“According to family tradition, my great-grandfather used to say about the mules on his farm, ‘To get their attention you have to hit them between the eyes with a two-by-four. When you have their attention, they can see what they ought to do.'”
— Jim Camp, No
Jim Camp was a top-tier negotiation coach. One of the pillars of his negotiation system was to help the other side get a crystal-clear vision of the problem, and of the pain of that problem.
But people don’t usually respond to the two-by-four, Camp said. You don’t want the vision of the pain to be so extreme that people become blinded.
Travis Sago is a successful online marketer. One metaphor Travis uses is called “hell island.”
In a nutshell, your prospects are currently on hell island. You can help them get to heaven island. You want to make that clear to them, says Travis. But you don’t want to “burn hell island down.”
That can be hard to accept. Our brains love consistency. If a little bit is good… then a lot is even better, right?
Not necessarily. At least that’s what the two shrewd dogs above are saying.
I bring this up because of my post yesterday. I was writing how one way to get motivated is to focus on all the things you will lose if you don’t succeed… and to make that vision bloody and raw.
I’ve tried this with some of my own projects. It didn’t work for me. I created a fearful and bloody vision of failure. I still quit when the going got uncertain.
So let me wrap up with one last quote for today, this one by Mark Ford:
“Human beings are designed to get better through practice. Everything we ever learn to do – from walking to talking to writing concertos – gets better through practice. […] Practice doesn’t make perfect. That’s a foolish idea. Practice makes better. And better is where all the enjoyment is in learning.”
So that’s the final thought I want to leave you with. Perhaps success is not about inhuman levels of motivation. Or about having sufficient passion.
Perhaps success is simply about choosing a field where you don’t mind getting better. Where the daily work is something you find enjoyable enough — or at least, not too repulsive — so you can continue to get better at it day after day.
I hope this idea will be useful to you as you navigate your career or business. But don’t worry, I won’t go on with this froufrou self-actualization stuff. Tomorrow, we will get back on track with hardcore, practical, direct response sleight-of-hand.
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