The video explores the concept of achieving greatness through subtraction, drawing inspiration from Michelangelo's approach to carving the statue of David: removing everything that's not essential. The speaker emphasizes that this principle often involves identifying and eliminating bad habits that act as brakes, rather than solely focusing on acquiring new positive habits. This journey towards success begins with addressing one of the most ingrained and detrimental mindset patterns: scarcity mentality. By comparing two brothers' perspectives and outcomes with inherited land, the video illustrates how a mindset of abundance can dramatically transform success levels.

The video identifies several detrimental habits that hinder achieving dreams, including prioritizing urgency over impact, the relentless acquisition of knowledge without application, scattershot focus, and mismanaging time based on Parkinson's Law. It uses relatable analogies and scenarios, such as contrasting two scientists' approaches to learning and application or the differences between how two entrepreneurs manage team expectations and deadlines. These examples drive home the point that sustainable success stems from impactful, focused contributions rather than merely busy schedules.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. scarcity mindset [ˈskɛr·sɪ·ti ˈmaɪnd·set] - (n.) - A belief system where individuals feel there is never enough of something (like money or resources). - Synonyms: (lack mentality, deficit thinking, limitation mindset)

It is the scarcity mindset

2. proliferation [prəˌlɪfəˈreɪʃən] - (n.) - Rapid increase in numbers or quantity. - Synonyms: (expansion, escalation, growth)

We live in this increasingly noisy world filled with loud tasks vying for our attention.

3. convoluted [ˌkɒn·vəˈluː·tɪd] - (adj.) - Complex and difficult to follow. - Synonyms: (complicated, intricate, tangled)

But here's the truth: I really hope you take from this.

4. connotation [ˌkɒnəˈteɪʃ(ə)n] - (n.) - An idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning. - Synonyms: (implication, undertone, significance)

Gratitude is a concept that's really been bastardized over the past decade.

5. insidious [ɪnˈsɪd.i.əs] - (adj.) - Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects. - Synonyms: (sly, cunning, treacherous)

Rewriting one of the most insidious habitual thought patterns.

6. quagmire [ˈkwæɡ.maɪər] - (n.) - An awkward, complex, or hazardous situation. - Synonyms: (dilemma, difficulty, quandary)

This deceptive habit is like quicksand, sucking us deeper and deeper into a vortex of now.

7. iterating [ˈɪtəˌreɪtɪŋ] - (v.) - Repeating a process for the purpose of improvement or refinement. - Synonyms: (repeating, revising, refining)

Over the course of a month, a quarter, a year, the team with the shorter deadlines ends up moving so much faster and iterating so much more quickly.

8. eisenhower matrix [ˈaɪzənˌhaʊər ˈmeɪtrɪks] - (n.) - A decision-making framework to prioritize tasks by four categories based on urgency and importance. - Synonyms: (priority quadrant, task matrix, decision matrix)

...the ice framework or the eisenhower matrix.

9. specter [ˈspɛk·tər] - (n.) - A ghost; used metaphorically to denote something feared as an impending or menacing occurrence. - Synonyms: (phantom, apparition, ghost)

Most of us live our lives haunted by the specter of scarcity.

10. contorts [kənˈtɔrts] - (v.) - Twists or bends out of its normal shape. - Synonyms: (distorts, warps, twists)

It's remarkable how often the world contorts itself to fit the vision of reality we hold in our mind's eye.

5 strange habits that cause 87% of your problems

When Michelangelo was asked how he carved the statue of David, he famously said, it's simple. I just remove everything that's not David. The heart of this deeply profound concept is something called addition through subtraction. Now, often on our quest to unlock our inner greatness, we begin by looking in all the wrong places. We look to introduce these fancy new habits, like cold plunges and red light therapies or gratitude journals. But in my experience, the thing that's most often holding us back are not the things we aren't doing, but rather the things we are doing that we just need to stop. For example, just imagine you're a car. Great habits are like the accelerator, whereas bad habits are the emergency brake. Now, you could just press harder on the accelerator, and sure, you're gonna go faster, but do you smell that? Yeah, that's the smell of burnout. No bueno. So before pressing the pedal all the way down to the metal, let's just take a moment and make sure that we've disengaged the emergency brick.

All right, so let's get to it. By unpacking these five habits that stop most people from achieving their greatness, the journey begins by rewriting one of the most insidious and habitual of thought patterns. It is the scarcity mindset. Most of us live our lives haunted by the specter of scarcity, fearing that there's just simply not enough of whatever it is that we seek, whether that be money, love, attention, security. And this scarcity mindset, it creates this perverse paradox, where the more we worry about not having enough, the less open we become to the opportunities around us. After all, as the famous poet Rumi once said, that which you seek is seeking you.

So here's how this usually plays out. Imagine two brothers. We got Tom, we got Jerry. Yeah, I like the cartoon. Why not? So they both inherit a large, fertile piece of land from their father, Jerry. He looks at the land, and he sees a farm capable of sustaining his family and community for generations. He believes in his vision for what the farm could be. So Jerry, he's constantly reinvesting back into the land. He's working towards the vision he sees so clearly in his dreams. And truth is, it's really hard to stop a person like that from eventually realizing their goals.

