scale your business with a zero risk work ethic, trying harder

Summary

today I want to share the lens I look at everything through. the ATT framework. average, trying, trying harder.

it came out of pilot training. I was surrounded by Harvard and MIT guys with way more flight time than I had, and I realized fast that the only superpower I could bring was willingness to try harder than anyone in the room. that’s it. and that mentality is what carried me out of the Air Force and into entrepreneurship.

here’s the framework:

1. average. picks up a book on the subject they want to learn. takes a year to finish. calls that growth. honestly, most “average” doesn’t even get that far.

2. trying. reads two or three books. finishes them in two or three months. moving in the right direction, putting in effort, but capped.

3. trying harder. two things: volume and precision. 15 to 20 books on one subject, finished in three months, with a syllabus and self-tests to make sure it’s actually sticking. then narrow that effort onto one precise area until you’ve mastered it.

trying harder is how you make failure unreasonable. you stack so much effort behind one thing that the odds of it not working drop to almost nothing. and the reason most people don’t do it isn’t ability, it’s the fear of effort being wasted. but the math works the other way. the more effort you stack, the less wasted it is.

Transcript

the lens I look at everything through

Today I’m going to share with you the lens through which I look at everything. This framework has helped me succeed as a military officer, in pilot training, and as an entrepreneur. All right, if we rewind back to 2010, I was in NeuroNATO Joint Jet Pilot Training in the United States Air Force. And one thing that I realized very quickly is that there were a lot of advanced human beings there.

I mean, people from MIT, people from Harvard, really qualified people. And that was not my background. You know, they had a lot of smart people, like a ton of flying experience too. I had very little flying experience. I did pretty well in college. I did well enough to get selected to be in the seats next to these guys that I was sitting next to.

But ultimately, I was very intimidated when I got to NeuroNATO Joint Jet Pilot Training. But one thing I realized very quickly is my only superpower, the only trait that I had that I was willing to put forth was the fact that I would try harder than anyone else. I mean, I was willing to put in the work. And some of those guys just didn’t need to study as long as I needed to study.

They didn’t need to put in as many hours as I needed to put in. But that was my superpower. And it wasn’t until that moment that I truly realized it.

And once I kind of crafted that as like, okay, this is what it takes. It’s then what I used when I got out of the Air Force to catapult forward into entrepreneurship. I was like, this is, I’m just going to take the same principles here. Whatever anyone else is doing, I’m just going to do more of it. I will just get everyone by volume. I will do more. I will read more. I will just do more. And then I eventually turned this into a framework, which I call the ATT framework.

And that’s what I’m going to be going over briefly today. So the first thing is average. So a lot of people are just giving average attempts. And so this would be, if we want to take the example of trying to learn something new. So if you want to learn something new, you’re going to have to take a course, read a book, whatever the case is. An average person will really just kind of, in all honesty, most average people won’t do much. That’s the reality.

where the ATT framework came from

But let’s say an average person who’s moving in the direction of, hey, I want to learn more. They might grab a book, buy a book on the subject they want to learn, and they will sit it on the table and they’ll go over it. It might take them three, four, five, six months, maybe a year, and they finish it. And they’re like, yeah, you know what? I really learned something there.

That’s what an average person is going to do when they want to learn a new subject or they want to start developing themselves. Whatever the case is, that’s average. And to be honest, that’s the best case scenario for average. That’s the A in the ATT framework. The next is going to be trying. Now you’re going to stumble across some people who are actually trying. Now these people, they might ultimately move in that direction.

They might get two or three books and they finish them in two to three months. And they really dive into what they need to learn. And they are giving it an effort. They’re moving in the right direction. And that’s awesome. They’re diving in more than the average person. They’re putting forth the effort. You can really tell that they are trying. They are that human being. And that’s great. They’re going to see some progress.

They’re going to see a lot more progress than the average person, but they’re not going to ultimately see the true progress they want. And it’s not until you get to the final T in the ATT framework, which is going to be trying harder, that you see the results that you are actually looking for. Okay, so what is trying harder in the same scenario? So the average person maybe picks up a book, maybe not at all.

It takes them a year to read it. Trying, same kind of category, but they’re up a step from that. They got two or three books. They go through it a little bit faster. Trying harder is completely different. Trying harder is about two things, volume and precision. So volume is something that doesn’t scare somebody who’s ultimately okay with trying harder. They will read 15 books on a given category.

average vs. trying vs. trying harder

They will outline an entire program or syllabus for themselves in which they need to read and set the dates in which they need to finish it. If it’s two weeks per book, one week per book, they’re going to do that. They’re going to take meticulous notes. They’re going to summarize the things that they’re learning.

