Layered Goals! — Quotidian — 455

(Transcript of video originally posted on 11Mar 2023)

They usually call these “Systems”.. How important are they? Whatever you want to achieve, whatever your goals, to reach them, the importance of systems.. I saw a beautiful visual and quote, recently, that conveyed the importance wonderfully. So, it compares this… “trampoline attempt” trying to reach the goal.. This is a BAD system. It compares that.. with THIS system. A GOOD system. A ladder. An appropriately tall ladder. A well-balanced ladder. You can keep getting closer and closer to the goal. A GOOD system. The author, we know him well already, James Clear, says:- “You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall.. You stay.. At the level of your systems..” So, instead of aiming at something, and chasing towards it.., have a SYSTEM, and focus on elevating your system.. That should be your focus. Interesting, is it not?!

Namaste! Four hundred and fifty-five is about “Layering” Goals. And.. instead of looking at like this, as stacked steps.., it might be more relevant to look at it like this.. onion-skin fashion. There is a core goal. But what additional layers can I apply over it so that the probability of achieving it increases.

I am quite sure many of you remember Quotidian 433. We encountered this story! “And, just when the king was about to down that potion in a gulp, the minister intervened and said, “Just a minute, your Majesty. You need to also know where this potion is coming from..!​ ​So, this is the white mandrill from deep in the jungles of Africa. We have concocted this potion by taking teardrops from its eyes, mucus from its nostrils, and saliva from its fangs and combining them on a full moon night. Just don’t try to remember where this is coming from. You may be able to drink it only then!!” And, this story is used typically, to talk about the memory.. the HOOK of the memory.. and how some things can be very hard to UNREMEMBER. And I thought, the story ended there. But, recently, I came across something else, which seemed to be a very nice antidote to this threat. The author of that article says, “If you are caught in such an impasse.., there is something else you can do to counter..

Like fighting fire with fire.. Oh, the Congo Mandrill?? No problem. Consider this. Careful. It might psyche you out.. this snake. I will show it to you, if you are ready. Are you ready?? Okay! THIS!! This is the TWO-HEADED ALBINO ANACONDA!! Two heads! No skin pigmentation! Anaconda! I am sure you have forgotten that monkey!! That is the antidote. If you are distracted by something, identify, invent, concoct, something even more interesting that the other hook falls off! How about that!

Anyway, we were talking about goal setting. And, let us briefly look at why goals are so hard to achieve.. Consider the plight of this man. I really don’t know whether to call that a “plight”! This is Usain Bolt. The one and only! 2008, 2012, 2016! Hundred metres, Two hundred metres, Four hundred metres.. Gold Gold Gold, Gold Gold Gold, Gold Gold ….. Gold. (But, was stripped from him because somebody else had been caught using drugs..). But, nine golds! Across 12 years. Champion of Champions. But, did you know this little tidbit about him?? Five minutes and thirty seconds is all that he has run. Just five and a half minutes. His overall Olympic running.. across twelve years, is five-and-a-half minutes. It is five-and-a-half minutes since I started talking in this video! How does one set a goal? The Olympics calendar has been announced.. The date and time of the Olympics 100 metres finals has been declared. The morning of that fateful day, ten seconds. Everything will be decided. How do I set a goal for something like that?? That is the plight of people like him. That is the plight of all of us, when you set a goal.

But.. if there is a goal, what CAN it do to you? Why do we even have a goal? By reaching that goal, is it just the goal that we attain? Or, are there other benefits?! Here are three.. The first thing is you have a sense of achievement. You summit Mount Everest, and you are on top of the world. Peaked! Everybody else is below you. A sense of achievement. It will boost your ego too! The second advantage or benefit in any kind of goal-setting is you get to focus your time and energy.. You get to channelise them. We get up every day.. We float around in the current every day. And, we curl up in bed at the end of every day. Instead of whiling our life away like this, something that motivates us.. And, finally, great amounts of learning and beautiful opportunities to grow.. If getting a driving license were our goal.., do we end up just getting the driving license? We get new confidence. You become alert about the environment. You observe other cars differently. Till today, you had been observing them as a pedestrian. Now, you observe a car differently. You learn a new perspective about the things around you. That is what a simple thing like a driving license can give you. So.., don’t come at me with, “Why do I need a goal in the first place?!” It helps!

So, we are going to see four layers.. To attain a goal, can there be phases.. layers.. The first layer is called the CRAZY Layer. What is the CRAZY Layer?

Consider the Boeing. Boeing, during the 1930s, 1940s, they were bomb-carrying vessels for the American Air Force. It would carry bombs, and drop them among the enemy’s territory. Such a company.. when the World War ended, it seems it went through.. these days we talk about layoffs.. five percent of our employees will be laid off.. ten percent.. consider these numbers. There were 51,000 employees at Boeing at that time. They slashed it TO, not by!!, to 7500! Imagine 51,000 employees in a company suddenly becoming 7500 employees! That’s what happened to Boeing. Somebody had an idea.. Let us build a jet airliner. A jet-engine powered passenger-carrying vehicle. “The idea is good.. yes.. but we don’t have the experience! All that we have carried till now.., they have just been bombs! Air Force has been our only customer all these years! And, all our competitors are saying propeller-driven airplanes will be the future.. Not jets! And, guess what the budget for that is?? Whatever profit we have made in the past five years, four times that much money we will have to pump into this just to get a prototype done!” And, at that moment, the Boeing management said, “Go ahead.. Let’s have a crazy goal. An audacious goal. BeeHAG. Remember? Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Go ahead.” Remember the attempt to send a rocket to the moon? Putting a man on the moon?! A big, hairy, audacious goal. A CRAZY goal.

