100 percent is easier than 98 percent.
100 percent is easier than 98 percent.
The Genius Network Annual Event is the most high-level entrepreneurial event in the world.
I received many positive responses to my talk, including from Joel Weldon.
But he thought there was one thing that could be improved. When he told me what it was, I immediately resisted.
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Step by step.
He suggested making it a little less extreme: "Why not say that people don't have to turn off the entire internet right away, but that they can start by going offline for an hour two or three days a week, for example? Then they can test whether it's right for them."
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Cold turkey.
I replied, "Probably not very many people, because it's quite extreme. But if they do, it's a game changer."
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My choice.
Because I know from my own experience that it's harder to do something only partially than to go for it 100 percent, I didn't agree with him at first.
For me, cold turkey works best: I like to go all in. The first day can be quite a shock, but the second day it gets easier and by the third day it's no longer a problem.
A friend of mine, organizational psychologist Benjamin Hardy, once said, "100 percent is easier than 98 percent." In other words, it's better to go all in than almost all in.
Why? Because you no longer need discipline when you really go for 100 percent. Then you don't have to think about it every time. Then you don't have to doubt.
I discovered that when you stop doing something, it's easier to do it 100 percent than, say, 90 percent.
And now that I was applying the 100 percent rule, I could suddenly do it without any effort! This was a huge game changer for me.
In this book, I'm going to teach you how to be 100 percent offline and 100 percent online. But not something in between.
Hardcover.
Chapter 11: The rituals of Internet Fasting
Chapter 27: Extreme Internet Fasting: the 100% rule
Rule 1: you set the rules.
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Then you don't have to think about it every time.
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Then you don't have to doubt.
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Then you minimize the chances of falling back into undesirable behavior.
Internet Fasting is intended for the top one percent who are looking for extreme productivity.
For the "average" person, time is not the most valuable asset.
There is nothing wrong with that, of course.
"Probably not very many people, because it's quite extreme. But if they do, it's a game changer."