Lessons
Lesson Info
Action
Violence of Action, we're gonna talk about now. The irony that I've quoted a, put a Gandhi quote in there about action is not lost on me. "Action expresses priorities." And I think we can relate to that in everyday life that, are people's words align with their actions, whether that's relationships at the work place and business. You can judge a person by their actions. They may talk a mean game, but it's the actions truly do define. The Violence of Action, it's a Special Ops term. The Seals, we use it. It's to execute something with the element of surprise so swiftly that your enemy is just overwhelmed. And to be honest, I deployed to Afghanistan after 9/11. I think we went on over a dozen missions, combat missions. I hardly fired a shot. It's because we would hit these targets so fast in the middle of the night, they didn't know what hit them. A week before that, we did it in the Persian Gulf. We'd board a ship smuggling oil out of Iraq when they had the UN sanctions against Saddam H...
ussein. We would get on that boat and they'd weld themselves in. They're making the run towards the Iranian waters. And our breacher, the guy that has the big tool... There's a funny joke that says you're either a sniper or breacher. One carries heavy things, the other one does calculations in their heads, so you can see where that one's going. But, our breacher would get on and just cut a hole in the steel roof, drop a couple stun grenades down there and have the ship taken over probably in under 10 minutes. I'm just so fast. So that's where the term comes from, Violence of Action. Sometimes I think about my friend Kamal who says, he's my best friend and he runs a technology venture capital fund. He's a best selling author. He wrote a great book which I'll mention soon. I'll give it to you right now. It's called, "Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It." Has nnyone heard of that? No one? Kamal, we were joking about super powers and he's like, "Your super power is you just get shit done. "Like, I'll tell you something "and a week later you're doing it." Kamal invests and advises a bunch of different companies. He was like one of the first series to end the slack. He made some massive return on, what cryptocurrency was it, one of the only one's that provides anonymity. You remember, any of you guys know? Zcash. He was in Zcash, but Kamal is like, it's all about execution. You can have the best idea. We all have great ideas, but the execution part is what's missing. So that's why I have this. I talk about it in the book and I'll touch a little bit on it now. I'm actually gonna read you guys an excerpt out of the book, so give me a sec. Okay, so Violence of Action as I describe it to you guys theoretically, adopting action as your default mode. One of those famous war generals that a good idea executed now is better than a perfect one five minutes from now because you're probably gonna be dead. Hate it when that happens. So, "it simply means that taking action as your default mode "that when you're given a range of options, "your first choice is to act rather than sit back, "which puts you in the minority because most people "have a bias for inaction. "By having a bias for action, you have an automatic edge "over everyone else in the field." And I use that for my company today. I'm gonna talk about something, I think in the next lesson, and it was about something that went really bad and we had two brands and one brand had done something that affected another brand and we had to rebrand something. We rebranded an entire video channel in really two weeks. But I'm talking not only rebranding the website and our app, we went into our video archives, which is like hundreds and hundreds of videos, and had to edit in all the new branded material, which is a massive exercise. But we did it in two weeks because my team is just used to (snaps fingers) getting things done. All right, so, "By having a bias for action "you have an automatic edge over everyone else. "Although I've had a rocky relationship with my dad, "he has also inspired me in many ways. "His dogged, self-taught entrepreneurialism is one. "His bias for action is another." You guys remember this because I talked about it in my intro, taking that crazy sailing trip. "He and my mom talked for years about taking the family "on a boat, sailing around the world. "So what, lot's of people talk, only he didn't just talk, "he said," I literally remember my dad saying this to me. He said, "I don't wanna be the guy in the harbor "that keeps talking about sailing on this trip "but never takes it. "I don't wanna be that guy. "I'm gonna untie the boat, sail away on this journey. "And son-of-a-bitch, he did. "Suddenly, we were all out on the Pacific headed for Tahiti. "This is what I learned from my father, "is to untie the boat and let go." And I think about that and so many people, it's like what's your version of that, right? What's holding you back from untying the boat and doing what you really want? And that's really having that action and focus on execution is so important. Our motto, my business motto is "Business by Storm." I rebranded our whole company like hurricane because of that. So action-focused work habits. Just develop the habit of doing. Now, how many times we just had that list and we're just like, "I'm just gonna get to it later." You'd be surprised at what you would... I think there's an army commercial right about it, "We do more than most people do in their day "before seven in the morning." It's true because there's so much that you can get done if you just like focus on this actually making a habit out of doing stuff, attacking that to-do list. Don't let a good excuse get in the way. My note there, "There are no good excuses." And don't be afraid to act. I think I see people are always afraid to take action because they're worried about what's gonna happen. Well, you're never gonna know unless you take that next step. Failing is a part of it. It's a part of the learning process, a part of being successful. You think of it as, putting into sailing terms, right, my father, he had this goal to sail to Australia. Everybody knew it. We knew that was the plan and that's like having a mission in life, right? Okay, this is where we're going. We know we're going there. We're gonna untie that boat and head that direction, but we're gonna get blown around and stuff is gonna happen and we're gonna have to adjust. That's life. That's just such a great metaphor for life. I see so many people that untie that boat and they have no idea where the hell they're gonna end up. They don't know where they wanna go. And they're just getting pushed around and drifting through life. So, it's so important to have those goals. And don't be afraid to act because you're gonna mess up. We launched, we have the largest men's gear club in the U.S. right now. I remember when we first launched, I didn't have customer service. People were wanting to compliment us and yell at us and they had no way to get ahold of us. It was crazy. And we shipping stuff late. It was just a mess. But there were so many lessons learned. Had we not done it, I would have known nothing about it. I wouldn't know like we're one of the few eCommerce companies that really have an expertise in performance marketing. I know big billion dollar retail companies that don't understand how to spend an advertising dollar and make a return on it. They just don't know how to do it. And I would have never known that or learned that had I not just got after it and went and did it. So don't be afraid to act. Take action. Failure is a part of the learning process. Can't emphasize that enough. And then, speaking of action, "Getting Things Done" is another great book and that's by David Allen. Have you guys read that one before? Yeah. Anyone not read it? It's a good one. I still use this system. I have it on my phone, sitting on this table. You can apply his system to any technology or you can put it on Notepad. The big thing I really love about his book is it's a way for you to take everything in your head, whether it's a book you wanna read, movies, favorite restaurants, a good idea, and you can dump it into this system and it just gets it out of your head and the stress level goes from here to here. So that's a great book. All right, next up I'm gonna talk about excellence and why that matters.
Ratings and Reviews
user-1af93d
I had the pleasure of being in the live audience for this course, SO much content, I actually got the book as well and took lots of notes. With Brandon there is no fluff, it's all real actionable steps and strategies to get you focused in very specific ways. we talked about goal setting, team work, vision statement, and that's just a taste, there are so many different categories that we got into. I'll have to go and study my copious notes.. I'm glad CreativeLive added a course on FOCUS! Man I need it as a small business owner it's so helpful to have an expert help me Focus! Brandon was a high level Navy Seal but he's really down to earth, funny, smart and packed this course with massive content. Thanks Brandon
Brad Aylor
I thought that the course had a lot of helpful and interesting information. If your a person that relies on the presenter to excite you with presentation and not listen for the content, you may have some challenges. He should be applauded for what he has accomplished. We should all celebrate that.