and no clue about their current location. I've heard many explanations about what prevents us from getting clarity on these two locations. Here are the two that most closely match my observations:

  1. Fear Of Defining Success

Often, high-achieving people avoid defining success because defining success also defines failure. For example, let’s pretend that "success" is having dinner with your kids every night while they are still young. Once that's defined, you have to face the feeling of failure every time you miss dinner with your kids. By defining what success is, you can no longer hide behind the other trappings of success. The more specific your definition of success, the more difficult it becomes to hide behind the things that are not. 

As long as you haven’t defined it for yourself, you can hide behind stripe screenshots, Ferrari, and Instagram reels. 

'The Harvard Business Review" has a great piece called "Teaching Smart People How To Learn". It demonstrates how smart people actively avoid learning to maintain and hide behind the label of “being smart”. Learning something requires admission of not already knowing it and that admission threatens the identity of being smart. Instead of learning, smart people are quick to show off what they already know in hopes that enough valid points will impress others and allow them to keep their identity. 

Getting what you want in life is often hindered by hiding behind the label of "successful". The things we actually want in life are often complex, making them difficult to quantify and achieve.  Clearly defining those things threatens our identity as "successful". The more specificity, the higher the perceived threat to the identity. Instead of going for what they want in life, successful people are quick to show off all the things they already have in hopes of protecting their identity.

To protect the identity of “successful”, the brain fights hard to maintain ambiguity in regard to a personal definition of success. 

  1. Fighting To Maintain The Delusion

Few people are willing to be honest about who and what they are or who and what they are not.  Many life transformations start with physical fitness because it forces reality upon you. It's easy to accept that your hamstrings are tight or that you're out of breath. It's much more difficult to accept the reality of your other insecurities. Fitness often provides the first crack in the armor of self-delusion. Getting an accurate "you are here" sticker requires chipping away at the rest of that delusion.

The brain works overtime to protect the delusion about what we are or are not. It will convince us that every mirror we look into is a window; that the problems are somewhere “out there” instead of somewhere “in here”. It’s tough to get a hold on reality when every mirror looks like a window to you. 

To protect the delusion of self, the brain fights hard to convince you that everything wrong with the world is “out there”. This makes an accurate starting position impossible to pinpoint. 

Breaking The Delusion
and the two tyrants of leadership

[Part 4 of breaking the delusion, Tweet here]

I have a grandmaster.

Weird, I know. I sit on the floor every day.
I swing a sword every day.
I hold a "horse stance" every day.

Why?

Because we must chip away at the delusion and see ourselves clearly before we can see the world clearly.

People don't like it when you do stuff they aren't willing to do. They will try like hell to guilt you into staying out later or shame you for getting up earlier. Your becoming better is a reminder to them that they aren't.

Worse, most of it will come from those closest to you. Friends, family, spouses.

Randy Massengale, former senior advisor to Bill Gates, who teaches the CCA with me, and Dan always shares these two tyrants of leadership.

Scrutiny and Expectation.

First, they will try and prevent you from creating further distance between you and them. If you succeed, the same people will then expect you to give them a hand up - give them what they were not willing to work for.

And that's okay.

That's just humans doing human stuff.

Here's The Best Way To Diffuse Them:

Invite them to join.

"I can't believe you're staying in tonight to study and get up early tomorrow. You're no fun anymore"

Wanna come to study with me?

"I can't believe you get up at 4 am to meditate and practice your three-point shot"

Wanna meditate and come shoot with me?

Just invite them along. If they join you, great. They are earning their leveling up. If they don't great - it's your journey anyway.

So, yeah. I have a grandmaster.

Some people think it's weird. Some people think I'm nuts. You might agree.

Once a month, we let people in on our journey to listen to the core teaching(s). We're live today at 2 pm Pacific. It's free, you're just invited to listen in and soak up the wisdom - the same thing I'll be doing.

Wanna join? If you can get on the list and I'll send you the link today.
Guardianacademy.io/masterkey

If not, no big deal.

But I encourage you to get comfortable with uncertainty. It's the only way to chip away at the delusion.

Onward.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#43 Extraordinary]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/43-extraordinary L1OAw6nvPFaHtsrU8aPu Sun, 09 Jul 2023 18:23:40 GMT *Recycled article from Certainty Tools. Reposting as we prepare to open another CCA cohort. When the cart for the cohort is open, I set aside extra time to talk to everyone that applies, even if they aren't a good fit I will do what I can to give direction or suggestions

A Message From Nic and Dan

“Most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty”
Virginia Satir

Certainty.

It’s an interesting concept.

Dan's book Rigging The Game shares the following formula from Chip Conley:

Anxiety = Uncertainty x Powerlessness

What most people really want is to drive anxiety down. They want to feel better about the question: “Am I going to be okay?”.

The need for certainty is so strong that people will often opt for a path of certain misery over the unknown. They rather know they will be miserable, that not be sure.

“The devil you know”

A well-drawn-out, step-by-step, detailed long-term plan would deliver a level of certainty, right? The certainty would feel like power over the outcome, right?

Right.

And that’s the problem.

As much as we try to pretend (or hope?) that we live in a vacuum, we don't. Time is going to pass and unexpected opportunities, events, or outcomes are inevitable. When your world changes and the previous plan is no longer accurate or relevant. This leaves you with two options:

Option 1:Follow an outdated, irrelevant plan to maintain a high level of false certainty

or

Option 2: Throw the plan out the window, leaving you with no obvious path forward and a state of high anxiety.

So how does one achieve “certainty” without a crystal ball? Is it possible?

It is.

Here is one strategy (the one we deploy in the CCA program):

  1. Get to know yourself, your biases, your personality, and your preferences. This is unique to you and it’s important because it’s the biggest unfair advantage only you have.

  2. Get clear on where you are and where you are actually trying to go. This gives us direction. Direction turns the erratic and aimless “need for speed” into a purposeful direction. Turn movement into velocity.

  3. Develop a toolkit, not a map. Imagine planning a five-year road trip using Mapquest. You'd be printing off five years of directions. As roads close, routes change, and bridges get shut down the map becomes less and less useful. Static plans become less useful as more time passes. What you need is an operating system. Google Maps has the ability to adjust to the unknown and the unexpected. It can determine the best path to your destination, given the new information. It's an operating system.

Certainty about who you are. Certainty about where you’re at. Certainty about where you’re going. And Certainty that you know how to adjust to reality so that you are always taking the best for what matters to you most.

False certainty is static.

Real certainty is dynamic.

False certainty looks out the window.

Real certainty looks in the mirror.

False certainty will lead you further away from what matters most to you. But it will do so with unshakeable confidence.

Real certainty is closing the gap; guiding you so that every step you take gets you closer to what matters most.

“Most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.”

And for that reason, the CCA is not for everyone. The CCA is for individuals, that want to step into something extraordinary. Whatever that means for them.

The CCA waitlist is open. As we said in our live videos; never assume what we look for in students. It would be a shame to discount your own contribution or potential greatness. We won’t. You can find the application here:

CertaintyU.com

Even if you’re not in CCA 5, we will contact future students when new cohorts open in chronological order.

To your greatness,
Nic and Dan

Ps. You may be asking “What in the world is the CCA?”

Good question. We won’t label ourselves, just like we won’t label you. Fortunately, world-class copywriter and CCA graduate Lukas answers that question right here.

I'm not reposting this in hopes that you get on the waitlist. Of course, if you do, I'm looking forward to chatting about what you've got going on. I'm posting this as another reminder of how often we choose the certainty of misery and will continue to do so until we change our working definition of Certainty.

Onward
Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#42 Playing Up. Commandment 1]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/42-playing-up-commandment-1 pKTZb7SqbRhYZOvNPJAb Sat, 08 Jul 2023 17:49:10 GMT You know that game "fuck, kill, marry" where you're given three names and have to decide which one you'd sleep with, which one you'd marry, and which one you would let die?

I've been deep diving into all of the content I've made over the past five years. Every. Single. Piece. And asking:

  • Is this worth making into a legit, super-powerful product?

  • Is this worth refilming, rewriting, etc?

    • If so is it worth resharing?

  • And if not, I'm getting rid of it.

Better free stuff. More products. Better products.

It will take some time, like all things worth doing. For the last couple of days, I have been going through The Letter; my retired $ 97-a-month direct mail newsletter.

Read Tweet

One of my favorite Letter issues was in December 2020.

In late November I got an unexpected call from Dr. Jeff Spencer. I spent the next few weeks doing a lot of introspection, digging into data, and re-visiting the stuff I consider core material. The Letter had a section called:

"Playing Up"

Marketing, Selling, and Serving the Top 10%

“Your biggest risk is playing down. You cannot get there faster by spending too much time with people below your cognitive ability. That is and will always be your red kryptonite”
Dr. Jeff Spencer

It’s recently been brought to my attention that I have been sabotaging my own growth. It hasn’t been intentional. But that's also what anyone would say when confronted with a realization like this.

Dr. Jeff Spencer is my cornerman. He is one of my best friends in the world and he's the guy watching my blindspots. He's the kinda guy that the top performers in the world pay a quarter of a million dollars or more to have on speed dial. The kind of guy that, when he calls to tell you something, you drop what you’re doing and listen.

He called me one Sunday morning and said:

“I have something to say to you, and I need to say it right now. I can see a risk that nobody else will be able to see. If they can see, they won't tell you. Your biggest risk is playing down. You cannot rush to the goal by talking to people below your cognitive ability. That is and will always be your red kryptonite”

Gut punch. But necessary.

To stay true to my “Inception" Business Model (training video attached to this month's Letter):

I must continue to "play up". I've never been afraid or intimidated by it, but it's uncomfortable and counterintuitive. So I have to build models or "commandments" to ensure that I don't slip into what is comfortable. I’m going to share some of that model with you right here.