Whereas Tom, on the other hand, you know, he sees something else. He worries that the land is not vast enough. The soil, it's not fertile enough. The work, it's too hard. The profit's too small. And Tom, with his fear-based scarcity mindset he invests only the bare minimum in maintaining that land. His crops are ultimately meager, which he takes as proof that, you know what? I was right. The land is no good. So he invests even less next year and less the year after that. So on, so forth, and downward spiral he goes.

If you fast forward just a few years, is it really any surprise that Jerrys Farm has flourished, whereas Tom has been floundering? No. Why is that? Well, because our beliefs drive our thoughts, which become our actions and ultimately our results. Its remarkable how often the world contorts itself to fit the vision of reality we hold in our minds eye. If we actually show up and act in alignment with our beliefs on a long enough timeframe, there's practically nothing you cant do. Truth is, any belief held with sufficient conviction will eventually be made true. So be careful what you choose to believe, because in a very real way, it will become your reality.

Okay, so, scarcity, bad. Abundance, good. But how do we counter that pesky voice of fear that we all have in the back of our heads? One word, gratitude. Now, gratitude is a concept that's really been bastardized over the past decade, many of us, myself included, we've systematized gratitude to death in pursuit of ever increasing productivity. We've turned it into a to-do list to be checked off on the morning routine. In the process, we become detached from the heart of gratitude. Not only that, but if you're like me, you spend most of your time focused on that gap between where you are and where you're trying to go. And the problem is that gap, it never really gets any smaller because we're constantly moving the goalposts on ourselves.

So here's a paradigm shift that's really helped me feel more gratitude. Simply take time to turn around and reflect on the gap between where you are and where you began, because that gap is only ever increasing. And in that ever-expanding chasm, there's a lifetime of gratitude to be found.

All right, so here's the second bad habit keeping you from the life of your dreams. It's prioritizing urgency over impact. So this deceptive habit is like quicksand, sucking us deeper and deeper into a vortex of now, which often comes at the cost of our long-term goals and happiness. See, we live in this increasingly noisy world filled with loud tasks vying for our attention. And unfortunately, the loudest tasks of all, they tend to be the ones which are the most urgent, but not necessarily the most important. And as a result, these important tasks, they get pushed to the back burner because they don't require immediate attention.

Things like long-term strategic planning, developing meaningful relationships, investing in personal growth, or even your health, all of that just gets pushed aside in the name of answering those emails a little more quickly. In this world, we confuse being busy with being effective, and being effective isn't about how much you get done, it's about what you get done.

So here's how I typically see this playing out. Imagine two friends we have, Lisa and Emma, who are carving out careers in a high-stakes world of corporate finance. Lisa is what we call a firefighter. She thrives on the adrenaline of urgent tasks and last-minute deadlines. She's always the first to respond to emails, she takes pride in her ability to multitask, and she feels more productive when her day is packed with back to back to back to back meetings. She ends each day exhausted, but feeling good about the fact that she got a lot done. Lisa is a classic example of somebody who prioritizes urgency over impact.

Emma, on the other hand, she takes a different approach. She is incredibly selective about the meeting she attends, and she's diligent about setting boundaries on her time. She carves out hours each day to do the important deep work that only she can do, and she guards this time ruthlessly, not letting anything like emails or text messages distract her. Emma recognizes that the things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

So fast forward a few years, and Lisa has become the go-to person for last-minute tasks. Her willingness to jump in on every urgent task gets won her praise, but she's perpetually stressed, and she's feeling as though she's running on a hamster wheel, because the urgent tasks, they never really stop. And despite her hard work, she hasn't really progressed in her career as much as she'd hoped. While Emma, by comparison, has steadily risen through the ranks. Because her strategic projects, though they don't get the immediate buzz of Lisa's urgent tasks, they deliver long-lasting impact. Not only is she growing professionally and personally at a quicker rate, but she's doing so with far less stress.

Listen, when you're trapped in a cycle of urgency, it's easy to confuse being busy with being effective. But remember, not everything that demands your attention deserves it. After all, there is no greater waste than to do with excellence that which shouldn't be done at all.

Now, if you need help discerning which tasks are important versus just urgent, check out this video that's gonna pop up here on the screen. It's called this productivity system changed my life. And I'm gonna break down a couple strategies for optimizing your work, like the ice framework or the eisenhower matrix. Go check that out.

Next. But before you do, the third habit keeping you from the life of your dreams, it's a sneaky one. It's subtle and often mistaken as a virtue. It's collecting, but not connecting too many dots. Or in layman's term, it's the relentless pursuit of knowledge without application. Dots in this framework is simply information.

Here's how I see it playing out all the time. Picture two scientists. You have Richard. You got Sarah. Richard loves to learn. He spends countless hours poring over research papers, attending seminars, and taking online classes. He's always looking to to acquire new information and amass more knowledge. But the problem is, he never really does anything with it. He is simply a dot collector. Whereas Sarah, on the other hand, she follows a different approach.

