Expect the worst?
Good morning TootleMathNation, how are we doing today? Today's voice note podcast whatever you want to call it, I'm going to read a bit from The Obstacle is Away, it's the book we're currently doing a book club, we're nearly finished there. If you're going to join the Christmas challenge at the November 14, please do by Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday, that's the book we're using on Book Club. So I'm going read from this chapter and I think it's relevant because we're going into the weekend. Okay, here's the chapter first is there's a quote, offer a guarantee and disaster threatens.
Speaker 1:This is a quote from the ancient inscription of the Oracle of Delphi, you've actually been a really cool place. We still do the same today, they went to the Oracle, Oracle tell me what I want to hear and walk away and we still do today. There was horoscopes or astrology whatever it is or know psychic readings. Anyway, a CEO calls his staff into the conference room on the eve of the launch of a major new initiative. They file in and they take their seats around the table.
Speaker 1:She calls the meeting to attention and begins. I have bad news, the project has failed spectacularly. I can say I would. Tell me what went wrong. What?
Speaker 1:But we haven't even launched yet. But that's the point, the CEO is forcing an exercise in hindsight in advance. She's using a technique designed by a psychologist Gary Klein known as a pre mortem. In a post mortem doctors can convene to examine the causes of a patient's unexpected death so they can learn and improve for the next time a similar circumstance arises. Outside of the medical world we call this a number of things a debriefing, an exit interview, a wrap up meeting, a review, but whatever it is called the idea is the same.
Speaker 1:We're examining the project in hindsight after this happened. A pre mortem is different. In it we look at envision what could go wrong, what will go wrong in advance before we start. Far too many ambitious undertakings fail for preventable reasons. Far too many people don't have a backup plan because they refuse to consider that something might not go exactly as they wish.
Speaker 1:Your plan and the way things turn out rarely resemble each other. What you think you deserve is also rarely what you'll get. Yeah, we constantly deny this fact and are repeatedly shocked by the events of the world as they unfold. It's ridiculous, stop setting yourself up for a fall. No one has ever said this better than Mike Tyson who reflecting on the collapse of his fortune and fame told a reporter, if you're not humble life will visit humbleness upon you.
Speaker 1:If only more people had been thinking worst case scenario critical points in our lifetimes, the tech bug bull, Enron nine eleven, the invasion of Iraq and real estate bubble might have been avoidable. No one wanted to consider what could happen and the result catastrophe. Today the pre mortem is increasingly popular in business circles from startups to Fortune 500 companies and the Harvard Business Review. But like all great ideas it's actually nothing new. The credit goes to the Stoics, they even had a better name for it, Pre Meditatom Mallorum, Pre Meditation of Evils.
Speaker 1:A writer like Seneca would begin by reviewing or rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip and then he would go over in his head or in writing the things that could go wrong or prevent it from happening. A storm could arise, the captain could fall ill, and the ship could be attacked by pirates. Seneca, nothing happens to the wise man against his expectation, he wrote to a friend, nor do all things turn out for him as he wished, but as he reckoned and above all he reckoned that something could block his plans. Always prepared for disruption, always working that disruption into our plans, fitted as they say for defeat or victory and let's be honest a pleasant surprise is a lot better unpleasant one. What if?
Speaker 1:Then I will. What if? Instead I just what if? No problem we can always. And in the case when nothing could be done the Stoics would use it as an important practice to do something the rest of us too often fail to do manage expectations because sometimes the only answer to what if is it will suck but we'll be okay.
Speaker 1:Your world is ruled by external factors. Promises aren't kept. You don't always get what is rightfully yours even if you earned it. Not everything is a clean and straightforward as the games they play in business school, be prepared for this. You have to make concessions for the world around you, we are dependent on other people, not everyone can be counted on like you can.
