Breaking Through Plateaus with w/ Peter Shallard | Elite Performance Podcast #72

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:08:19
Peter Shallard
The way I've seen entrepreneurs breakthrough is when they get this mental realization that they're free to try crazy shit, to throw spaghetti at the wall.

00:00:08:19 - 00:00:22:16
Itamar Marani
On this podcasts, I'm joined by Peter Shallard. He is the CEO and founder of Commit Action, the world's #1 accountability program. So why is the idea of executing on all your big goals and actually making your dreams come true so scary to some entrepreneurs?

00:00:22:19 - 00:00:44:16
Peter Shallard
Double your business is exciting. Double the number of customers to serve is a busy afternoon. There's always a price that we have to pay in order to achieve our really big results. Burnout is when you're on a plateau, when you're trying to make a strategy work over and over again and it's not getting the results you want and disappointment creeps in.

00:00:44:20 - 00:00:51:11
Peter Shallard
It takes a bit of craziness to get the level of creativity that then pushes people out of those plateaus.

00:00:51:13 - 00:01:16:19
Itamar Marani
Under these podcast, I'm joined by Peter Shallard. We had a very insightful conversation all the way from talking about burnout and identity to the results and why some accountability systems and productivity systems just don't get them. The difference between consistency and intensity and why oftentimes, instead of doing what we should be doing, there's a little bit of theater going on that causes us to get distracted and avoid our most effective actions as entrepreneurs.

00:01:16:21 - 00:01:26:14
Itamar Marani
It was a great episode and I hope you enjoy it. So why is the idea of executing in all your big goals and actually making your dreams happen so scary to some entrepreneurs?

00:01:26:16 - 00:01:46:06
Peter Shallard
Yeah, it's a great question. I think that we and we see this all the time at commit action. I think that entrepreneurs have these audacious visions they can imagine the outcome that they want to have in a long term, like an on a long term time horizon. And they do that with the kind of front brain like neocortex.

00:01:46:06 - 00:02:09:01
Peter Shallard
It's a very much like a rational mind thing where we start to paint that picture of like, wouldn't it be great if, like, I'd love to double my business or I'd love to ten x my business, I'd love to like be living these these certain lifestyles, these certain results. But there's this insidious form of self-sabotage that creeps. And when we start thinking about even at the unconscious level, the action required to do those things right.

00:02:09:02 - 00:02:31:04
Peter Shallard
Double the double. Your business is exciting. Double the number of customers to serve is a busy afternoon, right? It starts to. There's always a price that we have to pay in order to achieve our really big results. And so there's this tension with ambition when we dream big. There's this other part of us that pulls in the other direction that's like, Do I really want that right?

00:02:31:05 - 00:03:03:21
Peter Shallard
Is is it is it worth paying the price? How much delaying of gratification can I really do? And one of the things that I think a lot of like a lot of entrepreneurs fail to realize is that and this is something that can really help them out, help them kind of break through and achieve these big things is to realize that when you go on a growth trajectory, you produce like an exponential shift in the level that you're playing at the level that your business is performing or whatever your goal might be.

00:03:03:23 - 00:03:30:08
Peter Shallard
You also transform as a person along that journey. So people who get paralyzed by fear tend to think about their big goals and imagine all of the work and challenges and things that they have to do. It's anticipatory anxiety in order to make that happen. What they fail to imagine is the personal growth trajectory that they will go on one step at a time as they drive towards those results.

00:03:30:13 - 00:03:50:07
Peter Shallard
So if you turn your business, you're going to substitute today's problems with a whole bunch of first world problems that are still problems. Champagne problems, I call them. Right. Running a ten times bigger company. You'll be doing stuff you can't even imagine. But and and that's intimidating. That's scary. But the person dealing with those problems is not you.

00:03:50:07 - 00:04:19:02
Peter Shallard
Today. It's a different version of you who's gone through the business school, the school of hard knocks to be able to scale a company ten times. Right? Who's got a whole different perspective, a whole different skill set. And so I think one of the ways that we can really channel ambition and move through and heal anxiety is to not just think about what we want to accomplish and then, you know, nurture those in a unconscious fears around it.

00:04:19:04 - 00:04:45:04
Peter Shallard
But to think about who we're going to become when we accomplish big things. And to build confidence, like to bet on our future selves, right? As somebody who grows and evolves and steps up to meet the moment continually and all the evidence we need for that is in our direct past. Right? Think about what you're doing now that ten years ago, five years ago, even a year ago, your former self like couldn't imagine.

00:04:45:06 - 00:04:56:23
Peter Shallard
And you have habituated and normalized operating at that level. And so that trajectory, that growth continues. And I think it's I think it's the foundation for people who can tap that of real self-confidence.

00:04:57:01 - 00:05:22:08
Itamar Marani
So first, I think it's really fascinating. And I want to ask an immediate kind of follow up to that. So I can see how that would be easy, so to speak, for someone who believes in themselves, but perhaps on their skill set yet to recognize, Oh, I'm going to build more of this skillset. Yeah. And I can also see how you're saying you look back at what you've done and you can see, okay, you are a person that's progressing and that can kind of shift someone's identity as well.

00:05:22:10 - 00:05:41:17
Itamar Marani
What would you say to someone who's hit a bit of a plateau or you feel a little bit stuck and they're like, I got stuck here, so maybe that's actually my limit. And like, I did make a lot of progress past couple of years, but maybe this is just as high as I can get to. How would you work with someone to overcome that kind of limiting belief or that fear of, I shouldn't progress because this is as good as I can get it to?

00:05:41:18 - 00:06:05:17
Peter Shallard
Mm hmm. Yeah. Plateaus and plateaus are tricky right there. They're the they're the sort of psychological symptom of like in some ways, like the middle class. Like you're like, you've achieved something, you've created some kind of upward mobility, and then. Yeah, and then you're and then you're in a place where it's not continuing. That's not necessarily of your own choosing.

00:06:05:22 - 00:06:24:20
Peter Shallard
And it happens to everyone at different levels, right? There's no there's no guarantee like one of the one of the things that we we we can't do is just assume that because we've been we've been on this upward trajectory, it's just going to continue forever and ever. That's not how life works. Certainly in entrepreneurship. It's not how business works.

00:06:24:22 - 00:06:54:06
Peter Shallard
One of the things I see is that plateaus are always caused by at a deep level that like the root cause of it is a is a habit of doing the same things, hoping for different results. Like at the core of every plateau, there's often an unwillingness to admit or to realize even that you're on your you're banging your head against a brick wall and and you're not getting through.

00:06:54:07 - 00:07:20:01
Peter Shallard
And so people do like plateaus for entrepreneurs where burnout happens like this, I'm fascinated by the subject of burnout, particularly for entrepreneurs, because I have this theory that burnout is completely different for business owners than it is for regular, like for employees, for civilians. People out there in the normal world of the 9 to 5 life, Yeah, you know, for them it's like burnout is, you know, a boss puts too much work on your desk, you've got too many demands on you.

