Breathe, Focus, Attack
A Triple-Threat System for Creating the Life You Want
ian schechter
Copyright © 2019 Ian Schecter
All rights reserved. No part(s) of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form, or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval systems without prior expressed written permission of the author of this book.
“I was waiting for something extraordinary to happen,
but as the years wore on nothing ever did unless I caused it.”
charles bukowski
This book is dedicated to my mother,
who constantly reminds me how she didn’t drop me
on my head as a child.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the rest of my family: Dad, Noah and Matthew. You have all taught me so much, and I love you.
Contents
1. It’s Never Too Late
2. Learn to Say “No”
3. Friends
4. What to Say Yes To
5. Identifying Your Non-Negotiables
6. Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
7. Radical Candor
8. Relentless Self-Reflection
Conclusion: Go Forth and Conquer
About the Author
Chapter One :
It’s Never Too Late
In this first chapter, we’re going to discuss why it’s never too late to make your life better, but we’re also going to dig into a way of thinking about how we approach challenges in life. I call this Breathe, Focus, Attack . As you may have guessed, it has three steps. We’ve all got things in our life we’d like to change, but change requires a catalyst . You can’t do things the same way you’ve always done them and expect new results. The first step is always the hardest, from health to love to business. It’s never too late to take the first step—and you’re going to do it. But before you do, let’s talk a little about late bloomers, people who took that first step later in life.
Tokyo’s Landlord
Because society loves a good underdog story, you’ve probably heard about how Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. You probably also know a little something about JK Rowling, who was 30 when she finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , only to have it rejected from 12 publishing houses. You may also know that she received a tiny $3,000 advance from Bloomsbury and that the initial print run was a measly 1,000 copies. (Of course, she’s now one of the most successful authors in modern history.) You probably know that Steve Jobs and a dozen other world class entrepreneurs dropped out of college .
You probably don’t know about Taikichiro Mori, but in the early 90s he was the richest man in the world. He was Japan’s Warren Buffet before Buffet had risen to prominence. He also didn’t get started until he was 55 years old. By 1992, he was worth 16 billion dollars, roughly double the net worth of Bill Gates.
Mori was a serene but peculiar man, a quiet genius. He abstained from alcohol and tobacco and worked in a simple black kimono in his office, slightly embarrassed by his international status, but his story begins much earlier. Born in 1904, Mori grew up in the Toranomon neighborhood in Minato ward, Tokyo. Then, Toranomon was a sleepy residential neighborhood criss-crossed by narrow alleys between rows of wooden houses, a scene closer to The Last Samurai than the intense urban sprawl of modern Tokyo.
In his early years, the neighborhood was destroyed not once but twice. The first time was in 1923, when an earthquake devastated much of Tokyo. The second was during World War II, when Tokyo was firebombed. After World War II, Mori taught trade theory at Yokohama City University, where he led a quiet but pleasant life as an academic. Anyone who knew him might’ve assumed he’d do that until he retired, then perhaps taken up golfing. In 1959, Mori inherited two buildings from his father. He could’ve sold them. He could have sat on his father’s business, letting it stagnate. Instead, he had other ideas—big ones—and he took action.
It took time, but once he’d decided to revolutionize the neighborhood he’d come from, he was not deterred. He had broad redevelopment plans, and he painstakingly convinced the entire neighborhood, both residents and businesses, to support his plan. He bought additional buildings and moved his own employees into the neighborhood. These employees in turn supported his revitalization efforts. Over time, he transformed Tokyo’s Minato ward into a slick, modern foothold in the city from which to expand his growing real estate empire. Over time, he became known as Tokyo’s landlord—in a good way .
From Landscaping to Big Business
My story’s not entirely different. I came out of my college years cocksure and positive I was heading for easy success. I had great grades in college, which I carried forward into business school. After graduation, I applied to a multitude of companies, then sat back and waited for the interview invitations. I was sure they’d be lucky to have me, chomping at the bit to hire.
Well, none wanted me. Each and every one of them turned me down. Instead, I went to work in New York City for my father’s landscape design company. Instead of sitting in a leather office chair in a rockstar executive suite, I found myself sweating in the driver’s seat of a plant delivery truck, wondering how the hell I’d gotten there. I was humbled.
Over time, the sting to my pride faded, and instead of wondering where I’d screwed up, I started thinking about how to move forward. The first step in everything that came after was in accepting that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. So I learned everything I could from my father’s business—after all, it was a successful one. And when I was sure I’d soaked up as much as I could, I knew it was time to strike out on my own. Forget working for a bunch of companies that didn’t want me. Instead, I’d start my own company. At 28 I started from scratch, scrabbling from the bottom to build my first e-commerce business and to mold myself into an Internet marketing authority. I couldn’t have done that fresh out of business school. Now I’m thriving as a serial entrepreneur.
