Distraction-Proof® Advisor Ideas

I took these [adult running shoes] to a baby shower this weekend. The parents didn’t even want them.
…
Of course, no parent is going to keep these shoes for their newborn baby. The baby has to grow and mature.

It reminded me of an episode I listened to from Steve Sanduski’s podcast, “Between Now and Success,” where he interviewed David Sears, a 20-year Navy Seal veteran, who has as one of his mantras, “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.” What he means by that is to ingrain new habits, you’ve got to be prepared to take it slowly. Don’t get caught up in trying to rush these things. You must take it slowly to begin with. Then, once you have ingrained the form smoothly, you can add speed.

And as a swimmer myself, I sometimes practiced with a cup of water balanced on my head because it was so important to take the stroke slowly so I could make sure to keep my head stayed perfectly still while rotating my body smoothly around that anchor point, making sure everything went in the right place. Only after that was mastered could I efficiently get faster.

I found this great video of Katie Ledecky doing the same thing, except instead of a cup of water, she had a cup of chocolate milk on her head. As we watch this, I’ll walk you through exactly what’s going on. You can see her initially, at the start of the video, take the stroke very, very slowly. She’s not so much thinking of the stroke at this stage: she’s making sure she is centered so that the cup of milk is balanced. Then she starts to increase her kick. Once she’s grooved-in the shoulder roll around her head, you can see her cadence, her tempo, pick up. Finally, she can shift her focus to speed because she’s got the balance point perfectly set up and taken care of. Only then can she direct the strength and speed exactly where she needs to be most effective.

If you were to watch only the last five meters of her swim in this video, you’d see Katie flying into the wall, balancing a cup of milk on her head with seemingly no effort. Everybody would say, “That’s Katie Ledecky! Isn’t she amazing?” without realizing (while she is amazing) she started off slowly so she could learn to be smooth, and only after that could she efficiently get faster.

So to think about this thoroughly for your business and implement ideas into your business,

1. Think about what you want to implement. Think about what it is that you want to graft into your business that’s going to have you performing phenomenally well.


2. Take baby steps. Don’t rush. Don’t look at the final result of how somebody else who’s worked on this for years looks. Think about what baby steps look like for you— the first three or four priorities you need to get comfortable with.


3. Don’t get frustrated when you blow it. You’re going to need to take time mastering this new addition to your business routine. You’re going to need to take time crafting new language. It’s going to take time to iron out little challenges with new systems you want to implement. Don’t get frustrated and give up!

If I had succumbed to frustration and chosen to give up when that cup of water fell off my head for the fifth or even the tenth time, I would never have focused so much on keeping my head still, which allowed me to put all the strength into the right places and ultimately allowed me to win an Olympic medal by four one-hundredths of a second because I knew the importance of not moving that head.

That’s what you need to do with your business: graft these things in, take baby steps, and master them.

I look forward to bringing you another Distraction-Proof Advisor Idea next week.