There’s a secret skill the greatest leaders possess, but the rest of us do not.
The reason it’s “secret” isn’t because it’s hidden. It’s because it’s something most of us don’t consider a skill. In fact, it’s something most of us consider a vice, rather than something to aspire to.
The skill I’m referring to?
Ignoring stuff.
Ignoring emails.
Ignoring people.
Ignoring projects.
Ignoring news.
Ignoring tasks.
Ignoring everything that isn’t going to deliver great strides towards where you want to be.
You see, if you’re like me (or indeed pretty much everyone), you don’t like ignoring stuff that comes across your desk. You don’t like “dropping the ball”, or “letting things slip between the cracks”. You think that’s sloppy. Irresponsible. Lazy. Rude.
And it is all that stuff.
But you know what else it is? Necessary. Necessary if you want to achieve extraordinary results in your life and your business.
To show you what I mean, think about any insanely successful people you might have met. Or read about. Or even might have seen depicted in a TV show. What do you notice about them?
Well, one thing might be that they are, in fact, quite unreliable. They’re flaky. They’re not good at responding to emails. They forget things. They’re not across the detail. They miss appointments. They seem a bit “scatterbrained” or “detached” sometimes.
At first, this doesn’t make sense.
You think, “How did this dope become so successful, while here I am, relentlessly on top of everything, and yet I’m achieving nothing!”.
But the truth is that their dopiness is key to their success. Because what these people are doing is giving supreme attention to the 2 or 3 highest leverage things in their life, by ignoring all the other hundreds of low-leverage things that in the big picture don’t really matter.
This means that they drop the ball. A lot. But they make up for it with a couple of huge wins that dwarf the failures caused by their narrow focus.
Now admittedly in some cases this behaviour can be quite pathological. For example ignoring your kids or your health in order to pour that attention into a key project. But no matter which way you cut it, something has to give. Something has to be sacrificed in order to take the massive action necessary for greatness.
You just have to choose what.
What are you prepared to ignore? What are you prepared to let fail? Would it really matter if you didn’t reply to most of your messages? Would it really matter if you just let that annoying project die? Heck, would it really matter if you dropped some of your clients?
This is the difference between being a manager and being an entrepreneur. The manager “manages” everything that comes across their desk, and become extremely efficient – but also ineffective. Because they are merely processing stuff, and thus end up standing still.
The entrepreneur on the other hand is extremely inefficient. They don’t process all that much. But they are effective, because they go big on the 20% that delivers 80% of the results.
You should know by now that the core theme of strategy – and heck, life in general – is sacrifice. Every “god”, every higher good demands its sacrifice.
You just need to pick the right ones.
For what it’s worth, here are a few examples that I think are reasonable, and won’t cause you too much negative blowback:
- Say no to any offer or project that isn’t a “hell yes!”. In practice this means not only saying no, but actually ignoring the outreach in the first place. It’s rude, unfortunately, but massively freeing.
- Identify maximum 2 key levers in the business (probably a single marketing technique, and your product), pour everything into them and let everything else operate at a lower level until those are on fire.
- Practice extreme delegation, especially in your personal life. If you are running a business, you frankly should not be doing a single drop of life admin. Be prepared to spend an “unreasonable” amount of money on ensuring this is the case.
- Ignore the news. Become criminally uninformed. This is simply a mental bandwidth technique, and something you can certainly get away with.
I haven’t done these yet, but I’m working on them.
The whole purpose here is to become a “lopsided” individual. To overload certain key areas of your life, so they blossom. But without sacrificing anything foundational (family, faith, fitness, fun).
What about you?
Do you practice this discipline yet?
Let me know your experiences.
