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d. Think of your plan as being like a movie script in that you visualize who will do what through time.
Write down your plan for everyone to see and to measure your progress against. This includes all the granular details about who needs to do what tasks and when. The tasks, the narrative, and the goals are different, so don’t mix them up.
f. Recognize that it doesn’t take a lot of time to design a good plan. A plan can be sketched out and refined in just hours or spread out over days or weeks. But the process is essential because
execution. Remember: Designing precedes doing!
2.5 Push through to completion. a. Great planners who don’t execute
their plans go nowhere. You need to push through and that requires self-disciplin...
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b. Good work habits are vastly underrated. People who push through successfully have to-do lists that are reasonably prioritized, and they make certain each item is ticked off in order.
c. Establish clear metrics to make certain that you are following your plan.
That’s all there is to it! Remember that all 5 Steps proceed from your values. Your values determine what
you want, i.e., your goals. Also keep in mind that the 5 Steps are iterative. When you complete one step, you will have acquired information that will most likely lead you to modify the other steps.
One last important point: You will need to synthesize and shape well. The first three steps—setting goals, identifying problems, and then diagnosing them—are synthesizing (by which I mean knowing where
you want to go and what’s really going on). Designing solutions and making sure that the designs are implemented are shaping.
2.6 Remember that weaknesses don’t matter if you...
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You almost certainly can’t do all these steps well, because each requires different types of thinking and virtually nobody can think well in all these ways. For example, goal setting (such as determining what you want your ...
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like visualization and prioritization. Identifying and not tolerating problems requires you to be perceptive and good at synthesis and maintaining high standards; diagnosis requires you to be logical, able to see multiple possibilities, and willing to have hard conversations with others; designing requires visualization and practicality; doing what you set out to do requires self-discipline, good work habits, and a results orientation. Who do you k...
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do? First and foremost, have humility so you can get what you need from others! Everyone has weaknesses. They are generally revealed in the patterns of mistakes they make. Knowing what your weaknesses are and star...
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a. Look at the patterns of your mistakes and identify at which step in the 5-Step Process you typically fail....
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b. Everyone has at least one big thing that stands in the way of their success; find yours and deal with
There are two paths to success: 1) to have what you need yourself or 2) to
get it from others. The second path requires you to have humility.
2.7 Understand your own and others’ mental maps and humility.
Some people are good at knowing what to do on their own; they have good mental maps. Maybe they acquired them from being taught; maybe they were blessed with an especially large
dose of common sense. Whatever the case, they have more answers inside themselves than others do. Similarly, some people are more humble and open-minded than others. Humility can be even more valuable than having good mental maps if it leads you to seek out better answers than you could come up with on yo...
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3 Be Radically Open-Minded
This is probably the most important chapter because it explains how to get around the two things standing in most people’s way of getting what they want out of life.
3.1 Recognize your two barriers.
The two biggest barriers to good decision making are your ego and your blind spots.
a. Understand your ego barrier. When I refer to your “ego barrier,”
b. Your two “yous” fight to control you. It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
This conflict is universal; if you pay close enough attention, you can actually see when the different parts of a person’s brain are arguing with
one another. For example, when someone gets “angry with himself,” his prefrontal cortex is sparring with his amygdala (or other lower-level parts of his brain25). When someone asks, “Why did I let myself eat all that cake?” the answer is “Because t...
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Once you understand how your a) logical/conscious you and b) emotional/subconscious you fight with each other, you can imagine what it’s like when your two yous deal with othe...
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To be effective you must not let your need to be right be more important than your need to find out what’s true.
c. Understand your blind spot barrier.
Just as we all have different ranges for hearing pitch and seeing colors, we have different ranges for seeing and understanding things. We each see things in our own way. For example, some people naturally see big pictures and miss small details while others naturally see details and miss big pictures; some people are linear
thinkers while others think laterally, and so on.
adapt. Those who adapt do so by a) teaching their brains to work in a way that doesn’t come naturally (the creative person learns to become organized through discipline and practice, for instance), b) using compensating mechanisms (such as programmed reminders), and/or c) relying on the help of others who are strong where they are weak.
3.2 Practice radical open-mindedness.
have blind spots and open-mindedly consider the possibility that others might see something better than you—and that the threats and opportunities they are trying to point out really exist—
Radical open-mindedness is motivated by the genuine worry that you might not be seeing your choices optimally. It is the ability to effectively explore different points of view
and different possibilities without letting your ego or your blind spots get in your way. It requires you to replace your attachment to always being r...
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view. To be radically open-minded you must:
a. Sincerely believe that you might not know the best possible path and recognize that your ability to deal well with “not knowing” is more important than whatever it is you do know.
b. Recognize that decision making is a two-step process: First take in all the relevant information, then decide. Most people are reluctant to take in information that is inconsistent with what they have already concluded.
These people seem to think that considering opposing views will somehow threaten their ability to decide what they want to do.
c. Don’t worry about looking good; worry about achieving your goal.
d. Realize that you can’t put out without taking in.
e. Recognize that to gain the perspective that comes from seeing things through another’s eyes, you must suspend judgment for a time—only by empathizing can you properly evaluate another point of view.
f. Remember that you’re looking for the best answer, not simply the best answer that you can come up with yourself.
