Personal Flashcards
Review your goals on your computer
If necessary add new goals, update, make sure there are appropriate tasks
Have you made a vision board
Is it up to date and do your goals align with it?
Have you got professional financial advise?
The best known all ways beats the best product!
Your way better of spending your time on getting know than perfecting your product,
No point having a product If no one knows about it
Are you having trouble making a decision? follow these steps to come to an answer!
I know I have to make a decision – but none of the options feel quite right.
Over the past few months of weekly coaching sessions with my executive coach (and now friend) Corey Wilks, I’ve picked up a series of six mental models (questions I can ask myself, essentially) that help me figure out:
What I really want from the situation.
Whether I’m using the right mental tools for the job.
Here are the six questions:
🎯 1. What Core Value Are You Optimising For?
Asking ‘what core value am I optimising for right now?’ gives me permission to prioritise the core value I care about the most. I can say ‘yes I care about X – but right now, I’m optimising for Y.’
My main core value at the moment is freedom to learn and teach on my own terms.
I care about other things too, like being respected by my peers. But I know that I’m optimising for freedom, so I’ll choose that over other values like 80% of the time.
💁 2. What Would Your Mental Board of Advisors Say?
Consulting my Mental Board of Advisors always helps when I’m stuck on a decision.
The Mental Board of Advisors is a group of 3-4 people (dead or alive) who you admire, and who you know well enough to be able to ask ‘what would [Naval / The Rock / Malala] do in this position?’
My Board includes Tim Ferriss, Derek Sivers, and a few others. Asking ‘what would Tim Ferriss advise me to do in this situation’ actually solves a lot of my problems.
I’ll often find I knew the answer all along.
💀 3. What Are Your Underlying Assumptions?
Every problem is propped up by a bunch of underlying assumptions. Challenge those assumptions, and the problem often fades away:
I can’t decide what film to watch tonight… → Who says I have to watch a film? Why not go for a walk instead?
I need to rush this YouTube video for the sponsorship deadline. → Do I? No one will pull the plug on a sponsorship just because the video came out a day or two late. I should relax, and focus on making a good video.
I have to do X thing, or my friends won’t like me any more. → Do I want judgmental friends? Are they actually my friends? Alternatively: would my friends actually judge me for this?
🐌 4. Can You Adjust the Friction?
If I want to do more of something, I minimise the friction for doing it.
I want to make more YouTube videos for example. So I’ve started keeping a camera with me at all times, and if I have an idea I can whip out my camera and start filming with zero friction. My recent 28 Life Lessons video would never have happened if I’d had to put it into my filming schedule, go into the studio to film it, etc etc.
And when I want to do something less, I maximise the friction. Keeping my phone away from bed, keeping sweets out of the house, switching off notifications. My friend Neel actually sets his lightbulbs to switch off around his bedtime.
Make things easier / more difficult for your future self.
🦾 5. Are You Applying Leverage?
Are you trying to solve your problem with brute force? By putting in more time and effort?
Or are you solving it the smart way – building a system, and using unfair advantages (contacts, skills, or money)? That’s what leverage is all about, using your resources to achieve the best possible outcome.
After doing YouTube for 2 years, I made enough money to hire a full-time video editor. I leveraged my YouTube success to fix my ‘editing capacity problem’, and that made me even more successful on YouTube because:
I had more time to make videos.
Those videos were better edited.
🧪 6. Are You Giving Yourself Permission to Experiment?
Instead of seeing every decision as life-changing and irreversible, think of yourself as a scientist running an experiment. Try shit out just to see what happens. Even if the experiment fails, you’ll still gain valuable data.
One of my old Part-Time YouTuber Academy students Imran has a video where he recommends thinking about your life in chapters, and I absolutely vibe with that approach.
The choices you make right now don’t have to define the whole rest of your life. They only shape one small chapter. So let yourself experiment, and move on to the next chapter if you don’t like the outcome. Otherwise, you’ll never try out any genius (but slightly risky) ideas.
Are you working towards something so when your current income doesn’t work out you have an income??
Make sure you have a side hustle when qantas inevitably stops producing
Do I think I’m cleaver and working harder just because of the people I am around?
If I surround my self around a different group of people would I still feel the same about my work and efforts?
Have you fueled your brain with oxygen today (+ vitamins)
One of your brains fuel is oxygen, if you are tired and don’t have time for a nap or even a walk,
Just simply take 10 deep breaths
When you read this morning did you stop at every page and try and recall what you read?
when im on my deathbed what will I regret having or not having done?
Top 5 deathbed regrets
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish I’d let myself be happier.
you will NEVER have 100% certainty, if your waiting for that then you literally will never achieve anything.
treat everything as an experiment, then you wont have the guilt of it failing. all it is, is an experiment
aliabdaal, “how to make better choices in life”
If I’m struggling with something or a decision write down the answers to these questions.
- What am I missing out on by not doing the thing that I’m scared of?
- Why am I not doing this thing?
- What’s the absolute worst-case scenario if
I did the thing? - What can I do to mitigate against the worst-case scenario or to deal with it?
- If I had to reverse this decision, how would I go about it?
