Why 10x Goals Are Easier Than 10% | Price Pritchett

What is a quantum leap in the first place? Can you explain that and define what a quantum leap is? And then we'll talk about how people can create that in their life. In 1974, I moved from Chicago, the firm I was with there, to Dallas, and started my own company. And then at the end of the 1970s, I decided to change our game and make a quantum leap in my own business. So what were you doing then? You were working with corporate clients at a certain rate and you had a certain amount of clients making a certain amount every year, maybe incremental gains. Exactly. Year after year, 5% percent. Business was going well, but I realized that what I was seeing on an individual executive level in terms of the quantum leaps, the vast differences in terms of people's achievement levels, companies would do the same things. Because let's say you got company A, $500 million company, 7% annual growth, okay? And it's doing good. Company B, about the same size might be a competitor. And it's half a billion dollar company and it's growing nicely. But then one day, company A goes out and acquires company C and it doubles just like that. And I was just fascinated by this because it met all the things I wanted to do. Merger integrations, mergers and acquisitions are the big table. That's the big game. It's the biggest game in business and that's where I wanted us to play. And so I had set this quantum leap goal for us, which was absurd, which I think really good quantum leap goals are. They're crazy. They're kind of crazy. They seem like unrealistic. Yes. We shouldn't be going after this. Right. Who are you to think you can do this? But I said we're going to be number one merger integration experts in the country. Wow. And we were in six years. I had no business setting out that kind of a goal. And people think, well, I don't know how to do this. So I can't do it. They focus on the means, not the ends. Right. And so it's like, well, I don't know how to do that. So that obviously, I can't do it. But anything of significance that a person has achieved over their life, they didn't know how to do it when they started. That's true. A quantum leap is one of those things that's dead solid, perfect within the realm of possibility for you. You just haven't done it yet. But it's a real stretch goal. And the thing about it is, if you set your goal right, it forces you out of your current modus operandi. If you set your goal correctly, how do you know how to set your goal the right way in order to create a quantum leap in your life? There's several things about goal setting that I think are real key points. If you're shooting to make this kind of an exponential leap in performance, so then first it needs to be a serious stretch goal. You need to scare the horses. It needs to scare you. Yeah. There needs to be some, but secondly, it needs to be a goal that it needs to be a love story around that goal, I think. Because when you go for a big goal, any goal of much significance, you're going to have some setbacks. You're going to have some obstacles that come along. You're going to get kind of banged up and bruised up maybe. And you need to care enough. The heart is what sustains you through that. And so people talk about a passion for this goal. And I think, well, that's a fine word and it fits. But some people say, well, I just don't have that passion. Well, you just need to care for it or at least be committed enough to it that you say, I'm going to stay the course. I will put myself out there. And I think that it needs to be your goal, not somebody else's goal for you. Not a should or ought to goal. I think fundamental mistake that a lot of people make is they don't believe in themselves enough and they don't reach high enough. It is that Astro Teller, who is the head of Google X, you know, their innovative arm that said 10% can be as hard as 10x. You know, a 10% improvement, not necessarily an improver. Small acquisitions where everybody's difficult to make work as the big ones, which is kind of a counterintuitive thought. I mean, normally people don't go out with their mind drifting down that path. But you squared the handbook is, it's kind of based on counterintuitive ideals, kind of things that stop you and kind of, you know, make yourself uncomfortable. You know, that's one of the points. Well, why would I want to do that? You're an athlete. If you're not willing to make yourself uncomfortable, you got to get off the field. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's almost like 10x is just as easy or just as challenging as 2x. And it's about how you frame it and about going after it the right way. It's what it sounds like. They're both going to be challenging. See, Miles will go for the bigger leap than the one that's like just a little bit more uncomfortable. So, so if people are looking to make more money, make a bigger impact and work with more influential people in their life or people that are more disciplined and up to a bigger game, which is what it sounds like that you wanted to do early in your career. You wanted to make more money. You wanted to make a bigger impact, a bigger difference. And you wanted to work with the leaders. What was it inside of you that said, okay, I'm going to make this quantum leap? Was there was it a moment that you feel like you put in all the work that you needed to? Was it an awakening? Was there a breakdown you were facing your life? Or you said, okay, I'm not happy with incremental growth year after year in my personal or professional life. What was that deciding moment that said, I'm going to try something unconventional and completely change the course of my life? Boredom. Boredom. Boredom and and just like a purpose and hungry. I was hungry for scaling up. I mean, really a major scaling up. I thought that we were, we weren't making any mistakes. You weren't failing enough. We weren't. I mean, we were on autopilot. I mean, the place it ran too smoothly. And it began to just bore me and I got disgusted. Why do people get so comfortable? Why did they get so comfortable? Yeah, when they used to have quantum leaps, you know, from not from crawling to walking to running to and then it's just kind of and then it's just kind of sitting. People are so different. I mean, they're so alike too. But they're so different and some people just have a much higher need for achievement. Some people have a much higher energy level. And some, you know, on and on and on. The human needs might be different. They're just different. Some people want growth. Some people want achievement. Some people want contribution. Some people want to a job that they want to nurture other people. I got a piece in psychology. I did year long clinical internship. I worked on a psychiatric ward. That is not. And I knew from the word go that that was not where I would end up. It just, but you got people, they're drawn to that. And that's some wonderful thing about the world, the difference. But the truth is, I don't care where I don't care what direction a person is drawn. They can make quantum leaps in that in that zone. Whatever their strike zone is. But I don't really spend a lot of time, I guess, trying to talk people into making a quantum leap unless they have something inside. Just, they've got to want it. Knowing Adam. They've got to be hungry. They've got to be you know, anxious about something changing. They've got to want to change. They do. Because some people know they want something more, but they don't know exactly what it is. Yeah. And so they're in the uncertainty of, well, I'm not sure which direction I should go in. And here's another problem I see is people have too many passions. I've got this idea and this idea, which one do I choose? And when someone has 10 different passions or different roads that they could go down, how do they know which one they should go down? That won't do factor. That's the x factor. And you know, people talk about willpower. Well, I want to talk about won't power. What does that mean? It's won't power is how much do you want this thing? Again, you know, how much are you in love with this idea? I do think that there are times when we're kind of directionless or a person certainly can be. And so for that poor soul, although they might be happy, content, doing fine, really, but they kind of like something to change and be bigger and better and more dramatic or whatever. And so sometimes I think we can maybe find that magical era just by playing with a curiosity or saying yes to a random opportunity that just comes smack in front of us. Or maybe deciding, well, I'm going to muscle up one of my superpowers. I'm going to sort of really get into that because I have fun with that and I'm good at it. So those are things I think that one can play with when they're not just the direction. Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like once we can figure out which direction we want to go and to make a quantum leap, it's hard to make a decision of which direction to go for some people where other people just know this is the thing I love. I'm excited about this. I have some skills or talent around this idea or this thing, and I'm going to go all in on it. But once you can figure out the path you're going and the direction you're going to take, how do you know it's time to take a quantum leap in that path versus, all right, I got to figure out my bearings and figure out where I'm heading in this direction and just kind of create some goals and get it going. But how do I know when my time is ready for a unconventional growth spurt for a leap so big and grand that other people think I'm crazy and laugh at me when I talk about it? I don't think you will necessarily know. I think you make a decision. One of the chapters in the U-squared handbook is make your move before you're ready. I'll tell you where big dreams go to die. Tell me. They go to the planning place, getting ready place, preparing myself. And it's the biggest con job we work on ourselves. There are so many bones of big dreams in that graveyard where people, it's always something that there's always going to be a set of reasons to wait. And it's like Gilda Radner, that line of hers on Saturday night, not live, you know, it's always something. Well, it is. And so, when are you going to take the risk? You pick 10 people at random and I'll bet 100 dollars that we can find quantum leaps in every one of them. Really? Oh, yeah. And if you stop and think about it, everybody's made quantum leaps before they reach school age. Because you come into this world naked. You can't speak. You can't feed yourself. You can't get around. And by the age of three, you're doing all three of those things. Mmm, it's true. It's pretty incredible. Now, go and look at what that child did. They were willing to fail. Over and over and over and over and over again. They had no methodology. They just knew what they wanted and they were willing to make mistakes to show them the way there. And it's the same thing when they learn to ride a bicycle, when they learn to swim, when they learn to run as opposed to walk. And so, those are all, that's not an incremental thing. You can't crawl fast enough to become a walker. You know, you got to change the game. It's a totally different game. Waiting is W-A-D-I-N-G and the water is, you can't wait fast enough to swim. And so, it's that process of being willing to take new risks, change your modus operandi, fail your way to success. You talk about seeking failure in one of the chapters of U-Squared and in another chapter about suspend disbelief. I loved a few quotes in this because I believe self-doubt is the biggest killer of dreams. It's what holds us back from taking the steps necessary to fail often, frequently, in order to make those big leaps. And in your chapter on suspend disbelief, you started with saying, act as if your success is for certain. Most people will have so much doubt. Is this possible? What happens if I fail? What happens if I do succeed? The pressure? What about all the judgment I'm going to get from the actions and the failures? And you say, if you must doubt something, doubt your limits. I love that line. And one other line that really stood out to me is, your doubts are not the product of accurate thinking, but habitual thinking. And when I read that, I was like, wow, this is so true. It's not a product of accurate thinking. It's of habitual thinking. We've been thinking limited consistently. And this habit of thinking limited keeps us in a limited state of being, a state of mind, as opposed to accurate thinking, what is possible? We don't step into that enough. And this whole chapter really opened up for me because my thesis in life is self doubt is the killer of dreams. And when we can learn to believe in self, which is something you talked about here as well, needing to believe in yourself, it needs to be your goal. And you need to have a love story around this pursuit. But if we can't learn to believe in self, it's going to be hard. You can love the idea of your goal, you can have clear goals. But if you doubt you, your dreams are going to die. And I think that's a challenging thing for people to say, well, how do I learn to believe in self? How do I learn to have accurate thinking, not habitual thinking? How do I, you know, learn to doubt my limits as opposed to doubting myself? And how do I learn to act as if my success is for certain when I've always doubted me? What do you say to that statement? Yeah, it's a, it's a killer question. Well, you get to choose how you behave. The heck with your thinking. And let's say your thinking is what it is, and it's riddled with doubt, it, you're ravaged with doubt. You still get to choose how you behave. And you can, you can act like you've got what it takes. You can't, you can act. Yeah, it's not easy. And you can feel like a, I'm faking this. Oh, am I ever faking this? But the best actors in Hollywood make a lot of money. Exactly. And they're playing a role. Yeah, they aren't that role. That's right. That's not who they are in their normal life, but they're playing a role and the better you can act, the more money you can make in Hollywood. Well, if we said George Burns or someone that said something about, I won't get this precise, but it's something like authenticity is the key. If you can fake that, you got it made. But so, so that's one thing and just go against everything that's going on inside you, because most people are not going to know. And, but there's another thing, manage your remembering. What does that mean? Your memory of painful moments? Yeah, about what you go back and what you, what you dwell on. When you go back over the years, I mean, I can go back just like that. I can think something and I can, I can pull up again and again and again. All these times that I've been embarrassed, I've been humiliated, I failed, dropped the ball, you know, I can dwell on that if I want to, but I can also go back and the times that I pulled it off, the times I did it right, I surprised myself, how good it felt when I was good to somebody else, you know, on and on and on. So you get to, you get to dwell on whatever you want to dwell on and we're too indiscriminate. It's kind of like these two voices we've got in our head. We got a hero voice, we got a villain voice, you know, and who you're going to give airtime to. People talk about having a coach. Well, the coach that is closest to you is the voices inside your head. You're coaching yourself all the time and you get to decide which voice you want to hand the mic to and the villain voice is very compelling and he's a con artist because so much of the time he's like that I'm here to protect you, buddy. I'm on your side. I'm going to keep you from screwing up. I don't want you to fail. I don't want you to embarrass yourself. You know, just listen to me now. And so he focuses on mistakes, on your wicker points and all the why nots. Your hero voice focuses on your strengths, your accomplishments and so on and so on. It's that we have some 50,000 thoughts a day. I don't know if that's right. But you know, let's just say that's the realm that we have some 50,000 thoughts a day. This kind of takes us into this whole conversation, which I think is interesting thing to kick around, which is this whole thing about optimism versus pessimism. That's kind of what, if we want to give big labels to what we're talking about here. If you ask people, and I've asked this of crowds, keynote after keynote after keynote, training sessions and so on, how many of you in the room would say you're an optimist? And you want I know you would say, your hand would be up. Well, 78% of the people in America label themselves optimist. 