6 Powerful Ways To Separate Yourself From The Masses

1. Airplane Mode Until #1 Task Is Done

"Eat the frog," popularized by Brian Tracy, is the concept of doing your most important task first thing in the morning.

Leaving your phone on airplane mode during certain times of the day or while you're working is a common productivity hack.

Combine these two and you'll be completely unstoppable.

It's 11:24 a.m. as I write this sentence. This morning, I spent about 45 minutes praying, studying scriptures, getting ready, and eating breakfast. After that, I finished 2 articles and I'm writing a third. I manage Dr. Benjamin Hardy's blog as well as my own.

My phone is still in airplane mode. When I turn it on, there will be dozens of messages to read and send. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

2. Give Where Others Are Taking

I now work as a marketing strategist for Dr. Benjamin Hardy, the #1 writer on all of Medium.com from 2015-2018.

The biggest thing I've learned from Dr. Hardy is giving.

In his first book, Willpower Doesn't Work, he shares the story of joining Genius Network.

Now, if you're on his newsletter, he shared how he left that same network this year to go all-in on writing books.

This is key:

Give in situations where others take.

This is similar to Warren Buffett's investing mindset when he said:

"Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful."

In Willpower Doesn't Work, he shares the story of how most people join high-level mastermind groups with the mindset of what they can extract or get from the members of the group.

In contrast, he came with the goal to give.

Because of that, key influential people in that mastermind promoted his first book as if it was their own. Joe Polish literally gave away his own Tesla to support the launch of Willpower Doesn't Work.

He also formed a strategic alliance with Dan Sullivan and, hundreds of thousands of copies and 3 bestselling books later, he's seeing the fruits of just giving.

There are so many situations where people just want to take.

If you really want to stand out, join a network and ask how you can help.

Reply to comments. Answer questions.

Show up and be there for people without any expectation of reward or recompense.

This is literally so easy to do, and most people don't do it.

As world-renowned executive coach Richie Norton says:

"Don't ask to pick someone's brain. Nobody wants to have their brain picked."

3. Eliminate Traditional Learning Curve Deadlines

From 2021-2023, I went on a volunteer mission trip full-time for my church.

A few days ago, I finished my first semester of formal education after that experience. It's been nearly 3 years since I was last in school.

I was mediocre at managing my time in the beginning of the semester.

For my midterm on IS 520, a highly technical and advanced spreadsheet automation course with Excel VBA programming, I got an 85.5%.

If I had stayed on the same course, I would have gotten a B in the class. This isn't what my future self desired or wanted, however.

I also have several other classes to take, a part-time job, a growing consulting business, and a social life. I simply didn't have dozens of hours to devote to studying this technical material that I genuinely would have liked.

So, I listened to Scott Young's book Ultralearning as I walked around campus.

I pulled out two main ideas from this book:

• Apply learning directly to a project instead of for the sake thereof.
• Force yourself to answer things before you feel ready.

I spent about 2-4 hours going through the test study guide. Because I had learned in Ultralearning how much stronger your learning will be if you test yourself before you think you are ready, I wrote down extensive paragraphs of my complete answers to each definition and concept in the study guide.

I did this without consulting any of my notes from any class and without looking at the textbook.

Afterwards, I compared. There were some concepts I had wildly off. But the rest, I had down. I knew much more than I thought I did. I forced my brain to recall the things I had already learned in class.

Was this harder? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes.

I did exceptionally well on the final, such that I got an A in the class overall.

I learned more from those two books about how to study than I would have in years of trial-and-error.

Take advantage of the resources around you. They are there to help and support you.

When I arrived on test day, I controlled my pre-frame. I brought my scratch paper in with me and wrote at the top, "I am a master of Excel VBA Programming. I will get a perfect score on this test."

I then applied what I learned in Adam Grant's Think Again and selected a gut-response answer to every question after scanning it for 15 seconds or so.

I then went back through the test and sought to prove myself wrong. I forced myself to prove why, on a multiple-choice test, every single answer was wrong except for the one that I had chosen.