Youth and Experience, Effort and Magic
As a species, we tend to romanticize youth. What goes hand in hand with this is a proclivity for associating genius with immaturity. We love a good prodigy almost as much as we love a good underdog. By 1894, on the sunny Spanish coastal city of Málaga, Picasso had already earned himself a reputation as a budding master of his craft—at the age of 13. Mozart was five when he penned his first composition. By the time he was 12, mathematician Blaise Pascal had independently discovered nearly all of Euclid’s geometric proofs .
But we know better, right? Most of the 21-year-olds I know spend more time crushing beer cans on their heads than writing concertos. It doesn’t make them stupid or lazy—it makes them young people who are trying to have fun, and that’s fine. Part of the equation of a prodigy story is that the prodigy doesn’t usually have to try very hard. Their skill is something more like a superpower than an earned expertise, something for which they seem to just have a preternatural affinity. Like they were born for this.
That’s not entirely accurate. Most of the geniuses you know have busted their asses for decades. Somewhere, buried in an old attic, your favorite musician has old cassettes or burned CDs of their early recordings squirreled away, and they’re garbage. It’s not limited to creative pursuits or business or anything else. Take love, for example: you’re roughly twice 1 as likely to get divorced when you marry at 20 than if you wait until 25. In fact, divorce expert Dr. Belinda Hewitt told The Daily Telegraph that you’re five times 2 more likely to get divorced if you marry in your 20s than if you marry later. It’s not hard to imagine why—because our failures matter and because we learn through experience. Our first loves are rarely our last or best loves, and we’re not even full
y ourselves until later in life. As a species, we continue developing and changing well into adulthood.
The achievements of the prodigies and famous young loves of the world are not greater because they came easy or young. Nor does the fact that they achieved notoriety earlier mean their road to greatness is somehow greater than others—it’s just a different path, not a better one. Note also that plenty of young savants burn out early and quickly. So, don’t buy into the lie that achievement is a young person’s game. For most people, that’s not how it works.
Why’s that? We all know: because our experiences are valuable. It’s all well and good to peak early, but you’re left with a narrow worldview and a limited skillset. As I’ve said before, everything you’ve experienced in your life up until now—every screw-up, failed relationship, or joyful diversion— they’ve all shaped who you are. And right now, who you are is a person who’s about to change course. Together, over the course of this book, I’m going to help you start thinking about your goals in a different way, and the course of your life is going to change as a result of it.
Ellen Winner is a professor of psychology at Boston College and an expert on gifted youth. In 2015 she told The New York Times that “the skill of being a child prodigy is qualitatively different from the ‘skill’ of being an adult creative genius.” I would suggest to you that the same truth extends into early adulthood. Quick success early in life—whether it’s in health, love, or career—and sustainable success over the long term require a different set of skills, and the latter’s skills are learned and earned, not ingrained. They can be taught. In my experience, I’ve come up with a solid three-pronged method for thinking about challenges.
Breathe
As you probably expect, when I say “breathe,” I’m speaking more figuratively than literally. More than anything, stopping to take a breath is about clarity of mind and purpose, about slowing the hell down for just a minute. I’m not interested in teaching you to succeed in the short term only to have you drop dead of a heart attack at 45 because the pressures of your professional life have become overwhelming. Nor do I want to see someone who’s never had a date suddenly start dating a dozen people at once—that’s almost as dangerous. We’re shooting for sustainable prosperity and, more importantly, happiness. There’s no use being successful if it makes you miserable. I’d go so far as to suggest that success and misery cannot co-exist at all—anyone who tells you differently has a shallow view of what success even entails.
There is a little bit of literal breathing to discuss, though. In upcoming chapters, we’ll touch on some ways that quick and easy meditation techniques have acted as game-changers for some of the world’s most successful individuals.
Once you’re in the right headspace, you can take that first concrete step towards facilitating change. We’re going to keep talking a lot about that first step, so keep this in the back of your mind going forward.
Focus
I know a lot of serial entrepreneurs, the kind of people with brilliant ideas and no follow-through, armchair Zuckerbergs with no work ethic. They’re smart people, but they’re constantly spinning their wheels because every week they’re chasing a different dream. So once we’ve taken our first step, we have to make sure the second, third, and fourth are all in the same direction. We can make that easier for ourselves by having a clear plan of action. Other parts of that equation include overcoming our own anxiety about change and failure, avoiding distraction, maximizing productivity, and so on. There are a million tiny ways people sabotage their own best laid plans, and throughout this book I intend to arm you with tools to avoid pitfalls and maximize successes. It doesn’t matter whether the goal is to get in shape, to become financially independent, or to find the love of your life—you’ll never get there if you don’t learn to keep your eye on the ball.