17% say, yeah, I'm pessimist. And maybe they're kind of in proud of it. But then you, there's a few percentages missing. And invariably, you'll have someone, particularly if it's small enough group and they'll speak up, they'll say, well, you know, I consider myself objective. Right. You know, I'm not really optimistic. Well, they're pessimistic. They're the pessimists in wolf's clothing, typically. But the split really in the United States is 50-50. And so you got 50 to 78%. You got 18% of the people that are being a little generous with themselves. And so we kind of grow up, I guess, in general, you just kind of pick up this message, this idea that you're supposed to think positive, you know, think more positive thoughts. And you may have read about this. But if I, and I will ask crowds this, which do you think is more important? More positive thinking or less negative thing? And I say, this is not a trick question. And I'll let them wrestle with that for a little bit. And for the group that we're talking to today, it's a very provocative question, which is more important, where do you get the most mileage? More positive thinking or less negative thinking? And the studies are unequivocal. It's less negative thinking. Now, you, the thing that gets us tangled up is that, I guess, pretty much all of us think of it as, okay, you've got this linear scale here, you know, and we'll say at the high end, the good end is optimism. And the low end is pessimism, negative thinking. Well, studies show that they're actually two different scales. Really? And this is just fascinating to me. You should pause to think it's important. And keep it up, keep it high. But if you want to get your real knowledge, just cut down on the negative thinking, cut it down, cut it down, cut it down. That's the villain voice. That's the critic in your head. That's the demotivator. That's the discounter. That's the one that raises the doubts. And you can shut it up. It takes practice. It takes some discipline. But people say, well, I think I'm aware of my negative thinking, but they're not. About 70% of our negative thinking goes unperceived by us. It is so embedded in our day-to-day behavior. We're not even aware of it. We're not even aware of it. About 70%. It is so much just ingrained in the way we go about living. It's habitual thinking. Yes. And so let me tell you how it shows up. I'll talk about the five C's. Okay. Okay. The sneak attack of the five C's. Okay. The first one is complaining. Grapping, grapping, grapping. You know, it's too hot in Dallas. It is, but that's not going to change if I grab about it. Okay. So the first one is complaining. The next one's criticizing. Well, the grid went down today in Texas. We had brownouts. My air conditioners, you know, and like there's always someone to criticize. So we've got complaining. We've got criticizing. Next one is concerned. And I'm not talking about being empathic here and having concern for some other person. I'm talking about garden variety worry. I'm concerned about this. Well, I'm concerned about inflation. Well, I'm concerned about, you know, the news. All right. The next one is commiserating. Commiserating. We come in and I sat down with this person and they start their C's. They're C talk. Complaining. And I say, I get it, man. Yeah, I understand. I'm not doing anybody any good. When I start commiserating, I'm not doing anyone any good. It's, it's, it's destructive to both of us. And then the last one is catastrophizing, which is just when you're really down, you just blow things all out of proportion, you know, but those things sneak in. If you start watching people, watching ourselves, how much we do this, and of course, we're, we're surrounded by so much negativity, you know, you go, you listen to the news, you get on social media and no, no, no. So we got to learn how to cut out the negative thinking versus adding more positive thinking, because you can keep adding positive thinking. But if you've got dirty water in the water, it's still going to be dirty. So you got to remove the, the, the dirty, the challenging thoughts to have more pure energy, cleaner energy that can make you more effective, more efficient. Yeah. Now, here's what's interesting. So we're talking about making a quantum leap. We're talking about change. And really, if you said, what, what are you all about, Price? What, you know, you're alive. What, where did you point yourself? Well, I just got caught up in positioning people to do more with themselves. There's so much out there, and people have so much potential to do things with themselves. Let's arm them, let's, let's position them to do what they can do with themselves. You said there was two different scales. One is about optimism and pessimism, essentially, right? Is that what the two different sides of the spectrum? And you're saying that if we want to increase our confidence, if we want to increase our belief in itself, one of the things that we can do is start removing pessimism, negative thoughts, negative thinking from our life. But a lot of people might say, well, Price, that's great and all, but that just sounds a little too woo-woo-y. That sounds a little too fluffy for me. Just be more positive. Think more positively. Is that really going to help me create more quantum leaps? And shouldn't I have some, you know, critical thinking and really, you know, question and doubt things? Or is that just being, you know, am I being too negative if I do that? Okay. When we, when someone decides they want to make a quantum leap, they're talking about major change. Let's talk about what happens when change hits. In this case, self-imposed change. Now, I've seen this for decades in organizations where it's major change. You're being acquired. You're being merged. You're being downsized. You're being restructured. Okay. And so it's self-imposed when we're making quantum leap. But the same dynamics come into play as when the world, our world, the company we work for, or whatever, the organization that we're stuck in, all of a sudden goes, takes a hard right turn. So here's what happens when change hits. The first scan is for danger. That's how we're wired. Danger. Whenever there's change, it feels like there's danger. Yeah. What can go wrong here? How could I get hurt in this deal? What's going to happen to me? And all of these me issues come into mind. So who was it? John Dryden said self-defense is nature's oldest law. And so our defense mechanisms come into play. But when change hits, whether it's imposed on us or self-imposed, the first thing that happens is, okay, things are changing and the future gets a little blurry. Okay. So we got a new dose of ambiguity and uncertainty. Okay. And people vary greatly in their tolerance for ambiguity. The second thing that happens is the trust level drops in an organization. You're going to change yourself. My quantum leap, the trust level in yourself drops too. The villain voice goes crazy with that. So we got the ambiguity and uncertainty, the drop