Derek Sivers is a musician, entrepreneur, and author who became famous for his 3 min TED Talk on how to start a movement. In a podcast, he shares this incident which made him question his A-type personality. Till this ‘aha!’ moment, he was always trying to work very hard and very long to make sure that he left very little to chance. Derek, at that point in time, was living in LA, near the beach at Santa Monica. On the beach at Santa Monica, there was a bike track, about 20 kilometres long, running along the shore. Derek had decided that he wanted to get a bit fitter, so he decided to cycle every day. Every day, he would take his bike to the starting point and pedal as hard as he could till he reached one end, turned around, reached the other end, turned around and returned to the starting point. Every day he would put everything he had into this bike ride. Almost always, it took 43 minutes. This left him red-faced, huffing and puffing and usually completely exhausted and sometimes in pain. With time, Derek started noticing that he was no longer enthused about going on his bike ride. He had started associating it with pain and discomfort. He had been an avid biker all his life, and he liked riding. He didn’t want this negative association to remain. So, one day he decided to take it easy. He told himself, “I’m going to chill a bit. I’m no longer going to push myself, and I’m going to enjoy my ride. I won’t go at the same speed. Maybe I’ll go at half my speed.” The next day, he got on his bike and started riding slowly. He started noticing many things that he hadn’t noticed before. He saw houses on the way, and he saw trees. He even saw some dolphins frolicking in the waves. When he reached the end of his bike track at Marina del Rey, he saw a pelican flying. As he looked up at the Pelican, the Pelican pooped right into his mouth with remarkable accuracy. While that bit wasn’t enjoyable, by the time Derek finished his round from one end to the other and back to his starting point, he felt delightful and refreshed. And then he looked at his watch. It said 45 minutes. Derek kept looking at his watch, and it kept reading 45 minutes. That’s when he had his ‘Aha’! moment. He realized that all this going flat out was giving him marginal returns. This profound lesson that his huffing and puffing, and his red face and all that pain was giving him the benefit of just two minutes. Basically nothing. He wasn’t competing for anything, so that huffing and puffing was really not worth it. When Derek reflected on his life and his A-type personality, he realized that he was pushing himself as hard for everything, trying to squeeze every minute and every second out of every hour. Trying to squeeze every benefit out of every dollar. And all this was causing him too much stress. If he chilled out a little, the impact would be marginal, but he would be far happier. Now Derek makes it a point to be aware of what causes internal discomfort and emotional pain. If he ever sees that happening, he recalibrates and makes sure that he chooses a path that is perhaps less effective but happier. And his advice is, “Try everything, do everything, do your best, but don’t push yourself for that extra two minutes. It’s not worth it.” Business Points (Tags ) #push #marginalreturns #burnout
