To Lose is to Gain

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Proving the Law

I have made several mentions of the Law of Sacrifice over this week, but thought it might be a good idea to make that a little clearer. See, there are actually several versions of the Law of Sacrifice and although the message differs the overall theme is the same. At its essence, the Law of Sacrifice says that to get something you perceive of greater value, you must give up something of lesser value. The Law is universal and there is no way around it.

Yet every day there are people who look at Get Rich Quick schemes and buy all kinds of pills and programs to lose weight without making any lifestyle changes at all.

People are always looking for ways to “break” the Law of Sacrifice.

But you can’t actually break a law and that’s the problem. You can only prove it. For example, if you jump off the top of a tall building you will prove the Law of Gravity, not break it. It is the same with the Law of Sacrifice. No matter what you do to get around or break the law, in the end you will simply prove it.

Making the Trade

Let’s say, for example, that you find a scheme for getting rich quickly using a program that requires no investment from you but requires that you get money from others that they will lose permanently. You get rich and they get poorer. Yeah, you got rich quick, just like the advertisement said and you didn’t have to put out any money so where’s the Law of Sacrifice in that? Well, you just traded in your moral and ethical standards and your self-esteem to get rich. In other words, you decided that getting rich had greater value than maintaining high morals and ethics and more important than your self-image. You decided that getting rich was more important than preserving you.

You must lose in order to gain and you must make that choice. If I choose to watch TV, or browse the Internet, or any number of other activities other than ones that support my business making money, then I have placed a higher value on those trivial things over the success of my business.

This decision is not always made consciously and other factors weigh in. A big one is RESISTANCE, the intangible beast inside of us that seeks to sabotage any attempts to change anything in our lives. For a good reference on that, I highly recommend you read Do The Work by Steven Pressfield ($5 as a Kindle Book). This manifesto talks all about how to overcome resistance. In addition to resistance, fear enters in as well as lethargy. The result is that while we still make the decision, we are not as conscious about why we make the decision, so changing it becomes very difficult. Once we become aware of why we make the wrong choices, we can better develop systems to help prevent us from doing it again and make better choices going forward.

But in the end, you are gonna have to lose to gain, proving the Law of Sacrifice once again.

Action Plan

Identify at least one place in your life where the you are trying to avoid the Law of Sacrifice. Why? What trade off are you making? How can you make a better choice going forward?

The Myth of Doing It All

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Having It All Together … Right!

You can probably think back and remember someone who seemed to always have it together. They were involved in everything and always seemed to excel at everything they did. They never slowed down; they served on committees, organized events, raised 55 children and spent quality time with each of them, worked two full-time jobs, volunteered at the local shelter, raised money to fight some disease, wrote 100 books, and has the happiest spouse in the world. They seem to have it all and have it all together.

In reality, there are parts of their lives that are neglected. I exaggerated the description above intentionally because that’s what we often do when we think about those high achieving types. We draw a picture of what we think someone is like and we enhance it. We make them bigger than they are. Then we compare ourselves to them, imaging that they have everything in life and it’s perfect while our lives are hollow shells full of meaningless events and a cesspool of problems. It’s unfair!

Reality is Not Perfection

It’s also unreal. The truth is that people who seem to have it together are not living perfect lives. They may be accomplishing more than we are right now, but that’s not because they have it all together. It’s not because they are necessarily more talented than we are; in fact, often they may be less talented. And they have problems too, they just don’t share them around as much as some others do.

But what they really have that helps them succeed is an good understanding and effective application of the Law of Sacrifice. You must give up to go up. You have to let go of some things in order to have other better things.

That’s a scary prospect for many of us and perhaps even a little depressing. When we think about sacrifice or giving up, we picture big things. We can become a CEO but our family life is non-existent. Again, it’s that penchant for exaggeration. And it’s also good old resistance finding other reasons to keep us from making any changes.

Simplicity in Sacrifice

Sacrifice is actually pretty simple. You actually look at giving up lesser things in order to get greater things. You sacrifice a couple hours of television time every day in order to read a personal growth book. You sacrifice a few free evenings each week to work on a master’s degree. When you learn to sacrifice, what you are really doing is simply learning to

Say No to the Good So You Can Say Yes to the Best

My father excelled in the credit union business during his career. He was President and CEO of several credit unions over the span of many years and also was a high demand consultant to credit unions nationwide for many years after that. To get there, he had to spend long hours working, gave up evenings to earn a GED and then a degree. Yet, he was never an absentee husband or father. He coached Drum Corps and Little League. He took us on trips. He went to dance recitals for my sister. He had to sacrifice to reach the level he achieved, but the sacrifices were to give up lesser things to get those greater things. He did not give up one great thing to achieve another.