The 6 “Playing Up” Commandments

Commandment 1: Stop Watering the Weeds.

This is a concept I borrowed from Dan Nicholson. He says: If what you want is a beautiful garden, you have to rip the weeds out at the root. Otherwise, as you’re watering your garden you’re also watering the weeds. To me, it's also a reminder not to grow the things you don't want. If you don't like your business, stop growing it. If you don't like your relationships, stop trying to maintain or strengthen them.

Another way to think of it: “Take Your Foot Off The Brake”. Don't push harder on the gas pedal until you have taken your foot off the brakes.

Whichever metaphor you prefer the point is the same. Stop doing stuff that gets you further away from what you want.

Example: Imagine that you have an opportunity to speak in front of 100,000 business owners. Your business coach might tell you not to say things like:

"It depends, that's preference based"

or

"I'm not going tell you anything you don't already know"

or

"This strategy won't work for everyone"

...Because if you do, you will lose 90% of the room. They don't want to hear "It depends"

Months later he might come and ask you something like "How do you keep getting the top 10%?"

I know this might happen because it happens to me a couple of times a year.

My answer?

"I accept the tradeoff. I get the top 10% because I am willing to lose the 90%"

Want to attract the best in the world? Here's how I think about it:

1. Dunning Kruger Effect: a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability- and vis-versa. Competent people doubt their ability and have low confidence. Incompetent people have a high level of confidence in their abilities.

Skilled people are often unaware of how talented they are relative to everyone else. They start to believe that what the masses are doing might be a better route for them. There is a gap between what they know to be true and what everyone else is doing or saying. This gap creates uncertainty and an internal dialogue. A version of:

"Is something wrong with me?"

We have to answer that question for them.

The best way to think about how to do that, I found in Diffusion of Innovation, 5th Edition by Everett Rodgers:

2. Diffusion of Innovation states that information decreases uncertainty. Innovation, on the other hand, increases it. That means a statement can increase uncertainty for one individual, and decrease it for another.

What is information to one may be innovation to another. ie. What creates certainty in one person can create uncertainty in another. The mass market gets certainty from "safety" - what other people are doing. Competent people get certainty from competence - they understand what's actually going on.

Because they see the masses doing something different, highly competent people often have to be reminded that they are not broken.

To remind them of this, we must make a sacrifice.

Since they are competent, dynamic statements like "it depends" or "we will have to wait and see the data" will be informative to them. The same statements will be innovative for less competent people; they tend to be more dogmatic.

The things that give competent people certainty to move forward are the things that create uncertainty for everyone else and vis versa.

How To Attract The Top 10%:
One way to do it, at least.

1. Identify what the mass market is doing

Example: "There is only one way to make money. High ticket sales and phone calls"

2. Identify WHY highly competent people don't feel comfortable or aligned with it.

Example: "I feel like there has to be another way to make more money without doing something I hate or that seems sketchy"

3. Validate Their Belief

Example: "Yes, there are. You're one of the best doctors in the world, do you believe there is only one way to do anything? It depends, right? You would have to do a diagnostic and account for their personality, lifestyle, and level of compliance, right? So only an amateur doc would come out saying there is only one way for everyone to do anything, right? And... most patience probably prefer that doctor because they have a higher level of certainty, right? Well, in this case, you are the patient."

This validates what they already know; there is never only one way to do something. Yes, you will probably repel the 90%.

If you're not willing to repel the 90% then you have no business working with the 10%.

Inception moment:

You can use your reaction to this email to self-diagnose and segment yourself. This cuts both ways. If you want to attract the mass market, every time you speak to the top 10% you are watering the weeds.

If you want to attract the top 10%, every time you put out a message for the mass market on mass-market platforms, you’re watering the weeds.

If you find yourself triggered by me saying "it depends", this message is not for you. If you find a little relief in hearing there is more than one way to get what you want, it is for you.

-

Note 1: There are a few people that speak to the mass market and lay down a really strong "b message" for the top 10%. That takes an incredible amount of skill.

Note 2: There is nothing wrong with selling to the mass market. It can be extremely profitable and rewarding. It depends on your personality and what you are trying to accomplish.

Note 3: The second commandment of playing up is: "Never Sell Effort" I'll probably post it here in the next few days but the frame is simple: "Do you want me to work hard for you or do you want to win?" At the highest level, salaries are determined by results, not by effort.

If you don't go back through your old stuff frequently if strongly suggest that you give it a try. Especially if you're like me and make all of your content for yourself, based on your own experience.

It's like reading your own journal. Which is also something I think more people should do.

Onward

Nic

PS. When I do make stuff available again, it will likely go to Bumpers buyers first. You can get your free copy and a bunch of bonus videos at FreeBumpersbook.com

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#41 Beyond Bumpers]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/41-beyond-bumpers J8YeOPJWsimVw7hBCQmN Fri, 07 Jul 2023 17:32:33 GMT Beyond Bumpers.

...and The Need For Speed

Ever wish that you would just get to your goals faster?

I get it.

Everyone struggles with the "need for speed." But it's not the speed that you want. You can move really fast in a big circle. Or worse, in the wrong direction. Try this:

Close your eyes and imagine moving toward your goal quickly.

You aren't just moving fast, you're closing the gap between where you're at now and where you want to be. There is a vector component; a direction. You aren't imagining speed, you're imagining speed + direction...

...You are imagining velocity

...You are imagining collapsing the time to target

...and you are mistaking it for speed.

And that's what we're all ultimately trying to do:

Collapse Time.

Before we can Collapse Time we need Certainty that we are headed in the right direction. We also need to know we aren't heading right into a brick wall or into a minefield. Certainty is the most efficient path forward, with the highest probability of success, and it's individual to you.

Thus, before we can have Certainty, we must have Clarity. Clarity on who you are, where you are, where you want to be, and the type of route you want to take.

Google Maps is a great example.

It cannot give you directions without a starting location or desired destination. Then, it maps out multiple routes and lets you choose which one you want to take. The fastest one? The one that avoids highways? The one that makes a pitstop at your favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant? It gives you an opportunity to incorporate your preferences.

Most importantly, it adjusts when new information is revealed. It re-routes. That function exists because Google Maps knows that things change and following an outdated plan is silly. After it has Clarity, Google Maps can give you the highest level of Certainty that you get to where you are trying to go. And it does so while maintaining your preferences.

So the sequence of getting somewhere reliably is:

Clarity --> Certainty --> Collapsing Time

In that order. You cannot have one without the thing that precedes it. So how do we IMPLEMENT this? First, I change the language to make it easier to sort through the action or behavior steps:

Clarity to Bumpers, Certainty to Velocity, and Collapsing Time to Force Multipliers.

Bumpers --> Velocity --> Force Multipliers

First, avoid the bad things. Don't go backward.

Second, get closer to your destination which each move you make until you are on track to get there in an appropriate amount of time. If you increase velocity without bumpers, you are likely to blow yourself up/take yourself out of the game.

Then, if you choose, you can find leverage to get there much faster. If you find leverage, but you're pointing in the wrong direction, you get further away from what you want, faster.

Here are the most actionable resources I know of for each:

Bumpers

Bumpers, or Clarity is step one. It's getting clear on where you're at and where you want to be. It's also getting clear on the things that are not serving you and building a system to get you on track. Think of it as the "you are here", the "desired destination" and the "avoid this stuff" part.

Resources:

Bumpers Book: A short book sets the foundation for Bumpers. I've set the price as low as Amazon will allow me to set it

Bumpers Accelerator: A six-video mini-course that is an extension of Bumpers with some tips and tricks to get started. You get it for free with the free digital copy of Bumpers above.

Dan Nicholson's Solvable Problem

The Dangers of Data: Counterintuitively, one of the biggest risks to us NOT blowing ourselves is believing we are data-driven.

Velocity

Velocity, or Certainty, is the process of getting what you want, on your terms. It's being strategic so that our decisions are getting us closer.

Rigging The Game Book: Dan's book is basically our bible on Certainty.

Certainty Commandment 1: Closer Over More

Learning And Intelligence: Learning is actually a force multiplier, but understanding intelligence and how to increase it will keep you on track/increase velocity.

Function Over Form: One of the biggest risks to maintaining our Velocity is getting stuck on Form over function. We see this with new tech like crypto, AI, and new platforms like Threads and Tik Tok.

Force Multipliers

Force multipliers WILL NOT help you if you haven't done the work that precedes them. They might give you a nice little dopamine hit, but you will end up further off track than ever when you come down from your little emotional high.

Leverage, or collapsing time, has two parts to it.

The first is identifying or creating leverage in known ways. Spotting asymmetry to the upside, and tools and strategies to get more output for the same amount of input. These are the things that can be observed and measured.

Leverage resources:

Force Multipliers:

Everything above revisited frequently and applied consistently will become a force multiplier

Force Multipliers: That is the name of the newsletter I send on this platform. You can see most of them here:

The Guardian Tier of the Guardian Academy. Built on the "Live To Learn, Give To Earn" Framework the Guardian Academy is designed to tease out the emergent properties of Guardians. The process of becoming a Guardian requires someone to do the prework. To become a Guardian one must earn their way in or be endorsed by an existing guardian

The CCA: The CCA was built specifically for business owners and entrepreneurs ready to tap into what makes them extraordinary. First, we install an operating system to identify and engineer leverage in their business and personal lives. Then, the events and office hours are designed to expose them to an ongoing way of thinking and provide proximity to the top 1% of the top 1%. CCA is invite-only, if you feel like I would endorse you, you can apply.

CCA Certified Advisors: These are individuals that have been certified in the Certainty Operating System, specific to their domains.