Take this goal, for example. I want to create software.. probably artificially intelligent, computer-vision-based software, that will track the video of a game, that will identify individual players, split them into teams, and keep score. That is my dream goal. Is it even possible?? Sounds crazy.. outlandish.. far beyond reach.. BeeHAG! The problem with such goals is.. you can’t say, Monday I will do laundry, Tuesday I will go to the office, and Wednesday I will have the software ready.. That is not how a crazy goal works..

In fact, there is even a Keyword Question for it. Look at this question. “Wouldn’t it be simply unbelievably amazing if…” That is a crazy goal. Can you do that? When you fill that blank in… how do you feel…? If you get that amazing feeling, if you feel that only in such a sentence you can place that goal, that is your Crazy Goal. So, set a goal like that. That is the CRAZY layer.

The second layer is the CONCRETE Layer. This has been laid out in many different ways by many different people.

One important and popular version of that is the SMART Goals chart. Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Relevant. Timed. If you want to achieve something, lay it down specifically. Make it measurable. What is needed. When is it needed. How should it look. Define it. And, this is the time when you start moving away from your eventual goal, that destination, and start moving towards your process. How do you measure? What do you measure? When do you see that there is progress happening? Answers for these questions…

What is the Keyword Question for this? How would I know when I’ve achieved my crazy goal? That is when you have a CONCRETE Layer in place. Crazy. Concrete. But, then, is everything under your control? Yes, that is the third layer.

The CONTROL Layer.

“I need to train daily!” Okay, but what if it is raining..? You can’t play basketball.. You may perhaps be able to swim. But you can’t play basketball.. What are the things in your control? That “Will it make the boat go faster” book? Remember? Everything in that book, all the strategies that they describe is driven by that one question. Every time you reach a dilemma point, “Should I?”, “Shouldn’t I?” — Whenever you face those questions, you tell yourself, “Yes, I have taken this decision because a dotted line from the final goal that I wanted to reach.. that crazy goal.. This is in my control”. We will probably ignore things that are beyond our control. But, we WILL do everything within our control to move a little closer to our destination.

So, here, the Keyword Question is, “What is inside our control?” And, “What can we do to drive towards our crazy goal? How do we turn towards it? (Sometimes, we are distracted, so we need to turn towards the goal..) and how do we move faster towards it? (Sometimes, you are slowed down, so we need to speed up in your movement towards the goal..) When we talk about velocity, it involves both direction and magnitude.. Aiming both of those towards the goal.. for which we need Control. That is the CONTROL Layer. What measures, what checks and balances, can you put in place, that are within your scope of control.

Fine. What’s the fourth layer? The last one.. The fourth layer is the EVERYDAY Layer.. In the EVERYDAY Layer, you probably lose sight of the eventual goal because it has been atomised..

Remember this book? It has been atomised into decisions you take, habits you grow, milestones you create, one day at a time.. You have pulverised it.. There is that old saw about a pygmy being asked “How do you eat an elephant?” That person is shorter than the kneecap of the elephant.. And he quips, “I don’t eat an elephant. I eat elephant cutlets.” So, I never scope out the whole goal, it is all in bits and pieces, and I take it one at a time.. So, how do you atomise? That is the fourth layer.

The Keyword Question there is, “What can I do TODAY?” Want to climb Mount Everest? What can I do today? Instead of taking the elevator up, can I climb the stairs? That is an EVERYDAY Layer.

And, by the way, let us not forget this lady. I don’t know who she is. I just picked it off randomly from the web. But, I am sure there is a story. Look at all the other people she has left behind.. She is running a marathon. In Mumbai. Look at her. Wearing shoes and a saree. I am quite sure she is running for a cause. She may even win this.. She may come ahead of all those other people there. Because they are running for medals and certificates. But, this woman is probably running to raise funds for a cancer patient perhaps. Or, to make a point about women empowerment perhaps. She has a better WHY. Don’t forget that.

We talked about the four layers. What was that again? Crazy. Concrete. Control. Everyday. C.C.C.E..? So hard to remember. Can’t you give us something to remember it easily with, I hear you ask. I tried mnemonics of various kinds. Nothing worked. So, I went to Leonardo Da Vinci. He had drawn the Vitruvian Man. You can easily remember him, can’t you? So, let me help you remember these four layers using this famous piece of art. Because, the first layer is crazy, and all craziness resides here, in the brain. Loony. Crazy. Go down gradually from there.. The second layer is Concrete. The measurement layer. You can measure with your eyes. Taste with your tongue. Smell with your nose. Hear with your ears. Most measurements happen using these organs. That’s your CONCRETE Layer. And then, what’s in our hands? What can we do? That is the hand. And, from the hand, comes the CONTROL. The third layer. And, finally, remember the old saying in English? “Put in the hard yards”.. You have to work hard.. You have to walk the talk. You can’t just indulge in empty talk. That is represented by the Legs. You have to walk the hard yards. Put in the hard yards. Every day. Crazy. Concrete. Control. Everyday. What goal are YOU going to set? I am going to be on the lookout. We will meet soon, on the 16th of this month. Thank you!