00:07:20:01 - 00:07:42:16
Peter Shallard
You're not maintaining healthy boundaries. You're saying yes to too much stuff. You're not learning to delegate. It's all that kind of thing. For entrepreneurs. There's a that stuff can be exhausting, but burnout is when you when you're on a plateau, when you're trying to make a strategy work over and over again, and it's not getting the results you want and disappointment creeps in.

00:07:42:18 - 00:08:04:12
Peter Shallard
Like, I think the underlying emotion of burnout for the self-employed is actually disappointment and giving up hope, right? Being like it's not. It's just not working. And so the odds are like the way you asked me, like, how do we how do we coach people who are in that place of plateau? And if you stay there long enough, it becomes an energy issue where you're like, it's exhausting to be on a plateau, right?

00:08:04:12 - 00:08:31:14
Peter Shallard
It doesn't sound it doesn't sound intuitive that it's really tiring. The answer is behavioral flexibility. Like if you're at a plateau, one of the one of the ways I've seen, the way I've seen entrepreneurs breakthrough is when they get this liberate zone of this mental realization that they're free to try crazy shit, to throw spaghetti at the wall, that there isn't sacred cows that they can take, that they can do anything.

00:08:31:16 - 00:08:51:17
Peter Shallard
The way people get into plateaus is by having that fixed mindset of like, well, this is the this is the thing I have to do, right? It's like the real estate agent who's like, Well, I get all of my referrals from word of mouth. And so I've just got to keep doing the stuff and going through the motions and like, things will change.

00:08:51:19 - 00:09:17:22
Peter Shallard
You know, they're like, it's people who are kind of become victims to their own original strategy, right? And it's like I'm so stocked. Last year was like flat to this year, maybe a little decrease. I'm not feeling great. More sticking to it, more like hoping the phone rings. And so where where people break through is where they get to that crazy creative place of being like, it's the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over and hoping it changes.

00:09:18:02 - 00:09:40:21
Peter Shallard
So I'm just going to do anything different. Like that's the place that entrepreneurs like. Well, that's that's the place of creative energy where a leap happens, where it plateaus get busted. When people start realizing, I can do anything, there's no rules I could take. I could go experiment with some insane growth strategy. It's the real estate agent who like, goes, You know what?

00:09:40:21 - 00:10:05:16
Peter Shallard
I'm going to start like a tick tock channel and it's going to be about something really wacky and funny, you know, And then like that gets them going and makes things like it's, it's that permission to explore and experiment because fundamentally, like an economic principle, a plateau and business is caused by a sort of a like an exhaustion of supply demand dynamics like you've kind of in the local area, you're kind of done.

00:10:05:16 - 00:10:26:03
Peter Shallard
You've got like you're tapped out, your channel. And so the thing that like the thing that drives growth, it's like in the ecosystem is your business is an animal, you've kind of tapped out, you've filled the available niche, you're consuming all the like, you've got it, you're in an equilibrium. The thing that breaks through is a shift in behavior that takes you to new places, right?

00:10:26:03 - 00:10:41:01
Peter Shallard
Connects you with new people, new audiences. And a lot of the time those shifts at the beginning look like insanity. And so it takes like a it takes a bit of craziness to get the level of creativity that then pushes people out of those plateaus.

00:10:41:03 - 00:10:58:06
Itamar Marani
So I have a question, but what I ask, why do you I notice there's a certain total playfulness in your voice that you're purposely kind of like it's insanity. You're trying to make it fun a bit out of it, Leave it here. Like I have an assumption of why you're doing that, But I would love for you to explain to the audience like why that is important in these kind of situations.

00:10:58:06 - 00:11:01:12
Itamar Marani
Introduce that a little bit of levity.

00:11:01:14 - 00:11:27:18
Peter Shallard
Yeah, well, to be you had to be very serious for a second. I think it's important because entrepreneurship is by definition a kind of insane choice to make, right? Like there's the saying that entrepreneurship is harder than you think, and it's even even harder than you think it's going to be knowing that it's harder than you think. You know, the odds are not great.

00:11:27:20 - 00:11:50:06
Peter Shallard
I personally believe it's the greatest commitment to personal growth a human can ever make to themselves. There's nothing like betting on yourself and starting something to kind of shine a bright light onto all of the nooks and crannies of your mind, your biases, your blind spots. Find all of your weaknesses and force you to confront them. So the human growth potential is very real.

00:11:50:06 - 00:12:03:01
Peter Shallard
When you do that. But it's really difficult. It's really hard. And it's and it and it you know, it can kind of break people. And so if you're going to do something that's objectively pretty insane, you've got to approach it like a cloud.

00:12:03:04 - 00:12:03:18
Itamar Marani
Like.

00:12:03:20 - 00:12:26:12
Peter Shallard
You've got to be you've got to it's like you either laugh or you cry, right? Like, you've got a you've got to have a playfulness. And that's certainly something I've also noticed. And a lot of the entrepreneurs I've been lucky enough to work with over my career as the shrinks, entrepreneurs I've coached, founders who have built, you know, several billion dollar companies, achieved a couple of IPOs.

00:12:26:13 - 00:12:53:14
Peter Shallard
The people I notice who have the most incredible ability to just think big and drive huge results and really rapidly, they approach life with a certain degree of playfulness, a certain joy. There's then not afraid to kind of dance with the absurd. And so I think it's an attitude. Certainly I try to cultivate that entrepreneurs should try to cultivate, you if you're not having fun, it's just a struggle.

00:12:53:15 - 00:12:54:10
Peter Shallard
So.

00:12:54:12 - 00:13:13:22
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I want to agree. I want to add on to that. So I think that's something that's going to surprise a lot of people. But in the special ops, there is a thing called the I think it's English as well, a psychometric exam where you basically rate all your peers and all your teammates, that how good they are is the level of competitiveness, resilience, physical fitness, teamwork, whatever it may be.

00:13:14:00 - 00:13:31:16
Itamar Marani
And there's also sometimes I ask question there, but if you're just a mood lifter, is you just the funny guy on the team because they recognize that the environment is so harsh and there's so much pressure that having somebody there, they can relieve some of that pressure. All of a sudden it makes everything feel much more doable. That is.

00:13:31:18 - 00:13:34:23
Itamar Marani
Yes, that's kind of what I'm here for doing individual level. Is that correct?

00:13:35:03 - 00:14:04:23
Peter Shallard
Absolutely. And I think it's I think it's so powerful in the context of teams as well, like a you know, at a start up at my company, commit action. We've got a big team of people and I this is really cringe to say and I know it sometimes doesn't always I sound like Michael Scott from the office but sometimes I do see it as my job to be the funny guy, to crack people up to bring some levity to the all hands meeting or the we have a we have a Slack channel we call the break room where people post like funny stuff.

00:14:04:23 - 00:14:31:05
Peter Shallard
And one of the greatest compliments I ever got was from a member of my team who's hilarious, who posts all these jokes to our Instagram and to our team and stuff. And she said that when she got the job at my company, she she had for the first time ever funny envy for the boss for me. And I was like, Yes, like I did it and it and it's totally it because, you know, people who people who sign up to go on that journey and work at a startup and really build something, right?

