How To Reach Your Full Potential While Trapped In A Dead-End Job? Get Here The Solution To This Daunting Career Paradox Now!
There are moments in life when we face a giant wall blocking our progress.
We can either bang our heads against the wall harder and harder.
Or trying something different.
Getting trapped in a dead-end job is one such example.
It was also the moment when I got the?worst?advice ever…
The ‘1% Rule’
I have to confess.
Whenever I see someone on social media promoting the ‘1% Rule,’ my blood boils…
The 1% Rule asserts that if you put in 1 percent more effort?each day, your performance will explode 38 times in a single year.
Imagine your bank account with a 1% interest rate?daily.
At the end of the year, your returns are not 365% but>3,800%!
That is the power of the?compounding effect.
However, the ‘1% Rule’ is a ‘get rich quick’ scheme.
The underlying message is?consistency?is key to success.
Motivating people trying harder each day.
Equally, it tricks people into believing in a lie that does not reflect reality!
Daily Consistency vs Wishful Thinking
Don’t get me wrong.
Consistency?is?an element of success.
But so is being radical aligned with reality!
I don’t know anyone who can?consistently?push themselves 1% harder?every day.
I speak of myself both physically and mentally.
Physical Performance: The ‘1% Rule’ Myth Buster Example #1
Although I ran a 100 km ultra-marathon in 2020 during the lockdown, my training was full of setbacks and minor injuries. That prevented me from giving 1% more each day.
Mental Performance: The ‘1% Rule’ Myth Buster Example #2
No matter how much accountability I set to myself, doing 2 Master’s + 1 PhD in String Theory in 5 years was full of frustrations, setbacks and analysis paralysis. That prevented me from improving by 1% each day.
The same goes for my 18 years of career in Finance.
The 1% rule is not realistic, as it ignores many elements.
Why Is The ‘1% Rule’ Wrong?
The ‘1% Rule’ ignores many critical elements:
Ignoring such facts and relying solely on the ‘1% Rule’ will lead to total disaster.
Both in your career and personal life.
Why?
The ‘1% Rule’ prevents you to:
There are everyday moments in your life when you should question the ‘1% Rule’.
The ‘1% Rule’ is the worst advice you can ever get when:
Instead, in such critical moments, the key mindset is:
It is not about trying harder but trying a different way!
What is the?alternative?way?
First, we must step back for a moment and ask ourselves…
Why Do We Seek A ‘Performance Compounding Effect’?
More than the want to improve ourselves, there is a deeper reason behind our search for a “performance secret”.
We are living in particular macroeconomic forces driving us to search for a golden nugget.
A nugget that will radically improve our performance in coping with the macroeconomics around us.
In order to take the biggest opportunities in the ‘Superstar Economy’ and not be left behind.
The exponential technological growth we are living in allows the few highly talented people to reach the masses wider than ever.
The 80/20 Pareto Law identified in the early 20th century is now a 99/1 Law in the 21st century.
A musician is no longer confined to a concert hall to perform her act.
Radio, TV and the Internet allowed those highly talented people to reach wider audiences across the globe.
Gaining disproportional fortunes next to the second best in their industry.
“Few realise that we are moving into the far more uneven distribution of 99/1 across many things that used to be 80/20: 99% of Internet traffic is attributable to less than 1% of sites, 99% of book sales come from less than 1% of authors … and I need to stop because numbers are emotionally stirring.” —Nassim Taleb, quote from his book 'Antifragile'.
However, technology is not the only factor driving the Superstar Economy.
The unprecedented low rates and easy money that have floated into the market have helped compound the superstar effect.
Easy Money Fueling The Superstar Economy
With the 2008 Credit Crisis event, Central Banks cut interest rates and started printing money never seen before.
Such “Four Horsemen” have contributed to income inequality, with the top 1% gaining disproportional returns compared to the remaining 99%.
Take a close look at this graph.
Since World War 2, there has been a clear relationship between the level of interest rates and income inequality.
The lower interest rates, the higher the treasury bond prices, correlated with higher income inequality.
Technological exponential growth and cheap money have both fueled the 99/1 Superstar Economy!
Being second is no longer an option.
And so, ambitious white-collar professionals want ways to substantially improve their performance in the face of such macroeconomic forces.
Therefore the search for a golden nugget to boost performance.
And the “Compounding Effect” is a powerful method.
In the next section, we will build an alternative compounding method to replace the naive ‘1% Rule’.
An Alternative Compounding Method | The Building Blocks
As we ditch the ‘1% Rule’, we want an alternative compounding method closer to reality.
