Imagine you have $150 in your bank account to last the next 10 days.
So you decide that you are going to spend no more than $10 a day because you do NOT want to go into debt again and deal with bank fees and want to leave a little buffer.
SCENARIO 1:
Day 1 – Spend $10
Day 2- Spend $10
Day 3- Spend $10
Day 4- Spend $10
Day 5- Spend $10
Day 6 – Spend $10
Day 7 – Spend $10
Day 8 – Spend $10
Day 9- Spend $116 (impulse buy)
Day 10- Spend $10
SCENARIO 2:
Day 1 – Spend $11
Day 2- Spend $11
Day 3- Spend $11
Day 4- Spend $11
Day 5- Spend $11
Day 6 – Spend $11
Day 7 – Spend $11
Day 8 – Spend $11
Day 9- Spend $11
Day 10- Spend $11
SCENARIO 1: More wins, higher success rate. Worse outcome.
90% success rate (Did “good” 9 days out of 10)
$56 dollars in debt
SCENARIO 2 RECAP: No wins, low success rate, best outcome.
0% success rate (Didn’t not achieve goal a single time)
Positive $40 in the bank
This is often why finance goals fail.
This is often why fitness goals fail.
And this is often why businesses fail.
The above scenario could have been calories consumed, time spent doing XYZ, return on adspend, batting average, etc…
We often kill winning strategies and double down on losing strategies because:
1. Morality, judgement and guilt are powerful things.Being “bad” or doing “wrong” 10 days out of ten creates are more guilt and shame than 1 day out of 10.
2. We don’t know how to amalgamate data appropriately….So we look for clean lines and clear cut offs.
3. We aren’t good at rolling totals or rolling averages.Hence: The week starts over every Monday, a new year every January and “I’ll start this new program after my birthday”.
The solution? I don’t know but here’s a start:
1. Remove all morality and judgement. Guilt and shame have no place in pragmatic decision making.
2. Learn how to combine data/sets of data and focus on the OUTCOME (how much money is in the bank instead of how many days did i do good”
3. Understand that there is no reset. Your bank account is a rolling average of the deposits and withdrawal you’ve made.
You are a result of every decision you’ve made from the day you were born until now.
We understand that, for the most part…
But until we make decisions with that in mind…
We will keep killing winners and championing losers…
Nic
For you business owners out there it looks like this:Win after win after win….And yet… the needle never seems to move.
Your winners might be losers.