The second is the emergent properties.

Emergent properties are things that cannot be measured or observed. "Purpose" is an emergent property. Exponential and full potential are emergent properties. These are the things that lie dormant inside of you that, if awakened, will create something far greater than the sum of its part.

Emergent properties can only be awakened by exposure, proximity, and access. This is why the highest performers, playing at their peak potential spent time in small circles. It's these circles that tease out the emergent properties.

Emergent Property Resources:

The Guardian Tier of the Guardian Academy. Built on the "Live To Learn, Give To Earn" Framework the Guardian Academy is designed to tease out the emergent properties of Guardians. The process of becoming a Guardian requires someone to do the prework. To become a Guardian one must earn their way in or be endorsed by an existing guardian

The CCA: The CCA was built specifically for business owners and entrepreneurs ready to tap into what makes them extraordinary. First, we install an operating system to identify and engineer leverage in their business and personal lives. Then, the events and office hours are designed to expose them to an ongoing way of thinking and provide proximity to the top 1% of the top 1%. CCA is invite-only, if you feel like I would endorse you, you can apply.

There are other groups of extraordinary humans that have a track record of teasing out emergent properties. Dr. Jeff Spencer's events, Genius Network, and Strategic Coach to name a few.

Next Steps:

Bookmark this page and revisit it when needed.

I will add to it as I find things that might be helpful. I will replace things with better alternatives when possible.

Onward.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#40 Half-Brained]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/40-half-brained mDyJiguDscZmfBaY29Up Thu, 06 Jul 2023 12:43:14 GMT I was at the office at 2:45 this morning because I couldn't sleep. Downside: I really like sleep.
Upside: I had a few extra hours to back into the archive and dig up some stuff that might be worth repurposing.

Below is the first couple of pages from the March 2021 edition of what used to be a paid, direct mail newsletter.

From The Desk Of Nic Peterson
Seattle, Washington
Middle of March 2021

“The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.”
- Niles Bohr

It’s painful for me to watch entrepreneurs try and solve their problems while being stuck inside “the box.” The problem with “the box” is simple. You're searching for solutions to the unknown using only what you know. If the problem is intractable for you, the solution is not going to be found within the box of what you know. It often lies in a slight inversion or duality.

For purposes of this letter, think of duality as being “equal but opposite.”

I’ll often tell clients to back into a solution or invert a problem if the solution is not immediately clear. [If the solution is obvious we don’t need to invert, we need to implement]

When we identify a problem and the solution is not immediately obvious, we look harder at the problem. What we need to do is step back and think hard about what we are not looking at. We can ask ourselves, “What is the opposite of this thing, problem, or solution?”

Half of your brain is going to have a very hard time with this, which is a big reason most people are swimming upstream.

I’ll explain why shortly.

Back to the quote above; Bohr states that the opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement.  This seems to contradict the other half of the sentence which states that the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth. Can the opposite of something that is right still be right?

And that my friend, is where I say:

It Depends.

In this case, it depends on which side of your brain you talk to.

As you know, the human brain is divided into two hemispheres, the left brain and the right brain. A perfect example of duality: equal but opposite. And if you let it, the right brain will invert the experience of the left brain and vice versa.

The left brain is the linear thinker in you. Vertical, rational, sequential thinking. This hemisphere is strongly bonded to duality. To the left brain, everything is either black or white, there is only right and wrong; a correct way to do things and an incorrect way to do things. 

Left-brain thinkers are dogmatic, they're the rule followers, operators, and “logical” people. 

The right brain uses horizontal thought and pattern recognition. It’s not looking for the details, it's working to understand the underlying principles. The patterns and principles underpinning the problem and potential solutions. 

Left-brainers are the most likely to niche-down hard and follow convention. I made a post about why that's not my style here.

Right-brain thinkers are the weirdos. They don't make any sense to everyone else. 

The left brain is solving one problem at a time. The right brain is not solving a single problem, but also all the problems connected to the issue. The right brain is holistic and dynamic. It understands complexity and thinks in complex systems.

Ever met someone that seems to figure things out difficult things but kind of seems like a wackadoo? (Hint: see every innovator and disruptor in history).

They seem like a total wackadoo because they are solving problems with the right side of their brain. The right side of the brain doesn't have standard language functions. The languages of our right brain are not literal, concrete, or absolute (because it depends).  The solution to complex problems will reveal itself on the right side of the brain, but the words to articulate the solution are likely missing. 

More on this later, because this is REALLY important. 

Here is another funny thing about the right side of the brain (and how you can tell if someone is utilizing theirs):  

It makes no judgment, has no morals, nor does it take a position - and it doesn’t care. 

Think about that. Half your brain, 50% of the size and complexity of your brain, doesn’t know right from wrong. 

So, it begs the question… Why does this half even exist? That’s a lot of space and energy to take up for no purpose.

I have my thoughts. Since I’m stuck in right-brain mode as I am writing this, I don't see a right or a wrong answer. I see two practical ways to look at this:

The first is that I'm glad that we have cognitive horsepower that cannot tell right from wrong. If what we knew the right way is the only right way, we would still be in the dark ages. Let's not forget about how wrong we were about the things we believed to be right, in the past. 

If the entire brain was left-brained nobody would challenge convention. We'd be suspended in time, sans innovation. If there is only one way to do a thing, we would never improve the way we do things.

And I'm glad we have the brainpower to see the gray area. A black-and-white world is a world where authority can never be questioned. 

Many children are taught that the beliefs of their authority figures are the only acceptable beliefs. Without a little right-brain action, we would never question those authorities or beliefs. 

The second is the realization that people want to believe that the right side of the brain is useless. It's much easier to believe all the right answers exist and that some authority figure has them.

No judgment if you believe there is only one way to do a thing. But it would be remiss of me not to point out the obvious:

If you are choosing to approach this letter or any other aspect of your life from only the “logical” side of your brain…

You’re Only Using Half Your Brain


I lean towards believing that the right side of our brain is more important than most want to believe. I have a list of reasons, but here is the main one:

To argue that the logical and linear is all that matters is to forfeit the use of half your brain. 

Which doesn’t seem logical at all.

"Most prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty"

Virginia Satir

The Letter

I've kicked around the idea of restarting the Letter. I love the idea of having a tangible thing to sit down and read. I don't think I'll do it, since I don't want to commit to writing one each month.

But I will continue to dig up past issues. I get value from reading them, they make great "reminders to self". If I think it might be useful, I'll share bits and pieces here with you or over on the tweet machine.

Another section from the March 2021 Letter covers how to break free from left-brain thinking in business, and how it's more profitable than most people can understand. It's posted right here.

Onward.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#39 Data-Driven? Probably Not.]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/39-data-driven-probably-not jhUYLSVdgtN8m8aeoe3v Wed, 05 Jul 2023 15:57:31 GMT Most self-proclaimed "data-driven" people I've met are... not.

[full tweet here]

The second foundational principle inside the Guardian Academy is "Frequency of Exposure"

Why?

Because The Guardian Academy is built on a foundation of:

- Knowing yourself
- Appreciating when bad things don't happen
- Getting better results in life

One of the biggest risks to all three of those things is not understanding "frequency of exposure."

Here is a short video I made for TGA explaining it:

[6 Word Updates]

If you think you can control your emotions, think that some people also believe that they can control their heartbeat or hair growth.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb

We tend to believe that we have more control over our emotions than we do. We also tend to act on momentary feelings and justify our actions with data to hide our impulsivity.

Data And “Data-Driven” People

Hot take/observation:

The more exposure to data the worse the decision.

It doesn't make sense when you hear it out loud, but it makes perfect sense if you pay attention.

Humans are impulsive and emotional.

They're also smart.

Dangerous combo. Emotions lead to impulsive decisions which are then justified with data. I'm not convinced that justifying emotional decisions is the best use of data.

What Is The Purpose Of Data?

To answer this question, let's go back to our core concepts. One of them is:

We only take asymmetric bets (to the upside).

Couple that with the concept of repeat exposure (probability):

  • We aren’t going to bet a dollar to win a dollar (symmetric). There is no reason to take that bet. If we made this bet an infinite number of times we would end up in the same place.

  • We also aren’t going to bet a dollar to win fifty cents (asymmetric to the downside). If we made this bet an infinite number of times our losses would grow, on average, with each bet.

  • If a bet has a higher expected value than the cost of making the best we may take it. If we were to take it an infinite number of times, our total gains would grow over time.

All decisions we make are bets. We always want to make sure that we are taking bets where 1) there is asymmetry and 2) it is to the upside

This is what we’d refer to in TGA as “Engineering luck”.

Thus, exposure to data must have more upside than downside. In other words, we expose ourselves to data when the upside of the exposure is greater than the downside of the exposure.

There is only one scenario where the upside to seeing data is greater than the downside:

When it informs us of how we can change our behavior to get better results

That's it.

In our world:

The Only Purpose Of Data Is To Inform Behavior

The question to answer is:

Am I willing to change or modify by behavior based on what the data says?

If not, there is no upside. If there is no upside, there is definitely no asymmetry to the upside. In this scenario, we can only incur an emotional loss.

Here is an example.

You think to yourself:

“I wonder how much I weigh?”

First, we would ask:

If you don't like the number you see, are you willing or able to make changes to your lifestyle right now?

If the answer is no, nothing positive can come out of stepping on the scale. Because right now, nothing can change.

There is, however, a chance that you don't like what you see, which would be a negative emotion.

  • No upside.

  • Potential downside.

Stupid bet to take, in my opinion.

Another example:

Imagine you are in this investment: 15% return with 10% volatility per annum (From Nicholas Nassim Taleb).