Yes, you have to sacrifice to get where you want to go. But the good news is that the choice is yours.

Action Plan

What little things are you willing to give up to reach your goals?
What systems can you put into place to make sure you don’t give up the wrong things?

The Law You Can’t Break – The Law of Sacrifice

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Don’t Tell Me What to Sacrifice

I have a problem. It has always been with me, sometimes helping me and sometimes haunting me. I just don’t like having someone tell me I can’t have it or can’t do it. For example, I have read a lot of blogs and columns about being an entrepreneur. In a good deal of them, they paint a less than rosy picture. They often talk about how you can’t have it all, something has to give. Andrew Dumont even says you need to acknowledge that there is no such thing as work-life balance for an entrepreneur. Stories abound with businessmen (and women) about missed recitals, soccer matches, anniversaries, and other things. So, forget all about work-life balance.

I don’t buy it. No, I refuse to buy it. The passion of many entrepreneurs is the same; they do something because people said they couldn’t do it. That’s my attitude. Tell me I can’t have balance and succeed? Watch me!

The Law of Sacrifice Always Applies

To be sure, there are things you (and I) will have to give up. Some are daily things, such as extended television time, browsing the Internet, cocktail hour, and a good deal of free time. That’s called the Law of Sacrifice and you cannot avoid it. If you want to have any level of success, whether it is running a small business, moving up the corporate ladder, becoming a top sports athlete, or a celebrity; you will have to sacrifice things to get there. As John Maxwell says

You have to give up to go up!

What sacrifices you make is the decision you must face and I recommend you face it early. Being defiant or rebellious can be a wonderful thing and has helped many an entrepreneur move forward. But the ones who last and build a legacy are the ones who know when to make smart decisions and when to ask for help. And they know to give up things that are trivial or not as important to gain things that are important.

There are good kinds of sacrifice in this. Often, leaders are required to make sacrifices to lead people effectively. One of the biggest that a leader must make is putting others first. Leaders must sacrifice the limelight and yield it to their team. Entrepreneurs must sacrifice being right most of the time to be very wrong most of the time. They must sacrifice their ego because they will fail again and again until little things happen and build and success is achieved. Sacrifice can have very positive outcomes, when you make the right choices on what to sacrifice.

Start right away to devise your strategy for fulfilling the Law of Sacrifice, because one way or another you will have to obey the law. Just make sure it’s your choice what you give up.

Salute to Veterans – Sacrificing to Move Ahead

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Giving Up for the Team

When a baseball team is up to bat, the objective is to move a player around the bases to score. With the way that the rules work, there are a variety of ways to move a runner to the next base. One of the ways is for the batter, at a critical point, to create a situation to get himself out to allow a runner to advance; for example hitting the ball deep to the outfield so a runner can tag and advance or bunting the ball so the only play is to first base and a runner can advance or score. They call that a sacrifice and the reward for the player is that it doesn’t count against them in their batting average. It’s been a legitimate play in baseball for over a hundred years.

Many of baseball’s greatest players made other sacrifices as well. Especially during World War II, many of them enlisted in the military and spent time overseas serving our country. Some died, some were injured, but many came back and resumed their careers. Here’s some of the greatest players and how they served:

Joe DiMaggio, New York Yankees – “Joltin’ Joe” played Major League Baseball from 1936 to 1951 and is known as one of the most complete players in baseball; in other words, he had all the skills you would want a player to have. But when the war came, DiMaggio willingly left baseball from 1943 – 1945 to serve US Air Force. Upon his discharge, he resumed with the Yankees and had a stellar career.
Bob Feller, Cleveland Indians – Feller, a pitcher, played in the Major Leagues from 1936-1956. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and brought America into World War II. On December 8, Bob Feller left baseball to enlist in the US Navy and gave up four years in baseball to serve. As skilled and dominant a player he was, many wonder how much more Feller could have accomplished if he had stayed in baseball those four years.
Warren Spahn, Boston Braves – Spahn was also a pitcher and is the winning-est left-hander in history. He played from 1942 to 1965, including the 1948 World Series where the Braves battle cry was “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain“. During WWII, he served in the US Army, at one point suffering injury from shrapnel and received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. When the ware ended, Spahn went back to Braves (and eventually other teams) and continued to dominate batters, even winning the Cy Young award for the top pitcher.
Ted Williams, Boston Red Sox – Williams was arguably the greatest hitter in baseball and played from 1939-1960, leaving for a while to join the US Navy and then the Marines, serving from 1942-1946, and recalled in 1952. Like Bob Feller, many wonder what more Williams could have accomplished had he stayed in baseball during that time.

