Lowering your expectations, how to achieve great things, and embracing pain.
Mindset shifts to help you succeed in your life and career.
To ponder
Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, on lowering your expectations:
“One of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations.
People with very high expectations have very low resilience—and unfortunately, resilience matters in success”
I highly recommend watching this two minute clip of Jensen addressing the Stanford Graduate School of Business. One of the most insightful business leaders of our time, his perspective flips the conventional narrative on its head in an incisive and humorous way.
Reflections from me
The more ambitious your goal, the more comfortable you need to be with uncertainty.
In hindsight, it seems obvious that ambitious goals require thousands of hours of dedication. Of course Tiger Woods needed to practice more than anyone else to become the greatest golfer of all time, Elon Musk with building SpaceX and Tesla, or J.R.R. Tolkien writing the Lord of the Rings.
But before any validation of your effort comes the years of singular focus, the weekends forfeited and countless late nights. Sacrifice comes before success. The outcome is uncertain and you need to push forward regardless.
To try
Reversal of Desire - a visualisation tool to get you out of your comfort zone. Developed by Phil Stutz, this helps when you have to do something uncomfortable and you feel fear or resistance.
Use it before you have to act, or when you think about doing something painful or difficult.
1. Face the Pain
Focus on the pain you are avoiding; see it appear in front of you as a cloud. Silently scream, "Bring it on!" to demand the pain; you want it because it has great value.
2. Move Toward the Pain
Scream silently, "I love pain!" as you keep moving forward. Move so deeply into the pain you're at one with it.
3. Freedom
Feel the cloud spit you out and close behind you. Say inwardly, "Pain sets me free!" As you leave the cloud, feel your self propelled forward into a realm of pure light.
That’s all for this week.
Thanks for reading,
Matt