You’re Avoiding The Most Important Thing

Why can’t you achieve your 10 year goals in 6 months? This is one of my favorite thought experiments from the renowned contrarian and renegade investor Peter Thiel. Every time I ask myself this question, particularly when layered upon itself, I helplessly zero-in on the most important thing that I can do in any moment. If complexity is the biggest barrier to execution then focusing on the most important thing is the solution.

Often I find myself making things more difficult than they need to be because of my perception of what I’m trying to accomplish. As I waste energy and IQ on making my plans sound more officialized and well-thought out, I’m actually just making it harder to move the needle. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there are usually just 1 to 2 things that I’m actively avoiding out of fear or perceived difficulty, that produce 90% of the outcomes that I actually care about.

The awesome thing about Peter’s exercise is that it can be applied to basically anything. In business the highest ticket item is typically pitching higher level clients or people that you feel are out of your league. In learning a new skill, it might be jumping to the part of the content where you feel most likely to be caught swimming naked. In other words, I’ve found that the things we feel intimidated by or the things that we are afraid to feel, are often an incredibly good clue to our best next move. At our most honest, we often already know what the most important thing is, but we invent clever side tasks to allow us to meander around the key needle movers. In true Tim Ferriss fashion, once the elephant is taken care of the other stuff often becomes obviously unnecessary or infinitely easier.