in self-trust, and then self-preservation takes over as a driver of behavior. It does in an organization and it does in you as an individual when you start to make a quantum leap. Okay. And so we're in the negative zone now. It's all negative. It's all negative. And that's concern. It's that concern, concern, concern. And we may be griping, we may be criticizing, complaining, all of this kind of commiserating with the people around us. And so it's hard to create a quantum leap in that space. It is. But what is so important is for people to know what's coming. People don't tell them. I think this is one of the things that is a little bit of a problem with a lot of the self-improvement books. Go through this, do magnificent things. But by the way, in route, let's not talk about that, but you should because if you will tell people what's coming, it does so much to equip them to deal with. They know what's happening. I always knew if I was doing a keynote, it might be just the top deck of officers in a company, or it might be 100 middle mantras that you're talking to, but I'm going to tell you what's coming. It's like day one can be very exciting, but there's always day two. Renee Brown talks about day two. You can't escape day two. It goes back to that old saying about the messy middle. It's messy. Yeah. And it's kind of like if I want to redo my house, my kitchen, I've got this glorious idea of what the kitchen is going to look like once we redo it and everything. In the middle of it, you're like, this is the house. Yeah. It's chaos. You've got dirt everywhere. You've got holes in the void. You've got wires hanging. Is this ever going to look nice? Yeah. It's a passage and people need to understand it's a journey, but if you don't tell them that, they get lost in the desert. You see a lot of big companies right now in the news talking about the changes they're making. The Amazons of the world, the Googles, the Teslas, the Facebooks, all these beer companies talking about the transitions, the changes after the last few years of what happened, and now trying to regroup and re-envision a brighter future for the company. Mass layoffs that happen, restructuring, acquiring companies, changing the names of companies, branding from work at home to now getting everyone to work back in a community together, in person, and you see this friction in the world because all this change is trying to happen with the bigger companies. You see pushback. You see friction. You see negativity. You see all the five C's you're talking about, the complaining, the frustration. What do companies need to do in order to, and maybe you can't escape some of this stuff. Maybe that's the messy middle of it. You can't escape all of it. That's the messy middle. You're just like, all right, we're going to make change. There's got to be mess. Yeah, it'll get worse before it gets better. Really? Yeah. So how do companies stay confident in their decision of we are making this quantum leap, whether they're communicating to the thousands of employees or to their customers globally or just internally, how do they stay confident when the mess is like this is chaos and people are unhappy and people are complaining and quitting and talking to the public in the news and how do they stay committed to the vision without being rattled too much and stay positive and eliminate the negative thinking? How do we do that when it seems like people are against you? Yeah. And this could be for big companies or for an individual? Absolutely. You can play this out on an individual level as well. What you're talking about is resistance. People, Daniel Kahneman is a world renowned psychologist, one of the most respected psychologists in the world today. He won the Nobel Prize in economics, not psychology, but he and he's written several books. But one of the things that is, I mean, again, just one of these killer insights or things that the research that he conducted found was that as humans, we weigh losses twice as heavily as we do gains. We weigh potential losses, imagined losses twice as heavily as we do gains. So for example, if I said to somebody, flip a coin, got a hundred dollar bill here. If you get it right, you get the hundred. If you get it wrong, you pay me a hundred. And usually people won't take you up on that deal. Certainly if the stakes are higher. Okay, so let's go back and talk about you changing you in some big major way or an organization changing, seeking to change. It's some some big major way. People immediately, they're focusing on the negative, remember, got self-defense working overtime, self-preservation going like crazy. And people are sizing up all the ways they can lose in this proposition. You need to have a picture of the Promised Land for one day. Secondly, you need to get the message across that this is the valley of tears. This is a passage. It's not, it doesn't stay like this. Let me give you an example that you say very fit. You were an amazing athlete. When let's say if you are higher, anybody goes to the gym and we're going to do a new workout routine. Okay, this week I'm up in the iron and not just that, I'm going to do three sets of squats instead of two and so on and so on. When you come out of that sore, okay, but you don't think, well, if I keep lifting like this, I will live sore forever. But you don't. You develop the muscles. You work through it. Well, in change, or as an organization or as an individual, you go through psychological stories and people need to know that this is a passage, that this, these are the rites of passage that you go through to something greater. If you're a good executive, you will get before your people and you level with them. It's going to be painful. It's going to be messy. We're going to make some mistakes. But look, we've got to do this. We need to do this and look what it's going to be like and you have to sell the milk and honey. As an individual, you've got to keep your eye on that magnificent obsession that represents your quantum leap gold. You've got to live with that thing. You've got to make love to that thing. You've got to. So when I am doing keynote with a group of executives, I will tell them, look, consider yourself a doctor. And let's say you're doing heart surgery on somebody tomorrow. Okay. So they check in the hospital today. Let's say they're in it for, they check in about four o'clock or something like that and you stop by about 530. You're the doctor. You're the surgeon. You're the guy that's going to make this magic happen and make them well again. You're going to keep them from dying. So you go in and you sit down with the family and you say, how you doing? Look, we got this. Now, I want to tell you how tomorrow is going to go. About 7am, then it's these y'all just going to come in and they're going to, they'll probably give you something so that you're not nosy when you wake up and then they're going to give you, you know, they put in the IV and they're going to do this and you won't get to 30 before you're asleep. And so you'll go into the operating room and you'll be in there a period of time. When you're, every through you'll go into recovery and I will go and tell you folks how it went. Okay. This is, this should be a lay down. Okay. And then after, I'd say by 10 o'clock, 10 30, we'll have him back in the room and you'll be able to talk to him. Now, I want to tell you we're going to have you out of the bed and on your feet tomorrow afternoon. Okay. You won't feel as bad tomorrow afternoon as you're going to feel the second or third day. But you're going to be back home by so and so and this is the way it's going. They tell you what to expect and it is amazing because here's what happens. The doctor's credibility goes through the roof. The patient that diminishes so much raw terror. What could have happened? Yeah. And the next morning when it just goes just like cluckwork, just like you said, okay, I