#16 Playing Up - Commandments 4 and 5
Contact with reality and function over form
The deep dive continues. This is another section of the December 2020 direct mail Letter. Get caught up with the intro to “Playing Up” and the First Commandment:
Playing Up: Introduction and Commandment 1
Playing Up - Commandments 2 and 3
Okay.
Onward.
Commandment 4: Maintain Contact With Reality.
"If you offer me advice and you don't have some scars, a busted nose or a limp, I can't trust you"
- Dr Jeff Spencer
“Contact with reality” is difficult for many to grasp.
Many professions have contact with reality by the nature of their work. Pilots and dentists, for example, have direct contact with reality. They have skin in the game. They are directly and immediately punished for their mistakes or errors. This means that they adjust quickly, learn on the job, and become better with time.
For those with tight contact with reality, time on the job tends to make them better.
The same is not true for coaches, consultants, or academics. They are not required to take on risks for what they do - or tell others to do. A bad consultant can blow up dozens of other people's businesses before they feel the pain. And when they do feel pain, it won't be obvious to them what is causing it.
Time on the job doesn't necessarily make them better.
Think of it this way:
If a leader makes a decision to go to war, and they are on the front lines, they have contact with reality.
If a leader makes a decision to go to war, from the comfort of their air-conditioned office, they don't.
Sending a bunch of strangers to war at no risk to yourself is a very "consultant" way of operating.
A leader on the front lines is more trustworthy. He is more discerning about the decision and the strategy because he is in the thick of it.
If he is wrong, he pays the price.
Service providers love the idea of separating themselves from reality. And I get it. It’s easy to macro-bullshit by saying things like “Fix your mindset, bro”.
When a dentist is wrong he doesn’t get to say “Fix your mindset, bro”. If he pulls the wrong tooth, he's held accountable for his actions. If he manages to keep his job, he has no choice but to get better at it.
The top 10% have great BS meters. Generally, they aren't looking for who is right or wrong, but who has contact with reality.
They can tell.
Stay in the thick of it. Test your own methods. Stress test them often.
Added note, as an example.
I believe direct mail will be a huge advantage to those that figure it out in this increasingly digital world - and for my clients and partners that want to take advantage of it, I want to be able to help them. Before I can help them, I need to have a direct mail system set up that I am actively operating.
Not delegating to VA’s or outsourcing to others - I need to maintain the contact with the reality of direct mail in 2023. I have an idea of how it will play out, but it needs to be stress tested in the real world.
Commandment 5: One Must Focus On Function Over Form.
Everyone else was focused on how to build a better bag (form). Sadow thought about how to move things more efficiently.(function).”
- James Clear
I'm often accused of getting lucky. I also look like a complete wackadoo when I work out - other people in the gym think I’m punking them or something.
The best part?
Those two sentences are related. I’ll do my best to tie it all together if you stick with me.
Ever feel like some people seem to keep winning while others can’t seem to catch a lucky break? I spend a few hours every morning studying both successful AND unsuccessful people. It's given me a different view of "luck".
Take this bit from James Clear:
“In ancient Rome, soldiers used leather messenger bags and satchels to carry food while riding across the countryside. At the same time, the Romans had many vehicles with wheels like chariots, carriages, and wagons. And yet, for thousands of years, nobody thought to combine the bag and the wheel. The first rolling suitcase wasn’t invented until 1970 when Bernard Sadow was hauling his luggage through an airport and saw a worker rolling a heavy machine on a wheeled skid.
Throughout the 1800s and 1900s, leather bags were specialized for particular uses—backpacks for school, rucksacks for hiking, and suitcases for travel. Zippers were added to bags in 1938. Nylon backpacks were first sold in 1967. Despite these improvements, the form of the bag remained largely the same. Innovators spent all of their time making slight iterations on the same theme.
What looks like innovation is often an iteration of previous forms rather than an improvement of the core function. Everyone else was focused on how to build a better bag (form). Sadow thought about how to move things more efficiently.(function).”
Sadow was asking a different question than everyone else. He wasn't thinking about improving the form, he was thinking about improving the function.
To adopt the function over form orientation, one has to learn how to think for themselves. To think for ourselves we must bias function over form.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg thing.
At first, it requires effort. It did for me, anyway. I had to remember to focus on solving the problem instead of improving the tools. Eventually it becomes second nature.
What does that look like in reality?
Things that an “unlucky” person might focus on:
“I need to grow my business bigger”
“I need to grow my revenues”
“We need to hire more people”
“We need to increase ad spend and find another channel that converts!”
These are all examples of getting stuck on the form. You can shift a little more toward a function focus by finishing the sentence:
"I need to grow my business bigger so that_______"
Let's assume that you want to grow your business so that you have more money.
"I need to grow my business bigger so that I have more money"
^ This is a little bit more oriented toward function - the function of the business is to generate more money.
But we can dig further - what is the function of money?
"I want to have more money so that_______"
Let's assume that you want to have more money so that you can hire someone and get some of your time back. In this case, the function of money is recovered time.
And the function of the recovered time?
"I want to have some of my time back so I can spend more time writing"
The function of the time is to write more. And the function of spending more time writing?
"..so that I can finish my book."
So what you really want is to finish your book. The function is getting your book finished.
Growing your business is one of the many potential paths or tools. But don't lose sight of the function and get stuck on the form. You will miss every time a more efficient or creative path reveals itself.
In other words:
You'll fail to recognize the "good luck".
Here’s a recent example:
Prospect: "I need to make enough to pay someone else to do XYZ so I can get ten hours a week back to think and spend with my family."
Nic: "How much do you need?"
Prospect: "$10,000 a month extra would cover the salary with some wiggle room. But there are so many options, Dan Henry's program, Some YouTube Courses, Sam Ovens... I'm trying to decide what to invest in - I was told maybe your Network would be a good fit"
Nic: [Asks a bunch of questions and finds out that this person is driving 55 minutes each way, 6 days a week to the office every day]...
"K. Well an office space 5 min from your house is $2,500 a month. So there's 11 hours of your time back in drive time.
So now you have your time back and $2,500 to cover.
Go through your bank statements - business and personal - and cancel non-critical recurring payments. Add them back in later if you need them. (This is Dan Nicholson's two Oreo principle)"
You can see the basic recapture and reallocate (finding money) framework here.
Result:
11 hours a week back
$3,200+ in recurring expenses and unnecessary subscriptions eliminated (recapture and reallocate)- which covers the expense of moving to the closer. This will represent an even larger savings once the original office lease is up.
Got the time back without having to do more work or invest more time.
Didn't have to pay me anything to reach their goal, which is a bonus.
That's the difference between focusing on the function over the form. It would have taken significantly longer, and a lot more risk to achieve the same thing had he stayed stuck on the the form - the tool to get there.
In my experience the top 10% are function driven, but blinded by form. They will invest the most money - and be happy to do so - to have the efficient path forward shown to them.
Everyone else is selling them the form; bigger tools, shinier tools, newer tools. If you can discover the function (this is where the solvable problem comes in) you can offer the most efficient path forward.
One more commandment left - and it’s a doozy.
From Form to Function: How To Think Your Way to Clarity
Onward.
Nic