Trickle Down Mindset: The Missing Element in Your Personal Success (6 page)

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“The only way to improve yourself is to set achievable goals

and develop daily habits that move you towards these outcomes.”

― S.J. Scott

I believe that there is a single indicator that can validate if a given person’s philosophy is “good” or “bad.” It’s enough to determine if it’s abiding by the law of errors and disciplines or not.

Why is it so important? Well, unless your personal philosophy’s goal is to make you a Zen master who always goes with the flow and is content with the whole world every single minute, you need a philosophy that will lead you somewhere. We are created for the life journey. We always strive for something more; we want growth. We draw satisfaction from aiming at distant goals, coming closer to achieving them, and setting other, more challenging ones. And if your philosophy doesn’t take into account the law of errors and disciplines, it’s not likely to lead you anywhere. Rather, you will run in circles like a headless chicken.

I don’t see any other law or theory that explains why most people fail and a minority of them succeed. This one does.

Victor Frankl in his book
Man’s Search for Meaning
said that people who found their purpose in life at least had a chance to survive. Those who abandoned hope, didn’t. Prisoners in death camps had no influence over their circumstances; they only had power over their minds. Some of them chose to live. Some of them died anyway. But all of those who didn’t choose to live, died. The power comes from within; it’s not fate. You can face fate with your internal attitude and it will make a difference.

I heard this story in
Cultivating The Unshakable Character
by Jim Rohn. At the end of World War II, an American cruiser “Indianapolis” was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Many who made it through the initial attack had to spend days in the water because there were just a few lifeboats and a great shortage of lifejackets. The effort to stay alive was so overwhelming that many sailors simply gave up. Survivors reported that virtually everyone wanted to give up at least once. But whenever someone wanted to quit, the others would talk to him about the people back home who needed him. Those who survived found a reason to live—others who were dependent on them. But didn’t those who drowned also have people who needed them? Of course they did, but they chose to think differently, to forget about them. Your mind literally has the power of life or death.

We are so fond of the idea of quantum leaps, of heroic spurts. Of single events that shape our fate. But the truth is that you choose life or death every moment. Eat a burger or a salad? Watch TV or play with the kids? Browse the Internet or finish this project? Become affronted or grateful for the correction? Each of these tiny decisions adds more life or sucks the life out of you. Single outputs are microscopic. Together they are strong like a force of nature. You can’t deflect them in a single moment. You couldn’t deflect a tsunami with your bare hands either. But if you construct your personal philosophy appropriately, you will be surfing the tsunami wave. This is how the “
Trickle Down Mindset
” works. By making the decision to change your life and letting your choices build momentum, one act at a time.

Thus, I’ll urge you to incorporate only a single “mandatory” component into your philosophy: the emphasis on the simple consistent disciplines. Don’t try to fly by flapping your arms. Don’t try to dive 100 yards deep by just taking a deep breath and submerging yourself. There are some physical constraints in the universe that cannot be overcome by sheer willpower. You may be the one in seven billion that can stretch them, but it’s not likely! You’ll probably get hurt if you try. Don’t try to create your personal philosophy by ignoring the matter of consistent disciplines and repeated errors in judgment. If you need any hint that what you are building will lead you in the right direction, check if it abides by the law of errors and disciplines. If it doesn’t, then you are in trouble.

Why is that humans are so inclined to use that law? It’s how our brains work. The main part of the brain is our subconscious. It learns through repetition. It loves predictability, stability. It resists change. Your brain loves to keep you on autopilot. That way it takes the least effort. It spends the least amount of precious energy. Habits are the ideal tool for the brain to save energy. You don’t need to think too much. You get the cue and you do the action. No thinking involved.

The word “habit” comes from Old French
abit
,
habit
, from Latin
habitus
‘condition, appearance,’ from
habere
‘have, consist of.’ The term originally meant ‘dress, attire’ and the noun habit meant monks’ outfit. The habit was an external sign of a monk’s internal constitution, which defined their whole lives. Later, the meaning of this word drifted to denote physical or mental constitution.

A modern medical dictionary defines habit as:

- A settled tendency or usual manner of behavior

- A behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiological exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance

- An acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary

- Addiction

Habits are automatic or semi-automatic behaviors and that’s why your brain is so attached to them. They allow your brain to bypass the conscious mind and preserve the energy. And strangely enough, habits are in line with the law of errors and disciplines.

You may have formed a habit of smiling as soon as you see your spouse. Now, each time you see him or her, you smile. That’s a positive habit. But you can also turn some disciplines into a habit. Small and simple things like flossing your teeth or doing a consecutive series of pushups every morning. A single instance of such behavior means almost nothing. Repeated over time it provides some advantages. Repeated consistently, it becomes a habit, which conserves your willpower and energy resources. It is supervised via the minimal investment of attention and it automatically yields profits.