Then they’re going to test themselves on that to see if they truly are understanding the concepts, not passively learning or passively listening to a book. They are actively trying to master a subject through having a good program and through going through as much volume as possible, as quick as possible.

That’s the volume part of trying harder. Volume and precision. Volume, just going 15, 20 books, and I’m going to knock this out in three months. So you see, it’s the same as trying. It’s just got a volume element to it. They’re trying harder. They’re trying to get as many books as they possibly can in the shortest amount of time that is feasible. So that’s a big part of trying harder.

Now we talk about precision. Precision is also a big part of trying harder. It means you are going to put all of your effort on one precise area and you’re going to focus on that area until you have mastered it. It’s the one thing principle. I am going to dive into marketing. I am going to master marketing. I’m going to master Facebook ads. And so let’s go down that rabbit hole for a second. So say you wanted to do Facebook ads for your business and you were pretty confident that could grow your business. You’re like, you know what? I’ve had some friends do it.

And I think that this is ultimately what’s actually going to scale my business. Average person probably never gets around to it. The person who’s trying will maybe just turn on some ads and then maybe they’re not seeing the ROI right away. So they, eh, whatever, not working. Trying harder. You are going to own that. You are either going to meticulously interview different ad agencies to see which one’s the best and you’re going to hire them, or you’re going to take the courses, watch all the videos, do everything you can to test and to keep going down this path with advertising until you master it.

volume and precision

It’s just a different level of success and a different level of effort. Ultimately, I define trying harder as giving an attempt in which failure is unreasonable. Now, when you understand that definition, it doesn’t mean you cannot fail. It’s making failure unreasonable. An attempt in which failure is unreasonable.

So if I said, hey, go learn Facebook ads for your business and you’re in the trying hard category. And I’m like, go make an attempt in which failure is unreasonable. Well, if you’re like, well, I took 15 different courses. I read a book on it. I did all of these different things. I prepared. I tested my ads frequently.

I tested different creative and copy and I did this for six months, 90 days, whatever the case is. And you still fail. I’ll be like, well, you definitely tried hard. You went all in on that specific thing. But what happens when you give attempts like that is I’m not saying you can’t fail or you shouldn’t fail, but your failure likelihood goes way, way, way down when you make attempts that make failure unreasonable.

That’s not the case in the average and trying categories. If you’re average or you’re trying, it’s very possible for you to fail because you’re making half ass attempts. You’re making attempts that an average person will do or just slightly above average. You’re just making kind of an attempt that’s very easy to fail from because you’re not giving the volume or the precision required to truly see success in that category.

And that’s what trying harder is. So I talk about trying harder all the time. I talk about it in this podcast. I end most of my, you know, podcast episodes, videos, everything with trying harder. I talk about trying harder on Instagram, almost to an annoying level. I even get sick of saying it sometimes, but I consult for so many people and I see it over and over again.

making failure unreasonable

They just simply aren’t trying hard enough. And it’s getting harder in this day and age to continue to give that level of effort. And the reason being is because we’re so scattered. We are watching this Instagram video on that, this YouTube video on another thing, reading this article, we have friends and peers doing different things.

We are so scattered that we’re afraid to focus in precision is a very large part of trying harder. It’s focusing all of your effort and attention on one thing to move the needle on that one thing. And once you see the mood, the needle move, you’re going to get addicted to it. And you’re going to want to keep that level of effort up because you’re going to realize, oh shit, this is what it takes to move the needle in my business.

This is what it takes to get to the next level. Once you hit the trying hard category and everyone else is over here in the average and trying category, you are just going to blow them away. It’s a secret weapon. It’s a superpower that a lot of people just simply do not have because they’re afraid to put in the effort. And there is some fear to that because what if you try hard in the wrong area and it doesn’t work, you’ve just wasted a whole lot of time, effort, and energy.

But like I said, when you give an attempt in which failure is unreasonable, your likelihood of failure goes so far down. So if you’re like, I’m going to put all my time, effort, and energy on this marketing strategy, the likelihood of that failing very, very low, but the likelihood of it failing, if you just kind of pencil whip it and you don’t really put that much effort into it, you don’t follow a checklist, you don’t do it right every single time, that’s trying. I mean, you’re above the average person who’s probably doing nothing.

You’re trying, but the chances of you failing very high, at least 50-50. I want a 1% chance of failure. So I’m going to do everything I can in my attempts to make sure that failure is very unreasonable. And you should do the same thing if you want the superpower that moves your business forward, moves your life forward, because you can apply this everywhere as a father, as a husband, as a business owner, as a person just trying to become a better human. Trying harder is your superpower. So do I really need to say it? I guess I will. Try harder, live bigger.