00:14:31:05 - 00:14:52:21
Peter Shallard
There is a lot of moments where it feels crazy and, you know, like you're riding that rollercoaster of ups and downs and it can be really psychologically harrowing and sad. Same thing. I mean, I didn't know that about about special Forces, that that makes a lot of sense to me that like, you know, there's not always it's not always the right moment to crack a joke, but it's more often than most people would think.

00:14:52:23 - 00:14:56:09
Peter Shallard
I think you want to bring that levity, right?

00:14:56:11 - 00:15:19:10
Itamar Marani
I think it's just a mechanism to when you have an environment, whether it's a startup, whether it's special forces or entrepreneurship, where you have people that intrinsically like to drive really, really hard. Sometimes just having that mechanism in place also release some of that pressure so it doesn't just burst. It's just a great strategic tool and having the foresight to be aware of that is things I think more people can do.

00:15:19:12 - 00:15:42:02
Itamar Marani
Yes, But to kind of take it back to the original question because we said a lot of stuff there. I want to kind of rephrase it and make sure that I understood it correctly and that we understood do correctly. So what we said is basically that the idea of executing and achieving all your goals, the reason it's scary to some people, it's because they believe that they'll get to a place that's above them.

00:15:42:04 - 00:15:59:07
Itamar Marani
Now, for some people you're like this. Their identity is like, I can figure it out. So it's just about recognizing, Oh, in ten years from now your skillset will be different as well. So even bigger problems are going to be solved. Yeah, some people aren't really sure of themselves. So you say, okay, why don't you just look back the past five years.

00:15:59:07 - 00:16:18:06
Itamar Marani
What have you accomplished since then? Think you are a person who's on a growth trajectory. Just recognize it and accept it. And for the people that are stuck in plateaus the way what I've kind of noticed, what you're saying is that you separate the belief of I am stuck to these tactics that I've used, have caused me to be stuck.

00:16:18:09 - 00:16:36:06
Itamar Marani
Yes. And when you can separate that, they're like, oh, actually, I can grow if I change my tactics and if I introduce a little bit of craziness here, I just have a little bit of fun with it. Stop getting in my head about it and just try new things. It's not me that's incapable of growth. It's just that what I've been doing so far as a strategy, it only gets you to gear.

00:16:36:07 - 00:16:38:12
Itamar Marani
Yeah, and that's why we're here. Is that accurate?

00:16:38:16 - 00:17:00:01
Peter Shallard
Yeah, that's exactly it. And and I think the levity, the kind of craziness as important for busting through those plateaus because often the answers are like the answers are very counterintuitive, busting through plateaus. When you build something and you hit that level, that is a real first world problem because you've really got something. You're not nowhere, right? It's not the challenge of how do I begin?

00:17:00:01 - 00:17:16:09
Peter Shallard
What do I you know, like there's tons of books about how to do that. There's very few. It starts to get very, very small demographically. It's like, you know, depending on what level that plateau is, there's not too many guides for like, well, here's what you do when you're in this particular place. And so it requires more creativity.

00:17:16:09 - 00:17:40:18
Peter Shallard
No one's coming to save you. You've got to open your mind to the possibilities. And I think that, like what gets people on plateaus is the narrowing of attention, right? The laser focus. But the and they happen to everybody because when you have something that works as an entrepreneur, right back to that real estate example, you're in this place where you're like cold calling a door knocking and it's working.

00:17:40:18 - 00:18:10:04
Peter Shallard
You're signing clients, You're you're actually you're getting deals, right? You're like growing. You shouldn't only do that thing. You should put the blinders on and just charge posture and make hay while the sun shine. But that exact behavior, that focus of like, I'm going to double down on something that's working, that is creating tomorrow's plateau, because eventually you'll get to the point where you reach that equilibrium, where there's not enough hours in the day for you to do more of that thing and that, and then service those clients or sell those products or do whatever that thing is.

00:18:10:06 - 00:18:34:12
Peter Shallard
So like, success itself creates plateaus. And what pops you up to that next level is getting really creative about like, what? What am I like, how do I do something that no one else is doing right now? You've got to think. You've got to think really outside of the box. This is why, you know, the research on personality shows that one of the most important personality traits for entrepreneurship is trait, openness, openness to experience.

00:18:34:12 - 00:18:59:06
Peter Shallard
One of the big five personality traits. It's the ability to be interested in novelty, interested in ideas, to draw, to synthesize and create, take inspiration from a wide array of kind of sources. Because the best, like the way to bust through plateaus in business is jazz. It's like, What if I took this thing from that industry and combined it with what's working over here and did something no one's ever done before?

00:18:59:11 - 00:19:17:18
Peter Shallard
That's how you get, you know, like that's how you get to the next level. So to have that mindset, you know, you've got to be there's got to be playfulness. You don't. Have you ever seen like fantastic jazz played by really great musicians? They're having a great time, right this solo. And they call out to each other. They like there's like all these nods of appreciation.

00:19:17:18 - 00:19:37:09
Peter Shallard
They laugh when people do certain things with certain, you know, certain scales and jams or whatever. I have no idea what I'm talking about. I don't I don't know that nobody does. But there's a there's a there's an attitude of that. So that's why I think as entrepreneurs shouldn't take ourselves too seriously because we need we need the creativity to, to achieve our goals.

00:19:37:12 - 00:19:39:14
Peter Shallard
Yeah.

00:19:39:16 - 00:19:49:22
Itamar Marani
So question around that, where do you think is the balance? Like how? Because like you said, when things are working well, let's call it strategically, they're working. It's time to be serious and actually focusing on double down.

00:19:50:00 - 00:19:51:00
Peter Shallard
Yeah.

00:19:51:02 - 00:20:06:10
Itamar Marani
Is there a kind of preemptive tipping point that you can recognize where we don't want to find someone who's already burnt out? They're completely you know, they're plateaued for a year now. They just are not interested in their business. And we've all seen this at conferences where there's a person who's like, Oh, maybe I'll just sell it, or I don't really care anymore.

00:20:06:10 - 00:20:25:05
Itamar Marani
It just does what it does. What do you think are the bit of the warning signs now that he's already burned out? But a warning sign that, oh, you're starting to get there. And I'm saying if you know anything, that's fine. Instead of call it more emotional, the sun can notice not just on the data sheet that, okay, we've had a bottleneck in the businesses growth.

00:20:25:06 - 00:20:52:02
Peter Shallard
Yeah yeah. It's that is a is a fantastic question it's very difficult because I things that I think that the way most entrepreneurs if I'm honest do this is by overdoing it and pivoting after they kind of feel it right like after they feel the sort of the sort of change. I mean it's the so at my company commit action, we have this you know, we have we do accountability coaching to thousands of entrepreneurs.

