SEBASTIAN MARSHALL

Strategy Philosophy Self-Discipline Science Victory

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The Skill of Passing

If you're working a lot of stuff, you'll come across it sooner or later -- "learn to say no."

It's true. You need to learn to say no. There's a limited number of labor hours you've got, and a limited number of calendar days you've got, and a limited amount of mental bandwidth, and a limited amount of scarce resources. Every hour, day, thought, and dollar you deploy in one area is not deployed in another area. Not only should you not attempt to do everything, you should recognize that trying would be crazy.

And yet.

I know. I empathize. When you're chaining a run of successes together and everything is going smoothly, it's oh-so-tempting to layer more and more on.

So, learn to say no?

The Brief Regression

Have you ever had an incredibly amazing day or week, with huge breakthroughs… and then thought it would be permanent, when it wasn't?

I've spent immense time investigating this phenomenon. It's as aggravating as anything else imaginable. You're flying along, doing incredibly well, it seems like you've turned up to a higher level of production, productivity, creativity, teamwork, whatever -- only to sink back down, and sometimes worse than before for a while.

What causes this?

Well, there's old fashioned complacency or overconfidence -- which is why Tokugawa Ieyasu made his famous quote that, "after victory, tighten the straps on your helmet."

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