Pilot vs. Plane

Work is hard. Frustrating. It can suck ass, basically.

That’s the point of work after all.

And no, I’m not gonna revert back on that statement, and end this email with “If you do what you love, you’ll never work again in your life”, because that’s simply not true.

Yes, motivation to create things you enjoy will be fun.

And if you’re building something you value and that’s supposed to equip you with the freedom we’re all looking for, that’s going to be extremely exciting at times.

And other times, it’s gonna be the hardest challenge in the world.

I heard this quote from Hormozi once which sums it up perfectly:

“The work begins when excitement ends.”

And I bet my ass off you know that feeling when you just can’t be fucking asked to finish something you’ve been stressing out about for the last few days.

That one project you’ve already spent hours working on, banging your head against imaginary (and sometimes even real) walls, where you just can’t find the right solution to a specific problem you’re facing and everything feels STUCK.

And you cannot, by the love and mercy of god, get yourself to get UNSTUCK.

What happens?

I’ll be honest, as someone who’s faced “headbanging against the nearest wall” moments uncountable times before, my default mechanism is and always has been to curl up and hide.

To load the work onto my future self and say:

“Hey bro I hope you’re not mad at me for doing this but I’m still not able to get my ass to solve this problem.. so please you do it :)”.

Dickhead strategy, I know.

The truth is, mostly my future self did eventually figure out solution X to problem Y - not without swearing mercilessly at my past self - but at least no problem was ever unsolvable if you just pushed through hard enough. At least not in the field of entrepreneurship.

It honestly took me a longer time than I’d like to admit to solve this problem. But I did. Kind of.

And it involves flying a plane.

The problem with “Headbanging Against Walls Syndrome” is that you’re distracting yourself from what matters: Doing the work.

But you CAN’T do the work because you don’t know HOW.

And if you don’t know HOW, you get stuck, which leads to… headbanging.

Conclusion: The HOW has to be figured out BEFORE you do the work.

Best example I can come up with on the spot:

Writing this email. If I don’t know HOW to write the email (the minimum I need is an idea + a conclusion) then I’ll get stuck before I even start writing.

Which leads once again to a lot of headbanging.

Yes, I know there are some creative monsters out there who can up with email ideas on the spot and write them out in a matter of 30 minutes - simply not my strength, sorry.

But if I draft the idea (which takes 2-10 minutes, depends on how smoked my brain is creatively at the time) the day before I type the actual email - guess what happens.

No “Headbanging Against Walls Syndrome”.

This is just an example, but imagine how much frustration you’d be able to save in each of your work sessions if you just map out HOW to do a work task before you actually sit down to do it.

And how little you’d disappoint your future self.

A metaphor I adore when it comes to this concept is imagining yourself as both a pilot and a plane.

Your job as a pilot is to plan the course you need to take (the idea behind an email).

Your job as a plane is to execute on the plan you made (writing out the email).

If you enter plane mode without setting a clear enough route to follow, you’ll crash headfirst into the nearest wall during work.

So here’s the dead simple strategy to follow:

Enter “Pilot Mode” in your evenings. Plan every work task to the point you know EXACTLY what to do.

Enter “Plane Mode” the moment you open your eyes. Execute ruthlessly on all the tasks you set out to do, following the plans you made in the evening before.

And if you STILL happen to run into walls during work (you can’t plan ahead everything perfectly after all, shit happens, I know) - try spending 5 minutes planning the course of action for the next 30 minutes.

Some people I taught this strategy love this. Others don’t bother and enjoy the process of headbanging and forcing the work more. Your choice.

Anyway, hope you gained an insight today.

And one more thing before I go:

I’d love to hear what YOU’RE currently struggling with the most when it comes to performance.

I’m building an entire collection of mini lead magnets at the moment - mini-courses, video modules, plug-n-play systems - that you’ll all be getting for free (I already have your email after all, I can’t take it again lol).

And I want to build them around the problems YOU’RE facing.

Would genuinely appreciate hearing about your struggles to build them around the most common feedback I’m receiving.

So if you’re enjoying my emails and want your personal problems fixed - reply to this email and you might get a free solution completely based on what you need.

Thank you.

See you soon,

Henri