00:20:52:04 - 00:21:15:12
Peter Shallard
And the core of our philosophy is to create clarity for every single one of our clients that so that they know what the highest leverage use of their time is on any given day, in any given week, because that that is strategic clarity. You've got to know as an entrepreneur, what's the biggest lever I've got? What's the best use of my time as entrepreneurs?

00:21:15:18 - 00:21:41:15
Peter Shallard
We are you are the central economic engine of the business of what you're building. And that's true if you're running a $100 million business or a publicly traded multibillion dollar company. It's also true if you're running, running a solopreneur, trying to get to your first six figures, right? Like you're the you're going to be the driving force. And so getting clarity on where's the leverage, what's the thing that you do that drives the results is super duper important.

00:21:41:17 - 00:22:06:09
Peter Shallard
But your question is about the hardest part of our job and really of entrepreneurial life, which is the answer to that question, keeps shifting. It keeps eluding us. And the more when we find an answer and we really hammer it, we find something that's like a really effective use of our time. When you're starting out, that's typically like you find a reliable, repeatable customer acquisition strategy.

00:22:06:11 - 00:22:25:19
Peter Shallard
So we have these levels that we identify at commit action. The first one is that you're kind of searching, right? Entrepreneurship is a search. You go wide and what you're looking for is a reliable, repeatable way to turn strangers into customers. Then you find it. So at the beginning you're the definition of the best use of your time is exploration.

00:22:25:20 - 00:22:48:06
Peter Shallard
It's searching. It's that trait, openness, being open to possibilities. What's working for other people? Researching, learning, throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying stuff out. Then something sticks. You're like, Oh, that worked. I got a I got a customer, I got five. Then you narrow right the definition of the best use of your time shifts. And so you narrow in and you do more and more of that saying you want to fill your schedule with that thing.

00:22:48:06 - 00:23:03:15
Peter Shallard
You want to try to hire other people to do that thing right. You want to get obsessed with that thing and take it all the way. And, you know, like in business school, like this is what the professors say. It's like you find a customer acquisition channel. You want to exhaust it, you want to take it all of the way.

00:23:03:17 - 00:23:30:06
Peter Shallard
I think that the thing that you're looking for is the instinct that you can see the end, right? That you can see like the where the law of diminishing returns kicks in, which is always like, does it matter how successful a company is? There's always a place where the law of diminishing returns kicks in, right? Like, doesn't matter if you're Apple, you could be a multitrillion dollar company.

00:23:30:07 - 00:23:48:20
Peter Shallard
All of those executives of that company are sweating right now being like everyone has an iPhone. Like what? How are we going to sell more of a you know, so they and so what do they do? They go and explore. We can actually see that in real time. They do this augmented reality crazy thing that's like throwing some mega spaghetti at the wall.

00:23:48:20 - 00:24:21:15
Peter Shallard
Did it stick? Not really. Right, but they're doing it. So. So when you start to feel that feeling of this is the crazy growth, right? This isn't the excitement. That's when you have to have the psychological discipline to go back into the creative mode. And so where entrepreneurs fail is when they don't heed the signs, they wear themselves out and they don't have the energy to do the creative expansion, the exploring for what's new right now, that's where I've seen entrepreneurs failed, where they burn out, and they're like, I can't do it.

00:24:21:17 - 00:24:24:19
Peter Shallard
I'm just I don't have it in me.

00:24:24:21 - 00:24:43:10
Itamar Marani
Question For you on this, Do you feel that sometimes what I have seen is that people kind of know it's the end of this opportunity. But to be very blunt, they sometimes may not be on a conscious level, but they lack the courage to say, I can do something more. They're like, it's again, goes back to that fix.

00:24:43:10 - 00:25:04:14
Itamar Marani
Like, I got lucky here. We lucked out. I can't believe we call this algorithm trend or growth cycle or whatever it may be. And even though logically they can see that there is an end here emotionally, this is just what they've known. So it feels safe in a way. Yeah. Rather than saying, you know what, Like this is time to actually recognize this was a good run, we don't know what's ahead of us.

00:25:04:14 - 00:25:10:18
Itamar Marani
It is unknown, but we believe that we were able to figure it out. You that's something that you've seen as well.

00:25:10:19 - 00:25:40:17
Peter Shallard
Yeah. And I think it does. It is a cognitive bias that causes people to hold on to diminishing strategy longer than they should because they've got they have this hope that it's going to work out. And in the inside the core of that hope emotionally is insecurity, right know, which is like if I have to go back to the drawing board, I don't know if I've got what it takes to to invent something new, to find the new product that really works.

00:25:40:17 - 00:26:01:17
Peter Shallard
So the new marketing channel that really works, or that whole new business idea that really works, right? And so that like that, that's the thing that we have to you have to confront in that space, right? Is if you're not being real with yourself, then you can kind of like, yeah, you can create a narrative in your head that says, you know, you know what?

00:26:01:17 - 00:26:07:23
Peter Shallard
It's best to just keep, keep the blinders on, keep focused and kind of go down with the ship.

00:26:08:01 - 00:26:30:06
Itamar Marani
And I, I love the fact that you said confront, because what's interesting that I've seen is that paradoxically, a lot of times once people confront, actually say, you know what, I'm just not sure about myself, all of a sudden that gets released and they're actually open to trying. Yes, because it's a wild thing that as soon as we admit, I'm just I'm not sure I can actually do this.

00:26:30:07 - 00:26:37:11
Itamar Marani
And it's like, oh, that's what I was afraid of figuring out if I can actually do it or not. And one of the reckoning is going on, not a bit. So go ahead.

00:26:37:11 - 00:27:01:22
Peter Shallard
One of the hardest things about these places that people end up these dynamics is that the more successful you become, the higher the level the plateau is, the more ego there is and the harder it is to confront that insecurity and give yourself permission to go be a beginner again. Right. And that's what's so liberating about entrepreneurs who are just starting out.

00:27:02:04 - 00:27:16:20
Peter Shallard
Nothing to lose, everything to gain. So that exploration phase is easy because they like I tried it, I failed. Of course, like failure is the default. I got nothing. But it's when you build something and there's a lot of momentum and then that momentum fades and you're like, Oh, I got to go back to the drawing board here.

00:27:16:22 - 00:27:39:13
Peter Shallard
That's a that's a place that you might have a story that you equate with being a beginner was not being a success. And so if you're working through that, like if you're confronting that as well, this shift in your narrative, what it means to not be successful. And so I think the big like the big meta like advice I have is that entrepreneurs always need to have a skunkworks.

00:27:39:18 - 00:28:15:05
Peter Shallard
We all need to have the, the, the Google philosophy of spending, investing 20% of our time in pushing the envelope, in increasing our surface area, for luck in trying new crazy ideas, even when we've got something that's really working right, that's something that we done. If you start to really build an identity around like I just have this one thing in business and I'm making millions, I've gone with it, We just do this one thing and we're really focused, you know, like hopefully you can live a long life and retire at 65 and buy yourself the gold watch.