If you checked it yearly: 93% of the time you’ll have a positive exposure.

Monthly: 67% probability of positive exposure.

Daily: 54% probability of positive exposure.

Minute: 50.17% chance of positive exposure.

If you are viewing on the minute time frame, half the time it’s up, half the time it’s down. The problem with this is that a loss hurts more than an equivalent gain feels good. Even at break-even on paper, you have incurred a massive emotional loss.

Winning strategies can cause us to incur an emotional loss and make bad decisions.

Making emotional decisions based on an inappropriate frequency of exposure is not being data driven. It’s being impulsive and justifying it with data.

Many people bail on winning strategies due to an inappropriate frequency of exposure.

Here's What I Do:

1) I track everything that I can track. When the time comes to potentially change the behavior, I want a trend over a long period of time to make decisions.

2) I track it, but I do not look at it. I do not look at data unless it is specifically to inform a decision or behavior.

Before taking a peek at something I just ask myself:

"If I don't like what I see, am I really willing to make the changes necessary right now?"

Sometimes the answer is no. So I don't look.

Since I am unwilling to unable to change the behavior, there is no benefit. I can only incur an emotional loss.

Appropriate Frequency Of Exposure

So what is the appropriate frequency of exposure? This depends on your Solvable Problem™, macro belief, and understanding of yourself.

Solvable Problem™–

If you have a goal that you need to fund in six months you will have a different strategy than a fifteen-year target. This is one of the reasons longer time horizons have a higher success rate. Your target and time to target inform strategy. Strategy informs time preference. Time preference informs the appropriate frequency of exposure.

As seen in the example above, the investor will make better decisions by looking at his portfolio once a year than once a minute.

Macro belief– What is your belief in? If you believe that real estate in Arizona is going to 10x over the next ten years, it doesn’t make much sense to look at your real estate portfolio every day.

The exposure might cause you to abandon a strategy developed in a state of sobriety.

An inconvenient truth - if you need to look every day it's because:

- you don't have a fundamental belief/understanding of your strategy

- you are hoping to see something positive; cheap dopamine.

- a combination of both

Remember: a loss hurt more than an equivalent gain feels good. Seeking a small emotional peak could lead to a far greater emotional valley. Seeking cheap dopamine always has the same risk profile:

Best case: small emotional win

Worst case: massive emotional loss/deficit

Asymmetry to the downside.

Seeking dopamine without effort is always a stupid bet.

Understanding Yourself–

Some people have inoculated themselves to data. They have no emotional response at all. Most are impulsive.

Pay attention to your response to data. Ask yourself if "knowing more stuff" or "having more data" is actually serving you.

The Impact

I have seen business owners on the verge of losing tens of millions of dollars because of their obsession with more data. Most of the time, we are able to re-orient them. Sometimes they can't shield themselves from the data or override their impulsiveness.

We've seen a few blow themselves up or abandon winning strategies due to the emotional decisions they call "data-driven" decisions.

Relationships, fitness, investments, and business decisions are all impacted negatively by an inappropriate frequency of exposure.

Remember that the deficit is an emotional one. If you create an emotional valley for yourself, it will negatively impact EVERYTHING you touch.

Something to think about.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#38 Non Negotiables]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/38-non-negotiables 8I0cQYnOYo2HKGsSOpFL Tue, 04 Jul 2023 22:52:21 GMT I'm gonna be honest...

I am making this post to link to from other stuff later on because it's an important topic - and one I need to revisit myself.

Generally, I do not send this type of post as an email. I just post them knowing that I will need to reference them often. But... perfect storm. And I think it's worth revisiting.

Below is an hour-long video from one of Joe Polish's Genius Network meetings. I embedded the whole thing, but what I really want you to watch is this 40-second clip from the video.

Here's the full replay

I say "perfect storm" because I just rewrote Bumpers and, after talking to Becky Robbins, Joe Polish, and Ben Hardy, added some bonuses to the Bumpers Accelerator that will make it easier to troubleshoot for yourself.

The Bumpers Accelerator Update on Non-Negotiables is below.

The full new bumpers accelerator can be found here. Pro tip: the link will bypass the opt-in but you have to watch three minutes of the video on that page before it lets you unlock the rest. This is to weed out the people that can't sit still for three minutes or more.

Have you thought about your non-negotiables?

Revisited and updated them?

The process is still the shortcut ;)

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#37 Function Over Form]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/37-function-over-form Ro5ptKlX3FTFXvCYvBjH Thu, 29 Jun 2023 16:13:04 GMT

Function Over Form

Here is the whole tweet from above:

Imagine that I give you a screwdriver. And then you spend months trying to find all the different ways to use a screwdriver.

That’s a focus on form over function.

Using the tool has become a higher priority than accomplishing something for yourself.

That’s very different than handling the stuff you need to handle in order to get the life you want and, if it’s the most efficient tool for the task at hand, using the screwdriver.

If you don’t have a screwdriver, you might use a butter knife.

Using the best tool is great, but the real focus is getting the job done. Thats a focus on function over form. You want to get a screw out of the wall, a screwdriver will help you accomplish what you want to do.

That makes it a useful tool for you, right now.

Tools are useful when function comes before form.

They are a distraction when it doesn’t. If you’re spending all day trying to find ways to use AI, you’re spending all day avoiding the work in front of you.

If you’re spending all day creating new things to do just to have reasons to use a tool, you’re spending all day avoiding the work in front of you.

FUNCTION OVER FORM, THE STEPS

Step 1.

What do you want to accomplish?

Step 2. What is the next step? Step

3. What is the most efficient path to take that step. It may require or be made easier with tools.

Step 4. Start at step 2 again

Moving toward your goal > finding as many uses for new tools as possible

Our brains get hijacked by form all the time.

Especially when the idea of "more" creeps into the picture and hijacks our monkey minds. Some examples:

Over The Shoulder: Function Over Form

In hopes of getting people to think a little differently, I do my best to document the obvious cases of function over form and how a focus on form distracts people from getting what they actually want.

  1. A thread of case studies. These are the day-to-day convos I have with people that are focused on growing their businesses and the way they are going about it is getting them further away from what they want. Plus, the solutions and thought processes. You can view the whole thing here

  1. Function Over Form, How People "Scale" Themselves out of the things that actually work (5:41 YouTube video)

Remember what's important to you.

Your business may be the tool you are using to get something you want out of life. That's its function.

AI might help you remove limits or constraints on your path. That's its function.

In either scenario, there may be a better tool to accomplish the job.

The objective is to accomplish the job and to get what you want out of life, not to find more ways to use more tools. Or to make your tools sexier.

If I'm sitting around trying to make my hammer the sexiest hammer so everyone else is jealous of it...

and then getting jealous of other people's hammers, leading me to spend more time trying to make my hammer sexier...

...I'm really just being a dingleberry and getting nothing accomplished.

Replace "hammer" with AI, Twitter, Business, etc. It's just as ridiculous.

Onward.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[Force Multiplier #12 "BETTER"]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/force-multiplier-12-better pQ1Y8X3tqqK8JYZw7ZbR Sat, 24 Jun 2023 12:46:02 GMT I rewrote my book this week.

I don't think my publisher is thrilled about it, but she'll be fine. Here is the story about why it needed to be done.

And here is an update:

Better

Every few years I experience a quantum leap moment. It's a stage of exponential personal growth. It doesn't look or feel like you'd expect. I wrote about exponential here:

I know when it's happening because I wake up at two or three in the morning thinking about one thing:

BETTER.

Not "I'm going to do better tomorrow" better.

It's a different kind of better. My book is a good example. I have read it two or three times before this week. Each time I've thought "Wow, this is better than I thought it was". I read it this week and thought:

This needs to be better.

It needs to be easier to read.

It needs to be less redundant.

It needs to be shorter.

So I rewrote it.

Then, I went back to some of the first posts on this blog and read them. My first thought?

These need to be better.

If you know me, that translates into:

I need to do better.

And that's how I know I'm in the middle of another quantum leap. What was acceptable before is no longer. No guilt, no shame, no embarrassment. This is part of the process.

Instead of thinking "I am going to do better tomorrow" or "I am going to write something better next week"...

I challenge you to go back and make what you've already done better. Simpler. Smoother. Clearer. You'll get way more reps and you'll have a tight feedback loop beating up your own stuff.

And since this is a Force Multiplier, here are the posts I went back and made just a little bit better. Even if you read them before, they'll hit you differently this time:

The Adaptive Dilemma:
Hooomans gonna hooman.

Niche? No thanks:
Why I don't niche down

Force Multipliers 1:
Throwing stones.


Onward

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[Force Multipliers #11]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/force-multipliers-11 PrDnDd1WvQ7UruXytgs3 Sun, 11 Jun 2023 16:44:53 GMT

The sensical way to present information probably deviates from the best way to learn it. It creates an interesting tension between utility, validity, and engagement.
Dr. Trevor Kashey

One of the fundamentals of both the CCA program and The Guardian Academy is the concept of "valid vs useful". A framework I picked up from Harvard Business Review's "Teaching Smart People How To Learn".

I wrote about "learning" earlier this week because it had come up in many conversations. It continues to surprise me how often talented people bias making valid points over being useful.

I often wonder how much it has to do with the world becoming more digital and disconnected. Something useful is something we can act on, it's generally behavior-focused. Something valid has a sound basis in logic, it's fact-focused. The two should play well together. A sound basis of reasoning means a better understanding of how to change your behavior to get what you want.

Right?

In its never-ending efforts to protect its own delusion, the Monkey Mind has other ideas. For something to be useful to me, I have to acknowledge that my behavior has to change. If I acknowledge my behavior has to change, then I acknowledge I was doing something wrong. The monkey mind doesn't like that. So it has developed a way to avoid having to do any work on self and disguise it as being smart.

