When everyone's trying shortcuts
You can differentiate yourself
Hey friend.
This week’s deep dive is something important to be aware of. Plus, a final note on the ongoing experiment.
Let’s dive in.
Main quest 🛡
I’ve seen many people online whether it is on subreddits, online forums, or Discord groups making questions like…
“What’s the best way to do X?”
“What’s the best tool for Y?”
“How can I get Z fast?”
And any other variations.
Those are all code words for “how can I skip all the hard stuff and get the desired result”.
And I’m there thinking “man, you’re not gonna make it”.
But I get it.
I understand why it is that way. The tendency of all of us to take the “path of least resistance” or the “law of least effort”.
And the scary part nowadays is that with AI there’s even less effort that people are putting in.
They want to “not be replaced by AI” but they’re putting AI to do all the work (and sometimes all the thinking as well).
Quite the irony.
But even with all the tools, assistance, and AI, sometimes you just have to do the work.
There's no other way around it.
"Work smarter not harder" is a common trope.
But the "smart work" won't save you from doing the work.
Especially, if you're learning a new skill or starting in a new field.
If you're learning basketball, you have to practice your throws.
If you're learning painting, you have to practice the strokes.
If you're learning how to write online, you have to practice writing posts, articles, tweets, emails, whatever it is.
One last example...
If you're getting into lead generation, you have to practice writing and sending emails. Some subject lines and copy will work and others won't.
But you won't find out unless you practice it.
In other words, even when you don't have to do everything manually and can leverage tools to make the work easier...
The work still needs to be done.
And there's no shortcut for it.
But here's another thing that most people overlook.
When you put in the reps and get a good amount of practice, you'll find lessons that either...
You won't find in a regular course.
Or...
They won't make sense at first and you'll forget them.
It is only after you gain the experience from doing something and "failing" that you'll be like "ahhh, now I see why it is that way".
If you've ever had any previous success in your life, it is because you've learned from previous mistakes and done a better job afterwards.
(The opposite is also true.)
So, all those people I mentioned in the beginning…
They're cheating themselves out of the results.
They don't want to put in the work that's required to get the payoff.
And that's pretty common.
We don't want to do the hard stuff. We want "instant results".
We don't want to exercise and eat properly. We want to swallow a "magic pill" and lose the excess fat.
We don't want to go through the whole ordeal of creating and posting articles that don't get any views. We want to create one that "goes viral".
But if you are strategic, you can leverage all those past "failures" for the next time you create something new.
For instance, you launched a product that got many signups but made $0 money.
That "failed product" at least gave you a bigger audience from the buzz it generated and the email signups.
So, instead of feeling frustrated by the "failed attempts", you can extract the lessons and reach your goal much quicker.
As opposed to someone who disregards those previous attempts because they didn't fulfil expectations.
Experiments 🧪
Final update for the ongoing sleep experiment (and its close friend IF).
I know I said before that 7 and a half hours are my necessary amount of sleep.
But the days I’ve only slept that much, I still need some kind of nap. Or at least some time to lay down, rest, and do nothing.
Also, 6 am proved to be a difficult time to wake up regularly.
For several years I’ve woken up at 5 or 6 am over and over again with no issues. But not anymore it seems.
Although I’ve found that chronotypes can vary across our lifespan (which would make sense given the results of this experiment).
The takeaway for you is to… experiment.
Not because something worked many times in the past, means that it will keep working now or in the future.
Power-ups ✨
By the way, have you ever seen Phind before?
It says that is an “AI search engine” and “pair programmer”.
Quite weird to have that combo.
But from what I’ve tried so far, it’s actually pretty good.
You can choose between the Phind model and GPT-4 (there’s a limit for that last one tho).
Another cool tool to bridge the gap between wanting to do cool stuff and not knowing how to code.
From the vault 🏛️
Speaking about practice.
Here’s a blog post about a different kind. Something called “deliberate practice”.
Enjoy.
That’s it for now.
Thanks for reading. Take care and have a great start of the week.
Cheers,
Juan.