00:28:15:05 - 00:28:45:00
Peter Shallard
And it all works out. But I think it's better to cultivate like a practice of that beginner's mind. And it's like, Hey, yeah, we do our core stuff, but it's core and explore. And part of my identity as an entrepreneur is playing with new ideas and like allowing them to, to fail. And yeah, I think, I think that it can even come down to like some of my favorite emails I send to my clients, the customers that commit action, I'll be telling them about an experiment that will that we're doing.

00:28:45:02 - 00:29:06:00
Peter Shallard
Like I'll be like, We're trying this out and we might shut it down, right? But we're going to try it out, but we might shut it down. So creating like I'm really writing that to them to set the expectation, but I'm also writing it to myself. I'm giving myself permission that we're a multibillion dollar company. We employ a bunch of people, we have thousands of customers, but I'm still doing stuff as the founder.

00:29:06:00 - 00:29:14:02
Peter Shallard
I'm still throwing spaghetti at the wall that might not stick and should never stop doing that.

00:29:14:04 - 00:29:41:17
Itamar Marani
Do you? From again, with all the clients and kind of all these data points, have you seen there be a tangible impact for people also taking on hobbies like you get the very successful entrepreneur, for example, starting to get to and he's a white belt and all of a sudden it's like, Oh, I have a lot of room for failure in my life and all of a sudden that possibility that he can mess up and it's okay gets normalized and that releases some of that ego burden that's called.

00:29:41:18 - 00:29:50:14
Itamar Marani
I'm curious, anything that you've seen from outside hobbies where just having a hobby where you're actually a beginner and again, it kind of desensitizes your ego in a little bit.

00:29:50:16 - 00:30:23:06
Peter Shallard
Yeah, I think I mean, I think that stuff is really important. There is a I mean, you and I can probably go down a rabbit hole on this. There is a, a culture that's becoming prevalent in the sort of online space about entrepreneurship, the like. That's sort of the hustle culture, the grind culture that talks about like the value of like relentless focus and the idea that particularly young people should just be like all and wake up at 4 a.m., cold blooded, grind it out on sales calls or whatever.

00:30:23:08 - 00:31:05:11
Peter Shallard
And I think there's a there's a couple of really big problems with that, right? Like one of them is that, you know, delayed gratification is an important thing. Conscientiousness, the the internal skill to be able to sacrifice today for the future you want tomorrow, that's a superpower. But that's a bargain that you make with your future self. And if you never pay the other side of it, right, if there's never any payoff, then eventually you've you you you sow the seeds and create a really powerful internal conflict where the pot of you do your emotional monkey mind, your inner child, whatever metaphor you want to call it.

00:31:05:11 - 00:31:25:06
Peter Shallard
You know, the neurological reality is it's out in a million brain that craves. It's like a little hedonist. Just wants to, like, have a good time and feel good eventually, like, eventually throws a tantrum and pot. That part of our brain has its hand on the motivational set, right? So you can be really motivated to be like, It's going to be worth it.

00:31:25:06 - 00:31:45:12
Peter Shallard
I'm going to have a gold plated jet ski, a bathtub of champagne, like I'm going to grind now and I'm going to get those things. But my experience and a lot of entrepreneurs will relate to those hearing those, is that like, it's harder than you think. It takes longer than you think. And so you've got to find a way to you know, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon and such a cliche.

00:31:45:12 - 00:32:06:18
Peter Shallard
You've got to find a way to inject the things that make life worth living along the way. And so I think there's a culture of like, let's optimize every single second of the day. Everything is, you know, like, I can't I'm not relaxing, I'm listening to podcasts and improving. My mind's right. And if you're listening to this podcast right now, instead of relaxing, definitely keep listening to this one.

00:32:06:18 - 00:32:36:21
Peter Shallard
But like, but consider taking a break, right? Consider doing some of the things that are intrinsic, intrinsically motivating that meet the definition of play. You know, I think you're talking you use the example of jujitsu. I think sports meet a lot of that kind of criteria of like something that you can just go and enjoy, that the innate joy of improvement and growth in without it having to mean anything or do anything right just for itself.

00:32:36:23 - 00:32:44:00
Peter Shallard
Does this create the is this crazy place entrepreneurs get into where they're like, I love jiu jitsu, I want to start a business around it. And it's like.

00:32:44:00 - 00:32:48:18
Itamar Marani
Just a terrible idea for a variety of reasons. Terrible idea.

00:32:48:18 - 00:33:10:03
Peter Shallard
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think one of the greatest gifts we can give our dreams and our ambition is actually bringing little bits of them into the present. And like, you know, like finding ways to live them now and giving ourselves a taste of them and not turning everything into something we optimize and everything that needs to be a business.

00:33:10:03 - 00:33:29:13
Peter Shallard
Like if it's your dream to create financial abundance so you can retire and surf all day every day. Find a way to surf once a week or once a month, you know, like have a taste of what you want because that that'll fuel your motivation, right? That'll make the marathon worth running. In a very real and visceral sense.

00:33:29:15 - 00:34:00:08
Peter Shallard
We, you know, at commit action, we, we you know, we sell this accountability coaching service that's about helping people double their productivity by adding structure and accountability, getting them performing, showing up as the best version of themselves. You know. So how does that product appeal to on the surface? It's like people who struggle with procrastination, but the truth is we get a lot of people who are type A high performance and they're looking to go from great to phenomenal, Like they have this and they're like, I want to be even better.

00:34:00:10 - 00:34:26:06
Peter Shallard
And the crazy thing is our coaches end up for those people on a fairly regular basis, holding them accountable to proper rest, proper play that nourishes that and a child because and I'm saying this for the people listening to this who might resonate with this, these are people who naturally grind, who are just good at that process of showing up and like working on the thing.

00:34:26:10 - 00:34:56:03
Peter Shallard
But they need structure, they need accountability. They need a perspective from outside the fishbowl to make them disciplined around rest, right, disciplined around the long game that like enables them to actually succeed over time in a way that, you know, working on things that incremental but compounding. And so yeah we have you know, a lot of our clients we're talking to them about hard charging, big goals and then also what they're doing for themselves to rest and refuel along the way so that they don't burn out.

00:34:56:05 - 00:35:25:08
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I think I really, I think a lot of people resonate with the word optimize and what it is. It's not optimizing for this next week. It's optimizing for you want to keep playing this game, which is a long term game. Yes. And I was everything about the marathon. One of the key phrase they have an ultramarathon running is before you're hungry eat, drink before you're tired and rest before and start and drink before you're thirsty and rest before you're tired because it is a long term game.

00:35:25:10 - 00:35:36:22
Itamar Marani
And I think that's something that is really missing with this notion of you can just do everything this week or grind as hard as you can this week and then all of a sudden you don't like your life anymore and you lose motivation. A lot of cycle that happens.

00:35:36:22 - 00:35:41:14
Peter Shallard
To a lot of people are mistaking intensity for consistency.

00:35:41:16 - 00:35:43:02
Itamar Marani
The variables that.

00:35:43:04 - 00:36:00:17
Peter Shallard
They say and we see this with we see this with new clients who sign up, who come in and they're like, I'm here for productivity. I want to get optimized. I want the ultimate weekly planning ritual, which is what we do. And they try to design the ultimate week and plan their time in 15 minute increments and have like the like day, like I want a morning ritual.

00:36:00:17 - 00:36:19:05
Peter Shallard
I want to be going to bed early, like the guy I saw on you on Instagram, like, I want to be doing all of this crazy stuff and what we try to do is we go, Great, love that ambition. Let's take that feeling that you've got, that desire, that like you could feel it right, that like hunger for it to be intense.

00:36:19:07 - 00:36:45:01
Peter Shallard
And let's channel that not into tomorrow, not into this week, but let's channel that into time in the long term. Let's push that out and channel intensity and turn it into consistency because, you know, like you, the results that you get when you show up and do that high leverage work, whatever that thing is, that's the best use of your time in your business.

00:36:45:03 - 00:37:08:00
Peter Shallard
If you do it, if you hit it really hard for a week and then need to take a week off because you're so tired, it kind of gets, you know, where the people really surprise themselves by what happens when they show up consistently. Every single for a year. I've told the story before, but I have this this statement that lives in my head rent free from when I phoned up one of my coaching clients many years ago.

00:37:08:00 - 00:37:26:19
Peter Shallard
And this is a guy who built a like a multibillion dollar company and I just got on the phone. I said, How's it going? How's things? How's it going? Okay. He goes, Oh, you know, said, I'd say today was a solid seven out of ten. And he goes, But if I have a few more days like that now really build something.

00:37:26:21 - 00:37:42:08
Peter Shallard
And he was joking around. But this is the founder of $1,000,000,000 company kind of jammin with me on and he's telling me he's reminding himself that's the goal to have consistent seven out of ten over and over and over and then you really get somewhere.

00:37:42:10 - 00:37:59:04
Itamar Marani
So would it be fair to say that this is actually why you think that most productivity systems out there in the real world, they don't actually work because they're focused on the just way to narrow and then actually focus on the long game that that success requires and be accurate.

00:37:59:06 - 00:38:04:01
Peter Shallard
Yeah, thank you for teeing that up. It's my favorite topic.

00:38:04:03 - 00:38:10:12
Itamar Marani
I think that's basically you're saying the crux of it. That's because they're not actually rooted in the real world where consistency is more important than just in terms.

00:38:10:12 - 00:38:51:11
Peter Shallard
Of most most productivity systems are productivity theater. What I mean by that is that they mistake organization for execution, right? They're about they're about creating a a avoidant behavior ritual that people can feel good about. And the more complex, the better. Right? When you start to realize that's the game you're playing, when you're when you see the beautiful software with the color coded categories and you're right and things by how you feel, and it's using AI to analyze and put things in, you're like, Wow, like this.

00:38:51:13 - 00:39:19:13
Peter Shallard
This is a great substitute for knowing what to work on to achieve my goals, right? It's a it's a it's an act of theater. It's it's not real. It's a song and a dance that we do. And it's deeply, deeply seductive. And these systems, they'll never stop being sold. There's a new one every couple of months, and they're endlessly fascinating to people because they solve a real problem people have, which is uncertainty around what the best use of their time is.

00:39:19:15 - 00:39:36:22
Peter Shallard
And this gives them something to go and do. So they temporarily don't have to feel that feeling. And that's why the retention on those products is awful. And I know because I know the industry inside and out. I mean, the average productivity software has a have it has a retention rate of like a few weeks. People get in.

00:39:37:04 - 00:39:59:03
Peter Shallard
I mean, anyone listening to this, how many like how many uninstall like how many apps are in the archive on your phone or whatever that would like the next big to do list or whatever that is. And so if you really want to design an effective productivity ritual, the big philosophy that that like this is a, this is how we've built commit action, but this is a takeaway.

00:39:59:03 - 00:40:18:05
Peter Shallard
Anyone listening to this can go and do on their own. The big guiding North Star needs to be the principle of minimum effective dose, right? You want to do the minimum effective dose of planning, the smallest amount of planning that you can do every single week if you're going to plan your day every day, which is great, wake up.

00:40:18:05 - 00:40:48:19
Peter Shallard
Think about what the priorities are. Ideally, do it the night before you just wake and go right. That ritual should be the shortest it possibly can be because when you start to get complex, when you start to get into doing productivity theater, you're channeling some of the best energy you have into the container, not the substance. Right? And so, yeah, this principle of minimum effective doses is the core of what we do at commit action, which is like just just enough planning to get you clarity.

00:40:48:19 - 00:41:10:15
Peter Shallard
Once you have that, it's all about execution. It's all about moving forward. And so, yeah, that's my favorite topic because I see I see the industry getting it's so, so wrong. And the reason it's not there's nothing sinister that it's not that there's all these productivity like, you know, sinister, shadowy figures trying to sabotage you. It's that human nature makes people want these products.

00:41:10:15 - 00:41:42:00
Peter Shallard
They want the complexity. You know, another good analog for this is that you might appreciate is in the in the fitness industry. Right. The whole personal training and sort of complex is built around selling people complexity. Why? Because we're human beings who love novelty and we get bored. And so if you ever go to an Equinox gym, right, like in the in the U.S., these like super luxury gyms and go look at what the personal trainers are doing, they've got people standing on vibrating platforms.

00:41:42:01 - 00:41:54:12
Peter Shallard
They're holding battle ropes, right. Throwing medicine balls around one foot, like doing all this crazy stuff. Meanwhile, the fittest people in the gym are at the other end in the power ax. Doing deadlifts.

00:41:54:13 - 00:42:01:22
Itamar Marani
Yeah. Yep. And they do what the college coach tells me to get to do to get stronger, even if it's not interesting. You just do.

00:42:01:22 - 00:42:16:07
Peter Shallard
That. Yeah, exactly. And so, like. But the but the money in the industry is on is end is in the training end of the gym with the battle ropes and all the crazy stuff the money is and the complexity. But the results are in simplicity.

00:42:16:09 - 00:42:36:20
Itamar Marani
And I think the main thing that stops that everyone logically understands that is that we sometimes fail to recognize that oftentimes we're just trying to solve a feeling. We want to do something. And I think that's the real crux of it sometimes to recognize all these things that of the theater. Theater is an emotional thing. It literally just is.

00:42:36:23 - 00:42:58:12
Itamar Marani
Nobody goes there for logical reasons, for strategic reasons. They go there to get entertained. And a lot of these systems, they're actually a means of entertainment. Now, what's dangerous is that we somehow justify this entertainment. We say, No, no, it's actually it's actually good. This is good for us. Instead of the saying, you know what, for entertainment, if I want to go watch Netflix, if I want to go watch sports, that's entertainment.

00:42:58:14 - 00:43:02:23
Itamar Marani
This is not work. And we need to classify that as well. And I think that's challenging for people.