It thinks: "Instead of exposing my own insecurities or shortcomings, I can just rattle off a bunch of facts. I don't have to admit that I am unsure or mistaken. If I can make the others feel stupid, they will doubt themselves, instead of me!"

So the monkey mind makes a lot of valid points. But are they useful?

It depends.

The valid point has a sound basis in logic. It's reasonable. That's a good thing. Does it provide any insight into how to improve the current situation? If not, it's not terribly useful. Valid things do not improve anything. Useful things do.

Useful > Valid

Here are some things I have observed that I think might be immediately useful to you:

  1. "Recapture and Reallocate".This one is simple.

    1. Write down the number one thing you need more of. Typically it will be time or money, Energy, confidence, reputation, and attention are all valid choices. Pick the one that has the most immediate utility to you. Here are the steps:

    2. Audit where the current supply you have now is going. if it's money, pull your bank statements. If it's time, pull up your calendar. I recommend filling in what you actually did last week, not what you expect to do next week.

    3. Plug the holes. If it's finance, cut all recurring expenses. You can always opt in back later. if it's time, highlight all the time spent doing things that are not moving the needle for you.

    4. Reallocate. Immediately reallocate what you've recaptured. Direct it toward whatever you wanted the currency for in the first place. For example, if you wanted more money to retire sooner, redirect those funds into your retirement vehicle. If you want more time to read and write, put the newfound time your calendar for reading and writing.

I am aware of how simple this is. If more people spent more time on the basics, they would be far more advanced. Do this. And then make it a habit to do it at least quarterly. Here is a 39-minute workshop breaking down how I suggest doing it, please some worksheets. (currency is money in this video)

And then...

Please note: if you are not doing the "basic" exercise above, anything below will be less effective.

  1. Recapture and Reallocate Phase 2: Phase 2 in this case is in regards to money. Phase 2 of recapturing and reallocating time is basically what my book is about and you can get a free copy here.

    1. If your income is below $1 million: generally speaking, it will be more efficient to put time and effort into growing your business. If your income is below $1mm but you have over $1m in assets, see the next point.

    2. If your income is above $1 million: generally speaking it will be more efficient to recapture and reallocate again. Advanced tax strategies and entity structure are likely to free up the most resources. Once you free them up, redirect them to the most important thing to you. Again, simple. Not easy, but simple. Of course, there are always exceptions. The least efficient path forward is to push for growth without plugging the holes. Too many people step over dollars to pick up pennies.

Conceptually, recapturing time, energy, and attention are similar. They look different because we track, measure, and think about them differently. Time and money are the easiest to recapture and reallocate because they are the easiest to measure.

They are not always the top priority but they always get attention first due to the ease of measurement.

There is probably a lesson there.

Onward.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#36 Points.]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/36-points ZKX9wjHEZigqlV7PbhR2 Thu, 08 Jun 2023 14:19:54 GMT

"Skate to where the puck is going."
Wayne Gretzky


Pop Quiz Time.

Two twin brothers see the same alarming headline about cholesterol on the same day. They both rush in to get their annual check-up.

  • Brother 1 (Blue) has a total cholesterol of 245mg/dl, which is considered high

  • Brother 2 (Red) has a total cholesterol of 215 mg/dl, which is considered borderline


If the goal is to get cholesterol into a healthy range, which brother needs to make a more drastic change? Below 200 mg/dl is considered healthy according to Dr. Google.

Answer: It depends.

It's tempting to make a snap judgment and recommend Brother Blue behave more like his brother. This data point suggests that Brother Red is "healthier".

**This is where I tell you that I am not a doctor, your doctor is smarter than me, listen to them. This is about how I think about data, not about what you should do.

Personally, I wouldn't make any behavior changes based on this data point.

Here's why:

Imagine that the two brothers have gotten their bloodwork done every ninety days. Ninety days ago Brother Blue's total cholesterol was 255mg/dl and Brother Red's was 205 mg/dl.

With that information, the data point becomes a line.


Given the line, are we still convinced that it's Brother Blue that is in the most danger without a change?

I don't like to make decisions based on lines either. **I'm still not a doctor. Your physician's prescription overrides my weird perspective on data

So let's use the science of hindsight to dig a little deeper. What I want to see is a trend. 180 days ago, Brother Blue had a cholesterol level of 259 mg/dl and Brother Red's cholesterol level was 198 mg/dl:

Okay, cool. A trend.

I'm still not a doctor but I'm also not so sure that Brother Blue should change his behavior at all. It seems to me that he is on track and can continue doing what he is currently doing. In fact, changing his behavior could break this trend. Especially if he started behaving more like his brother. Generally speaking, if you're trending in the right direction changes are more likely to hurt than to help.

Brother Red has a "better" cholesterol level today, but look at the trend above. The "better" data point is a point that makes up a less favorable trend.

Given this trend, I would wonder if Brother Red needs to make the most dramatic lifestyle change. Again, I am not a doctor. This is not medical stuff, it's data stuff. It's not a suggestion to do something, it's a suggestion to gather more data before doing something.

Now...

Replace "cholesterol" above example with any metric you use to measure your progress. I prefer metrics that help determine whether something needs to change. Weight, Personal income, total revenue, profit margins, total profit, number of employees, lipid panels... it doesn't matter the metric, it's the same story:

"Skate to where the puck is going"

A single data point can only tell us where we are relative to other people at that exact moment in time.

It does not account for where have been or where we are going if we continue what we are doing, uninterrupted. The first set of data above showed us that Brother Red was in a "better" place than Brother Blue.

Brother Red vs Brother Blue is irrelevant. Where is Brother Blue-headed? That is all that matters to Brother Blue. And I am of the opinion that the answer to that question should inform his behavior.

The only thing worth measuring is Brother Blue today relative to Brother Blue yesterday.

With the intent of informing Brother Blue how to be in a better place tomorrow.

The question to ask is not "Who is healthier, wealthier, happier than me right now?". The question to ask is:

"Am I trending in the right direction?" or "Given my behavior, is time passing going to get me closer to or further away from where I want to be?"

That's it.

I believe that comparison can be useful. Comparing our current self to our former self informs us of the efficacy of our plans and behaviors. Comparing trends can help us understand which behaviors are more likely to get us to where we want to be, over time. Comparing ourselves to others using single points of data has zero utility*.

*Has zero utility to me. It is very possible that I am lacking the skill to do something useful with a single point of data.

Given more time, it appears that Brother Blue's cholesterol will fall into a healthy range. Brother Red may rise into what is considered the high range.

It would be a shame for Brother Blue to stop what he is doing and start behaving more like Brother Red. At least based on this single data point. To be clear, I am still not a doctor. Both brothers may be in serious need of lifestyle change for various reasons. I am not suggesting otherwise. I am showing that the single point of data in the example above does not inform me of anything useful.

Everyone's got their own style. How you choose to make decisions is up to you. I can only share what I do, which is this:

  • Important decisions are often behavior based. I make behavior-based decisions based on trends, not lines or single data points.

  • When I find myself playing the comparison game, I try to override my monkey mind. I do this by comparing individual trends. If there is no trend (the data has not been recorded, for example), I will wait until the data is collected. Waiting is hard, but it's better than going in the wrong direction. Keyword: restraint.

  • I think a lot about things I might want to change in the future. If it's important, I'll set up a way to record the data so that when the time comes, I'll have a trend to help me make decisions.

Do I make decisions without a trend? Of course.

I don't share this so that you have more things to do, like tracking more data. You're probably doing things right now that, if you kept doing them, would get you to where you want to be.

My hope is that in sharing this, you think twice before letting your monkey mind take the wheel and convince you to abandon those things.

And one more time...

This is just how I think about data, behavior, and time. I am still not a doctor. Your doctor is way smarter than I am, listen to him/her.

Onward

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[Force Multiplier #10: Over The Shoulder]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/force-multiplier-10-over-the-shoulder O7EzFcRoObTrv0rCrjLw Tue, 06 Jun 2023 17:04:42 GMT I have long believed that the best model for learning is the apprenticeship model. A look over the shoulder as a master of craft performs that craft in real-world conditions. There is value in the classroom environment, but it's limited. I share my gripes with the classroom here:

Part of my gripe with the classroom is my problem, not theirs. I don't fit into the system. I'm an iterator.

What's an iterator? Think of that friend of yours that is such a perfectionist they never actually do anything. If they do try something, they're scarred for life when it ends up being less than perfect. They're afraid to do anything because it won't be perfect.

I am the opposite of that.

I have a tremendous appreciation for what I call "contact with reality". It's the scientific method for real life. The scientific method is not about perfection. It's understanding that there are many possible outcomes, many of which we could not expect. That's why the method exists. Oversimplified, it looks like this:

Step One: Form a hypothesis. A hypothesis is not dogmatic. It's not a statement or expectation of certainties or absolutes. Instead, it's a belief in probabilities and risk. "Given what I know, this is what I think will probably happen"

Step Two: Test it against reality. Do the thing and see what happens.

Step Three: Note the outcome. It will almost never be what you expected, which is great because it leads us to better questions.

Step Four: Form a new hypothesis based on step three.

Rinse and repeat.

The outcome is not perfection. The outcome is an ever-narrowing gap between expectation and reality.

I prefer the scientific method because things are always changing, evolving, and improving. Even if perfection was possible, what is "perfect" would change tomorrow.

While I am not a "master of craft", below is an over-the-shoulder look. There are some iterations, realizations, and adjustments from the last week.

Emergent Properties

I wrote about my "aha" moment about going exponential and the concept of emergent properties as soon as it hit me:

Over the following days, I realized that there are other emergent properties baked into The Guardian Academy. I never made it explicit that they were emergent. Members may still be looking for something that can't be found, it has to be "created out of thin air" through a process.