So while she values learning, she equally values applications. She splits her time equally between acquiring new information, aka collecting dots, and applying that information, aka connecting dots. You fast forward a few years, and the difference between Richard and Sarah is stark. Despite Richard's vast knowledge, his impact on his field is minimal. His desk is filled with stacks of papers and books, symbols of the knowledge that he's acquired, but not necessarily applied. Whereas Sarah, while she's made significant strides in her field, her balance of learning and doing has resulted in numerous research papers and patents. By connecting the dots that she's been collecting over the years, she's considered the foremost authority in her field.

So here's the important takeaway. Yes, the acquisition of knowledge is valuable, but it's the application of knowledge that creates real world impact. So how do we become more like Sarah? Well, the key is you gotta strike a balance and make time not only to learn new things, but also to make time for reflection and application of that knowledge. This means setting aside specific doing time each day to connect dots.

Now, if you're like me, and you tend to be more of a dot collector than a connector, I recommend you check out this next video where I break down how to incorporate more doing time into your schedule. It's gonna pop up here somewhere. All right, so here's the fourth bad habit that's keeping you from the life of your dreams. It's scattershot focus.

All right, moment of truth. Raise your hand if you think you are an above average multitasker. Okay, so obviously I can't see you through the computer, so I have no idea if you actually raised your hand or not. And hopefully it was more of like a mental hand raise than a physical thing anyhow. But lucky for us, the University of Utah posed this question to 310 undergraduates and what they discovered is actually quite remarkable.

70% of the students believed they were an above average multitasker. Which is pretty funny on its own that 70% of people think they're above average. But it gets even funnier when you look at two key results of this study. First, the people who multitask the most are typically the worst at it, whereas the people who are best at multitasking are actually the ones least likely to work on multiple tasks simultaneously.

Huh. Additionally, another study found that people who are interrupted during the execution of a task require 50% more time to accomplish that task and they make 50% more errors. So here's the truth I really hope you take from this. The quality of your results is dictated by the quality of your focus. Multitasking is by definition a dilution of focus and therefore a dilution of results.

Just remember, to do two things at once is to do both poorly. So stop falling for this multitasking myth and start developing laser-like focus for only one task at a time. We progress towards our goals most quickly when we commit to doing less but better, which I know it's like way easier said than done because there's a literal war for your attention being waged every single day.

If you want to learn the system that I've used for developing hyperfocus, which enabled me to turn my ADHD into a superpower, then there's another video going to pop up here on the screen. I highly recommend you check that one out. Alright, so let's get to the last bad habit keeping you from living the life of your dreams. It's abusing Parkinson's law.

Now, Parkinson's law is a very simple concept that states work expands to fill the time allotted and you have personally experienced this law. If you have ever procrastinated on a project that you had months to complete, and then found yourself staring down the barrel of a fast approaching deadline, wondering, how am I going to get this all done? Well, maybe you had to pull an all nighter, and maybe you didn't do your absolute best work, but chances are good you probably found a way to get it done right.

Now, knowing that humans are a uniquely quirky species that loves procrastination, we can use Parkinson's law to our advantage by simply shortening our deadlines. So let's use an example to show one way. I see this playing out all the time in the workplace. Imagine we have two entrepreneurs. We got Rick, we got Linda. So, Linda, she meets with her team every Monday morning to review last week's projects and to lay out upcoming tasks and to dos. This team has the expectation that they will complete their tasks by end of week, whereas Rick's team, by comparison, they meet every single morning for a quick debrief on the previous day's projects. This team has the expectation that they will complete their tasks by end of day.

Now, here's the thing. I've been both Rick and Linda at different phases of my entrepreneurial journey. And what I came to realize is that the total output of a team skyrockets by simply shortening the expectation of how long certain tasks should take. When you give somebody a week to complete a project, it takes exactly a week. But if you only give them a day, it takes exactly a day.

Over the course of a month, a quarter, a year, the team with the shorter deadlines ends up moving so much faster and iterating so much more quickly that it's pretty much game over. Now, the counterargument to this is that the shorter deadlines will lead to lower quality, right? But the truth is that most dreams die of inaction rather than wrong action.

And it's the same in business. Momentum that takes you generally in the right direction is better than sitting around trying to plan things to perfection. After all, you can only turn a boat that's actually moving right now more often. From what I've observed, the biggest reason people set long deadlines is they have a fear of failure. The longer the deadline, the less frequently they have to face potential failure.

So I'll just leave you with this one final idea that I call the magical success coin. See, success and failure are two sides of the same coin. In the beginning, that coin is weighted, so it always lands on failure, like 99.999% of the time, which means you're practically never winning. And honestly, this is why most people give up. But this is a magical coin.

With each flip, the odds shift 0.001% towards success. So if you just keep flipping the coin on a long enough timeframe, your odds of success become a virtual certainty. Now, in this game, you get to flip the coin as much as you want. The only question is, how fast are you going to flip it? Or put another way, how fast are you willing to fail your way forward?

My hope is that you remove these five bad habits from your life. You release the emergency break, and you gun it in the direction of your dreams.

Inspiration, Philosophy, Motivation, Mindset, Personal Growth, Productivity, Anthony Vicino