Rule #5: Think AND not OR

You're probably familiar with the saying,

"Hit two birds with one stone."

But imagine for a second that this saying was your reality.
Imagine you were trying to hit two birds with one stone because you relied on those two birds for dinner.

If you didn't hit those birds, you wouldn't die, but you would go to bed hungry.

Your hunger through the night would serve as pretty good motivation for you to get up the next morning and get to work practicing your throw.

In fact, after you reach the limits of practice, you may even start analyzing which stones work best.

You may start reading about how to quiet your mind and focus all of your attention on that moment when the flock of birds flies by.

Now imagine that your practice, learning, and discipline pay off. When the birds fly overhead this time, you nail the two birds with a brilliant strike — reaping the rewards of your hard work and practice.

How skilled do you think you might get at hitting those birds if this was your reality for the next month?

What about the next six months?

How about the next six years?

The scenario above is a vivid analogy for my life over the last six years.

Over the last six years of my entrepreneurial journey, I have had a constant pressure to accomplish more with less. And if I didn't, there were real consequences.

With this scarcity of time, money, and even willpower, I have become extremely skilled at not just hitting two birds with one stone, but four, five, or even six.

And the most valuable lesson I learned through the process is to:

Think AND not OR

And when you're 100% dedicated to being an entrepreneur, that means if you don't find a way to make sales, the groceries are going to be sparse, and the landlord is going to be angry.

Live with that combination for five years, and you'll learn to do as much as possible with as little as possible.

THE ART OF KILLING MULTIPLE BIRDS WITH ONE STONE

In the last year, I accomplished a lot. I don't say that to brag; it's just a fact.

Here are the highlights:

I finished writing a book
I published and released that book
I saved my company from the brink of failure
I raised $20,000
I taught myself how to code
I learned three computer languages
I built a digital employee
I exercised and meditated 363/365 days
I achieved financial freedom
I discovered a purpose at the intersection of my passion, talent, and value to society.

None of this was easy.

It required a great purpose, many sacrifices, and harnessing the mental strength that I built over years of deliberate effort.

However, the techniques I used were simple and immediately useful.

MAKE A BIG LIST OF PROBLEMS

In the fall of last year — as I was building Wilson — I was finding it harder and harder to find time to:

Write one thousand words/day
Exercise for an hour/day
Keep in touch with my Chicago friends
Explore things to do in my new hometown of Saint Petersburg

We all face situations like this. You probably have different specific goals than I do, but I'm sure your categories are similar:

Creative goal
Health goal
Relationship goal
Appreciate life goal

Faced with all of these priorities, the first thing you want to do is

BE CONCRETE AND SPECIFIC

Most people have these goals in mind, but they aren't concrete about what exactly they want and — more importantly — why they want to achieve them.

Notice that my goal wasn't to "write more." It was, "write 1,000 words/day." And the reason why I want to write is clear in my mind — it's my creative outlet.

Whatever those nagging goals in the back of your mind are, make them concrete and purposeful.

You don't necessarily have to write them down, but you do need to know what you want to achieve and why you want to achieve them.

IS IT WORTH IT?

The next step is to simply ask yourself if your concrete goal and the purpose behind it is worth the effort it will take to achieve?

With my goal to keep in touch with my Chicago friends, I realized that I would have to venture outside of my comfort zone and ask my friends to chat on the phone.

I'm not sure what your experience is with phone calls, but I had never really just called a friend to chat. In my circles, it's just not what guys do.

So setting up regular phone calls was new territory for me — and my friends.

But then I asked myself the question I always ask when venturing outside my comfort zone — is it worth it?

If the answer is "yes" to that question — whether it's a small thing like being the one to awkwardly ask your friends to chat on the phone or a big thing like writing and publishing a book...

Then let go of the need to whine, complain, or find excuses; and focus all of your energy on making it happen.

If it truly is worth the effort, then you'll only cause yourself pain and suffering by complaining.

So remember your purpose, remember that it's worth, and focus on finding the solutions — not adding more problems.

IT'S ___ AND YOU ACCOMPLISHED ALL THESE GOALS. HOW?

It's the end of the day and I just wrote 1,000 words, exercised for an hour, had a great conversation with a friend, and explored a new area of town...how did I do it?

Thinking emoji...

I biked to one of the national parks nearby, went for a hike, used the dictation tool on my phone to write the first draft of this post, called a friend to catch up, then biked home.

That's right. The first draft of this post and more like it were written through a dictation tool on my phone while I was hiking in a new area of town.

If you check "My Dashboard" on the navigation bar at the top, you'll see that I get over 20,000 steps in per day by doing this. As a bonus, I also found that:

I'm more creative when I'm dictating rather than typing
I write at least 2x as fast
I don't have to worry about the health consequences of staring at a computer screen or typing on a keyboard
Have explored even more of the city than a lot of people who have lived here their whole lives
More polished at making professional phone calls now that I have "practice" from catching up with friends

And all of these are just bonuses!

But this post isn't about any of these specific points — it's about changing your mindset.

CONCLUSION

One of the most underrated pitfalls in our way of thinking is believing that something needs to be this OR that.

In my experience, 90% of the time you can accomplish this AND that — if not more as in my example above.

The difference typically comes down to discipline.

It takes discipline to follow the steps I outlined above.
It takes discipline to find the connections between your goals and understand how you can accomplish both at the same time.
And it takes discipline to follow that understanding with action.

I won't lie, however, sometimes you really can't make AND happen. I have faced situations where AND led to overextending myself and losing control over the situation.

But there are at least 9X more instances where I found a solution that not only allowed me to do this AND that but infinitely more bonus benefits that I didn't even consider at the outset.

So the next time you complain that you don't have time to exercise, spend time with friends, OR cultivate your passions — pause and follow the steps above to find the way to exercise, spend time with friends, AND cultivate your passions.