Screw big ideas, think small
To paraphrase my favorite TikTok of all time: "We're built different!"
Today’s brain teaser:
Why would an Italian professor, who is not a transvestite, wear an outfit of very obvious women’s lingerie, and not be embarrassed to change in front of an academic colleague? And why is this man not surprised to see it?
Find the answer at the end of this email. If you were forwarded this email, subscribe here so you can be the one annoying your friends with lateral thinking.
Ideas from a chat with subscriber #400
Follow up on the mini-raffle organized here.
A week or so ago I had a short chat with Marius, owner of Calculatorescu.ro, about finding motivation to work on side projects.
Marius is a thrill to talk to and has more than a couple of projects under his belt. His background is SEO, but his signature alone showcases 3 personal websites/businesses he’s working on.
The point of the chat is to see if we can use lateral thinking to have a different approach on a recurring problem of his.
Motivation to keep going.
We landed on the topic of “motivation to write”. Working in SEO, he knew that he had to write a lot of articles and that getting traffic on popular keywords is going to take time. He was fine with that.
He had the longterm objective - VERY longterm - to get enough organic traffic on his website in 10 years in order to make enough passive income to support his lifestyle.
That’s a great goal. Clear, concise, framed in time. A SMART goal, as you’ve probably heard. On paper, everything looks fine. So why doesn’t it work?
Because longterm objectives are usually boring.
The issue with this is that don’t live in a sterile relationship with our goals. We react to them - based on how our day or week is going, based on interactions that we’ve had with other people, based on everything that’s happening with us.
Goals are supposed to motivate us on a bad day. Sometimes, however, they don’t.
When you set a goal 10 years in the future, it’s hard for most people to get motivated to put in the work because it seems so far off.
I’m sure some of you are thinking of the infamous Stanford marshmallow test now - if you don’t know it, look it up. By the way, apparently it isn’t that much about willpower. The point is that despite the fact that we know delaying gratification is usually a good thing, we can’t always fight with ourselves.
We need to create a context where we thrive.
Let’s say big goals aren’t working for you.
To get where you want to be in 10 years, stop thinking big. Think small.
Instead of imagining you’ll have a passive income source that will cover all your lifestyle needs, start thinking about how you can make an extra $1000 a month through your side gig.
$1000 seems unrealistic? Try $300 then, it doesn’t matter.
But stop letting the big goal be the only thing that guides you. The big goal isn’t the lighthouse that’s guiding you. It’s the map and a crudely drawn one at best.
What you need to do is make sure you built enough lighthouses along the way to keep you on track and motivated on reaching your destination.
Answer: The Italians, who are both successful professionals with strong academic backgrounds, are husband and wife.
I especially enjoy saying this one to woke people who talk about the “female doctor surgeon” riddle you probably all know. Roughly 8 out 10 don’t get it.
Dude, sorry to pop in your comments again (it's a form of payback for your brainteasers), but breaking down a big thing in bite sizes pieces it's f**ing obvious. Maybe not in terms of personal goals (I speak from my experience), but this is one of the foundational aspects of basically every project management framework and it's where scrum excels.
If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense: Set a long-term goal, but break it down into smaller achievable increments in fixed intervals. This way you can both reap early benefits, track your progress, adjust your tactics and your strategy and, most important, un-trick your brain.