Melting Ice is a lucrative business

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Most people are familiar with the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The author, Stephen Covey walks through 7 habits that are designed to help the reader to be more effective.

1. Be Proactive

2. Begin With the End in Mind

3. Put First Things First

4. Think Win-Win

5. Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

6. Synergize

7. Sharpen the Saw

While I won’t dive into each individual habit and explain them, part of the structure of these habits is very intriguing to me. Covey calls the first 3 habits “private victories”, and the last 3 habits “public victories”.

The idea is that the first 3 habits bring a change in your mindset and attitude. No one will see this except for you.

Then, when you’ve mastered the first 3, you move onto the next 3 habits which change your actions and the way you interact with people. Everyone else will see this.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits has a very similar mental model to explain this. Picture this:

An ice cube, sitting on a table in a room that is 24 degrees is going to be solid ice. If you change the room to 25 degrees, nothing will happen. You can raise the temperature degree by degree all the way to 31 degrees, and still nothing will change.

But finally, at 32 degrees the inexplicable happens. The ice cube will turn to water! You don’t have to raise it any higher, eventually the ice cube melts.

When you are on the path of entrepreneurship, it can feel really demoralizing to not see any results from your efforts. But you have to start somewhere and lay the foundation so you can build towards where you want to be.

It’s impossible to raise the temperature to 32 degrees without first raising it to 25, 26, 27, and so on. You can’t skip the private victories to go straight to the public ones.

I often repeat this to myself when I feel I am not making progress towards my goals. “I am raising the temperature so that I can melt the ice”.

Thinker Thursday

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Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom

I recently came across a short story that forced me to rethink my life, priorities, and regrets: The Parable of the Farmer and the Horse. Here are the two lessons everyone needs to hear:

Nick Huber @sweatystartup

My brother runs a lawn care company. None of his competitors accept clients looking for a 1-time mow. He gets to charge 30% more and 50% of them turn into long term customers. Don't be shortsighted!

Books

Atomic Habits: James Clear

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Stephen Covey

Photography

mattbidstrupphoto

A post shared by Matt Bidstrup (@mattbidstrupphoto)

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