MRL #075- Hey Asshole!

Sorry for the two week hiatus.

I was in Biloxi for a few days on a golf trip with the bois, followed by a week in Banff with the family.

The first trip was epically awesome, the second was epically bad…

Missed flights, puking kids, and lost luggage just to name a few things.

I’m gonna give Micah the full rundown tomorrow on the pod, so if you’re a fan of watching dumpster fires, tomorrow’s episode is a must listen.

But that’s not what I wanna talk about in this week’s newsletter. In a way, what I wanna talk about is kind of the opposite.

I’ll explain more later, but first a hypothetical.

(I read this in another newsletter I’m a fan of, and I thought it was perfect for us as Producers).

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Here’s the scene:

You’re driving along the highway, and someone cuts you off.

Not in the “oh, they might not have seen you” way…

More like…

“There is no doubt they saw you and simply decided to be a d-bag” kind of way.

It was dangerous, and you had to swerve to miss them.

You’re fuming. 

You shout every curse-word under the sun at the guy.

But now you need gas.

So you pull off onto an exit and head to the gas station, when lo and behold you see the guy’s car!

He’s there gassing up too.

Let’s consider the range of behaviors available to you now on a spectrum ranging from taking the high road to neutral to taking the low road.

Neutral is doing nothing — gassing up your car and then driving off without any altercation.

But the high and low road examples involve an interaction with the guy.

Let’s Start With “The High Road”

Despite being mad, you have the sense to think to yourself:

“He’s probably just in a hurry. He’s probably having a really bad day. Let me do something nice for the guy.”

When you’re paying for your gas, you buy a Twix Bar, and you leave it on his windshield before you drive off.

It’s a nice gesture, and it makes you feel good.

Your mood is noticeably lighter as you drive off.

Okay, now let’s take a couple of steps up on the “high road” end of the spectrum.

You have the same thought, but a Twix bar simply won’t do.

While he’s buying his gas, you interject and insist that you buy his tank.

You tell him that you hope he has a better day, the two of you have a pleasant exchange, and you carry on with your day in a serene and positive mood.

Buying his gas was quantifiably much better than the Twix Bar.

But how much difference did it make in your life? 

It made more of a difference to your wallet — but the end result was pretty similar — you felt pleasant and peaceful after both scenarios.

Now hold that thought, next let’s consider…

The “Low Road” End Of The Spectrum

You’re fuming when you see him gassing up, and the thought of buying him anything is nowhere on your radar.

As you get out of your car, you yell at the guy:

“Hey Asshole!”

You proceed to have the type of exchange one would expect when beginning a conversation with “Hey, Asshole.”

There is no violence, but it’s aggressive and unpleasant.

Your cortisol is raised as you drive off, and you feel on edge.

Now, let’s travel further down the low-road side…

Turns out that you’re a golfer. 

You’re on your way to the driving range to knock out a bucket or two.

Well, you’re so pissed that you take your 9-iron out of your trunk and smash the guy's windshield in.

He tackles you, a brawl ensues, and the gas station attendee calls the police.

You’re taken to jail, and the guy presses charges.

Consider the difference in degrees of outcome from moving up from “worst” to “bad” in the low-road end of the spectrum.

You go from being arrested and facing a court date to a mere unpleasant conversation.

That’s a massive tangible difference between the worst-case scenario (far end of the spectrum) and the action a few degrees better from the worst case.

With every move toward improvement from the worst case, you see significant tangible benefits.

But what about the high-road end of the spectrum? 

The difference in degrees of outcome are much more subtle when you consider the very best outcome versus an outcome 1-2 moves toward neutral.

Buying his gas didn’t make you feel all that much better compared to buying him the Twix bar.

The comparative benefits from best-case scenarios to slightly less optimal scenarios yield only modest positive differences.

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Now, you may be asking yourself:

What The Heck Does This Have To Do With Being A Producer?

There is a profound principle embedded in this silly hypothetical:

The most noticeable results come from improving your worst, not improving your best.

The goldmine of improvement for us as Producers (or for anyone or anything) isn’t found in making our best days 3% better…

It’s in making our worst days 25% better.

For us as Producers, this plays out when we try to be too perfect.

Like investing in all the fancy tech, always searching for the perfect script, or setting unrealistic daily activity goals like making 100 dials a day.

Because inevitably, at some point, we crack, and fall back into bad habits…

We get sucked down the social media rabbit hole, we get stuck bullshitting around the water cooler, or we simply refuse to make our daily dials because “we don’t feel like it”.

This isn’t hypothetical, either.

I’ve seen too many Producers (myself included) doing things mostly right…

Only to have our “bad days” off-set our progress.

We think the solution is to further optimize our best by moving up a degree in the positive spectrum.

But in reality, we would see way better results if we’d simply stop trying to improve our best and start trying to improve our worst.

The Goldmine Of Progress Is Found In Making Our Worst Days Better, Not Our Best Days.

This applies to everything, but we’ll keep the scope to producing.

Stop focusing on optimization, and ask yourself:

What does my current worst day look like?

Do you do mostly pretty good but then completing fall off the wagon?

Make 100 dials on Monday and Tuesday but mail it in the rest of the week?

Instead of trying to be more good, maybe try being less bad.

Find the current example of your worst day and diagnose the cause.

Now, see what it would look like if you could move that day toward the positive end of the spectrum.

Another way to think about this is…

Try Improving Your Standards Instead Of Improving Your Aspirations

When you make a 3% move between positive outcomes, you’re improving your aspirations.

It moves the needle, sure, but not much.

But when you improve your worst possible day, you raise your standards. 

So, consider what raising your standards looks like for you.

If you can make your current worst day 10% better, it might just be the best thing you do for your career.

Hope you found that as insightful as I did.

Ok, that’s enough out of me for tonight.

If you haven’t yet already…

Check out The Producer Playbook.

It’s our step-by-step guide to building a $1,000,000 book via cold prospecting.

See you next Sunday.

Kick ass take names,

Maximus F. Revenue IV