WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.720 Today, we're going to do one of two-part series called Making Work Effortless. 2 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:12.620 But more specifically, making the essential tasks, that one thing that you do, making 3 00:00:12.620 --> 00:00:16.980 that feel like the easiest ones, the effortless ones. 4 00:00:16.980 --> 00:00:22.880 And a huge shout out to Greg McKeon in his book called Effortless and maybe, well, best 5 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:25.320 known for his other book called Essentialism. 6 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:30.340 These are two incredible resources, definitely worth reading. 7 00:00:30.340 --> 00:00:35.400 So the reason why we struggle with this idea is that we, most of us, are brought up in 8 00:00:35.400 --> 00:00:41.400 a culture where we feel that good things or things that are worthwhile have to be difficult. 9 00:00:41.400 --> 00:00:43.120 They have to be hard. 10 00:00:43.120 --> 00:00:49.480 In fact, we have huge suspicion on anything that sounds too easy, especially if it's good. 11 00:00:49.480 --> 00:00:52.820 And we say, you know, it's too good to be true. 12 00:00:52.820 --> 00:00:57.360 So when we hear about easy money, you know, or we hear people, we say things, well, that's 13 00:00:57.360 --> 00:01:03.580 easy for you to say, it's easy for you because, you know, we have in our minds this basic 14 00:01:03.580 --> 00:01:11.240 assumption that if it's good and if it's worthwhile pursuing, it's going to be harder. 15 00:01:11.240 --> 00:01:16.320 And so if it's going to be that hard to do, well, when things get tough, I only have two 16 00:01:16.320 --> 00:01:17.320 choices. 17 00:01:17.320 --> 00:01:23.480 If I'm going to succeed, then I'm either going to have to try harder or lower my expectation 18 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:24.480 and goals. 19 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:31.880 This is a huge mental trap that many leaders fall in because we've already assumed that 20 00:01:31.880 --> 00:01:38.400 anything that's easily gained, we assume that it was gained in a, you know, in a disreputable 21 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:39.400 manner. 22 00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:45.020 That something inappropriate happened for you to achieve something so great in such 23 00:01:45.020 --> 00:01:46.020 a way. 24 00:01:46.020 --> 00:01:51.140 And so we are very suspicious and in our day of high energy social media, we make all these 25 00:01:51.140 --> 00:01:54.460 promises and so it's really confusing for us. 26 00:01:54.460 --> 00:01:59.620 But let's put that aside for a minute and just think about your contribution in the 27 00:01:59.620 --> 00:02:00.620 business. 28 00:02:00.620 --> 00:02:04.860 We've talked a great deal throughout this training that there's that one thing that 29 00:02:04.860 --> 00:02:11.900 you do that drives 80% of your contribution, the 20-80 rule, the Pareto principle. 30 00:02:12.060 --> 00:02:17.180 What if that 20% is so delightful to you that brings you so much energy? 31 00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:18.180 It's your A seat. 32 00:02:18.180 --> 00:02:21.860 You have more energy at the end of doing it than when you started it. 33 00:02:21.860 --> 00:02:27.140 What if that were your case and that you had some sort of cognitive control where all the 34 00:02:27.140 --> 00:02:33.660 switching costs were reduced that you're able to work in such a way that it felt effortless. 35 00:02:33.660 --> 00:02:38.900 Even though you're putting in hours, they feel effortless and energizing to you. 36 00:02:38.900 --> 00:02:41.520 This modality exists. 37 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:43.560 And that's what we're talking about today. 38 00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:46.600 You know, not everything has to be so hard. 39 00:02:46.600 --> 00:02:52.080 And so when we get this feeling that if we aren't perpetually exhausted, we're not 40 00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:53.080 doing enough. 41 00:02:53.080 --> 00:02:59.280 Well, we have to reframe that because that's not sustainable and neither is it healthy. 42 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:05.000 So making a contribution doesn't have to come at the expense of your mental and physical 43 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:06.320 health. 44 00:03:06.320 --> 00:03:10.800 And you know, one of the things in Greg's first book, Essentialism, was really about 45 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:15.880 doing the right thing, figuring out that one essential thing you do. 46 00:03:15.880 --> 00:03:20.880 His second book, Effortless, is about doing them in the right way. 47 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:25.880 So you might be doing the essential thing, that one big contribution, that 20% thing 48 00:03:25.880 --> 00:03:30.960 that moves the ball forward, but are you doing it in the right way? 49 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:36.680 Because there is a way to work and make it feel effortless to you. 50 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:42.600 So instead of trying to get results by just pushing harder, what if we can make these 51 00:03:42.600 --> 00:03:46.320 essential activities the easiest ones that you do? 52 00:03:46.320 --> 00:03:51.280 So over the next two sessions, we're going to be talking about practical things we can 53 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:53.580 do to achieve that. 54 00:03:53.580 --> 00:03:59.680 So to get right into it, I want to ask a whole new idea, a new thought. 