felt better than I felt worse and then yeah. And we need to tell ourselves that kind of thing. It's so hard, like you said, because we remember a past that is painful. And we, if we can learn to manage your remembering, like you said, and not focus on those painful moments that stick out in our minds as these crippling moments from childhood. But think about all the growth and all the opportunity and all the goodness that came when we did put ourselves out there instead and we focus on those when we manage your remembering like you talked about. It gives us more faith and hope for a greater future in these challenging times. And I think that's a hard thing to do if people have never trained how to do it. So I love that you're talking about this because it is all in the managing of our mind, of our memory, of our remembering. And as Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about, he says, remember the future. You know, the quantum- Ain't that a great line? It's a great line. You talk about manage your remembering, he talks about remember your future of like, imagine this quantum leap that's going to happen and focus on that. Sure, there might be some bumps and challenges and adversity and friction, but focus on the end and fall in love with it. You talked about falling in love. And the first line of this chapter on falling in love, you said, quantum leaps won't happen if you're living life with a lukewarm heart. It's hard to really get exponential growth if you just don't care about it that much. If you're like, well, I want to work hard because this person wants me to do it. You're probably not going to enjoy the process as much as if you fall in love with it, fall in love with the pain, the problems, the friction, all of it. And that love story at the end that your dream is connected to. And that's what I love about this. You bring in the emotion of love and that feeling behind the pursuit of what we're going after to it, not just let's set goals and make money and accomplish things. It's love your life, manage your remembering, and really pursue it all in. And I love that about this book, because that line, the world is a change by people who sort of care. Who sort of care. Yeah, I sort of care about it. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. It's not gonna change. It's like, I got it, does it? Yeah. You got to really care. You got to, and here's one thing, people say, well, you know, what if I don't have the support? What if I don't have the team? What if I don't have good mentors or I didn't go to the good education or, you know, my partner doesn't support me in going after this quantum leap? How can someone navigate that? All the things are stacked against them. How can they overcome that to creating a quantum leap? And how can they tap into or rely on the unseen forces? When it seems like they've been dealt the bad hand, they don't have many options, and everyone is against them. How can they create that abundance factor, that quantum leap with all this? Have you run across this book by Maria Conakola called The Biggest Bluff? Yeah, I had her on the show. She's great. She is great. And the thing I love is that story she tells in the book about this study that she did. Well, actually, I guess this guy named Ingo Fieldler, I think it was an economist or something again. But he does this study of he studies poker hands online, hundreds of thousands of them over a six month period. And what he found is that the best hand, having the best hand, won only 12% of the time. Isn't that crazy? It is absolutely crazy. So the vast percentage of the time it was the best player. And so I think what we're talking about here is, and what I'm trying to do in U-squared is, here's how you play. There are always going to be constraints, always going to be limitations. And if we can hack that and use them to our advantage, because so much of the time, well, we need constraints. Sometimes I'm going to try to write a blog and I can't figure out what and the heck to write because, well, there are too many things. But if Kim, who's over our publishing wing, if she comes in and says, I would like for you to write a blog about X. Oh, it's funny. Now, all of a sudden, I've got some constraints. It's boxed. And she says, and we need it by day after tomorrow. And it can't be this many words. Yeah. And it can't be like anything you've written before. I don't know, but the constraints, we're pretty helpless without constraints. Having structure actually allows you to be more creative and more artistic in my mind. And if you're just like, okay, paint me a painting. Here's a canvas, go. It's like, you don't know you can do anything you want. But when it's like, I want you to paint with oil or acrylic or pencil, and I want you to paint this specific thing in your own style. Then you have some direction, you have some borders, some guideline where you can be extremely artistic. It's kind of funny. And really, that's what goal setting does for us as an individual. It gives us, it gives us direction, it gives us some framework. Here's the sandbox. Yes. You know, there's this glorious sandbox. Go play in it. Yeah. But most people are trying too hard. People are trying really hard, they say, and I learned this in sports growing up. So there's, there's kind of a paradox to this because there needs to be consistent effort. There needs to be effort over time. You have to be consistent and showing up. You can't just show up once in a while and put in zero effort. You know, and definitely working hard consistently over time, maybe a better athlete, maybe better in business, you know, all these different things. But here's a story from your book that I love that I'm going to read. It's a true story. It says, I'm sitting in a quiet room at the Microsoft Inn, a peaceful little place hidden backed among the pine trees about an hour out of Toronto. It's just past noon, late July, and I'm listening to a desperate sound, to the desperate sounds of a life or death struggle going on a few feet away. There's a small fly burning out the last of its short life's energies in a futile attempt to fly through the glass of the window pane. The, the, the winding wings tell the poignant story of the fly's strategy. Try harder. Just go push through this window. And then we've all seen this story. We've all seen a witness flies pounding against a window, but it's not working. The frenzied effort offers no hope for survival. Ironically, the struggle is part of the trap. It is impossible for the fly to try hard enough to succeed at breaking through the glass. No fly will ever be able to break through that glass. Nevertheless, this little insect has staked its life on reaching its goal through raw effort and determination. The fly is doomed. It will die there on the window sill. And across the room, 10 steps away, the door is open. 10 seconds of flying time in this small creature could reach the outside world it seeks. With only a fraction of the effort now being wasted, it could be free of this self-imposed trap. The breakthrough possibility is right there. It could be so easy. You go on to finish this story, but, and you talk about why doesn't the fly just turn around and see a different possibility 10 feet away and just fly into freedom. And, and he doesn't, or she doesn't, this fly doesn't do this. Most of the time, it never happens. Why is that reflective to human beings where we try to just, we see a wall, we just try to push through it. We just hurt ourselves. We just grind it out. We hustle harder, but all we need to do is turn around or do a 360 and see a different possibility and walk more effortlessly towards our desired future and our desired vision. But at the same hand, there is effort and consistent hard work that creates results as well. So how do we think of that paradox and, and move towards something in an unconventional way rather than a conventional hard