Subtraction Method

“Thank God I’ve missed my big chance”

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A couple weeks ago, I made the mistake of looking up a clip from The Godfather on YouTube.

Since then, YouTube has been serving me up a steady diet of Al Pacino interviews, which I of course have allowed myself to be “force-fed.” At least I found out the following curious anecdote:

During the shooting of a scene in the Godfather, Pacino was supposed to jump into a moving car. But he missed the car and almost broke his ankle.

Pacino said later he was shocked by the feeling of relief that passed over him.

“Thank you God,” he said as he lay on the ground. “You’re gonna get me out of this film.”

Pacino had felt like an underling on set, unwanted and unfit for the role of Michael Corleone.

“This injury could be my release from that prison,” Pacino said later.

Of course, that’s not how it ended up. The director, Francis Ford Coppola, liked Pacino too well. That, plus a bunch of corticosteroid injections, meant Pacino stayed in the movie.

In that way, the career of Al Pacino – from young theater actor, talented, unknown, but hopeful, to massive Hollywood star and international celeb, jaded, paranoid, and alcoholic — mirrored the progression of Michael Corleone in the Godfather — from the modest, good, patriotic son with plans of a respectable career, to ruthless head of the Corleone mob family, addicted to control and power, even at the cost of everything in his family and inside himself.

Before I get you too depressed, I wanna make it clear:

This email is not about the vanity of pursuing any kind of achievement or success in life.

Over the next few days, I’m promoting Tom Grundy’s Subtraction Method training.

Tom’s story is that he quit his high-powered London banking job in order to seek enlightenment. Enlightenment found, Tom ended up going back to the bank.

Curious, right?

The first time around at the bank was miserable, says Tom. The second time around has been enjoyable, stress-free, and even fulfilling.

What made the difference is what Tom calls the Subtraction Method.

The Subtraction Method is not about the kind of minimalism that involves living in a hut in the backwoods of Montana, shooting and skinning rabbits and melting snow for drinking water.

Rather, it’s about a different kind of minimalism, one that has to do with ideas and attitudes.

The end result can be that you achieve all the external success you think you want now, and you do it on such terms that you’re not eaten out from inside like Michael Corleone or Al Pacino.

Or the end result can be you don’t achieve the external success you think you want now, and you find out that that’s perfectly fine, because what you thought you wanted is not what you actually want.

Here is where I start waving my hands and waffling and mumbling a little too much. Because the Subtraction Method is not my area of expertise. Rather it’s Tom’s area of expertise.

That’s why I’d like to invite you to sign up to his training. The training is free. It’s happening next Wednesday, Nov 6, at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. I’ll be there. If you’d like to be there as well, you can register to get in at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/subtraction

Announcing: Subtraction Method

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There’s a link at the bottom of this email and honestly I’d like you to go click it and sign up for the free training that’s waiting for you on the other side.

But first a bit o’ background:

This free training is being put on by Tom Grundy, who at one point was in my Write & Profit coaching program.

I’ve mentioned Tom a few times before in these emails because he writes interesting and engaging emails himself, which I read pretty much daily.

Tom also happens to be a London banker with an unusual career trajectory:

He quit his high-powered London banking job because stress and misery… he went in search of fulfillment… he found fulfillment… and then he went back to his high-powered London banking job, because he actually kinda likes the work and the people and the environment now.

Tom’s free training is about what’s allowed him to find sense and satisfaction along with success. This is what he calls the Subtraction Method.

Earlier this year, Tom approached me about promoting a workshop about “mindset.”

I tentatively agreed because 1) I like Tom and I know he knows stuff about self-development and psychology, and 2) I know Tom had already delivered a weeks-long series of workshops on mindset at his company Lloyds Bank. These workshops went so well he’s been rerunning them at Lloyds and even getting asked to do them at other banks too.

Still, I agreed only tentatively, because to be honest I’m a little repulsed by the entire idea of “mindset.”

In particular, I imagined Tom’s workshops were about wholesome 1920s topics like the power of positive thinking… and how to set goals… and clutching to the idea of your children’s college fund as you try to reframe the humiliation of, say, dancing on TikTok to build up your 7-figure personal brand.

But!

It turns out Tom teaches none of those things in his workshops. In fact, he teaches pretty much the opposite, which again he calls the Subtraction Method.

Tom explained his Subtraction Method to me last month. I found that I can get behind his approach 100%.

Tom’s Subtraction Method matches the vague conclusions I’ve been able to reach in my own lifelong search for some sort of understanding and management of my own feelings and internal drives. It’s just that Tom has much more specific and concrete ideas about this, where I’ve only caught some occasional glimpses.

So there you go:

Tom’s free training for you on the Subtraction Method, with my 100% endorsement and in fact personal interest (I will be there on the training too).

As for the details:

1. This training is happening live over Zoom on Wednesday November 6 at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST.

2. Tom will be offering a paid series of group workshops on the back of this one-off free training. These workshops I imagine will follow the ones he’s been putting on at his bank.

That said, this one-off live training is not just a tease or a sales pitch for those workshops, because Tom will reveal fully the concepts behind the Subtraction Method.

In other words, if you wanna work through those concepts with a group of people, with Tom at the helm, you will have that option following this one-off training.

If on the other hand, you just want to learn about the Subtraction Method just for curiosity’s sake, or so you can try it out in your own life, in your own good time, by yourself, then this training will give you all the info you need.

3. You might have doubts about what a London banker can teach you about fulfillment and achievement and happiness. After all, odds are you yourself are not a London banker. You might live in a very different kind of world and do a very different kind of work.

My best response is to suggest you go sign up for Tom’s training, and then read a few days’ worth of Tom’s emails, which will start landing in your inbox.

If Tom’s emails really say nothing to you, then skip the training and unsubscribe.

If on the other hand, you find yourself both amused and intrigued by what Tom has to say, the way that I do when I read Tom’s stuff, then you won’t have nothin’ more to do, except show up on Zoom on Wednesday Nov 6, and hear Tom explain the Subtraction Method.

If you’d like to sign up now:

​https://bejakovic.com/subtraction