Pursuit of self-improvement

One of the strongest principles of nature (or the universe) is evolution. Everything around us is evolving to its best version. Human beings are a product of 100,000 plus years of evolution. There is an inherent need in each of us to improve and get to our own best self. If one is not improving, one is working against the natural principle of evolution. Anything that works against nature, decays and eventually dies.

 We at RIVIGO have a leadership principle called “1% improvement every day” which mirrors this nature principle of evolution. 1% improvement every day on any dimension leads to 40X improvement due to the magic of compounding. In the new age world of digital disruption, one needs to “vertically” scale up to seize the opportunities and win in the marketplace. It requires a non-linear compounding self-improvement curve with a healthy disregard for present day education, titles, knowledge and work. Through this note, I’d try to bring the input side of the principle to life so more and more leaders can embrace this principle in full.

Baseline does not matter, big goals do

It is apparent that if one can improve 40X in one year on any dimension then the baseline is irrelevant. You can start from anywhere on any skill and get to become the best of the best in the world through constant pursuit of self-improvement. 10,000 hours of practice (assuming 8-10 hours a day) takes about 3 years of work on any skill. It can make a novice tennis player into one of the best tennis player. This is where your mind and physical being play together with unison. 20,000 hours of practice takes 6 years but gets your soul, mind and physical body together in the pursuit of the skill. This is where you can reach the world’s best performance level of that skill.

 So if one does look at this mathematically, to go from zero to infinite (master) skill level one would take maximum of 3 to 6 years so your current baseline skill level is irrelevant. The way compounding works is that most amount of impact comes through later and most people give up before that. Set yourself a big earth shattering goal – an infinite for yourself and then put those 10,000 hours of practice.  

 There is no trade off

Most people don’t pursue self-improvement thinking there is a trade off with life, fun, joy or whatever. I think it is a myth. There is no trade off and I’d argue the opposite. There can be no long term joy or fun or success unless there is constant endeavour to improve and learn. So learning leads to self confidence in inputs and better outcomes which are very relevant for joy. Lack of learning or growth leads to dullness. One enjoys good food or a drink most when one has earned it well.

 Stay fully input focused

Most average leaders give up before reaching the desired goal. They start measuring outcomes with ferocity. In early part of the practice, outcomes come slower. It leads to frustration. In some cases, where early outcomes start to come through, the consistent focus on outcomes leads to high ego and pride. It leads to less inputs and distractions again leading to failures and frustrations. If one is on the path of self-improvement, one needs to ferociously measure inputs. The world will take care of the outcomes and reward you just. Do not let ego come in your way. Do not let early success or celebration come in the way. It is important to believe that outcomes over time will match inputs. So it is right, healthy and important to only measure and judge our efforts by inputs.

One of my favorite example is Golf. If you are not focused on the ball during the swing and get distracted by the outcome (of where the ball needs to go), you’d definitely hit the waters or the woods. One can only focus on the base of the ball during the swing to get the best outcome.

Virtue of discipline

Let me share with you an interesting note on achieving perfection through discipline. This is the note Benjamin Franklin wrote to himself when he was in 20s. Benjamin Franklin believed that if you pursue anything with discipline, it becomes a habit. He believed that perfection can be a habit and part of one’s nature. These virtues and particularly constant work on himself made him America’s greatest author (of the time), inventor (used kite to discover electricity), politician, entrepreneur and social worker. So all of you who are young and have the fire, I’d encourage you to make such a list for yourself and work on it with complete honesty and hard work. You’d also find a small section in the note on how he kept track of the 13 virtues in his notebook. He’d measure it daily and every hour.

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Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), one of the most versatile and widely admired figures in American history, was born in Boston and apprenticed at an early age to a painter and newspaper publisher. As a young man, he moved to Philadelphia to make his fortune, eventually acquiring his own printing and newspaper house where he produced the popular Poor Richard’s Almanack from 1732-1757. Essentially self-taught, Franklin helped to establish what became the American Philosophical Society and the University of Pennsylvania, and his experiments with electricity were noted worldwide. A leading figure in the American Revolution and the establishment of the United States as a democracy, Franklin has been referred to as the “wisest American.” His autobiography of his early years is considered a classic of American literature.

Arriving at Perfection (Benjamin Franklin)

In “Arriving at Perfection,” an excerpt from his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin lays out a plan for his own self-improvement. Franklin was a conscious and conscientious perfectionist. His little essay on self-improvement reflects the enlightenment ideals of his time with their emphasis on reason and progress. But it also reflects an older tendency in American culture: the tendency toward self-examination and self-correction, a meditative cast of mind Franklin inherited from his Puritan ancestors. Franklin weds these two tendencies toward self-examination and toward self- improvement, toward the moral and the practical.

Franklin’s goal for what he calls this “bold and arduous Project” is to live each day without committing any faults. As a rationalist, he sees no reason why he shouldn’t be able to live according to a standard of moral propriety. He comes to realize, however, that there are many ways he can lapse from his high standard— through habit, carelessness, inclination, and bad example.

 It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I bad imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning.

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were

 1.    Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2.    Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

3.    Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4.    Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5.    Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

6.    Industry. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7.    Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8.    Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9.    Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation

11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable

12. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation

13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

 My intention being to acquire the Habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro' the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view, as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquired and established, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improved in virtue, and considering that in conversation it was obtained rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution, once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues; Frugality and Industry freeing me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc., etc. Conceiving then, that, agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination.

I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue upon that day.

I am determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to avoid the least offence against Temperance, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I supposed the habit of that virtue so much strengthened and its opposite weakened, that I might venture extending my attention to include the next, and for the following week keep both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go through a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a time, and, having accomplished the first, proceeds to a second, so I should have, I hoped, the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end, by a number of courses.

I should he happy in viewing a clean book, after a thirteen weeks' daily examination...