Stop Doing Hard Things That Don't Matter

0:00Do more hard things every day is a great mantra, but it should be less about ice baths and more about making that decision you've been putting off for 3 months. >> [sighs and gasps] >> Yeah. Um I think that there's been a big misconception around hard stuff, which is just that um like running a marathon necessarily means that you can have a hard conversation with your wife um by saying like I go I do hard things, um but those hard things don't necessarily generalize.

0:28And so, I think domain specificity is much more uh narrow unless you decide to generalize to an identity label of like I am the type of person who can do hard things because I ran this marathon or because I do these ice baths, and then as a result, I can then generalize that label to other behaviors. Um but if you can make that label and identify with it, then you don't need to run the marathon in order to do the hard thing. You just need the label. >> What are the hard things that people should be focusing on more? What what are the step-change function hard thing capacity skills that people should focus on more?

1:00>> [sighs] >> I think it's being cognizant of what what other what outside forces are influencing your behavior in a way that is aversive or against your goals. And so, if you're like, I want to start a business, but I am afraid of what other people will say, then it means that we are allowing those other people to control your behavior. And I think when you say it in really plain terms like they're like, "Wow, I didn't know I was giving them that much power in my life." It's like, "I'm not doing this because of them, which means they control me."

1:33And to me, like the hard thing is in some ways just not allowing that control to persist or to keep going. >> Mhm. It's interesting how many people can do hard things physically, but can't do hard things decisively. >> I have So, I have you know, our security team and whatnot, and this is is a discussion that I've had with probably each of them at different times who've seen combat and death and all that kind of stuff. Um and what's funny is that like the amount of risk that they are willing to put their physical bodies in, like literally their lives at stake, but that's how that doesn't necessarily translate to being able to have a like call it vulnerable conversation with a wife, spouse, lover, etc.

2:11Um it's just interesting. And this is again back to like these things don't generalize. They look good, but they do not mean the same thing. >> It's weird that we publicly admire the obvious hard thing. Even if that isn't the one that actually makes the biggest difference to people's life direction. It's not predictive of being a good friend. It's not predictive of being the best partner. It's not predictive of being a successful business owner. But because it's more obvious, because it's more publicly laudable, you can flex it online and you can tell people I ran a marathon as opposed to when my partner asked me a difficult question, I didn't shy away from it. I told them the truth.

2:53>> And to be clear, I think that those things are laudable in and of themselves. Like you go fight a war, you go do like you go run a marathon. I think all of those things are are praiseworthy. It's just the generalizable component of that hard being oh, I can do all hard things is really the the misconception. But I do think that if you if for whatever reason you tell yourself a narrative that that you because because you did this hard thing, you can do all hard things, then that's amazing. And by all means if someone's like I started doing jujitsu and it completely changed my life. It's like that's awesome. But it probably isn't because you learned how to do guard better. Uh it's probably because like what guard what learning to do guard meant for you changed these other series of behaviors down the line.

3:29>> How correlative do you think it is people that do hard things physically versus people who develop the capacity to do hard things that matter? >> Can you re- say that again? >> Let's say that doing hard things electively versus doing hard things decisively. The big difference between the two to me seems to be decisions that require emotion and decisions that require effort. That seems to be one of the big delineations here.

3:55>> So So it's like the called hard conversation versus hard physical task? >> Yeah. And how many people who develop the skill to do hard physical tasks as a transformation, how many of those do you think carry over into being able to do the hard thing emotionally? >> Probably the same in the opposite direction. The guys who are like can have quote hard conversations, the attorney who can get through all these complex ideas and have whatever, then sucks on at jiu-jitsu or sucks at in the weight room or doesn't try hard. I think um I just think that skills are more specific unless you generalize them.

4:26>> How do you generalize? >> I think it's it's it's creating labels and identity with personality. And so if we if we if we [clears throat] ident- if we define personality by um the aggregate of how you behave in all conditions, right? So all these conditions, how you act is your personality. The label we ascribe to that personality would then be the identity. And so if we decide to change that label, then that label, this is getting a little technical, but basically becomes a global reinforcer for your behavior. Like I am this I am honest. And so we make this label and then honest has a lot of sub behaviors underneath of it that we then act because we believe that honest is good. And so we want to act in accordance with this global reinforcer for ourselves. And so when we enter a new situation, we think, "Okay, what is in alignment? What behavior is most aligned with this label?" And then we do that. And then when we don't do we don't act that way, then we feel guilty because we broke our own rules of behavior.

5:21>> So the big lesson here is just because you're doing hard things in one domain does not mean that it crosses over into all domains unless you purposefully try to make your identity wrapped up around it. >> A thousand percent. If you like this video and you're business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling, I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million and three businesses past 100 million into a completely free scaling road map that I've used to go from zero to one, zero to 10, and zero to 100 plus. And so you can click here and you can check it out. Again, absolutely free and since you're business owner appreciates you and enjoy.