Why Small Steps Will Get You Further Than Big Leaps

In order to make big change, you should not feel comfortable with them yet.

Right.

You should absolutely be like, I don't feel ready for this yet, and go and do that thing, because that's the thing that's going to make a change. And we're back with another episode of He Said, she Said.

What's up, babe?

What's up? You know what? You know what was fun? We just walked up to our favorite juice juice and smoothie place, and we took a lunch break together. That was super fun.

I never take lunch breaks ever. But when we're at the California home here like this, I do, because you just walk up and, like, go to the sandwich place, go to the smoothie place, and it's fun and it's got a vibe. So it kind of makes you want to take that lunch break. No other places. I just put my head down to work.

We were talking about how important those resets are, because at the Arizona house, okay, I freaking love my office. But all of a sudden, five hours has gone by and I haven't left my screen, and I start to feel weir. Get that feeling, too, where you're just, like, in a funk. Like, your energy's all chaotic.

The. The zoom trance.

Oh, my God.

Somebody called it something the other day. They said you turned into a zombie. Like, a zombie.

Oh, my God.

That's so cool. I'm always a zoom bee. That.

And it's a real feeling. Like, it is funky. Like, it takes me a solid 45 minutes to go walk it off. So what I love about when we're here is that, yeah, our. Our favorite spots are literally a block away. And we're like, let's go take a break. Let's go. Reset. What do you get? What do you always get? You get the peace bowl.

I always get the acai bowl with extra granola butter. Drizzle, you guys.

So what typically is healthy? He gets it and adds, like, double peanut butter drizzle, which, by the way, if you've never done this, try taking your almond butter or peanut butter and blending it. Yes. Put it in the food processor or a blender, water it down a little bit and put granola in with it. And then drizzle it on top of, like, bananas or an acid, and it's a little honey.

So they take, like, granola butter and little honey and granola, and they blend it into a food processor, and it's like this sticky goo.

You know, I really feel like if you believe it's healthy, it's healthy. So you're Doing just fine.

Boom. Okay, what do you want to talk about? Let's actually add some value. Why? Well, of course. We just stop right here. They just.

I gave them a recipe.

They just got do it yourself. Made at home. Granola butter drizzle.

You're welcome, everyone. Okay, so I have been reading Atomic Habits. I've been talking about Atomic Habits. I am the person in the world to read Atomic Habits, probably besides you, Chris. So this book is so much fun because I feel like every single page gives you evidence around habit building, habit stacking, rituals that change your life. And, Chris, Harder. So much of what we've learned and do, like we're already doing in this book, is how we've done so much of our stuff. So I loved learning about that too. But anyway, if you haven't read it, I highly suggest it. Go pick it up. But one of my favorite things or one of my favorite parts of this book, it's much just a story that I'm going to share with you. I'm going to read it straight out of the book. So again, guys, this is Atomic Habits by James Clear. And I want to chat with you about this particular topic, Chris, because I think it's so interesting. And we're going to teach you guys about the importance of getting out there.

Like getting yourself out there, waiting with wild anticipation.

I know. I'm kind of like building it up, right? And annoying some people. Okay, here we go. So on the first day of class, Jerry Uelsman, a professor at the University of Florida, divided his film photography students into two different groups. Everyone on the left side of the classroom, he explained, would be in the quantity group. They would be graded solely on the amount of the work they produced. On the final day of class, he would tally the number of photos submitted by each student. 100 photos would rate an A. So if they did 100 photos, they would just automatically get an A. Didn't even matter what they looked like.90 photos, they'd get a B.80 photos, they'd get a C, and so on. Meanwhile, everyone on the right side of the room would be in the quality group. They would be graded only on the excellence of their work. They would only need to produce one photo during the entire semester to get an A. But it had to be a nearly perfect image. At the end of the term, he was surprised to find that all of the best photos were produced by the quantity group.

Wow.

During the semester, these students were busy taking photos. They were experimenting with composition and lighting. They were testing out various methods in the Dark room and learning from their mistakes. In the process of creating hundreds of photos, they honed their skills. And meanwhile, the quantity group sat around speculating about perfection. And in the end, they had little to show for their efforts other than unverified theories. And 1. The teacher says, one mediocre photo.

I want to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. Right, because the quality group, where they just had to submit one photo for the whole semester, clearly they were paralyzed by perfection. And we've all been there at some point. Some of us are stuck there, right? The quantity group, where they just had to submit a hundred and they got an A no matter how good or bad they were. That makes sense because it's always about the number of at bats you take. It's not about one perfect grand slam ever. And I wish people would grasp this because they would take more messy action. I was just on a podcast and she asked me a question. She said, okay, Chris, you know, you've had a lot of success, blah, blah, blah. Tell me about the one moment or the one thing you did that created the biggest breakthrough in your life to put you guys where you are today. And my answer was, hey, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but there hasn't been one. Not one single grand breakthrough, not one single grand gesture, not one single big move where we finally got our break, not one anointing, not one show we were on, not one endorsement. There was not one thing at all. I said, you know what it's been? It has been the culmination, the compounding effect, the compounding sum of all the little at bats, all the little attempts, some went well and you learned from it, some went poorly and you learned even more from it. And then you did better at the next at bat. It was stepping up to the plate over and over and over and over again that all added up into what we have today. So that makes great sense. I'm not surprised to hear that.