00:43:03:02 - 00:43:03:22
Peter Shallard
Yes.

00:43:04:00 - 00:43:08:07
Itamar Marani
There's accepted like this is entertainment as well. You can pretend it's not, but it is.

00:43:08:10 - 00:43:43:08
Peter Shallard
This is a dangerous thinking. And we're going down a real big rabbit hole here because because the thing that you're tapping into is something I deeply believe in. And I, I certainly have been through phases of reading an incredible amount of business books and like doing all that stuff. But I have the older I've got, the more experienced I've got, the more I've tried to, I think of it as like polarizing out my content consumption because I would right way rather read a novel that's going to make me feel something that's going to make the that's going to make me have an experience of what it's like to be somebody else, right?

00:43:43:09 - 00:44:10:21
Peter Shallard
To really see another perspective and then like get a CliffsNotes, get the tactics, have a real simple conversation about what works in business. But I recognize that certainly like place in the middle when you're getting to like airport, bookstore, bestseller, business books. You know, I have a good friend who's an author who once told me, he said, if you if you want to know the formula for writing a bestseller, you've got to come up with a title that people know in their bones is true.

00:44:10:23 - 00:44:30:03
Peter Shallard
And that's the thing, right? So it's like the book that you see it and you're like, Hell yeah. And when you're when you're reading that, you've got the story, you know, I'm so I'm being so productive, I'm growing and whatnot right now. But yeah, part it is entertainment. And so recognizing that, I mean, this can change your life if you figure this out about yourself.

00:44:30:05 - 00:44:59:04
Itamar Marani
So I want to ask a follow up to that. Do you think that's why because one question I wanted to ask in a very like, let's say, in a less refined manners, why do people need accountability coaches if they're already driven, aware? And so on. But what we're going to getting to here is that the reason that it's possible and this is what I'm curious to hear your perspective on the reason an accountability coach is so helpful for someone who is driven, who is ambitious, who is willing to make sacrifices, is intelligent, is because you're still an emotional being.

00:44:59:06 - 00:45:17:17
Itamar Marani
And without recognizing it, they're going to put their emotions into planning and just being, you know, like getting excited. All these kind of things. When you have an external bystander or an observer, let's call it, it was like, no, calm down. What is it? The three most effective things you did accomplish for this week? Yeah, I don't care if it's unexciting.

00:45:17:18 - 00:45:26:04
Itamar Marani
You think that is one of the primary benefits that people don't talk about As far as accountability, what it provides is someone who is emotionally objective.

00:45:26:06 - 00:45:49:05
Peter Shallard
Yeah, I mean, the the reality is that you don't need an accountability coach when. You're the best version of yourself when the stars align and the caffeine hits just right. And you had a great night's sleep and you're inspired and it's clear what you got to do next. And you feel optimistic about the future and you haven't read the news and you're in a good place and you go in that moment, you don't need an accountability because you're killing it.

00:45:49:07 - 00:46:14:13
Peter Shallard
But we're not always there. We're not there the majority of the time, right? Accountable like what we do. Accountability coaching is about meeting people at their different, messy human levels where they they don't feel like the best version of themselves, but consistency is required anyway, right? They have to show up. It's the true definition of resilience, right? It's not it's not about like doing things when they feel great.

00:46:14:13 - 00:46:35:04
Peter Shallard
It's about doing them and having confidence that you'll show up and execute even when you don't feel like it. And so accountability coaching is for people in those moments when you're not the best version of yourself. And it works because as human beings, we are social primates. We're hardwired to perform at our best when we're connected and supported by others.

00:46:35:06 - 00:46:52:07
Peter Shallard
And if you want to test this theory yourself, you can do so by next time you're feeling down and feeling unclear or not knowing what to do. Call friends doesn't have to be an expert mentor. Just can be a conversation with someone where you talk about like, Hey, this is what I'm struggling with. They'll give you some thoughts.

00:46:52:07 - 00:47:13:11
Peter Shallard
Some advice might not be something they said. It might be a question I ask you that made you think about something else. And then you got I got it. So that like the crazy thing is that that connection really gets us out of those moments, out of those funds and helps us step back into being the best version of ourselves and as human beings, we can't do that on our own.

00:47:13:13 - 00:47:48:10
Peter Shallard
That's why putting people in solitary confinement is one of the most psychologically damaging things you can do to a human being, because a huge part of our brain and the million brain is wired to be tapped into these human connections where teamwork creatures, that's what we do. And so when you're when you want to perform at a high level, being able to be connected and feel like somebody has your back and is somebody to bounce ideas off of and get that support from, that actually helps you focus in and enter into those high performance flow states where the really great work kind of happens.

00:47:48:12 - 00:48:18:02
Peter Shallard
So yeah, it's it's, it's not that you can't get there by yourself, it's that when you have help, you get there fundamentally like easier, faster, more often you know and the biggest like our thesis and what certainly what the evidence shows the research shows is that most people's productivity issues their focus issues, are downstream of mental isolation and the world is pushing us technology change.

00:48:18:02 - 00:48:46:08
Peter Shallard
Everything that we're living through is making more and more isolated and entrepreneurship like that's for everyone, right? People of all walks of life. When you make the decision to become an entrepreneur, you're then in an already isolated environment, choosing the path less traveled, right? You're going to wake up and have a reality into a reality. As an entrepreneur that there is not a person on earth who knows if you screwed around yesterday or really doubted it and got stuff done.

00:48:46:10 - 00:49:06:21
Peter Shallard
And if that's true, you have an accountability problem. You're in a vacuum of isolation. And so just bringing in that external perspective that outside of the fishbowl perspective, that helps you look back at who you are, that makes you look in the mirror and go, Oh yeah, I'm not doing the things I said I would. Right? That changes again.

00:49:06:22 - 00:49:08:22
Peter Shallard
So yeah.

00:49:09:00 - 00:49:20:09
Itamar Marani
Well said. So last question what is the action result gap? Can you break that down? I thought it was such an interesting concept that you brought up that I wanted to it. On that note.

00:49:20:11 - 00:49:41:18
Peter Shallard
The action result gap is it's the hard thing about achieving is the hard thing about doing hard things. The hard thing about achieving big goals. The action result gap is the psychological experience of working on something significant where you have to invest energy, you have to act you have to do the execution upfront, but there is no feedback.

00:49:41:19 - 00:50:04:01
Peter Shallard
There is no result that you get in the immediate short term to confirm, to tell you that you're headed in the right direction to make you feel good, to give you the hit of dopamine and serotonin that would make sustaining that motivation easy. So it's a gap between taking action and getting the result that you want. It's a perfect example of this that everyone can relate to is physical fitness, weight loss.

00:50:04:01 - 00:50:24:08
Peter Shallard
Right? Let's say you want to lose £10, £20. You have to what do you have to do? You got to eat healthy and exercise and you have to do that for three weeks before you can really step on a scale and actually have it maybe two weeks if you're really high school. But that's a period of time before you can really go, Oh, it worked like it really paid off.

