Notice that it’s multiplicative instead of additive, meaning that uncertainty and powerlessness amplify each other exponentially; a tiny increase in uncertainty and a tiny increase in the feeling of powerlessness will compound into massive amounts of anxiety. (Location 203)
Financial Anxiety = Financial Uncertainty x Financial Powerlessness (Location 207)
Once you have the context behind the success you want to model and the necessary mental framing and action steps to implement it in your own business, the mystery surrounding financial certainty and risk reduction becomes a lot less intimidating and frightening and instead becomes something you can feasibly conquer. (Location 210)
Successful people don’t necessarily win all the time—and what we tend to label “good luck” is actually just preparedness for the known unknowns; put another way, they have rigged the game for the unknown. (Location 224)
is not enough to protect us (Location 245)
While we are wired for biases, most design their systems to assume they are not subject to biases. Or that this time, they will try harder, as if trying harder is the simple solution to everything. (Spoiler alert: It’s not). (Location 247)
It’s better to build a system where you can run consistently at an average pace. And when you run faster, it’s a bonus—but not the expectation. (Location 266)
Not only does this approach set you up to win—and even overachieve—it allows you to let go of the shame and guilt of not achieving perfection every time. (Location 267)
The Human Mindset is Kahneman’s System 1 and establishes that without a system or solid framework to make decisions, you will lean heavily on your hardwired biases. (Location 271)
The Champion’s Mind is Kahneman’s System 2 and is oriented toward success. The Champion’s Mind is not set or fixed. While a select few seem to come naturally inclined to adopt the Champion’s Mind, it’s not a birthright. It can be honed with intentional practice, and while it doesn’t have first dibs, it does have the final say if we have the tools to put it to work when necessary. (Location 277)
On the other hand, System 2 is the slow, controlled, analytical and thoughtful method where logic and reason dominate. (Location 290)
In the words of Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor, neurologist and psychologist: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” (Location 300)
Let’s say you’ve achieved a seven-figure business and then no longer have a seven-figure business. But you’ve anchored yourself to the idea that you have a seven-figure business and now you need to take every action to avoid the loss of having to say that you don’t actually have a seven-figure business. This is an expression of the anchoring bias or the cognitive bias, which causes us to rely on the very first piece of information we’re given about a topic. (Location 305)
Indexing, at its most basic, is a way of sorting data into categories (most commonly into a database or table for later use). (Location 315)
Group indexing, on the other hand, is based on averages. You’re likely pretty similar to the average example of someone in your demographic for age, height, weight and the area in which you live. (Location 320)
This isn’t necessarily to eliminate them because that’s not realistic. But you can build those biases into the systems you use to make decisions so that those systems are perfectly designed to generate the outcome that serves you and your priorities best. (Location 325)
Any time you go from zero to one, the relative change is undefined. But we try to build a system where the change is zero to 1,000. (Location 330)
So unless you have the unique disposition to maintain extremes in perpetuity (it’s prudent to assume less than .1 percent do), it’s better to build the system assuming that you are subject to biases. Then, if you aren’t subject to any biases, that just creates an additional upside. (Location 331)
Unfortunately, business owners work the same way—they are unknowingly beating themselves by trying to push harder on the gas without releasing the emergency brake. (Location 373)
Since this book is all about rigging the game in your favor, let’s look at people who figured out that business is a game in the first place. (Location 379)
We know them for setting their own rules and not playing anyone else’s game. Do you think Oprah decided to twiddle her thumbs and do as she was told until she hit her big break? (Location 383)
Every success story you’ve heard about enigmatic leaders such as these is rooted in personal passion. Ask yourself: What allows you to play your game? In other words, express yourself for who you are before you were told you had to be someone else to “make it.” (Location 388)
I’m saying you need to play your own game. In researching this book, I read a lot about extraordinary leaders and there was no single data point that correlated success with being agreeable. In fact, the consequence of playing your game is that you end up saying “no” a lot. (Location 401)
The point is that we don’t have to conform to one way. The cognitive load is much too great to pretend to be someone else. It’s a bit hyperbolic, but you would have to be a sociopath to yield consistent results over a long duration of time while playing someone else’s game. It’s a fragile and thus unsustainable construct. (Location 420)
Instead, these individuals attained the success they have because they have been playing their own game and no one else’s since long before we even knew their names. (Location 428)
The most successful business owners—rather, the ones who consistently get what they want—are the ones who make moves that bring them closer to what they prioritize rather than focusing on activities that maximize shareholder value or bring them more clients, resources or revenue. (Location 432)
So how do you figure out how to stay in your own lane, in a game built entirely for you? You have to go beyond saying who you are and take massive action. Success isn’t made by thought alone. Unless you’re a sociopath, how can you expect to consistently get results while acting like someone you’re not? (Location 440)
In order to achieve the success that they have, these business owners had to adopt a paradigm, a set of assumptions that allowed them to play at the highest level possible without thinking through every little detail. (Location 453)
The values people think are driving them are not the values or principles they actually use in their everyday lives. (Location 459)
With a sound operating system like the one I’m going to teach you in this book, and a little bit of awareness, you can start to recognize the inconsistencies in your behavior and put our espoused values to the test. (Location 461)
Instead, we should take from it not that we should copy their toolkit, but rather we need to create our own toolkit. (Location 482)
It’s how we modify or combine those tools that creates something unique to us. But, we are all starting with the same base set of options. (Location 491)
People who seem to win constantly aren’t better than you. Yes, they have identified their biases and play by their own rules, but they are also using a different toolbox than you are. (Location 519)
To build a working system, we must tell it what we want it to accomplish. And for that system to work, we need a new orientation. That orientation is toward the least amount of effort, the least amount of risk and the most amount of optionality. (Location 552)
The consequences of maximum effort and maximum risk is that we are left with no options. We’ve backed ourselves into a corner where now everything has to work or we are doomed. (Location 558)
That creates a fragile system. Instead, we need to acknowledge that what we want will change and create a system dynamic enough to adapt. (Location 578)
All too often, I see business owners doing exactly that—unknowingly optimizing for the wrong things. At the root of this is a lack of base assumptions to reference under all conditions. (Location 586)
“The greatest test of your expertise is how explicitly you understand your assumptions.” (Location 589)
These Commandments power the entire operational system, so we will regularly come back to them. In any situation we’re faced with, we need to use our toolkit to determine whether or not we’re about to violate our Commandments. (Location 594)
Every action we take needs to get us closer to what actually matters. (Location 609)
Instead of focusing on more, we need to get clear on what we want. Not what someone else wants because, remember, we aren’t playing someone else’s game. Remember to create a system that is optimized for your rolling average so anything above is a bonus. (Location 612)
Dr. Jeff Spencer’s number-one piece of advice for high performers is a single word: restraint. He explains that “the key word in the champion’s vocabulary is restraint. We have our best day, our best week or our best month, and at that point we are at the highest risk of pushing just a little too far and blowing ourselves up.” (Location 634)
Unfortunately, amid the joy at how well the organization is growing, the risk of bad things happening is also increasing. And those “bad things” often show up in sleepless nights for you, constant metaphorical fire drills and a slew of other issues that begin to pull you away from the goals you want to reach. (Location 676)
You hire a new employee based on the idea that the extra manpower will save you time in the long run. But inevitably, the new reports coming from that new employee will require more management time each week—on average, four hours more. (Location 696)