You can do absolutely anything. Here’s what you need:

1. A very accurate schedule that you adhere to diligently. All tasks can be accomplished if they’re given their proper time, and that time is defended.
2. Good tools. If your tools are clean and well-organized, and you have the right ones, all projects come together.
3. Friends. At least one; the more the merrier.

That’s it. If you’re looking at a seemingly impossible task, check this list first. Gather those things. If you have them, you can do it. And you’ll be amazed how good you feel just checking these off.

Someday great tragedies become children’s costumes. We can feel them now, and still be okay giving them to the great expanse of the future. All things pass to dust, and it isn’t always bad.

25 is coming back to your parents, hat in hand, to say “It’s harder than I thought,” and finally truly asking for advice.

30 is admitting that even happened, and dropping the false story you told yourself that it was for some other reason, not because your parents had wisdom to give that you needed.

40 is understanding that wasn’t shameful, it was wonderful. Not everyone has those parents to go back to.

How you start the game is as important as how you finish it. There’s opportunity for style and strategy, intensity and integrity. There’s a chance for you to set great things in motion.

Give it your all.

Take it one leg at a time, and you can go any distance. Stretch your legs when you need to. Range is unlimited, even if you need to rest for the night.

Plans change. Life changes. Sometimes your routine is disrupted. Sometimes you’re the one disrupting it, for good reason.

The fact that plans will almost never go according to themselves is no reason not to make them.

Use the default. Have a standard deviation, something to measure. A mean to regress to. Deviations aren’t chaos, they’re information. And they can be rewarding. But the plan is still the plan.

There’s a truly terrible negotiation technique that people routinely use. It’s not only awful for negotiation, it’s awful for your soul.

Here’s how it plays out: Person A attempts to initiate a transaction. Person B shows the tiniest, slightest bit of hesitation. Person A then immediately – and unprompted – drops their prices.

Mike: “Hey, would you like to buy this bike for $100?”
Mary: “Well, I don’t really…”
Mike: “50 bucks!”

First and foremost, the second you drop your price without some sort of actual transaction, you immediately lose all credibility. It sounds like your initial price was an inflated lie. So why should I trust your new price? Every word out of your mouth is suspect now, and I certainly won’t trust your valuation of whatever you’re trying to sell.

Second, most people do this before they even know what the objection is! Heck, some people do it before they even get an objection, like Mike. When someone doesn’t want to agree to your deal, sometimes it’s about the price. Often it’s about trust, or need, or rapport, or some qualifying consideration that has nothing to do with the nominal price range. If someone doesn’t want your bike at $100, there’s only a tiny chance that they’ll want it at $50 – and you’ve reduced the odds that they’ll trust you enough to buy it at any price by pulling that move.

Lastly, this is just so damaging to your own self-worth. Understand that I’m not just talking about selling bikes here. “Price” can mean a lot of things. Consider this similar interaction between Mike and Mary:

Mike: “Hey Mary, want to go see a movie with me on Friday?”
Mary: “Well, I don’t really…”
Mike: “It doesn’t have to be a movie! Anything you want!”

It’s the same thing. Mike attempted to initiate a transaction – the two of them, hanging out. Mike’s “price” was willingness to see a movie, presumably because he wanted to. The second Mike sensed hesitation, he dropped his price – from “willingness to see a movie” to “willingness to do anything at all.” If Mike and Mary are friends, then he’s devaluing himself by immediately dismissing his own wants. Just like with the hundred-dollar price tag of the bike, he’s saying that his own valuation of how much he’s worth was an inflated lie that even he didn’t believe and that crumbled under the slightest wind.

When the other person turns you down, your internal thought process sounds something like this: “Jeez, even though I dropped my prices, they didn’t buy. That means that even my lowered price was too high, so whatever I have to offer must be worth even less than I thought.” And that’s a bad thing to think about a bike – and much worse to think about yourself.

The reality is that they didn’t turn you down because of your price. They turned you down because that negotiation “technique” ruins your credibility and rapport. It makes you seem like a desperate liar, and no one wants to buy a bike from someone they perceive to be a desperate liar. They don’t want to go to the movies with them, either.

Now, that’s not to say you can’t ever negotiate your prices. But that’s different! If someone offers you $75 for the bike after you say it’s $100, then maybe you can haggle. If someone tells you that they’re not into the movies this week, but they’re willing to treat you if you grab a burger instead, then we’re in business. Negotiating your price isn’t the same as dropping your price. Negotiating is a win/win. Dropping your price is a lose/lose.

If you go to a low-cost fast-food restaurant and you’re upset that your food isn’t gourmet, that’s not a reasonable complaint. Not only are you the one with silly expectations about the restaurant’s food, you also have silly expectations about the way they’ll handle complaints.

That’s not to say you’re wrong about the quality of the food! The food probably wasn’t good! But unless it was uniquely bad even for the context, then that’s about what you should expect, and you definitely shouldn’t expect the people working there to care.

This isn’t about lowered standards. It’s about proper expectations. If your standards were higher, you just wouldn’t have gone there in the first place. If you get mad that the Gucci purse you bought on out of somebody’s trunk at the flea market turned out to be a knock-off, that’s on you.

In other words, standards are something you impose on yourself. You can’t expect to create the value point for other people’s standards. If you don’t want a knock-off Gucci, then don’t buy bags out of people’s trunks, you know?

Sometimes I have what I call “air bubble” problems. If you’ve ever put down a large sticker on something, you know that you have to avoid air bubbles. If you don’t, they get trapped under there – and pushing them down only makes them pop back up somewhere else. They’re tricky to get rid of entirely.

Some problems feel like that. You solve the immediate problem, but the solution causes some other problem, and solving that one cascades into a series of new ones. In some cases, you may even find yourself circling back around and causing the original problem all over again!

The economic adage is true: “There are no solutions; only trade-offs.” Sometimes you have to just look for the Pareto-optimal solution and take that deal when you find it.

But sometimes… sometimes you really can put a little hole with a pin in that sticker, let the air out, and then smooth it down. A little “tolerable destruction” can go a long way. And that’s the trick, I think. When you’re in that cycle of problems, look for what aspects of the current situation don’t actually have to survive. What things can you sacrifice for the solution you need?

It’s a trade-off, sure. But a different kind – and sometimes getting rid of something is a solution in itself.