#58. Make Your Bed, Then You Win.
Why shouldn’t we admire the smallest of acts on our way to the goal?
If you have ever seen the rousing speech by Admiral William McRaven (6mins) you will understand the title and more to the point this principle undermines the nonsense that we see daily of get quick rich and going big or go home.
The beauty of his insight is that it removes the excuses that many of us tell ourselves when we claim not to be able to achieve something.
We can all make our bed as soon as we get up in the morning. It’s only our laziness and lack of accountability that stop us.
But it can come with a twist.
For many years I would make the bed and come in the evening my wife would have redone it. This would cause me much frustration.
So I stopped making the bed as the story I told myself was that I hadn’t done a good job in her eyes. But that’s just a story.
After a while I reframed it - it wasn’t about whether I was doing it right or not, but the fact I was doing it in the first place. So I restarted making the bed in my mediocre way. ;0)
The lesson for me was what the Admiral was explaining, it’s not that the act itself is important, but our mindset towards it.
It’s to the point now that I can’t leave the room with the bed being made and therefore I have a sense of pride in the process.
What’s more valuable is that I can apply this mindset to anything I allow myself to.
Another point the Admiral makes is the tenacity of the smaller guys in one of the other Seal Team boats. They were so much smaller than everyone, that they couldn’t help but mock them.
But this is where small wins.
They outswam, paddled and outrun all of the other teams.
We tend to see small as weak. A small business is not as valuable as a big business, a smaller person isn’t seen as strong as a ‘normal’ size person… all stories once again are based on a lazy paradigm that we allow ourselves to believe.
You only need to turn to classic Disney cartoons where the meak mouse enters the room and the lady jumps on the chair afraid.
It is the kind of logic we allow our brains to trap us with. The mouse in fact can do us no harm, the mouse just wants food and we can provide a ready supply - it’s hardly an act of implicit violence from the mouse is it?
The mouse is a metaphor for the unfounded fears that we carry around each day in every aspect of our lives.
We do not fear the the size of the aspirational mountain we choose to climb, but we fear the first steps because of the unknown and our fear our failure.
Sometimes you need to be the mouse. Completely ignorant of your size or capability, but you confidently go after what you want, the cheese.
Because the cheese will provide you with the fuel to gradually summit the mountain.
Until next week, be the mouse.
G
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