55 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:08.280 What would happen in your life if the easy and pointless things became more challenging 56 00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:11.880 and the essential things became easier? 57 00:04:11.880 --> 00:04:16.240 So the pointless things, which are easy right now, what if they became more challenging 58 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:18.320 and the essential things became easier? 59 00:04:18.320 --> 00:04:25.320 In other words, what if we inverted, if we flipped this whole mindset upside down? 60 00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:31.600 If the essential projects and work you've been putting off, what if those became enjoyable 61 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:37.440 while the pointless distractions like social media, watching TV and so on, all lost their 62 00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:38.720 appeal completely? 63 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:43.600 See, it's not about just discipline, it's about flipping your mindset. 64 00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:48.800 It's about inverting your mindset into this different state of thinking. 65 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:56.040 Perfectionism, for instance, makes essential projects hard to start because we've set such 66 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:57.040 a high bar. 67 00:04:57.040 --> 00:04:59.800 So self-doubt makes them hard to finish. 68 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:07.040 and perfection makes them hard to start. And mostly we fail because we try to do too much, 69 00:05:07.840 --> 00:05:16.720 too fast and we make it hard to sustain that kind of momentum. This is the core idea of this 70 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:24.960 inverted mindset. So there's a different state of working. Instead of grinding it hard, working 71 00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:29.680 hard and if it's not working hard, try even harder or lower my expectations and goals 72 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:36.960 and being suspicious of anything that's easy. What if this inverted state where the easy, 73 00:05:36.960 --> 00:05:42.240 simple, pointless stuff becomes harder to do and the stuff that's really essential becomes 74 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:49.600 a delight and easier to do? So Greg calls this the effortless state and how we can make it 75 00:05:50.320 --> 00:05:59.040 much easier to make that effortless state our new natural state. So in the effortless state 76 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:05.040 you really are functioning from a place of rest. A physically rested, emotionally unburdened, 77 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:12.240 mentally energized and so you show up very differently in your job. You show up very 78 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:18.160 differently to a project because you're very present, you're very attentive and you focus 79 00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:27.280 on what's important at the moment. And so in this situation the things that matter most you 80 00:06:27.280 --> 00:06:32.720 learn to achieve with ease because you become very present and attentive in that moment. 81 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:37.840 So when you're in this effortless state you definitely feel lighter. 82 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:44.320 Our body language betrays our distrust of ease. When we talk about all this, 83 00:06:44.320 --> 00:06:49.280 I don't know this sounds too good to be true and all that stuff but this is actually based on 84 00:06:49.280 --> 00:07:00.160 research. There is research and even timeless principles that show that a sense of lightness 85 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:08.160 in what you do on things that are essential is actually what goes together. So what if that 86 00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:13.440 essential project that you've been putting off could be made easy and delightful to do? 87 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:20.720 So we're going to dig just for a minute longer into this concept of inversion and inversion 88 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:30.800 works like this. We ask one simple question. What if this could be easy? What if this could be easy? 89 00:07:31.440 --> 00:07:37.680 You see because trying too hard is when we overthink it, we over-engineer it, we try too hard 90 00:07:37.760 --> 00:07:43.680 and what that does is that's what's draining the energy out of us. That's what's literally 91 