How Do You Eat An Elephant?

Good morning. How's it going? I'm cruising the Interstate 8 in southern Arizona on my way to Texas out. I hope you're having a fantastic day. It is beautiful out here.

I listen to a lot of books when I drive. Most of them, I don't know, maybe I should say I listen to fewer books, but I listen to them many times. I will listen to a book over and over because I want to make sure that I understand the concepts that the author is talking about, and really integrate the ideas into what I'm doing.

I still do listen to a lot of them, but the main thing is, most of them I listen to over and over so that it just becomes a part of me. Right now I'm listening to this new one called Atomic Habits. I don't have the author's name right in front of me.

The concept is just about the same, or on a similar line as a book called The Slight Edge. That one is another author I can't remember off the top of my head.

Basically, it's this. Your improvement will come from taking small steps on a consistent basis. Where you can't do everything perfectly right now, which is what everybody wants.

Everybody wants the Matrix, where you jack into the computer, and the operator downloads the program into your brain, and now all of a sudden you're an expert at Kung Fu or flying a helicopter or whatever it is that you want to do. And while everybody will understand that's impossible. There's no way that can happen. Astoundingly, it seems as if everyone expects that to happen.

They buy a course on a different type of marketing or whatever it is, and they expect that just by buying the course and watching it, something's going to happen. It won't.

The most that these teachers can do is point you in the right direction. And then you've got to get moving and understand that from the time they put that information out, most of it degrades. It's going to become less effective and unless you're in the game every day doing it, you won't notice the subtle changes.

Heck, you won't even get a grip on the foundation of what they tried to teach you. What most people do is they'll follow a course or they'll take an action. And they'll do it a few times and then say, well they didn't get the desired result. And they'll say, "Well that doesn't work. Let me try something else." Which is, foolish beyond belief. It's unbelievable.

When I went to basic training and then I got into physical fitness and a lot of the time I have lifted weights. And when you're lifting weights, the incremental addition of weight makes you stronger. Everybody knows this, right?

So that's what you do. You just keep doing basic exercise, throw more weight on, and you'll get bigger and stronger. And it never ceases to amaze me. There's a large number of people that will want to get the Muscle and Fitness magazine, and here they are attempting to recreate the Mr. Olympia's workout or diet or whatever.

You look at it, and you and think "This guy has been pounding it out for a decade or more. He is a world class athlete, and here you are attempting to recreate what he's doing, expecting that it's going to work for you."

And I realize I'm going off on a tangent here, but that's the whole thing about modeling. Do what someone else does and you can get similar results.

It's not necessarily the case in most instances. Because if you're looking at someone that's operating on a level that's 47 levels above you, you don't get to just do what they do and get a similar result. Not going to happen.

There's a whole lot that went on with their experience. That taught them what to do. And that's the idea I'm trying to get at.

When you take a small consistent action every day, you get a little bit better every day. Then all of a sudden somebody says, "How did you do it?" And you're like, "I don't know, I just did this, and I got better as I went along."

That's the concept. That is the whole thing. It's the secret behind lots of stuff actually. It's the secret behind everything you've ever wanted to do and get better at.

So that's my thoughts for today. Small incremental improvement is done on a consistent basis. Like being happy every day when it's a beautiful day like this, and even when it rains. Hey, you know what? You got to have the rain to make the flowers grow, right?

I hope that helps you out some. It won't unless you think about it. Think about it every day and you'll get a little bit of improvement.

I hope you're having a great day, wherever you are. That's all I got. I'm out.