Well, we see this all the time with people. We see people pausing, holding back, taking more classes, taking more courses, getting one more call, one more coaching call, one more thing. Oh, it's not ready yet. I need to tweak this thing. I need to tweak that thing. Let me just tell you, outside of your minimum viable product, the thing that is just good enough, like, it's good, you want it to be better. But it's a good product, right? It would help people, it would change some lives. It's not nearly where you want, but it's at 65 to 70% of where you want. That's what you need to roll out with. Because everything else, you're going to turn out exactly like the students in this study, you're going to be mediocre at best. Even if you spent an extra two years or five years on something because you don't have the correct data, you're going based off of actually nothing. You're going based off of what one person thinks, and that's you. And I have to tell you that when you're in it, you actually get so turned around, you get flipped upside down. What was once great to you, you look at it for a while, it's no longer good. And this is just how humans work. It's literally the law of diminishing returns. So one day you're gonna think you have an incredible product. And trust me, I've only been working on my, my new product for not very long, and already the branding, because I've looked at it for a couple months, I'm like, should I change this? And I'm like, you're absolutely not allowed to change this.

Nope. Because you'd be going for perfection again.

Because I'd be going for perfection. And then the law of diminishing returns would wear on me once again. So even if it was what could be considered perfect, it would be less perfect to me because I'm looking at it for too long. So with that said, it's like, how many more things? And like Chris said, the more at bats you can get, the faster you're going to be successful. And I can say that, you know, the one thing that I will say that we have done, if we had to point it at one thing, it's that we do this frequently. We find the minimum viable product and get it out there. And then we're like, okay, how did this do? What's the data?

How do we improve it?

How do we improve it?

Yep. It's funny because, I mean, I had so many things come to mind. While you're speaking, I can give two examples. The first one is waiting for perfection. These roundtables, you know, I did them once and at the end, everyone demanded that I do another one so they could come back. I'm like, wait, that's not what this is. And like, no, we want to come back. So I booked a second one. It's turning a third one, fourth one. They've taken on a life of their own. Right. So clearly that demonstrates that this might be the lowest investment, highest out put, biggest return on money. Ever product that we've created. Because people are, like, kicking down the door for me to do more and more of these now. That being said, somebody reached out to me on Instagram saying, hey, I heard about these things. I heard there might be a seat left. I would love to come. Are there any seats left? I said, it's funny you asked. There is a seat left for such and such date. I don't want to share too many specifics in case they're listening. And they're like, oh, my God, good. I was so afraid there wouldn't be a seat left. What's the investment? I told them, like, okay, good. I thought it would be more. And I said, do you want me to send you the link for that last spot? They're like, let me think about it. I'm like, oh, here's where you're already sabotaging yourself. So they DM a couple days later. Okay, I thought about it. Thank you for your time. I want to wait until my business is in a better place before I come.

Oh, man.

Now listen to the irony, and I'm going to say this in a loving way. Listen to the stupidity of that decision. Something that intuitively this person knew they needed to attend, the price was less than they expected, and they still talked themselves out of it by saying, oh, I want to wait until my business is in a better place for us. In other words, I want to look more perfect. I want to look better before it's got to be in a different place before I go. And the irony is this. It's like saying, hey, I want to be richer before I go get a financial advisor. It doesn't make sense. It's the other way around.

I'm going to get prettier before I get surgery.

Exactly, guys. It's the other way around. You get healthier because you get the trainer. You don't get a trainer after you get healthy. You become wealthier because you get the personal wealth advisor. You don't get the wealth advisor after you get rich. It's crazy that we wait until things are more perfect before we let somebody under the hood.

When I was a personal trainer, I would have people come in and I'd go through the whole sales pitch and, you know, take them through the little mini workout that you give them. And I would have people say, oh, I'm just not in shape yet.

Yep.

So I want to wait until I'm in better shape to join this gym. And I was like, oh, my God, if you walk out that door, this exact response and habit is the same thing that's going to keep you from ever changing. You have to do something so different and so uncomfortable that you're not prepared for. Like the decisions that you make. You should not, in order to make big change, you should not feel comfortable with them yet.

Right?

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It's interesting because people are like, okay, I need to get to a million. And I don't mean a million dollars. I'm just using this as a destination, okay? So bear with me. This is the power of taking a lot of at bats. This is the power of taking all those small steps. Someone's like, I want to get to a million, but it seems like too many steps to get there. So they're like, I don't feel like taking a million steps. I'm gonna go look for the big leap. I'm gonna go look for the shortcuts. Right?

That's exactly what this is.

And then guess what? They never find it and they never get there. But the other person, the other person says, okay, I'm willing to take the at bats. I'm willing to take the steps. And then they learn as they take them, it has a compounding effect. You wanna know what that compounding effect looks like? It looks like this. Exactly. Step one to step two is one step. But now that you're two steps in, you know a little bit more, you got a little bit more confidence. So now instead of going step two to step three, it goes step two to step four.

