Levels to the leap? Now what could that possibly mean?
Well, I think it is pretty well known that to get to where you want to get to, you have to “take the leap.”
We here it all the time. “Take a dive into deep end.”
“Leap of faith.”
I’m sure there are other ways of saying it. But what I want to share with you in this edition is my experience with the launch of this brand new newsletter “The Sum Up.”
For those who don’t know, a few editions back I gave the whole story on how me and my brother are going to start up one of the greatest newsletters of all time. No joke. No laugh track.
Let’s just say, it has silly writing, good concepts, people you care about, visually appealing designs, immersive audio, and many other things most newsletters or don’t do right or don’t have at all (maybe including this one; jk).
Leap #1
The first leap for me was deciding to do the newsletter. That was not too hard for me. There was not much of a loss other than time. I had time. Some people see business as a risk. I can only see the gain. I even put money where my mouth is for this newsletter, so you know I mean business.
But I actually want to talk about the continuous leaps that have to happen. Because it is not as simple as making 1 leap of faith. The leap has to be made over and over and over again.
Let me give you an example.
I easily made Leap #1. No problemo. But guess what? The newsletter I am hyping up hasn’t even started yet. It should be starting today, according to plan, so that is progress. But we have been building for months. Troubleshooting for months. Iterating for months. Which sounds like hard work.
But to some, that could also sound a bit like productive procrastination. Convincing yourself you’re doing something, yet even after working for months and months, we could last minute say, “Yeaaahhhh, actually never mind we’re not gonna do that.” And to that observation, you would be right. So the first leap was easy. But this launch is the ACTUAL leap.
This whole time I thought I had taken that “leap of faith”, and that it was easy. But it was an illusion. Maybe you are on a similar path. One where you do work and convince yourself you took that leap of faith when that was not the leap of faith. Posting content is not the leap of faith, telling others about so the world can see it is. Deciding to start is not the leap of faith, actually starting the thing is the leap of faith.
And how do I know this is THE leap of faith?
I’m Kinda Spooked
No, not just because we are nearing Halloween times. I am spooked because we worked on this for a while. I genuinely think this could be it. The thing we do for a long time to come. The thing that, even if it doesn’t last forever, it takes us to the next thing which leads us to the next thing which leads us to the next thing.
So the pressure is high here. I don’t want to be in school. I want to do this full-time. I think this will make me fulfilled in my life. So yeah, it’s safe to say the stakes are insanely high.
And because those stakes are high, it is the launch (the ACTUAL leap of faith), that scares me. Because if it doesn’t work out, then I don’t even know what to do. My dream would be crushed. My ideal reality would vanish. Just like that. All good outcomes that could have happened never did, and I am left with nothing but disappointment and anger.
So if I start and it fails, it would make me feel so bad, that I may just never have hope or motivation for anything ever again. Logically, my brain is telling me to avoid that crushing defeat, to not launch. My own mind is trying to convince me that to avoid the pain of POTENTIALLY failing, I should never start to begin with.
Why is that not the same as failing? Actually, no. Why is this not 1000000x WORSE than failing? If you want an outcome, and you’re afraid you will not get it, you’re telling me the best solution is to never do the thing to avoid the chance that the unideal outcome will happen?
That completely eradicates the chance of a good outcome, which you want to happen. Most of us, even myself sometimes, would rather avoid the chance of being let down, than create our dream life. We want to start that business, but it could fail. And then things would suck. We would be let down. People would say things. So, therefore, because there is a chance that may happen, we should not start.
What about the other side? What about if it did work out? What about the reality where you don’t do it, but you always wonder if you did?
Everyone Thinks Like This
You ever heard someone say that something could have worked out? They had a business idea? They were going to make that move? They were going to do this or that?
Notice how it is always looking back on the thing and assuming the ideal outcome. That business could have let them into massive debts that they could never recover from. But for some reason when you reminisce back on it 30 years later at a family party, it seems to be the most brilliant thing that could have been a billion-dollar company.
I call this the “P3O” bias (Present Pessimism, Past Optimism).
Where you can only see the optimal outcome happening, but only because you didn’t do the thing. You don’t actually know what outcome would have happened, but because it was not done, you assume the best and have regrets you never did the thing.
The funny thing is, there is another side to this (present pessimism). What happens when the business idea comes to the person originally? Were they saying the same things they were saying now? Now it was genius? That it could have been worth a billion dollars? No, because if they were saying those things they would have done it.
When this hypothetical person first got the idea, they thought it was dumb. It was a waste of time. People would judge them. It probably wouldn’t work out. It would lead to debts and problems. Comical isn’t it? That the moment we need those good beliefs, they cease to exist. Yet, 30 years later when you’re sitting thinking back to it, now it hits, “Damn, I should have done that. It would have gone so well.”
If only most people had this switch. If only they had the optimism in the idea the moment it sparked. Having it show up so many years later doesn’t mean anything. Who cares that it could’ve worked out? Maybe it could have. Maybe it would not have. But that doesn’t help you now.
This takes me to my main point, which is the only thing that serves you is the belief that what you’re doing right now will lead to the best outcome. Even if it doesn’t.
Even if you have the worst failure known to man, that belief doesn’t serve you, because it makes you not want to do it.
If I told you that you would 100% fail at something, then tell you to do it, would you? If you trust my judgment, of course not. Because I told you that you would fail, so why even try? Notice how much of a killer this belief is.
Alternatively, if there is a chance, there is still effort worth putting in. If you really think you may get the outcome, then why would you not go for it? After all, you want it to happen, and the only way to get it is to work towards it.
Lil Recap
So let’s wrap this thing with a little bow. There are levels to leaps. Even when you do make it, there are leaps. Imagine I did make the greatest newsletter of all time (which my bro and I are doing (which I am saying more as a positive affirmation than I am from a giant ego)). Is that it?
No. I have to keep making it. 3x per week. Keep innovating. Keep adapting to new things. Those are leaps that challenge what I may believe to be true at the time. You’re never finished leaping, because you have to keep going.
Next recap point.
You may not have taken a real leap. You may have convinced yourself you have, but it was not the leap. For example, in my case, I thought starting the newsletter was the leap. I never started it. I started the creation of it. I never showed it to the world yet though.
Final recap point.
Flipped thinking. We think things would have gone well when it doesn’t serve us, and we think things will fall into fiery shambles when it would greatly benefit us to think the opposite. When it matters, we think the opposite.
As always my friend, I hope you got some value from this little rant. If anything really stuck out to you, let me know by dropping a comment, and I’ll drop a reply back. Always open to some further conversation, as these ideas are new in my brain, so the further I can go into them, the better.
And if you do want to be there for the launch of “The Sum Up” (which I cannot describe how excited I am for you to see what we have been working on with this thing) then you can give it a subscribe below: