A short motivational talk by Chad Silverstein about the 'gap trap'—the tendency to measure current performance against an imagined ideal goal rather than past achievements. Silverstein argues leaders and commission-driven workers should "measure backwards" (compare to past performance) to celebrate progress, avoid chronic dissatisfaction, and use past gains as energy to pursue bigger goals.
Chapters
At my company, we used to have producers that at the end of the month would have to reset their numbers every month. A lot of jobs have this commission driven jobs. And, you know, they're always trying to beat last month's numbers. They're trying to break their records. And as my business grew and people started doing better and their numbers started to increase, I noticed that there was always a camp of performers that were never happy with their numbers. Never. And there's something to be said about constantly pushing yourself, but there's also something to be said about celebrating the wins and being able to at least momentarily enjoy your success. And when you have a great month but it's not your best month, and you're asked, how was your month? How'd you do? And you're Debbie Downer about it, you know, that's just a way to sabotage yourself because you got to let it in. You got to let in that, you know, you were able to, like, look backwards and see that you were crushing it compared to where you were last year, two years ago, three years ago. And what most people do and what causes this moment of being a Debbie Downer is people are comparing their current state to where they want to be. And when you compare where you are to where you want to be, there's a gap. We call this the gap trap because you would never want to measure yourself against an ideal that you make up. It's not real. So if I set a goal for myself to be making X dollars and I throw that rock out, that's where I want to be. And I look at what I'm making today and I compare it to that number. It's not gonna make me feel so good when I look back and realize, wow, I started making 12 bucks an hour when I first started my career. Look what I'm making now. That gives me energy. You always want to measure backwards. This is a concept we learned at strategic coach with Dan Sullivan. It's just so powerful. Always measure backwards. Don't measure against an ideal that you made up in your head. It doesn't exist. And the problem is that when you set out a big goal and you get closer to it, you throw the rock out more. When you hit the goal, you set another goal. That moment of I got it is temporary. And it's usually little satisfaction compared to the rush that you can get on your way to achieving that goal. But regardless, either way, when you're measuring against your goals, never measure against the ideal. You'll get caught in the trap, and you literally can just create a depressed way of thinking about the fact that you're not where you want to be. Amb. Always measure backwards and let that energize you. Let that be the leverage that you need to keep going harder and keep going stronger because you see how far you've come. So never forget where you came from. A lot of entrepreneurs will do that. They'll remember when they started out of their house, out of their garage, and they look at their company today, they're at a million, 2 million, 3 million in revenue and they're happy. But because they set goals to be at 5 million and 10 million and they're not even close to it, they're all down about it and they're constantly being negative when they just need to look back at their humble beginnings to give them the energy and the reminder that we all need. So again, measure against something that's real, not the ideal. Stay out of the gap trap and have fun. Have fun setting big goals and being energized by how far you've come so far.