If the nature of these properties was better understood, members may be more focused on creating them instead of trying to find them. I always realized that it's my responsibility to make them easier to understand. This is part of the process.

So, I made a video explaining the other emergent properties and where they emerge from. It also explains how to use a system to tease them out:

It's not perfect. It never will be. I expect to have to make many more videos, articles, and worksheets. As I said, I'm an iterator.

The Structure (and emerging properties)

Learning and Intelligence

Watching a video of a college university QnA session I was reminded that people often mistake knowing about things for learning things. A few moments later I wrote this:

Watching a video of a University Q&A, I was reminded that people mistake knowing things for learning things. A few moments later I wrote this:

I spent the following 24 hours in a state of introspection...

"How many of our students are making this mistake?"

"Have we really done as much as we can to facilitate learning over "knowing stuff?"

Any time you have to ask yourself that question, the answer is no.

So, I went through The Guardian Academy material with fresh eyes and realized a few things:

  • We had never defined learning

  • We had never defined intelligence

  • There are tools that can be created to help people turn "knowing stuff" into learning. First, they would have to have to understand the Guardian Academy's working definitions.

This morning, the team started creating workbooks and worksheets while I filmed this:Learning and Intelligence

Am I missing something?

Probably.

I'll come back to this over and over again.

Let me know if you find it helpful. If so, I'm happy to share the thought process behind why Im building, rebuilding, or iterating.

Nic

PS. The last thing we added was a workshop structure to help people implement the basics. If you watch the video on emergent properties, you'll understand why. The first one is today, you are welcome to come hang out. Details here:

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#35 Learning]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/35-learning wmXmUGRWTV1mhlOkd83t Mon, 05 Jun 2023 15:14:14 GMT

If it isn't obvious by now, I use Twitter as a notepad. Then, I'll transfer whatever sticks to here, video, or both.

It's been months since Dr. Todd Snyder delivered his CCA graduate presentation. I've been thinking a lot about intelligence since. Intelligence, learning, and the relationship between the two.

Todd is a practicing psychologist. He shared some of his observations from his practice. Many people that test well don't know how to get what they want. Others that test poorly are often able to get what they want.

Dr. Snyder's graduate presentation asked a simple question: "What is intelligence?"

The short version:

The ability to get what you want.

The ability to get what you want.


If it increases your ability to get the outcomes you want it has increased your intelligence. If it fills your head with facts without increasing your ability to get what you want it hasn't.

There are many factors that could contribute to whether something increases your intelligence:

  • Being clear on what you want is more likely to increase your intelligence.

  • An orientation toward validity over utility can decrease intelligence. Being "right" or winning arguments often divorces validity and utility.

  • Contact with reality (school of hard knocks) is likely to increase intelligence. Moreso than acquiring knowledge strictly in a classroom. There's a whole rant on that here:

So, if intelligence is the ability to get what you want, what is learning?


I think of learning as behavior that increases or upgrades your intelligence.

Said another way:

Learning is modifying your behavior based on new information, to get what you want.

Said ANOTHER way:

Same circumstance, different behavior.

Same circumstance, same behavior means you haven't learned anything.

If learning is upgrading your ability to get what you want, then learning a thing is different than knowing about a thing.

It's possible to know about a thing without increasing your ability to get what you want.

It's also possible to increase your intelligence without knowing a thing. (A kid that wants to ride a bike can learn how to ride a bike without knowing the various theorems of aerodynamics)

In my own endeavors, I often ask myself:

"Am I learning or am I stuffing my head full of stuff to know?"

If the answer is not clear, I can ask a simpler question:

"Has my behavior changed in a way that is getting me closer to what matters to me?"

Oftentimes, it hasn't. To me, that's a sign that it's time to put away the books and get to work.

Just sharing what I have found useful for myself.

Hopefully, it's useful to you

Nic

PS. Here is Dr. Todd Synder's CCA graduate presentation:

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#33 Exponential ]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/33-exponential 9fo1oY6t5wE5A7aT9AcE Thu, 01 Jun 2023 14:47:14 GMT

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function”
Albert Allen Bartlett

The monkey mind loves the linear (straight lines). So much so that it has developed a strong propensity to extrapolate all data into a straight line.

Simultaneously, it desires things that cannot be achieved linearly. For example, you cannot 10x your income by working 10x more hours, working 10x harder, or taking on 10x more jobs.

You cannot lose weight 3x faster by exercising 3x more or eating 3x less.

Of course, you are welcome to try.

Exponential outcomes are emergent properties. They don't come from doing individual things more frequently, harder, or better. Instead, they emerge from doing them in a way that best compliments the entire system they are a part of. That system, when harmonized, creates an entirely new thing that did not exist before. A thing that you cannot find, no matter hard you look, because it does not exist somewhere to be found. It must emerge from the harmony of a system; what we often call "synergy."

A super simple example:

If you're too lazy to click the tweet it's pasted below. If you show up best on email, show up via email.

Don't copy and paste the same message on other platforms. Instead, use other platforms to get people to go open the email, where you show up best.

Example: If you show up best on video and your entire strategy is based on retargeting video viewers on Facebook...

1. Show up on video and get it onto Facebook

2. Send an email with a link to that video so that they fall into your optimized strategy

3. if you care about your open rates, you can SMS people to check their email for something powerful instead of just linking them to the video.

If you don't care about the open rate, link directly to the video. Use other platforms to get people into SMS, email, or directly to the original video. This is optimizing the synergy between the components of a system.

"Exponential" is an emergent property, it rarely exists in isolation. Getting parts to work together > getting more individual parts working.

Hopefully, that makes sense.

It's different for everyone.

You have your skillset. Your unique abilities and disposition. There is only one of you in existence which means you have some advantage, whatever that is.

The greatest potential for exponential will be figuring out what you do best, how you show up best, and what you are most interested in...

And then building a system around it, iterating it over and over and over again. Don't iterate to get more detailed, work harder, add more things, or add more hours. Instead, learn to observe the system. Learn to sand down/smooth out the friction points so the system runs with more harmony.

It's the theory of constraints; remove the most immediate constraint. But focus on the constraints preventing the system from being synergistic. Marketing, product, sales, etc will all improve at the right time: when they are the biggest constraint in the system. They will improve the appropriate amount; enough to no longer be the constraints.

More importantly...

If you try to perfect one component of the system you will get diminished returns. If you can stay zoomed out enough to obsess over harmonizing the parts, a new property emerges that can only emerge through this kind of synergistic thinking and implementation...

Exponential.

The Monkey Mind will fight it.

It will try and get you to obsess over each detail of each component. It will demand linear strategies while simultaneously expecting exponential growth. Monkey minf behavior will lead to reality failing to meet expectations.

Remember:

Exponential is an emergent property.

It cannot be found with more effort, harder work, or a fancier vision board. It must be created and drawn out by increasing synergy one iteration at a time.

Onward.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#31 Entropy]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/31-entropy C3Oq5HdA93mgDmYJ1hfS Wed, 24 May 2023 14:41:08 GMT Entropy.

Entropy is a lot like evolution in the sense that people write about what it is and do their best to work it into their conversations to sound intellectual. Nassim Taleb calls them the "IYI", the "Intellectual Yet Idiot". They are easy to spot because they find creative ways to inject scientific-sounding words into their colloquial speech and equally creative ways to avoid any discussion practical application or secondary and tertiary consequences. They remember and repeat words and definitions but completely miss the concepts in real-time and fail to adapt their own behavior accordingly.

In other words, they say a lot of valid things that aren't terribly useful to anyone.

The cognitively lazy listener thinks "Wow, that sounded smart. I can repeat that to others and I'll sound smart."

IYI is contagious to the monkey mind.

This morning, I am going to write about entropy. And I am going to do my best to make it useful. It will likely not be easy to repeat, nor should it be repeated. Instead, it should be wrestled with, observed, implemented, and then reinvented to be even more useful to the listener should you choose to pass it on.

Cool? cool.

Let's start with the concept of evolution...

The concept of evolution can be poked, prodded, disagreed with, accepted, or responded to in any number of ways. It doesn't matter to me. The value is not being "right" about how we got to where we are now, the value is the lens from which we can use it to see the world; the lens of survival.

For example, it's likely that every time you try to diet you lose weight easily at first, and then the weight loss slows down even if you further reduce calories and increase exercise.

That can be frustrating and from our myopic, self-centered point of view, entirely unfair. This "unfairness" that can't be easily described, explained, or understood can quickly turn us into victims.

However, through the sobering lens of survival, it makes perfect sense. If the hypothalamus recognizes that we are operating a caloric deficit it will try and downregulate (lower your metabolic rate) as much as possible in order to keep us alive. It's good for survival, but not always good for your personal preference at the time.

A calorie deficit is likely to cause downregulation. A calorie surplus is unlikely to cause an upregulation. In other words, It's much easier to lower your metabolic rate than to increase it. It may seem unfair to you because you want to lose weight, but it makes perfect sense through the lens of survival. A faster metabolism is less likely to keep you alive longer than a slower one. Whether you believe in evolution, divine intervention, or something in between, the physical world will always prioritize survival. You want to lose weight, nature has hardwired you to stay alive.

The universe (and everything in it) does not have a responsibility to know what you want, care about what you want, or adjust itself to facilitate what you want. You are the one that wants it, therefore it is up to you to understand the nature of reality and behave in a way that will get you what you want within the natural laws.

And so we turn to entropy.

Not as a concept to repeat to others hoping to sound smart, but as another lens through which to see the world and bring sobriety to our situation(s).