We must shift our perceptions and challenge certain beliefs we take for granted.
领英推荐
First, it is crucial to understand that life is not a one-path process.
It is a two-path process, intertwining each other as if the helix of our DNA.
The DNA helix is formed by two paths with filaments connecting them, holding tensions to keep the structure functional.
And if we carry this analogy further, so is our life run by two main paths with everyday tensions between them.
The life two paths are:
The filaments represent:
Using this analogy about our lives, we can come closer to a better compounding process than the naive ‘1% Rule’
Let’s explore more…
Building Block #1: Authenticity
And if we carry this analogy one step further, we may conclude that:
Let’s see how by playing these two scenarios.
High Outer Growth & Low Inner Growth Scenario:
You may reach a good level of career growth and a large bank account.
But without reaching a similar level of inner growth, you may suffer from imposter syndrome or other self-sabotaging beliefs.
Even worse, you can fall into toxic behaviours that destroy your success.
High Inner Growth & Low Outer Growth Scenario:
You may reach a good level of inner growth, high levels of self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
But if you don’t take action to use such wisdom and reach a similar level of outer growth, you won’t have the power to create the impact you wanted.
Even worse, you can become a personal development junkie.
With this in mind, as we start perceiving life as a two-path journey, we realise the ‘1% Rule’ can never be real.
Why?
As we reach higher levels of inner growth, our motivations, personalities and life goals start to change to higher ones:
Hence, the only possible and real compounding effect needs to integrate our?authenticity.
Otherwise, time, energy and sacrifices are lost on past decisions we took by not being authentic to who we are or want to become.
Being authentic starts by not fooling ourselves.
But as Richard Feynman once claimed…
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool”?—Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics
Let’s now move to the second building block of the alternative compounding effect.
Building Block #2: Both/And Thinking
As we saw, the first misunderstanding is that life is a one-path process instead a two-path process.
The second misunderstanding is that we are limited by “either/or” choices.
That reflects dichotomous thinking present every day, everywhere — from Finance, Politics, Education and even Relationships.
“I am right, and you are wrong”?is the most popular way of dealing with complex matters.
Take the case of the “work from home” vs “return to office” debates.
Both sides engage in an “I am right, and you are wrong” narrative, trying to win the debate and implement what?they?believe is the best for?us.
But?what if?we allow ourselves to have an?alternative?way of thinking?
The ‘1% Rule’ is about being ‘better’, ‘smarter’, 'faster', and any other ‘er’ you can think of. What if — for a moment — we can ignore all such ‘er’s and have a?different?way of doing things?
This is the spirit of the “Both/And” thinking!
As the book “Both-and Thinking” by Marianne Lewis and Wendy Smith states, we should avoid coming to a quick conclusion and then trying to find motives for our choices.
Instead, we should keep inevitable tensions open to new possibilities by integrating both sides into creative solutions.
Most of us fail to do so because we get anxious and impatient when tensions show up in our lives.
We need certainties.
Quick solutions
Mental models that will reduce the paradox to?absolute?truth.
“Is life a zero-sum game? Does wanting more X mean we have to settle for less Y? Nowhere is this question clearer than in business and Finance. Which is why “Both/And Thinking” is so important for today’s decision makers.” —Sir Stelios Hai-Ioannou, founder of EasyJet
One of the most significant advancements in Science was made by Albert Einstein.
And he did so by reformulating the question addressing a well know paradox at the time:
“Could it be that a body is both in rest?and?in movement?”
In the same way, can we apply the same Both/And thinking to deal with everyday paradoxes in our lives?
When faced with such everyday paradoxes, we give up trying to solve them in?new ways?and revert to our routines.
We may try 1% harder the next day, but that will only move us faster in the wrong direction. Another way is to deconstruct such paradoxes to their fundamental dilemmas and then create ingenious solutions not thought of before.
The bad news is that our brain is not defaulted on thinking that way.
The good news is that you don’t need to be a genius like Albert Einstein to apply Both/And in your life!
Want To Learn More?
In summary:
If you feel that:
Then, don’t hesitate to reach out and learn more about my coaching programs!
For more details, please?check here .
Alternatively,?download my free book ?to learn strategies to empower yourself.
Nuno Reis
I am a High-Performance Coach.
I support finance practitioners to thrive in a world of uncertainty by developing a mindset that boosts their decision-making and performance.
Disclaimer:?This newsletter is not financial or investment advice. It intends to be a psychological, philosophical, and systemic approach to elevate the consciousness levels in the finance & tech industries. The writing of this article wants to be gender-neutral.
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