Welcome back everybody! Another work week has gone by and it is time for everyone’s favorite article of the day, 3 Minute Friday. Let’s look at how my brain has somehow turned these random words into meaningful thoughts.
Oak Trees
Oak Trees are strong, wise, mighty giants that protect our forests. They have seen many more years than we humans have known and are rich with ancient wisdom.
As I mentioned in my last post, trees have a lot to teach us about starting or scaling a business, but they also have a lot to teach us about life. In order for a tree to grow strong and wise, it must first endure a long time and many hardships. Droughts, floods, storms, fires. To be the biggest and the best a tree can be, it must go through all of these challenges and beat it’s competitors.
Some trees have adapted different strategies to such events. For instance, an aspen is a fast growing tree that does well after a major disturbance. It grows quickly and gets ahead of its competitors, but soon runs out of gas. Due to the fast growth, the aspen is not built to last and lives a shorter life than many other tree species.
Oak trees are one of the longest living trees in a north eastern forest. They have a different approach than the aspen, building slowly and weathering the storms. While the aspen races for the top, the oak quietly sits in the shadows and builds. When the next storm comes, it blows down the skinny, fast growing aspen, and the oak, who slowly built a solid, thick trunk will take its place.
I strive to be like the oak. Building slowly and methodically, making small improvements every day. I don’t need fast growth, I need sustainable growth that will allow me to weather the storm.
Pyramids
A pyramid, as described by the Oxford Dictionary, is, “a monumental structure with a square or triangular base and sloping sides that meet in a point at the top”.
Pyramids are built with a large foundation, where the size of each layer gets smaller and smaller as it goes up, until it finally reaches a singular point.
I like to think of my goals as the top of the pyramid and then all of the tasks that I need to do first in order to achieve that goal the base. For example, I have a goal to start a digital marketing agency. Underneath that layer, the top of the pyramid, I have my building blocks, like learning Google ads, reaching out to potential clients, and setting up a website. Then below those layers are more building blocks, like creating a cold calling script, writing cold emails, reaching out to friends and family to see if they know anyone who would be interested. You get the idea.
As you get farther down the pyramid you might start getting building blocks that seem like they don’t correlate with your goal, like going to the gym or meditating, but these are what I like to call the Keystone Building Blocks.
The Keystone Building Blocks are skills and habits that can be transferred from one pyramid to the next. Things like going to the gym or taking cold showers. They may not seem to have a direct impact on the goal, but they are building skills that can help build a strong pyramid.
My Life Pyramid centers around living a happy and fulfilled life. At my current stage of life, this translates to having freedom. Freedom to explore, travel, hike, or pursue other interests. My main objective right now is to get back out on a long distance trail as frequent and as soon as I can. This means that everything in my Life Pyramid should be focused on that one goal, even if indirectly.
While I mentioned that the Keystone Building Blocks are things that may not seem related but help build a strong pyramid, there are also crumbling, sandstone building blocks. Things that aren’t building any valuable skills and are weakening your pyramid. It is hard to weed them out when they blend in so well with the others and could be hidden behind them.
One of my goals over the next month is to really take a look at the things in my life pushing me towards objectives and what is a crumbling building block.
(Not sure I really stayed on topic there – the point I was trying to convey is that if you want to not only achieve your goals, but smash them, everything should be focused towards it. Everything focusing towards your goal is a solid building block, anything not focused towards it is a crumbling, dangerous building block.)
Tour de France
The British National Cycling team had been mediocre for nearly one hundred years before hiring a new performance director. In 110 years, no British cyclist had won the Tour de France, the worlds biggest event in cycling.
Their new performance director, Brailsford, began to make small adjustments on the bikes, redesigning the seats and improving the tires. Then they started to improve things a little less obvious – getting a surgeon to teach each athlete how to wash their hands to avoid the common cold and getting each team member a new pillow and mattress designed for them to improve sleep.
These small improvements, which by themselves seem almost meaningless, added up to one of the best runs in British Cycling. At the 2012 Olympic Games, they set nine Olympic records and seven world records. They also won the Tour de France, which had eluded them for over one hundred years.
This sections was going to be longer, but I have to go play pickle ball with some friends. So, to wrap this up quickly and get the post out on time, I try to make small improvements and be consistent with them. It may take time to see, but eventually the small improvements will add up to big gains.
See you next Friday!