way? Well, you, you highlight a real important thing here in the book. Selective persistence is very important. And so how do we know that we're being smartly, selectively persisting as opposed to just being dumb, you know, and, and at best, shooting for incremental improvement of some kind or other. I think this is the, this is the crux of a quantum leap. It's so hard for people. I think it's harder than the doubt thing. They're kind of married, I guess, in a way. It is so hard for people to change their approach. It's easier for somebody to start something brand spanking new, like we're going to start a rock and roll band. Well, that was outrageous. That's unconventional. Yeah. I mean, that was a rabid dream of some kind. But it wasn't like changing from something else in that same genre, so to speak. I find it's hard even for me and our company to really change the game. That's why your goal needs to be really, really unstretchable. Because if it requires it, there's no way on earth I could do it with this, this same approach. And so it forces innovation, it forces creativity, it forces you toward the fast lane. And then people fall into that thing of, yeah, I don't have this, and I don't have this, and I don't have this, and I'm like, yeah, that's okay. We're teaching you how to play the hand. Your cards suck. But man, you've got good enough cards if you will play the hand right. But I think that really is a tough one for people. Really, what you're asking to do is take a new set of risks. And immediately, what happens? Just like Daniel Kahneman says, we start weighing the losses heavier than the potential gains. Well, if I did that, God, the downside, what if I did this? What if I lose it all? What if I lose it all? Or what if I make an absolute idiot of myself? What if my mate leaves me? I don't know. And we go into that catastrophizing stuff, usually. And we lose sight of the goal. We quit romancing that stone. Okay, you know. And so it's a tricky thing. And it goes back to that core issue you talked about, Lewis, self belief. That, and we're asking people to become childlike again. Oh, man, I love this. People, why are people afraid to become childlike when they're adults? I guess part of it is this thing they've gotten to the point where they don't bruise and scrape themselves as much. And they become more self conscious. Kid doesn't give a damn that he's got food all over his face. That's learning to feed itself, you know. And the kid, let's say it's, it can wait, but it can't swim. It wants to swim. My big brother can swim. All my friends, they can swim already. This sucks, you know. And so they strangled themselves. I mean, they get strangled, they choke and all this kind of stuff. And they're splashing water everywhere. But there is this fierce determination to pull it off. There's another thing that I love. I wrote a blog some time ago called Naive Ambition. I love it. And that's what we see in younger people is that that was you at the rock band. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to go be a top 100 billboard in a couple of years. Yeah. And a willingness to take new risks. And the thing is, we don't study the downside of the way we're doing it. We don't we don't identify the risks that we're taking now. Because we're, they're just part of our lifestyle and our everyday habits. But we're taking some real stupid risks because we hadn't started the rock band. I was risking, well, I wouldn't have been as popular. I would have never had a record that made the top 100. You know, and only known the joy that we got out of that. If we could have kept on doing in my company the same things that we were doing when I started the company. We took some risks, set outrageous goals. But anyway, it's it's hard for people. It's really challenging. Yeah. Vince Lombardi has a quote. I think this is it where he says, if you're not fired up with enthusiasm, you'll be fired with enthusiasm. Yeah. Another quote is, the world makes room for passionate people. And I love the meme that I've seen online of a baby, you know, in diapers trying to walk, just a photo of a baby. And like the meme says, you know, a child falls a thousand plus times while it learns to walk. And it never says, hmm, when I'm falling over and over, maybe this walking thing is in for me. The baby never thinks that the baby just keeps trying to get up and walk, even though it smashes his face and scrapes its elbows and, you know, falls over and over in front of others. It doesn't stop trying to walk. And it doesn't think this isn't for me. Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't stop to think, I don't know how to do this, obviously. So I'm gonna stop. Yeah. That's ridiculous. There are so many things that you're capable of doing that you don't know how to do. I think I said this earlier, the, the anything of significance that any of us have pulled off in our life, we didn't know how to do it. Initially, I didn't know how to drive before I started driving and you learn how to drive and we could go on and on and on. And it's, it's bizarre how we reach the point of we won't put ourselves into that cockpit again. You know, it's just, we get scared. Were you comfortable? Were you scared? Yeah. Psychologist R. D. Lang that said, if I don't know, I know, I think I don't know. Say that yeah. If I don't know, I know, I think I don't know. How interesting. And it's this kind of stuff that goes on in our heads. You know, well, that's a wrong assumption. But it's kind of how people go around living. Yeah. How do you keep that childlike energy instead of you at this stage of your life? After, you know, decades of being in the work and researching and psychology and writing books and having a lot of success and transforming your business into different things and, you know, just continually evolving as a human and a business leader. How do you stay a childlike and not get too comfortable with just, I'm just going to go incremental now. Well, first of all, I'm guilty. I'm not as good at that as you might think, probably. I think it's kind of interesting because if you think this is the way our life starts, we accumulate, we grow, we get better, and we're accumulators, we're accumulators, and we're muscling up and we build our social network and our network and our information base and on and on. There's a, there's a wretched thing that happens. I'm going to say if you want to pivot point about in the late 50s and there's an inversion and we start this way and we take fewer risks. There's several things that drive this. One, we may be comfortable enough financially. Our energy level goes down. You're not as hungry anymore. We're not as hungry. And so there's some complacency that sneaks in and so on and so forth. How do you keep yourself energetic, wired up, and keep the fire? I think, and maybe you don't need to. Maybe it's not, well, it, you know, maybe it's not a prior. I think we need to kind of though. I think we need, we need to be doing something that we want to do. I love to write and I can still write. That's beautiful. It doesn't take a lot of energy to write. I don't fight the road like I used to. You're not traveling as much. Yeah. You know, I'm not out there driving projects, flying all over the planet and all that kind of stuff. But I need, I need to be on the move. I get disgusted with myself sometimes falling the same route to work, same route to work, same route to work, spend the same hours a day, go back home, you know. And so I need variety. But I think some people don't need as much. Some people don't have a, don't need adventure in their life like I do. But I think if you're playing to your strengths and you're giving your, letting yourself do things that you love to do, that's one thing. Another thing is, let's just go to this core ideal of energy because you brought it up. It's a very important word to me. When I was with the firm in