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:51.040 pulling out of us that feeling of this is just too much of a load to carry. So as a result 92 00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:57.840 you know we often you know don't succeed at important projects just because we made them 93 00:07:57.840 --> 00:08:06.160 hard. So what inversion does, inversion means to turn this assumption that it has to be hard 94 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:12.400 to the opposite. We flip it upside down. What if the opposite were true? So that's the second 95 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:18.240 question. What if this could be easy? What if the opposite were true? Meaning I could get this done 96 00:08:18.240 --> 00:08:24.960 on time. That this could be a joy. You know what if this could be easy? So that's what inversion is. 97 00:08:25.520 --> 00:08:32.080 You know the CEO of LinkedIn said, I've come to learn that part of the business strategy is to 98 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:41.039 solve the simplest, easiest and most valuable problem first and in actuality part of doing 99 00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:48.480 strategy is to solve the easiest problem. So what is the easiest problem at the project you're 100 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:56.560 looking at right now? When a strategy is so complex that each step feels like you know you're pushing 101 00:08:56.560 --> 00:09:03.280 this boulder uphill, you know that's the time to pause, flip your mindset, do the inversion thing 102 00:09:03.280 --> 00:09:10.720 and say what's the simplest way to achieve this result? So that's the third question. First 103 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:17.120 question, what if this could be easy? Second question, what if the opposite were true? Third question, 104 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:24.080 what's the simplest way to achieve this result? And here's the fourth and final question, what if 105 00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:33.600 this could be fun? So why would we endure the essential activities that really mark our 106 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:40.000 contribution to the organization? What if we could enjoy them instead? What if they were a delight 107 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:45.840 to us? You know we often say it brilliant, delight leads to discipline. It's a lot harder to have 108 00:09:45.840 --> 00:09:52.640 discipline lead to delight. That's pushing the boulder uphill. So I want to give you 109 00:09:52.640 --> 00:09:59.600 one practical suggestion that Greg gives and that is to try to make something more fun, to make it 110 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:00.000 feel more fun. 111 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:07.440 easy is combine something that you love with something that's essential. 112 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:11.680 I think he tells the story himself of having to return phone calls 113 00:10:11.680 --> 00:10:16.400 to customers is pretty exhausting but he has to do it because he has 114 00:10:16.400 --> 00:10:21.280 these high-level customers and clients who are all C-level people. 115 00:10:21.280 --> 00:10:26.200 But he also loves sitting in the hot tub sipping wine at the end of the day so he 116 00:10:26.200 --> 00:10:31.760 combined the two. So sitting in the hot tub with the wine started to call people 117 00:10:31.760 --> 00:10:36.320 and so what happens is you've linked something you love and enjoy with 118 00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:40.720 something that's essential. It's essential to make the calls and it's a 119 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:46.240 whole lot of fun to sit in the hot tub and sip his wine. You know we've had our 120 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:51.280 team members combine all sorts of things like that two things like one person 121 00:10:51.280 --> 00:10:56.840 knew that you know they really had to brainstorm and and come up with new 122 00:10:56.840 --> 00:11:02.480 innovative things but also loved to go on you know long walks. So combined the 123 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:06.060 long walks and that's when they did their thinking and took a recording 124 00:11:06.060 --> 00:11:11.520 device and combined two things. So what one thing do you love that you could 125 00:11:11.520 --> 00:11:17.400 combine with an essential activity? And with these two tools the effortless 126 00:11:17.400 --> 00:11:22.360 inversion the idea of inverting your mindset so you can what if the 127 00:11:22.360 --> 00:11:27.200 essential things could be easy? What if the opposite were true that it was not 128 00:11:27.200 --> 00:11:32.640 hard? What if I could have fun doing this and what is the simplest way to achieve 129 00:11:32.640 --> 00:11:38.040 this result? And what one thing do I love that I could easily combine with this 130 00:11:38.040 --> 00:11:43.000 essential thing to make it really effective? Enjoy putting this into 131 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:47.160 practice you're gonna have a lot of fun doing it.