Imagine you have built a sandcastle. It's a beautiful sand castle, built to your exact preferences. In your mind, based on your personal preferences, this perfect sand sculpture represents order.

The next day, you come back to the beach to admire your sand castle and it's disfigured. No longer does it look exactly the way you want it to look. It's not "right". This abomination, no longer representing your ideal, represents disorder.

This does not happen because the beach is against you, the tide is against you, the wind and the animals that have trampled your sandcastle are against you, or the universe is opposed to your happiness.

It happens because the sand, the wind, the tide, the animals, and the universe are all indifferent to what you want. The sand before you can take an infinite number of forms that conform to the laws of nature. If there are an infinite number of possibilities and you have decided only one form is acceptable (order) then every other possible form represents disorder.

Entropy is simply the gradual decline into disorder. The law states things that are un-tended to will move from a state of order to disorder.

The more dogmatic you are about what is considered "order" the more of those infinite options are considered disorder and the more you will feel the impact of entropy as negative. Said another way: the more dogmatic you are and the more things you are dogmatic about (having only one acceptable outcome) the higher the probability you have a negative outcome.

If you decide there is only one acceptable form or outcome it's entirely your responsibility to create that outcome and tend to it. The responsibility does not fall on the tide to be agreeable, the wind to stay minimal, the animals to steer clear, the kids playing at the beach, or anything other than you.

Why is that important?

Aside from a lesson in personal responsibility, it's a practice in resource allocation.

If you accept that things can take many forms, and if you care about the form of a thing it's your responsibility to tend to it, you also have to accept that you may have to spend all day, every day at the beach tending to your sand castle.

If you are at the beach all day tending to your sandcastle, necessarily, you are not somewhere else tending to something else.

And those other things are not immune to entropy.

The lens of entropy forces us to acknowledge tradeoffs.

Armed (burdened?) with this new lens, you are forced to acknowledge tradeoffs and prioritize where you're resources are being allocated. It highlights the value of being less dogmatic and controlling of everything so that we can focus our resources on only the things that matter most.

The universe has never done anything to you out of malice. If you feel that it's working actively against you, try to view it through the lens of entropy.

What you will see is that things will move from order to disorder.

Order is subjective, what is order to you may not be order to me. Therefore you must tend to your shit to maintain your order, and I must tend to my shit to maintain mine. To think, even for a second, that what is "order" to me should also be considered "order" by everyone and everything else in the universe is nonsensical.

The lens of entropy helps us see the nature of reality a little bit clearer. Most of our problems are a result of being far too dogmatic about far too many things and getting spun out when the rest of the world doesn't conform to our wants or desires.

More importantly, it reminds us that things will always go from order (how we want them) to disorder (every other shape they could take), and we must tend to the things that matter most, even if that means letting other things take shape other than what we want them to take.

Remember:
By deciding you want it to look a certain way or take a certain shape, you are also taking on the responsibility to shape it and maintain it that way; whether you accept that responsibility or not.

This is not a post about taking more responsibility for more things. On the contrary, it's about being less dogmatic and demanding of the world around you, recapturing all that bandwidth wasted on fighting the universe and reallocating to the few things that matter most.

Perhaps being more accepting or even appreciating all of the other shapes the sand can take isn't such a horrible thing. If it allows you to focus on the thing that matters most, the sandcastle of randomness might be the most beautiful shape of all.

Onward,
Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#30 Time]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/30-time eGl3eG3wcLrS9pI6Zvjt Sat, 20 May 2023 20:32:28 GMT In yesterday's "Force Multipliers," I touched on revisiting fundamentals being a greater use of time than pursuing something new.

This is a version of that.

This Instagram post is over 3 years old and tells a story starting over 13 years ago.

Ignore the photo, read the post.

Or just read it below:

About a decade ago someone I respected said to me: “Dude you’ll just forever have little boy chicken legs”

I just kinda smiled and shrugged.
It occurs to me now that back then, it probably seemed as if silence meant resigning completely. Or maybe defeat.

Lol. -

A few years after that someone I respected said: “I love ya, but you’ll never really make it as a business owner.
Lol -

A few years ago someone I respected said to me: “You’ll never make as money as I do bro”

I just kinda smiled and shrugged. -

Funny how has time has a way of ending all argument.

Never mistake lack of words for lack of action.

And never mistake an abundance of words for an abundance of action.

The ones that refuse to argue are often not giving up- on the contrary- they know that time will make a far stronger argument than words will. —
Pro tip:

People striving for validation right now are trying so hard for the short term win because they’re not so sure time will work out in their favor.
—— Still wanna prove your point or win your argument?

Let’s talk about it in a year.

Time does have a way of ending arguments.

But most people will try and win or end an argument with words and they will try and do it as fast as possible.

Why?

Because on some level they are worried that time and randomness are not on their side. They play a short game in which they hope to accumulate enough short-term, verbal wins to validate their own existence.

Keep time on your side, keep randomness on your side. Here are some ways to do that.

Of course, the snippet above was posted by me and my perspective has changed over the years - as has my time preference. Today, I would tell you to check back in 5, maybe 10 years.

If time passing will make a stronger argument than your words possibly could save the energy, and put towards the work.

If your words will make an argument than the passing of time...

...think about what that means.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#29 Voluntary Amputation]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/29-voluntary-amputation i2TTaH4g5Pt3sj7vF5Z2 Wed, 17 May 2023 14:44:45 GMT

“The mind is the machine that controls everything in your world. How you respond to any event and how you navigate the obstacles standing in your way is all dependent on your ability to direct your mind—instead of it directing you.”
Akshay Nanavanti, Fearvana

"Hey brother

Hope all is well in your world. I am in India and just finished cutting off my finger a couple of days ago. It was one hell of a battle just getting the doctor to agree to cut it off...."

That is the first message I read this morning from my buddy Akshay.

See, Akshay has (had) a perfectly functional finger and had it amputated. I'm still on the fence about whether he's just mildly lost his mind or he's gone entirely off the deep end.

What I am sure of is that HE is clear on why he felt it was necessary to chop off a perfectly functional finger; because he has a mission and that finger is one of the biggest liabilities to completing that mission.

From a sentimental point of view, is it the last great Polar journey that can be made, the most striking of all journeys...and the last great adventure in the history of South Polar exploration"

Sir Ernest Shackleton, 1922

I would explain myself, but Akshay was at our last event and kindly let Joe Polish and Dr. Cheri Ong interview him to figure out what in the world is going on in this guys mind:

It's an incredible journey he is attempting.

The experts are convinced it's not possible.

And while I don't see a scenario where I would willing to get a PERFECTLY FUNCTIONAL FINGER chopped off to trek across the ice I do support anyone doing something extraordinary that they are called to do.

Watch the video above, there are some very powerful mindset and performance insights baked into the sheer absurdity of it all.

Akshay has been through a lot and has much to share:

Have you ever been so clear on your calling that you'd start chopping off body parts to give yourself the highest probability of answering that call?

I'm not convinced that Akshey is the most sane of us all, but I am leaving room to consider that maybe, just maybe, he is.

Nic

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#28 Diffusion]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/28-diffusion rRTvYy8DTtpz3wv9ntN9 Sun, 14 May 2023 18:22:19 GMT

“Thus we see that the diffusion of innovations is a social process, even more than a technical matter.”
― Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovation

Things rarely diffuse (get adopted) smoothly. Diffusion of Innovation is one of my favorite books and I strongly recommend it for a deeper understanding.

You're likely familiar with the graphic above. Originally published in 1962 with Everett Rodger's initial Diffusion research, it was reinvented in the 90s as the "adoption of technology curve", which is the same thing but with a "chasm" between innovators and early adopters. That chasm, in regards to tech, is often a complexity gap and/or a regulatory gap.

As technology improves exponentially, human behavior and regulatory efforts are often unable to keep up.

Some Basics To Know

Fundamental factors of diffusion to brush up on before getting into the fun stuff.

Credibility, What Is It?

It depends. Here's a multiple-choice test for you:

You have just been diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor and surgery is the only option. Fortunately, this is a fairly common procedure in which the average success rate is 80%.

You are given the opportunity to choose your surgeon and are presented with two options:

  • Option 1: Dr. Williams. Dr. Williams is highly respected and has the highest success rate in the country, over 94%. He is also highly feared, and not well-liked, because he doesn't want to meet his patients, know anything about their personal lives or talk to their families. He certainly doesn't go out of his way to make anyone feel better before or after the procedure.

  • Option 2: Dr. Smith. Dr Smith has an above-average success rate of 86%. He is well-liked and spends a lot of time with the patient and the family to help them understand what is going on. The medical community has taken notice of how he makes everyone involved feel as safe as possible.

Which surgeon do you choose?

It depends on where you fall on the diffusion curve. In studies like this, an overwhelming number of patients choose Option 2, Dr. Smith, even though his success rate is lower.

Why?

Because Dr. Smith has more credibility with the majority than Dr. Williams does. To understand this, we must look at how credibility is perceived differently by different people, depending on where they find themselves on the diffusion curve.

Innovators and the earliest of early adopters bias competence credibility: They assign credibility to the better tech, the better fundamentals, and the better results based on data. They, themselves, also tend to be more competent and are able to discern the efficacy of something based on technical, whitepapers and specs.

The further to the right we move, the more people bias safety credibility: they assign credibility to what appears to be safe to them based on what other people are doing.

Safety comes from information. Information, in the context of diffusion research, is probably not what you think.

Information: What Is It?

Another multiple-choice question for you:

A friend of yours sees that your parents are struggling to pay the bills with their local bakery. Wanting to provide help she says to your parents:

"It's super easy. Just write down your avatar while we are at lunch and then I will review it and I'll add pixels to your website when we get back"

Did your friend provide information?