A vice is the reverse of a habit.

Habits work for you, vices work against you. You may fall into the trap of consistently repeating small errors, like enjoying a chocolate bar after a meal. This repetition becomes your habit; in this case even an addiction. A small error becomes the automatic behavior bypassing your consciousness. After a while, because sugar is a powerful narcotic, reaching out for a bar of chocolate after a meal is a part of your constitution; it’s in some strange way part of
you
.

After a couple of years, you wake up and notice that you are 40 pounds heavier. A small error repeated over time caused it. The law of errors materialized.

You are what you consistently do. And your consistent action derives from your frame of thoughts, from your personal philosophy. The right philosophy employs the law of errors and disciplines to your advantage. It also prevents you from making the small errors in judgment and the effects of addiction.

The most effective form of fighting addiction is prevention. If you don’t develop an addiction, you won’t be forced to spend an incredible amount of energy, willpower, time, and resources on eliminating it. Instead, you’ll direct your energy into achieving your goals and tasks at hand.

For example, I’m guilty of compulsive stats and email checking. I do it involuntarily. Whenever I have a couple of minutes online to spare, my mouse cursor goes to the icon of my email program. It’s a time-wasting addiction. But I didn’t come up with a smart plan to overcome my addiction. I refused to focus my attention on it. I focus on my simple disciplines instead. I have plenty of them. This leaves me very little leeway for things like spending hours on mindless surfing on the Internet. Some of my disciplines are quite big, like writing 1000 words a day. This is my high-priority task. I focus on it every morning and it doesn’t leave much space for addictions.

The right philosophy simply starves your addictions and vices by transferring your attention to other areas.

I ramble about The Law of Errors and Disciplines because it’s so crucial. You can’t ignore it. You can’t say you don’t believe it works. You can say the same about the law of gravity, but it won’t change the fact that you are grounded to the Earth. You can choose to “ignore” the law of gravity and jump off a cliff because you want to soar. But the law of gravity won’t ignore you and you will be crushed on the rocks below.

Going further with the analogy, you can jump off the cliff by paragliding and enjoy a nice flight. But sooner or later, you will have to land. Not even birds can fly their whole life.

You can use some tools and tricks to accelerate your growth without discipline or to postpone the effects of small errors in judgment for some time. But you can’t change the basic law of the universe. You will “land” sooner or later and it may be a painful experience.

I strongly encourage you to adapt your philosophy to this Law. Always take it into account, because it surely won’t ignore you. There are shortcuts to success, no doubt about it. You can see those rare rags-to-riches stories in the media all the time. Every week there are also new stories of lottery winners. Both kinds of stories are hard to replicate.

Don’t count on luck or a rapid breakthrough. Create your own luck or breakthrough by sticking with your simple disciplines for a long time.

Start thinking in terms of simple daily disciplines that can positively affect you and those around you. It’s a surefire way to create lasting change in your life. When it’s small and simple, your brain doesn’t resist the action. It judges it as something “easy to do,” and rightly so. When this action is repeated many times over, your brain learns to accept and embrace it. With time, the discipline will become an inseparable part of your constitution. And, most important, it will drive your results, because that’s the law of the universe.

Knowledge Items:

- Create your own luck or breakthrough by sticking with your simple disciplines for a long time.

- Your brain doesn’t resist action if it’s small and simple.

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“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour,

whatever he does, whoever he is.”

― C.S. Lewis

I called my personal philosophy The Ten-Minute Philosophy, because it’s built around ten-minute activities. It’s based on
The Slight Edge
philosophy, but modified to my personal needs and circumstances. It was not fully formed initially. I just tried different things and kept what was working. It was the trial and error process.

When I read
The Slight Edge
in August 2012, I decided to give the philosophy presented there a try. I had quite a lot of time to spare. I started new habits, six of which were ten minutes long. Others varied in terms of time investment, but at the beginning, the longest—listening to podcasts and motivational materials—was only fifteen minutes maximum.

Once I gave this new attitude and these new habits a chance, my life changed rapidly. And at the core of my transformation were those ten-minute activities, which I considered easy to do (or to not do). It was amazing how such tiny actions repeated over time revolutionized my whole life.

While developing my new habits, I was determined to stick with them for a minimum of 30 days. However, in the case of studying the Bible, I was determined to form a lifelong habit.

The basis of my determination was my frustration. I wasn’t satisfied with how my life had turned out so far. My recent philosophy hadn’t brought me much closer to the things and qualities I desired. I needed something new. My past experiences convinced me that there was a lot of merit in
The
Slight Edge
philosophy. And at the basis of this philosophy lies the law of errors and disciplines.