00:50:24:10 - 00:50:50:02
Peter Shallard
That's those weeks and the action result gap. If you could eat a salad and step on a scale and see a like a it changes. Everyone would be in phenomenal shape because there would be no action result gap If you ate a donut and you're and it went the other way, you'd be like, Oh man, if we had a little heads up display that was like plus point whatever of a pounds, you know, we wouldn't, we wouldn't have this problem.

00:50:50:04 - 00:51:18:02
Peter Shallard
This, this goal wouldn't be a challenge. So the action result gap is where you've got to be consistent, you've got to be disciplined. This is an area where accountability really helps, where you've got to be the best version of yourself and show up and do the thing. And the result takes a long time to kick in. So it says with physical fitness weight loss takes a couple of weeks, can be months for meaningful change, you know, and that's a real challenge for entrepreneurs trying to build really big things.

00:51:18:02 - 00:51:49:12
Peter Shallard
The action result gap can be years. I talk to any content creator who's built a brand in this golden age of like new media and organic social networks. They'll tell you about two years of writing into the void right before something hit at it paid off and they went viral and like, it all started working. These stories are all over entrepreneurship, and it's it's something that we've got to be really aware of because all the things worth having in life lie on the other side of action.

00:51:49:12 - 00:52:10:01
Peter Shallard
Result gaps and our ability to leap those chasms psychologically is largely down to our comes down to our ability to stay focused, to execute, to be to be accountable to the vision, even when the results aren't there to measure in the short term.

00:52:10:04 - 00:52:32:15
Itamar Marani
So so follow up question on that. If you had to give people let's call like a tool or a trick or something that's helpful to make that chasm not seem as big, whether that's celebrating small wins, whether that's just taking pride in the identity of someone who's doing what would those things be to help people cross that threshold?

00:52:32:15 - 00:52:36:01
Itamar Marani
Because I agree with you, this is that's the ultimate difference maker, if you could do those things.

00:52:36:01 - 00:52:59:11
Peter Shallard
Yeah, let me it's a great question. And nerd out a little bit on on cognitive science here. So the thing the thing that that bridges the gap is gamification that which is a multibillion dollar industry. You know I'm holding I got an Apple Watch here. Let me see if I can pull up my shucking rings for today. Not looking so great, not filled up at all.

00:52:59:11 - 00:53:19:02
Peter Shallard
It's still early in the morning. This is it. You know, this is a product built around the cognitive science of this idea. This idea. And it really works, which is there is something that you ultimately care about. Behavioral scientists call that your distilled goal. So in the weight loss example, it's the like being the greatest shape of my life.

00:53:19:02 - 00:53:41:13
Peter Shallard
I'll lose £20 or whatever your goal is. It's the thing that you ultimately are aiming at. That's the distal goal. Now there's something else called your proximal goal, and these are proxies for what it is that you really want. The Apple Watch closing your rings is the ultimate proxy goal. So no one buys an Apple Watch because they're like, Since I was a little boy, I've dreamed of closing rings.

00:53:41:13 - 00:54:04:01
Peter Shallard
Right? We want to be in the best shape of our life. We want to be athletes, whatever it is. We want our distill goals, but the proxy goal we know gets us there. We have a good thesis, we have a good idea that it's going to get us what we want. So one of the things that really helps when we're the actual result gap looks like daily consistent, boring execution.

00:54:04:06 - 00:54:24:21
Peter Shallard
Doing those proximal goals with the knowledge that if we do enough of this and consistently enough, we're going to get to where we want to go. In the entrepreneurial world, it's the salesperson making the outbound dials, right? Adding people to the CRM. What they want is to buy a Ferrari. What they need to do in the meantime is follow up, right?

00:54:24:21 - 00:54:43:00
Peter Shallard
Every single day. It's the content creator who's like 500 words and new content every single day. It's there's a famous story that Jerry Seinfeld tells about how the early days of his he used to write a joke a day, not because it was his goal to write a joke a day. It was his goal to be a hit stand up comedian.

00:54:43:01 - 00:55:06:07
Peter Shallard
But he would check the box on his calendar and make a practice, make a habit out of this. And so the answer, the big tip for closing the action result gap is if you can if you can make a game out of the proximal goals and start to track gamify those things, find something to check every day. The thing you check won't be what you want.

00:55:06:07 - 00:55:27:08
Peter Shallard
It won't be getting in shape, but it will be eating the salad and getting 10,000 steps on your pedometer. Right. Or doing the daily workout or whatever it is. And if you can build and this is how some of the most effective behavior change methods in the world works, how CrossFit works, right? It makes a game out of doing the stuff that gets you to where you ultimately want to go.

00:55:27:10 - 00:55:44:17
Peter Shallard
So that's the way that you close the action result gap. And if you take that gamification process where you're measuring something, you're tracking it, you're playing a game of checking it off, then you add accountability. On top of that, you ten x the effectiveness of the whole system so.

00:55:44:19 - 00:56:06:11
Itamar Marani
That I wish I was out of my home office right now so I could tell the camera and show the whiteboard when I was writing the book, which is pretty much been the most, I would say, dopamine, poor environment of business that I've been in a long time and just have those checkmarks like how many deep work trunks that I get today, how many times I was able to incorporate some feedback today and just working without gamifying it.

00:56:06:11 - 00:56:07:20
Itamar Marani
It makes a giant difference.

00:56:07:22 - 00:56:20:19
Peter Shallard
Writing a book is one of the biggest action result gaps that we can, you know, you can get into. It's like a years long action result gap and yeah, so congrats for getting through it and that's how it's done.

00:56:20:21 - 00:56:43:22
Itamar Marani
So Peer, I want to say a big thank you for coming on the program. This was a really insightful conversation both about burnout, achievement and the importance of accountability and also recognizing that it's not a defeat to. Admit that you need a kind of ability. It's just a decision like, do I want to go by myself or do I want to like, have the humility to have the strength to help others take me really, really far, really fast?

00:56:44:02 - 00:56:52:00
Itamar Marani
Yeah. I want to thank you for coming on. And can you please let everybody know where they can find you, how they can reach out, how they can learn more about commit action.

00:56:52:01 - 00:57:09:00
Peter Shallard
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been super fun. There's you can come check us out at commitaction.com. So what we do, we have accountability, we have a number of different ways to play. You can work one on one with our accountability coach. We've got some accountability groups and we've got a course that teaches our whole methodology.

00:57:09:05 - 00:57:25:20
Peter Shallard
If you want to kind of do it at your own pace, approach where you can like figure out how to build this yourself. If you want to connect with me, best place to find me is on LinkedIn. I post little tips there every single day. So I'm just Peter Shallard On LinkedIn, you can look me up some of your questions, say hi.

00:57:25:22 - 00:57:32:12
Peter Shallard
I'd love to hear from anybody who's listening to this and and connect. Thanks for having me, man. This is been great.

00:57:32:14 - 00:57:37:17
Itamar Marani
We're going to have all these links in the show notes below, guys. Untll next time. Thank you very much.