The Secret to a Great Life: Get Better at Getting Better
Learn the art of enhancing your life better and faster than before.
Not long ago, I was talking to someone about a very hot topic:
Dating.
They were lamenting how they struggled to get dates or traction with online dating, but when I saw their online dating profile?
It was really bad.
And it was no shock why they were getting negative matches every week.
So when they asked for my advice, I told them exactly what to do based on my experiences backed by a lot of coaching, courses, experiments, failures, and successes.
I made it so easy for them that a child could do it. They excitedly nodded their head and said they would take care of everything.
Fast forward 6 months…
What do you think happened?
It turns out they followed none of my suggestions—and their results were exactly the same.
Worse, they were feeling more disheartened about their lack of progress and continued blaming “online dating” in general as the problem.
But this person had no one to blame but themself.
I see this kind of behavior in many different ways.
For example, I consulted a client who founded a large fitness app. I asked about email marketing, but they were opposed because they tried it before and it had poor results—so I asked to see what they've done.
Yowza, their emails were atrocious.
No wonder it failed miserably.
Yet when I suggested we try again, they resisted. I explained that their first “failure” was 100% avoidable, but they just wouldn’t listen.
It’s like cutting your hand the first time you ever cooked—and then never cooking again and irrationally blaming “cooking” as the culprit.
Why not just learn proper knife skills?
The Secret to a Great Life
The key behind many successful people is that they’re better than almost everyone else at getting better.
Everyone wants to improve, but the best are better than everyone else at improving themselves. It's not only that they do self-improvement, but they're also better at it than others who try self-improvement.
Self-improvement is a skill and an art.
“The one thing that I was probably better than anybody—and I will challenge that—is I was better at getting better than anybody. And that's an art and that's work and that's observation and self-assessment. Because everybody has abilities, some better than others, but if you're really good at improving your abilities, you're going to get to where you want.”
—Martin St. Louis
I’ve failed a lot in my life, but I was always willing to fail again in a new way. I might resist at first, but I’ll even admit, “I’m resisting… because I know you’re right.”
So how do you get better at getting better?
To me, there are two things:
1. Kill your ego
I know people who, anytime they get critique or feedback, the first thing they say is, “I already know that."
But that shows they care more about protecting their ego than actually trying to improve themselves.
This comes from a fixed mindset. The ego wrongly believes all its skills and knowledge are fixed and, anytime those things are threatened by being wrong, it protects itself.
But here’s a fundamental tip: You will never learn at your highest speed if you’re afraid to be wrong.
I always admire people who are so willing to be wrong and so ready to try something—even if it means failing. They aren’t attached to their ego and they don't mind being humbled or feeling embarrassed. Ultimately, these people improve the most because they have no hesitancy.
For example, when I was learning French, the reason why I learned faster than anyone else in my class was because I was willing to raise my hand more than anyone else.
I didn't care if I looked stupid or if I was wrong. If anything, I wanted to do that because then I could get corrected immediately and learn while everyone else was too shy to even try.
Do you see the difference in that mindset?
Practically everyone wants to take a test and get 100%.
But who wants to take a test and get 53%?
Pushing yourself beyond what you're capable of is how you learn, but you have to be willing to be wrong.
“If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.”
— Confucious
A lot of this fear isn't your fault: A lot of that comes from how we're educated in school because they teach us that being wrong is bad. If you're wrong, you don't get good grades; if you don't get good grades, you get punished, you don't go to the next grade level, and you don't graduate.
The education system rewards you for doing what’s easy and avoiding challenges.
But there is no faster way to master anything — languages, physical skills, information, etc. — than to make mistakes, correct course, and repeat.
2. Go all-in
To want to truly master a new skill, don't half-ass it. Don't dabble. Don't make it something you do in your spare time.
If you really want it, go all in.
Commit 100%.
If you “kinda” want it, that's okay too—but just know you're not going to improve much and that it won’t make sense to get mad if you suck.
Going back to my first example, if you “kinda” want to improve your dating life, you might make some improvements, but it won’t be revolutionary. Worse, you won’t have ground to stand on if you bitch and moan.
Here are two personal examples:
Many years ago, I wanted to learn how to build a business so I went all in—I hired coaches, I read books, I took courses, I invested tens of thousands of dollars into myself, and I committed 100%.
And that got me to where I am.
In comparison, I spent a few years learning some partner dances, but I'll be completely honest and say that I didn't care that much.
I wasn’t super passionate about it; I just did it occasionally because it was fun and I got to meet new people. I got better, but I didn't improve a ton because I didn't push myself—and that's fine because I didn't really want to and I know I didn't really want it.
I didn't lie to others and I didn't lie to myself.
Takeaways
If you want to live an incredible life, it requires you to do and know things that you cannot do and that you do not know right now.
That's why the key to achieving that life is to figure out how to do and know those things better and faster than ever before.
In other words, you have to get better at getting better.
The best way is to stop needing to be correct all the time and to commit fully to whatever it is you want. If you're not willing to do either one, that's fine too—it's your life and your choice.
But in that case, you probably won't improve very much and, more importantly, you shouldn’t complain if your results aren’t great.
Fortunately, you can change it anytime—you just have to make that decision and everything else will fall into place.
I hope this helps.
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