So the core assumption of my new philosophy was this Law. The longer I adhered to it, the better results I observed, up to the point where I was fully convinced it was true and universal. Then I committed to it even more. I built a multitude of disciplines, just for the fun of it. And there were always some results.

Developing my new personal philosophy, I didn’t mimic big gurus and their systems of belief. Firstly, I’m highly skeptical about anyone who claims to want only good things for me and then asks for money to help me. Also, my culture does not worship success the way Western culture does. We received our unfair share of communist indoctrination about blood-lusting capitalists and then the transformation of my country, which I’m sad to say, confirmed a lot of these stereotypes. Lots of people with no remorse abused the system, abused their employees and clients, and made fortunes. We experienced in Poland over a period of fifteen years the kind of wild capitalism that prevailed in America throughout the nineteenth century.

But an even greater factor was that I very quickly realized that the advice of millionaires applies best to millionaires. Most of those people live in ivory towers. They enjoy levels of freedom that are unattainable for most people. They share solid advice worth millions of dollars, but they aren’t applicable to the 9-to-5 worker.

I was (and still am) a slave of my past choices. I have a mortgage that will be paid off over the next 35 years. I have a wife and three kids. I cannot abandon everything and start a full-time writing career from scratch. Writing is my passion. I knew that as soon as I examined my soul for the first time in fifteen years. I’m amazed each time someone praises my style and it has happened more times that I can count in this past year. But I had exactly
zero
experience when I started publishing at the age of 34. It took me eight months to earn serious money. And throughout this time, my past obligations were holding me to my old life. Job. Bills. Mortgage. Family. Lifelong addictions. Poor physical shape. Poor spiritual growth. I needed to untangle the web of past obligations before I could apply millionaires’ advice in the wider spectrum. I needed to fix my relationship with God, finances, body, professional position, and bad habits all at once. I was not in a position to pick pieces of gurus’ advice that were most effective. I picked those that could be applied immediately in my life.

And a “personal” component in this concept means that your philosophy is individual, unique, one-time, just-for-you. You can’t simply take someone else’s ideas and use them effectively. You must own them in order to have them work for you. I took ownership of the concept of small errors in judgment and consistent disciplines by examining my past experiences. I discovered several instances successes and failures and realized I could credit them to the small errors in judgment or simple consistent disciplines accordingly. I found The Law actually worked in my life before I even knew the concept. I desired change, so I absorbed this Law as a part of my perspective, albeit temporarily.

Then I started to expand my philosophy. I was going through a vast amount of personal development materials—audio, videos, and books. I had a contact within the personal development industry in my teens, but I only scratched the surface then. I didn’t just blindly accept everything I read, heard, or saw. I absorbed only those elements of new teachings I could easily adapt to my current lifestyle. For example I had (and still have) a thing called a job with a four-hour commute, something that no millionaire I know has to put up with. I’m in relationships with people whom I could easily have labeled “negative,” starting with my wife and finishing with my workmates. But I refused to label them. I needed to work out my own methods of dealing with them. The standard advice—“ditch the losers”—was hardly applicable because according to millionaire’s standards, everyone around me is a loser.

I took the ideas, tried them, and gradually incorporated those that I found helpful. That’s the way I recommend you develop your philosophy, too. It’s the only sensible way. You can only do what you believe is true. If you don’t believe that the universe is constructed of energy and that the human brain is a system receiving and sending vibrations through the universe’s layers of energy, you won’t focus on your vision consistently enough or strongly enough. For every effort you consciously put into making this Law of Attraction happen, you will use twice as much subconscious effort to sabotage it.

I practiced new ideas almost always in “probation mood” and almost always, they became permanent. I was trying new things and looking for confirmation that they worked. I read about paying yourself first in David Bach’s book and stashed away 2.8 percent of my income. It went against my gut feelings and lifelong indoctrination, but I did it anyway. Within a few months, I saw that it was really working, that my savings were growing. I read in
The Compound Effect
by Warren Hardy about a gratitude journal he wrote about his wife. In
The
Slight Edge
online community, I met a guy who did the same. I started the gratitude journal about my wife with one entry a day. It took me less than six months to recognize the soothing effect gratitude has on my whole being, and I expanded it to my kids and then to my whole life. Nowadays I write down no fewer than 25 entries in my three different gratitude journals.

Action Items:

- Practice new ideas in “probation mood”

- Take the ideas, try them, and gradually incorporate those that you find helpful.

- While developing new habits, resolve to stick with them for a minimum of 30 days.