Speaker 1:Though let's be honest, we're all our own worst enemy sometimes and that means people are going to make mistakes and screw up your plans, not always but a lot of the time. If this comes as a constant surprise each and every time it occurs, you're not only going to be miserable, you're going to have much harder time accepting it and moving on to attempts number two, three, and four. The only guarantee ever is that things will go wrong. The only thing we can use to mitigate this is anticipation because the only variable we control completely is ourselves. Common wisdom provides us with the maxims, beware the calm before the storm, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, the worst is yet to come, it gets worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1:Right? And people say, and I'll read that's it from the book for now. And I want to bring that up because when it comes to weekends, we often think, I'm not gonna drink, I'm gonna be good. The chances are you get an unexpected phone call from a mate, someone's gonna ask you, do you wanna go for drinks? Or even if you go for a drink, think I'll have a few, but it always ends up being a night out or whatever.
Speaker 1:And that's why in the masterclass service, right, on a Friday and Saturday stock your fridge up with lots of fruit, lots of liquids, with low cal ice cream, whatever you like with food ready for the next day and the Sunday hangover. If you are preparing yourself for going into a drinking session, which happens a lot, Waking up on Sunday and you go, well, at least Sunday's not gonna be a day I just have a delivery, spend another $30.40 quid on just laziness. At least I've actually prepared myself for this. And where else in your life can you do this? You know?
Speaker 1:When it comes to macros, of course, you are free. You could start your day with thousand calories you didn't wanna eat, and you could go, aw, you're terrible. Why did I have that Greg's pasty and the donut and that? And it's only 12:00. I've got nothing left.
Speaker 1:When you go, well, if that does happen, I can still hit my macros. It can be even harder today. I could write it off and go, I'm not gonna hit my macros today. I'll still track though, and wherever it lands, it lands. Or you can go bugger it all.
Speaker 1:The day's gone. I'm gonna just go eat wherever not track and go off completely off course, you know. So we need to prepare for the days we do go over. Because when we are ready mindset wise, it doesn't take us like a storm does. You know, we're like, this happens, shit happens, I've it's done.
Speaker 1:You know, there's nothing else to do. There's nothing you have to accept it and we speak in a book club about the the story of Thomas Edison where he had his lab and he had all his inventions in there, all his work, all the money, huge million pound factory and someone knocks on the door, quick run and you know, there's a fire and there's a massive fire and his kid comes up to him and he says to his kid, go and get your mother. The kid's like, wow, why are not angry? He's like, no, no, you know, go and get your mother, you'll never see a fire like this again. You know, and he had to immediately accept that his lab was gone because it was, it was all in flames.
Speaker 1:There's no wishing it didn't happen, there's no this and that. Maybe it wouldn't have happened if he did do that right. What can go wrong? How can this all of this catch fire? There must be something we need to think now.
Speaker 1:Let's think of all the ways this can go wrong and have a plan and maybe it would have not happened. But at the same time if shit does happen and you've even tried your best for it not to go to shit, right, what do you do then? What is the answer? Is the answer to sulk and why me be a victim to it? Or is it to say that's happened, now what?
Speaker 1:I said that's happened, might as well enjoy the fire. You know, and you think there's no way I can have that mindset. There is you can get to this stage where there's things that really don't matter in life that go like he knew that that whilst that was his work, could redo it, right? He could replace it. You know, if it was a family member that died, it's gonna be a different story.
Speaker 1:It's a completely different thing. But for the stuff that is kind of like material and trivial in the end of your life, like when you think of the end of your life, all the people that are on their deathbeds always say I wish I spent more time with my family, not that I had three more inventions. It always comes down to that. So when we have material stuff that tends to go like I got my silk stolen in France, Paris, my last leg of my trip and yeah, five ten minutes you know, you're like how can this happen, why did the driver not protective, la la la, But in the end, it's gone. There's no more wishing and sulking is gonna bring it back.
Speaker 1:You get back on. What's the next step? Okay. Get on the phone to insurance, get a claim in, make sure we can get that done fast. Right?
Speaker 1:Report it to the police, get a crime reference number, you have to get it. You just gotta go and get that done so you can claim back. Right? That's the next step. There's no point going through it complaining.