Attack
Our old friend Taikichiro Mori surely knew of Miyamoto Musashi, the greatest samurai swordsman of all time, who himself rose to prominence in his teens, enjoyed a long and fabled run as a master of his craft, and retired to a cave to write down his own wisdom. In regards to battle, he wrote :
“When you decide to attack, keep calm and dash in quickly, forestalling the enemy...attack with a feeling of constantly crushing the enemy, from first to last.”
It’s a little brutal, sure, but even Musashi wasn’t just talking about fighting—he was talking about crushing obstacles with an undeniable ferocity. This represents the final third of the “Breathe, Focus, Attack” triple-threat. Once you’re clear on your goal and sure of the way forward, there’s no room for hesitation. You have to push forward with determination, starting strong and finishing strong, until the job’s done. Going forward, we’ll talk about how to avoid burnout, how to harness the support of friends and family, and how to turn all that determination and intent into real results.
This book is for the late bloomers, the outcasts, the scrappy underdogs— in short, it’s for most of us. So, let’s get started.
1) Identify a goal.
You’re probably reading this book with a particular challenge in mind. There’s probably one area of you’re life you’d most like to improve. In time, I sincerely hope you’ll improve every area of your life, but it’s helpful to break down big tasks into smaller, more manageable ones. So, identify the area of your life where you’d like to see a change. Then, narrow it down to one actionable goal within that area. So, something like “I want to make more money” is too general. “I want to get a promotion at work” is better. For our purposes, you need a goal you can see. Write it down .
2) Identify the first step.
You don’t have to have the whole path to success mapped out yet. For now, we only need to focus on the first step. After all, that’s the hardest and most important one, and it’s the one that 95% of people never take. That’s not you—not anymore. You don’t have to actually take this step yet. For now it’s enough to have it in your head. Let’s take our promotion example: you’d have to ask your boss, of course, but before that meeting it would be a good idea to prepare, to have a well-structured argument for why you deserve the raise. This might include numbers reflecting your productivity and efficiency or a short list of some of your achievements on the job. For you and your goal, what’s the first step?
* * *
1 . “These Are the Best (and Worst) Ages to Get Married.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201606/these- are-the-best-and-worst-ages-get-married.
2 . “Does marrying young lead to divorce?” The Daily Telegraph . https://www. dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/stellar/under-30-and-divorced-calling-time-on- failing-marriages-after-tying-the-knot-young/news-story/4431760263c3ca6fd56e1 2431922b5e0.
Chapter Two :
Learn to Say “No”
“Say Yes!” It’s a mantra to some. On its surface, the philosophy makes plenty of sense: be open to new ideas and experiences, grasp chances to try new things and participate in projects bigger than yourself. Here’s the thing: it’s bullshit.
I suppose it’s fine if your goal is to experience a lot of different things and have little to show for it at the end. If your long-term goal itself is to say “yes”, then by all means, say “yes.” But if you want to build something, you have to understand that you have a limited amount of time at your disposal and to start guarding it jealously.
Among people who do actually try to do something with their lives, one of the things that separate those who succeed from those who fail is how much of their own time they squander. This is an especially easy trap in that maximum productivity can look a lot like being extraordinarily busy—just look at how many people proudly use the hashtag #nosleep on social media in the midst of all-night work binges.
Why brag about creating a lifestyle for yourself in which you have no time? Isn’t the whole point to be able to expend our energy how we want to, to gain freedom from the rat race?
There’s a shortcut to reclaiming
an awful lot of your time: saying “no” more often. Often our natural inclination is to think it’s rude to say “no,” but that’s a habit that it’s time to unlearn .
The Death of OpenDoc
Steve Jobs loved saying “no.” He loved it so much and believed in the power of refusal to such a degree that every day he asked Jony Ive how many times he’d said “no” that day. He did it to the point that Ive affectionately admitted that it was “patronizing.” Jony Ive is Apple’s Chief Design Officer, and he’s responsible for the design of the 700 million iPhones in use today, so it’s safe to say the guy knows a thing or two about getting things done.
Let’s back up for those not intimately acquainted with Steve Jobs’s biography, because it’s incredible. Jobs co-founded Apple at 21 and was a millionaire by 23. Soon after he recruited the CEO of Pepsi-Cola, John Sculley, to be Apple’s new CEO. In fact, he famously poached him by asking, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?” Three years later, the first Mac computer was launched. The reviews were glowing, but the sales weren’t. Jobs’s general rebel attitude and management style also contributed to his fraying relationship with the company board. His team was housed in its own building, where he flew a pirate flag. “It’s better to be a pirate than to be in the Navy,” he said. He was passionate, and he didn’t give a damn if it rubbed people the wrong way. He picked fights. He was demanding. He pushed his team to greatness, but it wore on them, and from the outside not everyone liked the way it looked.
So, at age 30, Steve Jobs was fired. He wasn’t quietly let go. John Sculley led the charge (with the backing of the board) and humiliatingly and very publicly ousted Jobs from his own company.
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