Chicago, this firm called Manage Most Soccology, I'd just, I'd gotten my PhD, I'd finished up my time in the army. I was an officer, I was in the Pentagon and I can make that sound really cool. But anyway, I was starting with this firm in Chicago and we were doing management executive assessments, like I said. And early on when I was doing this, you know, the head guy would come in and they'd say, okay, let's talk about this candidate, you know, and I'd be saying, okay, here's how he stacks up here and here's how he stacks up here and I think he's a good candidate, bad candidate, whatever. And he would say, well, Price, what do you think about his energy level? And I'm like, what? I'd never, I'd never even thought of the term or anything. He says energy level. And time and time again, I've heard this guy say he was a very astute psychologist, very smart man, he said, in my professional opinion, the single most important factor for success in the business world is a high energy level. He rented above everything. Looks, brainpower, intelligence, social skills. He, it wasn't that he discounted some of these other things, there are a lot of things that come into play, we know that. But he said the number one thing. And so I was intrigued by that. And I, but I started watching it, because I've evaluated hundreds of execs over the years. And then when we started doing merger integration work, I was studying companies and I began to look, I think that the corporate energy level is the most overlooked asset or factor when people talk about corporate culture. People don't pay a bit of attention to it. It seems like, when I think about this, if you go to the dictionary and you look up the definition of energy, get this, the formal definition, the physics definition is the capacity to do work. I think that is a beautiful line. Well, why do we hire people? Why do we promote people to, for their capacity to do work? If they don't have the capacity to do work, we fire them, we demote them, we pay them less or whatever. The capacity to do work. Okay. So how do we maintain that energy? Well, if you stop and think about it, when there's no energy, everything stops. It dies. It dies. The machinery stops. The human being stops. Everything stops. And the people with lower energy, I saw them, they just weren't as big and as cheap as they might have killer brain power, but the energy level wasn't there. The motor, they're metabolic rate, whatever you want to call it, it wasn't there. I think some people just come more gifted than others. I'm convinced of that, first of all. Some people come with a four-cylinder. Some come with a 12-cylinder. Some people, they come with a good, strong engine, but they put low octane, watery gas. They don't eat right. Some don't keep their motor tuned. They don't work out. They just don't stay fit and the energy level goes down. So I think that you used the word friction earlier, and there is a good side to friction is we know, we need friction in life. I mean, that's what's going on when you're pumping the iron or you're doing those workouts on the grid iron or whatever. And you have to use muscle, build muscle. And it's kind of like you got to spend money to make money. And so some friction is good. You need something to be responsible for. Studies have found that in nursing homes, give this elderly person a plant that they've got to take care of. They love longer. Really? Yeah, I'm talking about living longer. There was a study, and we were talking about optimism, pessimism. There was a famous 50-year study of nuns, one of the best longitudinal studies ever. And they tested them at the beginning of this period, and the optimists lived 10 years longer, 10 years longer than the pessimists. And so what this says to us is that pessimistic thinking is more dangerous than smoking. Because smoking, if you don't smoke, well, if you do smoke, it takes, if you're a man, it takes five and a half years off your life. So they say that's the last statistics I saw. If you're a woman, it takes seven years off your life. I don't know why, but that's the statistics. So I mean, if you don't think it's important to manage your mind, you know, to manage that mental traffic that's cruising through your brain, that's a longevity game that we're talking about here. This huge, I want to check out that nun study. That seems interesting. Yeah. 10 years, people live longer by having more optimism than pessimism in the 50-year study. That's incredible. I believe it though. You know, when I see people that are, I was talking about this this morning, there are some people that I know who are more rigid in their thinking. They are more guarded, closed off, less forgiving in their way of being and in their energy. And they seem to have more pain physically, more chronic illnesses, more, they get sick more frequently, catch a cold more frequently, things like that. And when you see someone that just can learn to let go of the past, it is more forgiving. Maybe they don't like something and they express it, but then they move on. They're not suppressing emotions, but they're not being the emotion. They're not saying, I am an angry person. They're saying, I'm experiencing anger and sadness. It's different than I am versus I am experiencing. And when they can move through the emotions and let these things go, the pain, the problems, the stress, the anxiety, the, the betrayal, the hurt, all these things, they feel more free. What's the line about that? It's like drinking poison, another person to suffer or something like that. Yeah, exactly. Forgiveness is about that. Yeah. It's a huge thing. I see people that suffer physically because in their mind, they're holding on to more negative quality of thought. My dad, he lived to be 102. And he, he was, he was an optimist. He was a positive thinker, but it wasn't like he was polyanis or anything like that. But the thing about it was, he wouldn't dwell on miseries. I mean, he was so good at, I guess you just called it displacement. I'm not going to wallow in that. It's not fun. There's this bumper sticker. I think his favorite bumper sticker I ever saw, sis. It was a picture of a bumper on an old rusted dirty car. The bumper sticker was worn and everything, but he said, no use being pessimistic. Wouldn't work anyway. And that was kind of my dad's thinking. He just wasn't going to put himself through that. And it was just kind of who he was. He developed it. And I need to tell you this, he had, as a very small child, he had had a leg injury with his left leg. And for all the rest of his life, that left leg was still, and my dad, I never saw him contemplate the idea of even parking in a handicapped place. I never heard him gripe about that, really? It was just like how he chose to deal with that trauma. That again is a choice. Yeah, he had a handful of cards and that was part of his cards. One of his legs doesn't work as well or a stiff or he had a limp or whatever it was. He could have held on to that and been frustrated about why it happened or his parents didn't set him up for success or whatever reason. But he made the most of it and he said, well, at least I've got another good leg and I can walk on. At least I've got my thinking skills, at least I'm healthy in other ways. And I think that's a lot of it is the perspective and gratitude around life. There's a lot of things we could be sad and frustrated about that happened to us or that didn't happen to us that we wish would have. And we could hold on to these things or we can say, you know what, man, 150,000 people didn't wake up this morning in the world. Exactly. I did. I'm here. Even if I have a hand that I don't love and I got this challenge and this thing happening and this betrayal and this sadness, I'm still here. I can enjoy this moment. I can manage my remembering. I can remember the future of the leaps that I'm going to step into when I make a decision and a choice