Speaker 1:There's no point going through it sulking because now you're double hurting yourself. You're hurting yourself with sulking and actually, you know, they spend the time to go and get that reference number, just wasting your time in a sense. So you can get to that stage of material stuff. And most of the problems we have, most of the things we worry about tend to become they are quite trivial material stuff. I'm not saying you can have this type of matter of fact mindset when someone dies and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So let's be clear now. Someone dies and you go, well, everyone dies so, who died? You know, that's not really how most people are gonna react, right? You might have some real stoics who are like I expected their life, I'm not gonna cry that they've died, I'm not gonna make it about me and cry that they've died and I've lost someone, they lived a good life, I'm gonna celebrate their life, like they would ask some people to go down that route. But I do think it's important that we do bulletproof the mind for the moderately day to day stuff.
Speaker 1:Because you will have a bad day one day and it's going be a real bad day. You know, premeditorium was it premedit I can't, I got in front of me hold on. Pre meditatomallorum. Meditatomallorum. Thing, you really got a bad day one day, Most of the days and all that bad, you make them bad in your own brain.
Speaker 1:Simple as. Oh, you ate you had a you had a chocolate bar, did you? That you didn't really wanna add your macros. Well, you're cry about it for three hours and say, why have I done this? Why am I such a loser?
Speaker 1:Or you're gonna say, I have consumed a chocolate bar that is two fifty calories. That's all it is. Guys, we can do this. I know, I know and it's like, plus the thoughts, the intrusive, I've always thought this way, the culture, this and that. Be aware of diet culture.
Speaker 1:Be aware of those thoughts arising. They arise from memory, which is the past. So can we get rid of the past? No. But when you do have these thoughts from diet culture, like, oh, you're a loser, you're gonna gain fat, fat, and that.
Speaker 1:If you actually take them seriously, they become a real tangible thing and impact. But if you just see the falseness of them and you can just look at them and be aware of them and observe them, you can see how they've risen and how they die off. It's just a very fleeting thing, right? You do have the decision and capacity to take steps forward without letting those thoughts turn into a mountain. Of course it's possible for the human mind to do this, people do it all the time.
Speaker 1:You may think well I don't, I haven't done it, maybe some people can, but it's not me. Of course we can. Jim Rohn would say, you can change, you're not a tree, you know, you're not stuck in one place, you're a human being with, you know, we say free will. So I want you to go into the weekend like a pre meditato, what is gonna happen this weekend? What's the reality?
Speaker 1:Stock the fridge, get meal prep ready for this Saturday, Sunday. If you're going to go out drinking, who are you drinking with? Are they people that drink a lot? Are they people that have a quiet one? If they're people that drink a lot, expect to drink a lot most likely, okay, you can say no, whatever is up to you, but if you are going to drink a new drink, try and stick to one drink choices easier to kind of know, know five drinks, six drinks, overestimate your food intake, if you're going go out and you want to track you can just kind of put in well I'm going have one main meal, dessert and drinks and put it in before you go.
Speaker 1:You know you can do all you can before that, then the next day on a Sunday you can wake up, have the food in the fridge, drink the water, don't overdo it, don't waste more money and then when you go to Monday you'll be like you know what, it wasn't that bad, yeah I overindulged, but put a line in there, done, full stop. I overindulged, full stop. I ate 400 calories over my targets. Full stop. Right?
Speaker 1:And that's how we crack on. So have this mindset going into the weekend. But first of all, we've today to deal with. So today, one day at a time with the philosophy of turtle. What are you gonna do today?
Speaker 1:What's your one big thing today? That's an important thing. Get your one big thing done and the day will fall into place. Right? So focus one task, one main thing.
Speaker 1:Don't try and do 10 things at once, you'll end up doing nothing. Working at it, like Ryan always says, working at it works. We want to procrastinate by the board meeting and going and doing this and that, but actually sometimes take a few deep breaths, maybe go for a short walk if needed, go back and do the work you need to do. That's the only thing that's going get you through. And then you know, going to a weekend and you go into Monday, I'm not doing the tasks you're going to do on Friday, you're going build up more pressure.
Speaker 1:So make sure you do what you got to do today. Right, you got a weekend coming up. Some of you work, some you don't and it begins, depends on the jobs. But don't let that Friday feeling drag you from doing away from doing what you need to do because Monday will come and it'll make it worse. So, enjoy your days and I'll speak to you soon.
