What the Law of Attraction has to offer Type A's
+ How to think about "Hacks" in the Learning process
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A preamble
The Leadership Lab crossed 400 subscribers this week.
This number baffles me.
The Leadership Lab is my second attempt at writing online, my last being a daily blog from 2015 hidden in the depths of the internet.
The Leadership Lab started with a dozen clients that I worked with directly.
Now, magically, impossibly, it has blossomed up to 400!
I’m not particularly passionate about writing. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve found way more energy in audio and video lately. Yet I kept up with it because I valued having a channel of my own to interact with people who valued what I have to say.
So thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching. Thanks for being a part of my journey, big or small.
Onward and upward!
This week I’m catching up on some No Clear Answers backlog (We’ve already released six! count ‘em, six! episodes).
Here’s a double header on Episode 3 on Manifestation & The Law of Attraction and Episode 4 on Hacks.
Manifestation and the Law of Attraction
We surprised ourselves with this episode. Each of us expected the others to show up and tear down both ideas. So we each showed up with reasons for why you might want to practice them.
To start, let me quickly define each term (from Wikipedia):
Manifestation: Various self-help strategies that can purportedly make an individual’s wishes come true by mentally visualizing them.
The Law of Attraction: The law of attraction is the new thought spiritual belief that positive or negative thoughts bring positive or negative experiences into a person's life.
Sounds a little “woo-woo” doesn’t it? Agreed. But for some, there might be something to it.
Why Manifestation is useful for Type A’s
Both of these ideas carry in them the belief that you can bring things into your life not by doing, but by clearly visualizing what you want and holding as much positive energy around that goal as possible.
For people who struggle getting into action, this is wishful thinking at best. Yet for Type A’s who are the first to act, it can have the opposite effect:
As a Type A, it’s possible to push so hard that you lose the very thing that you were striving to obtain.
You push your employees so hard to improve that they quit.
You push partners so hard that they no longer want to work with you.
You do too much in your business such that people can’t do their job, jeopardizing your goals.
As a Type A, a belief that things can happen without your direct involvement can be a huge level up. It’s called TRUST.
The universe isn’t against you. You don’t need to be actively involved in every step for good things to happen.
Not only can surrendering to this reality and allowing for the possibility that things can go your way without your involvement improve the result, it can also make the journey more enjoyable. You don’t need to hold on so tightly all of the time!
A Belief that you WILL Achieve your Goal is a Hallmark of High Performance Psychology
Let’s be real, if you’ve watched world class athletes, they almost all have one thing in common: they believe that their success is inevitable. They just need to stay focused and find the path.
While, once again, doing so without following through on action is wishful thinking at best, the belief that what you want to happen simply will can add a lot of wind to your sails.
It helps you stay positive in hardship. It helps you look for the things that will help you get there rather than the things that will get you down. It empowers resilience.
Clearly visualize your goals, feel them, make them inevitable in your system, and march toward every opening that makes that possibility more of a reality.
Experimenting with things that “Make No Sense”
It might seem nutty to you to practice Manifestation or use The Law of Attraction. It feels that way to me too!
But there’s an advantage to, at times, experimenting with things that “make no sense” to us. I make this point 43 minutes into the episode:
The more you avoid things that make no sense to you, be it manifesting, a wellness technique, or a certain approach to leadership, the bigger a blindspot you form. You get more entrenched in your current beliefs and become more blind to the possible benefits.
So I encourage you, if something makes no sense to you, if you think it’s stupid and are totally averse to it: consider giving it a try.
Watch/Listen to the the full episode on:
If you liked these points, I recommend giving the full episode a listen. We dive into the nuance of what types of people these practices might be useful for, the pitfalls of practicing, and some of the underlying psychological drivers that make it helpful or not.
Apple:
Spotify:
E4 Hacks and the Learning Process
Not gonna lie, we got pretty out there and abstract on this one. The conversation was a mix of hack-bashery, philosophical pontification, and diatribes on the learning process.
If you’re into that thing, give it a listen.
If you’re more of a concrete tactical person, maybe give this one a pass ;).
Either way, here are some of my favorite points below.
Hacks are Bullshit
Corey made his stance very clear early on in the episode: Hacks are bullshit. And Corey clued into something very real. Most people are drawn to hacks because they’re looking for shortcuts.
The danger with overusing hacks, be they health hacks, life hacks, growth hacks, or business hacks, is that you build a house with no foundation.
You can hack all day long, but:
Every hack has a downside
If all you know are hacks, you don’t actually understand the system, and are incapable of actually troubleshooting issues
His stance is clear: the best hacks aren’t hacks. They’re rooted in best practices. And the people who are inventing useful hacks, are those who actually understand the fundamentals. Don’t take the hacks as they are, learn the underlying fundamentals.
Being too Anti-hack might mean you’re Anti-experimentation
There is one risk of being rigidly anti-hack: it could mean you’re rigidly anti-experimentation.
Novelty and experimentation are essential to the learning process. If you’re sitting in the land of fundamentals and best practices all day long without trying anything new or on the fringes, you’re going to get stuck.
Rigidity leads to pathology. Being rigidly fundamentals or anti-hacks will have it’s downside.
A lot of it comes down to your comfort with the unknown. Are you willing to risk stepping over the ledge of the unknown to see what happens?
Balance Hacks and Experimentation for Optimal Learning
Which brings me to my final points: balance fundamentals and experimentation for the best learning process.
Something like the 80/20 principle works well. 80% of my focus is on solid fundamentals, and 20% is on experiments that could yield huge results.
For you, in different domains, that may be 85/15, 90/10, or 95/5. I encourage you to step back and ask yourself:
Where do I bias, to foundations or hacks?
How can I inject more experimentation to accelerate my learning?
How can I come back to fundamentals to improve my results?
Watch/Listen to the the full episode on:
This one was abstract and philosophical, and I think there’s much to be gained from listening into the debate. Listen on your favorite platform:
Apple:
Spotify:
Thanks for reading, and see you next time!