that I love my life. And I'm going to step into a love story about me in spite of all the pain. And I think when people can start to do that, their life starts to transition in a big way. And I'm just such a big fan of this book. I love that it's, you know, you're looking at a dyslexic here. So someone with a 36 page book, this is like gold to me, 36 pages of pure wisdom and practical insights, I guess impractical, but really practical insights that will support you in creating more abundance, creating more opportunities and really feeling empowered to take action in your life. I've got tons of these copies. I give them out and you squared. I want people to get a copy of this, a high velocity formula for multiplying your personal effectiveness in quantum leaps, not incremental or gradual leaps, but in quantum leaps. If you want to really optimize life, you can quit trying harder. You can think beyond what common sense would allow. You can make your move before you're ready and look inside for the opportunity of any challenge in your life. Make sure to get this book. You've got a lot of different books. What to have you come back on and we'll talk more about some of the other ones. But I think this is what a lot of people could use. At least you don't have to obsess over this, but at least have the information around how you can stop trying harder, stop being the fly that is hitting a windowsill over and over trying to get free and look at things differently and turn your life around a little bit and see where the open door might lead you. I want people to get a copy of this book. You've also got a masterclass that I want people to check out as well. They've got a Pritchett U, the number two dot com. They can get access to that or if you've got a Pritchett net.com, you'll have information around your masterclass and how they can get access to that. You have all your books up there as well and so many other things. My goal is to do a workshop with you one day and hopefully do a one day or two day with you at some point. I'll have to convince you at some point and make sure we can do that in the future. But you've got a lot of stuff over there and you don't have as much interviews or videos of you, but you've got a lot of writing and materials and you've got this masterclass. So people want more of you in video format and they can check out this masterclass for sure. Before I ask you the final couple of questions, how else can we be of service to you? I don't know. This is a gift. It's not only just delightful, just fun kicking ideas around. It's really gratifying and so I appreciate that. And as I said earlier, you have the most charming way of interfacing with people, your guests. I appreciate that. I don't know. I would not ask anything more. I feel hugely gifted with this. Yeah. Or grateful for you. We appreciate you. And I acknowledge price for the consistency you've had in your life to try your things, to pursue a path that was more meaningful for you and one thing didn't work out the way you wanted it to. For really assessing all the different people you worked with, performers and corporations and different people to give you the insights to be able to write this book, which has helped a lot of people over the last 24 years now. I think it is when you wrote this book 24 years ago. Actually, it was written in 1989. I thought it was 99% of it. So 34 years ago, right? No, what is this? Yeah, about 33 years. 33 years, 34 years, something like that. Wow. So it's over three decades. Yeah. This book is old, but it's got timeless wisdom. It's still relevant today more than ever. Yeah. It sells more today than it ever has. It just it's a nice incline. I like the line. It keeps going exponential. Yeah. I love that. And it's amazing. Isn't it amazing that, I don't know where you were at in your life when you wrote this 34 years ago, essentially, but you wrote a book. You'd said, here's the information that I'm gathering in my mind from all my experience. I'm going to put it out on paper. And you didn't do the traditional way of doing a book. You didn't go 300 pages. You went 35 pages. I think you self-published this originally. So you didn't go traditional. You did all the unconventional ways of doing it. You followed your program. Right. And it continues to serve you 34 years later, which is cool to see that one piece of content continues to serve you, but also impact hundreds of thousands of people 30 plus years later. That's amazing. That's fun. That's incredible. I would again, acknowledge you for your wisdom and for being on the show and for sharing so much of the insights that you have. It's really making a difference on my life, my business and on so many people's lives. So I'm very grateful for you. This is a question that I ask everyone towards the end. It's called the three truths. It's a hypothetical question and scenario. Imagine you get to live as long as you want to live, but it is the last day on earth for you. You get to continue to create or actualize things as you want. But for whatever reason, on this hypothetical scenario, you have to take all of your work with you on your last day on this earth. So lights go out. You got to take this book with you, all your masterclasses, all the content, this interview, it's all gone from this world hypothetical. And you can only share three lessons with the world, three truths that you would leave behind. And we don't have access to any else of your content. What would you say are those three lessons or truths for you? I maybe should stick with this. I've said it many times to a group of people when I would start to present to them. I'd say I want to share with you three great truths. That's how I start. First of all, you are the most powerful person in your life. I would say, someone said, no, no, no, no, I'm looking 13 years old. I'm, you know, whatever, I've got a dominating this or that. I'm sorry. You look at a three year old go into a fit and you realize, I mean, so that would be truth number one, you are the most powerful person in your life. You have the power of choice and so on and so on. Point two, you have an amazing capacity for change. And three, you are the solution to your future. It's not your daddy. It's not your boyfriend. It's not your boss. You are the solution to your future. And don't you to remember the first two points? No, no, no, you are the most powerful person in your life. Those are great truths. I love it. Again, my final question. Before I ask it, I want people to get the book, U Square, 36 pages. It'll take you 30 minutes to read this. But you'll be devouring it for years and going over and over again, the content inside. But it'll be an amazing investment for you. So make sure to get a copy of this. Get a few copies. I like to give them out to friends. U squared. High velocity formula for multiplying your personal effectiveness in quantum leaps, not incremental leaps. Final question, price, what is your definition of greatness? I guess it would be how much good you brought to the world. How many people you've touched? And that kind of gets behind why U squared is the kind of piece it is. I wanted to put the cookies on the bottom shelf. I know the world. I know that most people are not going to read a book that thick. I love books. I'm a crazy reader. I wanted it to be short. I wanted it to be inexpensive. I wanted to touch as many people as I possibly could. And so that's why it's shaped the way it is. That plus, as I mentioned when we were talking before the session here, I just naturally write really tight. But I know that the more you can compress the message, the more powerful it becomes. And I didn't want to lose anybody. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on Apple podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis House. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. 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