Last friday Paul sent me this message: 

"I have a question running through my mind and I think you are the best person I know to help me answer it.

I am launching a new product this Sunday and I've put myself in warrior mode until we finish the launch in two weeks.

• Exercising regularly
• No days off
• Sleeping early
• No sex

My question is should I go to the beach to relax this weekend or should I stay home and keep grinding until the launch."

It's a good question, but since I don't know Paul that well yet I had to ask two follow up questions before I could answer:

1. How close are you to reaching your red zone, where you're tired and ineffective?
2. How easy will it be for you to switch back on if you switch off? Will you be able to re-focus come Monday or will it take you a few precious days to ramp back up again?

Once he responded that he's 80% on the way to red lining and can re-focus without any issues, telling him to go to the beach made sense.

I wished him luck, told him that I hope he killed it with the launch and thought that was that... 

But then things took an interesting twist.

He responded: 

"lol. I have to kill it with this launch."

Him writing that was a BIG red flag.

Paul has a stable mid 6-figure business that's very profitable. So his feeling that his current launch had to kill it was a cause for concern.

So I asked him "Why does it 'have to' succeed?"

And he said "Because you don't go to fight with the mindset to lose. You have to be sure that you do everything in your power to be in the best position to win."

Outcome vs Process

Paul's answer was interesting. On one hand everything he wrote was true, but it was still an unproductive mindset for him to have.

He was process-oriented and trying to put himself "in a position to win." 

Yet on the other hand he was focused on not having a negative outcome.

"You don't go into a fight with a mindset to lose."

One was helping him achieve success and the other was putting negative pressure on him that was causing him to stress out.... and be less effective.

There's a saying that in life (and in business) a â…“ of the outcome is determined by us, a â…“ by our opponents and a â…“ is down to chaos/god.

Unfortunately Paul was giving focus to what he couldn't control, the outcome. Which by definition meant that he gave less of his focus to what he could control ie. putting himself "in a position to win."

On top of making him less effective, focusing on the outcome was causing him stress that almost had him redlining and burning out right before the launch.

But Paul is a smart entrepreneur who knows better than focusing on what he can't control. So why was he still doing it?

Our Heroes Play Zero Sum Games

"You don't go into a fight with a mindset to lose"

Interesting that someone who's launching a product that will complement the rest of his already stable business would choose to look at a launch like a fight, right?

But it makes sense when we look at our heroes.

Elite athletes play to "win or go home", special forces operators preach a "kill or be killed" mentality and a lot of successful entrepreneurs say that "if you're not first, you're last."

I broke it down to him like this:

"War is a zero sum game. If you lose, you die. game over. 

So yes, in a fight, in war, you "have to" win.

But that kind of pressure is what causes a lot of elite soldiers to freeze up and underperform when bullets fly.

The fortunate reality is that this launch will never kill you. You don't "have to" win. 

Yes, it would be amazing to win and it's a great mindset to do all that you can to put yourself in a position to do so... but saying to yourself that you "have to" isn't true nor helpful.

It will put excess and unrealistic pressure that doesn't help your performance... which in turn will detract from the results.

You probably don't recognize how much this "have to" mindset is draining you."

There was a long pause on his end and he finally responded by saying:

"????

That's why I'm feeling like the pressure is getting to be too much!

Thanks a lot man!"

I reminded him that this launch was something he GETS TO do not something he HAS TO do and wished him a good time at the beach.

How to take action on this now

Next time you feel overwhelmed or start to get stressed out go through this 3 step process:

1. Zoom out of your emotions by asking:

"What's the actual consequence of things not going 100% with this task? Is this something that could actually lead me to ruin if it flops?"

2. Reframe your view of the situation by asking:

Is this something that I "have to" do or something that I "get to" do? Is this a burden that will ruin me if I don't succeed or is this an opportunity to keep building an amazing life?

3. Direct your focus to what will actually serve you and embrace the process by asking:

What's the one thing that I should dedicate my focus to right now?

P.S. As you might have guessed Paul absolutely smashed the launch. I couldn't be happier for him. 🙂