  • Yes

  • No

Again, it depends. Your friend provided data to an audience (your parents). If that data increases the uncertainty they feel, it's innovation. If it closes the gap of uncertainty, it's information. More than likely, your parents have no idea what an avatar is (or they think it's a giant blue alien from a James Cameron movie) nor do they know what a pixel is.

Your friend has not provided information or safety. In fact, she has likely provided innovation and decreased certainty as well as perceived safety.

You can see why diffusion is never smooth, yea?

Competent people (in space or industry) think they are helping by providing information when they are actually hurting by creating uncertainty with innovation.

Takeaways:

Innovation Diffuses When It Turns Into Information

more specifically:

Innovation is adopted or created by innovators, who, along with the earliest adopters adopt innovation based on tech and specs. Most new things die right here because it will not continue to be adopted by the early majority unless it is turned into information; presented in a way that closes the gap of uncertainty - oftentimes this means it has to be "dumbed down" which most innovators refuse to do.

Only after the early majority adopts it can the rest of the market get the "safety credibility" they need from seeing other people around them using it.

I've done deep dives on the 5 adoption decisions and how to utilize them, so I'm not going to go into that now. Just grab the book. Instead, I'm going to share some of my favorite examples.

Why?

Because it's showing you people like you doing things that provides you with information. If that doesn't make sense, read the above again.

Okay, there is one more key component of adoption:

The amount of reinvention allowed is directly correlated to the degree and magnitude of adoption.

Viagra, for example, was invented for heart disease and tested as a solution for headaches. They found one of the side effects (yes, boners) was way more appealing to the masses. Had they taken a dogmatic stance and said "No, this is for heart disease and only heart disease" Viagra would not have near the mass adoption it does today.

In other words, using things for ONLY the purpose they were originally created, or not allowing reinvention, will often stifle the adoption of something new.

Blockchain purists/maxis are one of the biggest limits to adoption (along with regulatory effort taking forever) due to their dogmatic stance on what it is and the select few ways it should be used.

Diffusion and Reinvention

Example 1: Laurel Portie and The Solvable Problem

The Solvable Problem (tm) is a concept created by Dan Nicholson. It takes your financial goals and turns them into something that can be solved. I strongly recommend Dan's book Rigging The Game to learn more.

Laurel learned it, applied it, and was able to fund her 5-year goals in just a few weeks. But then she did something extraordinary ...reinvented the concept to apply to another domain: advertising.

All of her students are learning to advertise. By taking the concept from one domain and applying it to another she contributed to the adoption of the new concept AND drastically improved her own program.

Laurel is an early adopter of conceptual frameworks, but many of her students are not. We could have tried to shove The Solvable Problem down their throats and it would have not been helpful to them. Presenting it and helping them apply it in a context they are familiar with, Laurel enables the Solvable Problem concept to help more people by turning it into information for her audience.

Laurel breaks it all down here, in her words:

Textbook diffusion.

Example 2: Doc The Wolf

Kevin Chu is a student of the Guardian Academy and the Wolf Den, where I teach most of my core concepts and principles. It's powered by the blockchain, so access requires an NFT.

There are two very natural limits to the diffusion of Guardian Academy and Wolf Den:

  • The concepts are advanced and often counterintuitive, so the level of "information" and "safety" to the masses is going to be low.

  • They live on the blockchain, which creates the same tech-based barrier as above. Information and safety of the blockchain are low to the masses.

Kevin used the image of his NFT to create a character: Doc The Wolf. Doc The Wolf went on to write a children's book based on the core teachings of TGA and the Wolf Den. In doing so, Kevin has diffused the core concepts to a wider audience where books with this kind of content are information and buying from Amazon are safe.

There is a high degree of reinvention in both examples, especially Doc The Wolf. And I love it. Any NFT project or owner that thinks "But everything has to happen on chain" is severely handicapping the potential reach and positive impact of the innovation they bring to the market.

I also love it because I rely on people like Laurel and Kevin.

I decided a long time ago that I do not want to build things for the masses, I prefer to live on the edge of innovation. Early adopters like Kevin and Laurel who understand how to take innovation and turn it into information for their audiences are more important than the innovators themselves, they are the bridge between idea and impact.

What Does It Mean For You?

It depends.

I have found a sweet spot for me. On one side of me, I have extreme innovation to play with, implement and share. On the other, I have people like Kevin, Laurel, our CCA students, and Guardians who understand how to diffuse the information in a way that benefits themselves and their audience.

Your job, in my opinion, is to figure out where you sit on the curve. If you are an early adopter there is a great opportunity for you if you can learn to learn innovation into information. If you are like me, you will have to accept that you have the most impact when other people get credit and continue to feed those people things they can reinvent.

If you're a later adopter, don't try and be an early one. You will be stressed out all the time. If you are an innovator don't try and be a mass-market guy/girl. You will hate it. They will hate you.

There is no right answer. It's about understanding where you sit on the adoption curve and then doing the following:

  • Consume data from and interact with people in one section to the left of you.

  • Reinvent that data into information to diffuse to the people one section to the right of you.

This makes you incredibly valuable to the people that tend to be earlier than you [you spread their ideas] and even more valuable to those that tend to be later than you [you are a trusted advisor]. The further you get from your sweet spot, the less effective you become and the more irritating everything is.

Earlier is not better. Later is not better. The proper place and pace for you is better. That is where you find the most value for yourself and become the most valuable to everyone else.

Like anything else, it's simple:

Know yourself. Play Your Game.

Nic

PS. This AI newsletter is pretty sweet. It's the only thing I look forward to in my inbox each week. (I don't write it)

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson) <![CDATA[#25 Closer > More]]> https://paragraph.com/@nicpeterson/25-closer-greater-more ucYm2g7HP5FiSqlXKRQi Tue, 04 Apr 2023 14:59:58 GMT More" or "Function > Form" "Closer over more" is a reminder to take actions that get you closer to the things that matter most, not just "more" of something. "...]]> We have two phrases we use in our little corner of the world to remind people to orient toward the most efficient forward:

"Closer > More"
or
"Function > Form"

"Closer over more" is a reminder to take actions that get you closer to the things that matter most, not just "more" of something.

"Function over form" is a reminder not to obsess over the tools, tactics, and what it looks like so much so that you lose sight of what you're trying to accomplish.

Even though repeating myself is one of my favorite things to do, I've written about both at length and will spare you the agony of hearing about the concept again. Instead, I'm just going to share an example that I hope you find useful.

The Revenue Trap

One of the most common ways "closer > more" or "form >function" is violated is in the form of revenue or income. Our monkey minds tell us more revenue is better and "more sales" is the path forward. This is an orientation toward more and stuck on a form (sales).

Here is another perspective to consider.

A few weeks ago I ended up on a Zoom call with a company looking to explore additional revenue streams that also had some questions about new tech, like blockchain. Here is what they said (summarized):

-Revenue: 300,000,000 a year
- Profit: 21,000,000 a year (approx 7% margins)
- Looking to grow another 10% this year (add 30 mil in revenue)

I know NOTHING about their industry. But I don't necessarily have to. The convo went something like this:

Q. "Okay, so why 10% or 30 million? Is that a revenue thing for valuation or is that just an arbitrary number?"

A. "After this next stage of building the software (about 18 months out), our expenses should drop significantly. 10% growth should net us about an extra 2 million in profit"

Q. So what you're after is 2 million in additional profit... correct?"

A. Yes

Note: at this point, we can see that the focus on form (revenue) could possibly be blinding them to the most efficient path toward what they actually want (profit). They have decided which tool they are going to use (sales) and are now focused on the tool (form > function) instead of the thing they are trying to accomplish (function> form). This puts them in a state of more revenue is the answer (more>closer) instead of being open to all of the possibilities to get closer to more profits.

Q. Okay, so can you send me a list of all your expenses? If there is low-hanging fruit, we might be able to just cut 2 million in expenses - the same outcome as making an extra 30 million (2 mil in additional profits)...but without the extra risk and resources that would go into selling and delivering on the 30 mil in sales...

A. Yeah, I can get that to you but I already know that one of our biggest pain points is credit fees.

Q. What are they?

A. Average about 3.1%

Q. Okay, well let me just introduce you to someone that can get them down to 2.4% to start and then probably lower it with volume. Idk, talk to them and see if they can help.

It doesn't sound sexy, and it doesn't appease the monkey mind's desire for "more" but they agreed and I made the intro thinking it will probably help close the gap for them. The next day I did the math:

$300m x 3.1% = $9.3 mil in fees
$300m x 2.4% = $7.2 mil in fees

Savings: $2.1 million

No need for new tech, no need for more offers, and no need for more risk.

The most efficient path forward.

There aren't many companies doing 300m+ in sales, so this is not a plug-and-play solution. But then again, nothing is. This is an example of just spotting someone that is stuck on "more" and/or "form" and re-orienting them to "closer" and/or "function".

Whether you are building your own business, consulting others or both I think it will be helpful to you and your clients to step back, forget the "form" for a minute or two, and rethink: what are we trying to accomplish and what is the most efficient path forward?

The monkey mind will ALWAYS fight for control, it cannot be shut off. It is always running in the background, so we must develop frameworks, filters, and tools to override it. "Closer > more" and "function over form" are just our reminders to use those tools.

Borrow them if they are helpful. Develop your own if you prefer.

Whatever floats your boat.

Nic

PS. For those that ask what the CCA is, it's just a live, interactive curriculum teaching our entire toolbox and then encouraging it to make it your own /match your aspirations.

PPS. More tools:
CertaintyTools.com
GuardianAcademy.io
RiggingAmazon.com
Bumpersbook.com

]]> nicpeterson@newsletter.paragraph.com (Nic Peterson)