Yep.

Right. Compounding effect. So now you're at step four, you're like, wait a second, I know a few more things. I got a couple more dollars to invest. So now you don't go from step four to step five, you go step four to step eight. Right. It doubles again, compounding effect. And then because you're at step eight, you know more things, you go to step 16, not step nine. And 16 goes to 32. 32 goes to 64. 64 goes to what, 128. 128 goes to 256. 256 goes to 512. 512 goes to 1,014. 1,014 goes to 20.

Now he's just showing off.

Well, no, I'm trying to show. Look how the little steps, when you keep stepping up, start to turn into bigger and bigger, bigger steps until they turn into hops, then they turn into jumps, then they turn to absolute leaps.

This is the best example because this is how our trajectory has gone.

Yep.

Some years take longer than others, and then some years because you have so much under your belt, and now you have such an amazing network that things just go so much faster, and then that goes faster. It's so exciting. But you can't play big until you're willing to play small frequently.

Yeah. Okay, so let me ask you right now. This whole thing, the whole thing that you read is, you know, the people took 100 pictures, they found the perfect one. The people looking for the perfect one, they found nothing.

Right.

What's that a metaphor for in your life right now? Where are you going to just take the hundred pictures?

I feel like I do it every day and everything. I feel like I do it with podcasting by just showing up.

And that's a great example. People are like, how'd you get to 50 million downloads?

By showing up three times a week.

One episode at a time, for seven years. Right.

And you know what? Last year took a giant leap out of the blue. And then we've kind of held steady for a while, and now I'm, you know, excited for. Okay, how can I. Now, what happened with that is that giant natural leap made me so excited that I've been taking all of these very small steps that take a lot of work to make some growth. And so, yeah, that's just how it works. It's one thing at a time.

That's the perfect example. That one will resonate with people, because I want people to see, like, from the outside looking in, you're like, wow, how are you on a rocket ship? But the truth is, it was steps into a trot, into some jogging into, some running into, some leaping into. Finally you got into a vehicle, then you got into an airplane, and then finally you found a rocket ship into.

Almost 1100 or 1200 episodes later. 1100.

Dang. That's a lot. We should go back and listen to our first couple episodes together. It'd probably Be funny.

I've got to be honest, I feel like I'd be better at this by now.

All right, any closing thoughts on this? No.

I just want people to understand that if their weeks are not full of little things to get better, you're never, ever, ever. There's no way to skip the line. There's no way to get the perfect product. There's no way without getting it out there into the hands of other people and getting good data and feedback and to stop being so afraid of feedback. You know, the only reason people don't want to do it is they're afraid, afraid of getting the feedback.

Feedback is just a roadmap.

So literally it's your answers.

Feedback is a roadmap. So it tells you, go left, go right, go up, go down. Whoa, don't do that again, turn back around. Feedback, what some people call failure, wins or losses, is just a roadmap that points you in the right direction.

You know, I just had this moment of maybe realizing what they're feeling is, you know, I'm about to launch a product and I think that you have to go to every single place and say, okay, if people don't like this now, what? Like, if really the feedback comes back like, okay, this was not. This flopped, okay, well, you change it. But I think what people are afraid of is that they think that they're a one trick pony or they don't have another idea. But the thing is, is that you'll also get feedback on that. It probably won't be, hey, you need to totally change it. You'll probably get enough data to say, oh, we need to go a little more in this direction, or these words were working, these ones were not. So what if we leaned more that way and if you're like, well, I'm not as excited about that idea. You also get excited about things you wouldn't normally be excited about when the feedback is very positive about something. So you can get excited when there's positive feedback around something maybe you weren't excited about. So I don't want people to feel like they don't have another idea and I don't want people to feel like they're being rejected because you have to view it as, okay, I'm going to put this minimum viable product out there and the feedback is going to help me improve it. So I just think that's so powerful to remember. You're going to have other ideas, that feedback is actually going to give you even more ideas than you have right now.

I love that when you said you're going to have other ideas. Like we know now at this point, don't try and perfect your current idea because you're just going to move on to another one soon anyways. Whether this one's a hit or not.

I promise you, you'll have more.

You're going to have more.

And I think the only reason you don't have them while you're trying to get the one thing out is because you're trying to see step two and three when God is like. Or universe, whatever you believe God's like, put one out and then I'll show you two, okay? Like, just put one out because it's meant to gradually build on it. I'm not going to overload you. If I showed you idea two, you wouldn't put one out, which is the first step. And this is just the law.

Amen. I love that. All right, guys, listen. If you like this kind of energy, if you like this kind of coaching, if you like this kind of loving nudge, and if you want to mix it with some networking and some real strategy, text me the word roundtable to 310-421-0416. If enough of you text me the word roundtable, I will do an October, November 1, come up to Scottsdale Jam with 15 people in a room. Collaborate. Obviously, this thing has become like rocket ship famous.

P.S. perfect time of year to be there. Like the most perfect vacation ever. It's the glorious weather and it's hosted at the most incredible grounds.

Yep. So text me the word roundtable to 310-421-0416.

Thank you guys so much for listening and we will be back next week.

Love and appreciate you.

It.