I was willing to be proven wrong. In fact, I was excited to prove myself wrong. As Daniel Kahneman said:

"I don't agree with everything I wrote in that book. And I'm so glad that I don't. It means I've changed and grown."

I changed some of my answers several times. I was psychologically flexible. I continued working throughout the test until I was done.

The time flew by.

I improved nearly 9%, only missing 2 questions on a test that was considerably more points and harder. Not only that, I spent less time studying for this test than I had before.

4. Make The LPs Money

I had the privilege of participating in Venture Capital for Startups this semester. This is a class guest-taught by a local VC firm, Kickstart Fund.

On the 3rd or 4th week of class, Matt Smith came to our class to present. We were discussing the legal structure of how a venture fund operates. Oftentimes, the term venture capital is so nebulous there are all sorts of bizarre ideas of what venture capitalists actually do.

One slide had the answer.

Make the LPs money.

At the end of the day, that is the VC's job. Contrary to what you may have seen on Shark Tank, the VC's job is not to find the coolest companies. The VC's job is not to look good on camera. The VC's job isn't even to make themselves money, although that's a big part of it.

The VC's job is to make the LPs money.

Who are LPs?

LP stands for limited partner. LPs are limited because they don't have full decision-making authority in the investment, but they're partners because they supply money to the VC firm.

Contrary to popular belief, VCs are not simply wealthy individuals who have lots of their own money lying around to invest. Many become wealthy though their investments but the wealth follows their investing, not the other way around.

Venture capitalists are much more like fund managers, who collect money from a whole bunch of investors to build an aggregated fund. The fund then invests in startup companies.

The conversation of the class then shifted to how you as an entrepreneur should approach a fundraising round. The only thing, at the end of the day, that the venture capitalists care about, is whether your business will provide astronomical returns to the LPs or not.

Although your product, customer support, market size, and all of the other factors may be useful, the most useful thing that you can share as an entrepreneur is how your business will fulfill their goal of returning the fund.

This requires empathy. It requires getting outside yourself.

You may not be an entrepreneur, and you may not be raising a seed round.

The lesson behind this statement, however, is powerful.

What does your boss want? What does the customer want?

Think about it from the other perspective and you'll see miracles happen.

In business, your job is always to make money for the organization you work for. If you can't see how your labors directly contribute to that making happening, examine your own performance.

5. Find The Best Product

I don't work with companies unless they have the best product.

One night, I was walking home from campus with a friend after a long day of studying. She shared with me that she recently got accepted into law school. I shared that I've been exposed to dozens of different opportunities within the business school, but there's a lot of noise to determining what you really want.

We began discussing sales, and she said something that stuck with me.

"If I was to sell a product I believed in, it'd probably have to be my own product."

Whether you directly work in sales, or you don't, what is the product you offer?

Do you really believe in that product?

Why or why not?

In organizational psychology, there are 3 types of trust within any organization:

• Personal trust: whether an employee likes their coworkers, boss, reports, secretary, and so forth.
• Strategic trust: whether an employee trusts the management and executives of the organization.
• Organizational trust: whether the employee believes that the organization itself is doing good in the world and making it a better place.

Do you trust the product you build?

Do you buy it yourself?

I would get yourself to a place where you believe enthusiastically and wholeheartedly in the success and quality of the product.

Organizations have headaches. They have delays, mistakes, and frustrations.

But if you can go to work every day, knowing that you have the best product in the world, you'll be unashamed of selling it.

6. Make More Asks

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

I've asked girls on dates who have said no. I've also asked girls on dates who have said yes.

I've applied for jobs that I didn't get. I've also gotten dream jobs that I really wanted.

I've gotten test scores I didn't like. I've also gotten test scores in the 98th percentile.

You don't get what you don't ask for.

Recently, I was appointed to become the VP of Resources for BYU's Management Consulting Association.

Why?

I asked to be.

Life is too short not to ask. Ask for what you truly want.