These men saw something greater than themselves and greater than baseball and chose to serve when it was necessary. Certainly there were those who thought they should have stayed in, that they were more valuable in baseball. But they didn’t see it that way.

Sacrifice to Serve

Over the years, many men and women have felt the same way. My nephew Cody is currently serving overseas. I have many friends who also have served or are serving. They all know there is something greater than themselves, greater than anything they might accomplish during this time. They are giving up careers, family, and much more to serve this country. In some cases, they are sacrificing all of this for the benefit of people in other countries. While some may question that, they do not. They serve, for a greater good.

Like in baseball, they sacrifice themselves in order to help others move ahead.

Thank you to all Veterans for the service and sacrifice you have made.

Action Plan

Make it a point to say “Thank you for your service” to any Veterans you encounter day and every day.

Why Multitasking Sucks…And Wastes Time

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Multitasking Comes to a Screeching Halt

About a year ago, I was driving my son and I home from a scout meeting. We turned through an intersection and proceeded a few hundred yards forward I looked down to change the radio station. At the same time, the car in front of me decided suddenly that they wanted to turn right into a parking lot and hit their brakes. Lots of noise later, they have a beat up rear-end and my car is totaled. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

A Do Everything World

We all do it. Folding laundry and watching TV. Driving and changing the radio station. Working on the laptop while talking to a co-worker on the phone. Sitting in a meeting and sending an email. Trying to do more than one thing at the same time because we don’t think there are enough hours in the day. It’s called Multitasking and it is the biggest time waster of all!

“Wait”, you might say, “multitasking is a critical part of functioning in work and life today! How can you say that it is a time waster?”

Because it is.

Your Bad Multitasking Self

The idea is that if we are multitasking then we are working on multiple things at the same time, juggling everything and keeping things going. But that’s not what happens. In most cases what happens is it simply means that you are doing multiple things badly.

It doesn’t help that multitasking is encourage by many employers today. First, many companies advertise jobs where they specifically state in the job requirements that they want someone who can effectively multitask. I guess my question is, how exactly do they measure that? Secondly, with layoffs and streamlining, employers tell the survivors they must learn to do more with less, which unfortunately includes less staff. But not less work. While they don’t explicitly say it, they expect you to pick up all the slack and still do it within the same time frames. So your choices at either to put in twice as much time or “multitask”.

The Case Against Multitasking

There are many reasons why multitasking simply doesn’t work. The reasons run from the logical and practical to the medical and psychological. We’ll cover just a few.

First, understand that what you are doing is not actually multitasking. It is actually just task-switching. What it reminds me of is Microsoft Windows operating system on computers. Early versions of Windows offered a way to jump between tasks. You could still only run one thing at a time, but you could jump between applications. That was called task-switching. It wasn’t until later versions where Windows would allow you to actually run multiple applications at the same time. What we do when we allegedly multitask is the first one – we are simply task-switching. Problem is, we aren’t a computer with an operating system designed to do that, so we have a lot more trouble than Windows did jumping from one task to another. And that’s saying something.

Other reasons:

Multitasking does not increase productivity, it decreases it. There is research to suggest that multitasking actually reduces productivity by as much as 40%.
Studies show that task-switching rapidly actually increases the time it takes to complete a task.
Task-switching slows you down because you have to re-align yourself each time you jump to the next task. That means reaction times are slower, so if you are performing any task that requires quick reaction and reflex your performance suffers greatly.
Evidence shows more mistakes are made when multitasking instead of focused work.
Multitasking is stressful. When multi-tasking in a fast-paced environment, your heart rate increases and stays higher longer than normal. There is also emotional stress caused by the fallout of mistakes and failure while multitasking.
We are designed to focus on one thing at a time. Again, lots of research to support this. Health Magazine cites a 2013 University of Utah study that found the better you thought you were at multitasking, the worse you actually were.

In summary, you suck at multitasking. And so do I and so does everyone else.

So, if you were doing something else while you were reading this, stop it until you finish.

Now leave your comments and thoughts.

Okay, now you’re done. Go back to that other thing.