One of my former employees, a SEAL and dear friend signs off every email to me with the following:
"As sweet as salt, I wish you nothing but the worst brother,
Cormoran"
That's what 2020 has been. A challenging year that's brought with it the "worst" and forced me to be better for it...
Here are my main reflections in 3 categories:
- 5 lesson learned
- 3 ways I'll be implementing those lessons in 2021
- 2 mindset issues I still struggle with
5 Lessons Learned
1) Give a ton of value for free
This year I delivered 80+ hours of free masterminds and group coaching sessions. The time spent planning those was 100+ hours.
The results I saw really brought home the notion that the more you give the more you'll get.
This is challenging to do because you have to:
- Have faith that it'll come back to you
- Be ok with possibly getting back less than what you put out
All of my clients this year have come from either the free programs that I've put on or from referrals. None from marketing efforts.
The referrals are thanks to a piece of advice a good friend, Dr. Emil, gave me at the start of the year "Your best marketing right now is to deliver such an amazing product that your clients will want to rave about you to others."
I made an effort to go above and beyond for my clients. Whether it was going over time on sessions because there was value to be had or even hopping on a free quick call when something in their life or business went haywire to provide some clarity.
Aside from this working out really well, it's also been the most fun approach. Instead of focusing on marketing I got to focus on really helping people and honing my craft, which is what truly gets me going.
Another hidden upside to giving away as much of your best stuff as possible is that it forced me to keep getting better. It's the ultimate stagnation killer.
2) Recognize where you are, roll up your sleeves and do things you don't like when you're starting out
In order to get that crucial inertia on a project you'll need to do things that you don't like and that's ok as long as you don't compromise integrity towards yourself or others.
See the big picture and be willing to make certain emotional compromises. Whether it's things you don't like doing, or people you would have the privilege of choosing not to work with if you were further down your road of success and so on.
Don't be precious. Roll up your sleeves and do the dirty work at the beginning.
3)"Lightening the Load" is what actually creates results
When I started this year I was focused on giving my clients tools like leadership skills, resilience and discipline.
However, helping them reduce their internal friction (fear, doubt, limiting beliefs and mental blocks) has been the 80/20 of what's actually helped them achieve such amazing progress in their confidence, clarity and income levels.
4) There's room for error
The biggest thing I've been able to accept about myself this year is that I have room for error. For a long time I've been working from a place of "If I don't do things perfectly everything will collapse and I will suffer".
It's an unhealthy remnant from a past experience that I'm learning to let go of.
Learning to accept that things will probably work out fine (maybe not perfect, but fine) and that I don't need to stress about every little thing has been big.
I've been able to do this by getting comfortable with the notion that I'm "good enough" to allow for a margin of error. I was scared to accept this as I thought it might make me lose my edge, but it's made a huge positive impact.
It's allowed me to get better at giving up small battles in order to win the wars and see the forest instead of the trees.
This is my version of "Lightening the Load" that's helped reduce my stress levels and increase my happiness... And counterintuitive to what I would have thought, my external success.
5) Dogs are Awesome
During Covid we got stuck in a beautiful little beach town in Vietnam. While I love the beauty of the town and living 20 steps from the beach has always been a dream of mine, social isolation exacts a steep price on happiness.
Then I got our little puppy Bo.
Ever since I was little I wanted a dog and having little Bo has been everything I thought it would be and more. It's amazing how much happiness having a non-human best friend can bring and how much they can teach about compassion and care.
I've also turned into one of those people who show too many pictures of their pets to people.
Case in Point: Here are 2 random pictures of Bo and one of us together on my birthday:
#BoKnows
3 Ways I'll Implement those Lessons in 2021
1) More freedom to try new things and possibly fail
I'm giving myself more freedom to try things and possibly fail knowing that even if they do, "in the grand scheme of things, it'll be fine".
That means hiring people, investing time into things that might not yield a tangible return and so on.
2) Weekly Newsletter
While one of my goals in 2020 was to write a book, I realized that I hadn't yet earned the ability to create an amazing product in book form that people would rave about to all their friends.
I don't want to try to hit the big lists through marketing tricks so I need an avenue to test various ideas, hone my craft and earn the ability to write an amazing book.
With that in mind I've started a free weekly newsletter where my goal is to hold nothing back, give a ton of free value and help as many entrepreneurs as possible in a scalable way.
I believe it'll come back in a positive way.
I held off doing it for a while because I had this idea in my head that I'm a bad writer, English is not my first language etc.
But as that saying goes "You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."
Surprisingly enough it's already providing a major hidden benefit of forcing me to clarify my thought process and I'm actually enjoying it.
3) "Lighten the Load" is a concept I'll be diving into a lot in my newsletter and possibly an ebook in 2021
What has actually created results for my clients indicates that this might be where the real gold is.
Doing the hard upfront work to reduce people's internal friction so that they can more sustainably conquer bigger and better goals without getting burnt out.
Also after a lot of hesitation I've decided it's time for me to open up and share my personal story of what an attempted Al Qaeda kidnapping and 4 years of ongoing therapy with the former Chief of Psychology of the Israeli Shin Bet and Mossad has taught me about what actually forges an elite mindset and success.
2 Mindset Issues I Still Struggle With
1) The uncertainty around the "What to do next" question
Not being able to have clarity on "If I do X then Y will be achieved in Z amount of time" doesn't sit well with me.
I'd like to think that my background in the special forces and counter terrorism trained me to seek out absolute certainty because the consequences were so severe it was a matter of life and death.
However my wife and therapist have a more simple explanation, that I'm just a control freak (for obvious reasons I like my explanation better).
Either way in order to grow into the kind of person I want to become, this has to change.
2) Feeling at peace with having room for error
Surprise, surprise right?
While I accept this principle and fully understand it intellectually, it still hasn't sunk in emotionally. I still get a pinch in my stomach when I force myself to operate with this mindset and it creates a lot of self-doubt, but that's part of growth.
I'm practicing reminding myself that "I'm good enough".
Isn't it funny how it's easier to be more compassionate towards others than it is to ourselves?
Final Thought
When my wife and I were recapping this year and some of our successes she said to me:
"You should be proud. You earned this through a lot of hard work."
While I appreciated it, it felt off.
When I thought about what really made me struggle this year it wasn't in showing up on a daily basis and "working hard." I've always thought that showing up and working hard isn't something to be proud of, it's a necessary baseline.
What was hard was dealing with the doubt and fear of "What if this doesn't work out again? Will all this effort be in vain?"
Dealing with the discomfort of doubt, uncertainty and instability is what actually rattled me the most.
What I'm proud of is that it definitely affected me, but I didn't let it stop me.
And maybe that's the biggest lesson of all - That just because something rattles or frustrates us, it doesn't mean that it should stop us.
With all this being said, I look forward to continue to put myself in challenging situations in 2021. Situations that will cause me at times to doubt myself, get frustrated and yet be forced to grow... Just with some more travel and fun this time around.
So to quote Cormoran, I wish you a year as sweet as salt and all the worst... and the best that comes with it.
Happy New Year,
Itamar
P.S. I'd love to hear your 5 biggest lessons from this year!
Feel free to share them in the comments below or shoot me an email if you'd rather do it more privately.
