Hey you.
Simple, yet deeply PROFOUND letter today, okay?
One sentence has changed my life, and I think it might change yours too.
“What would this look like if it were EASY?”
That one question, as simple as it may seem, really is life changing.
I stole it from the classic book by Tim Ferris, “The Four Hour Work Week.”
For the last year and a half, I’ve been asking myself that before every single decision I make, and the rewards have been PRICELESS.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, because it’s exactly what I thought when I first started using this tactic….
Random “sayings” started to go through my head like…
“If it was easy everyone would do it….”
“you get what you pay/work for”
“a hard day’s work is an honest day’s work..”
You’ve heard them all…
And they really are roadblocks to using this LIFE CHANGING sentence…
Because the “Easy Route” has such a TABOO in our culture!
I mean seriously!
It’s almost a curse word!
Success is supposed to be hard, isn’t it!?
It’s supposed to be all “blood, sweat and tears” for YEARS, and THEN you get your reward!
I 100% bought into this, as a division 1 basketball player, it was 100% true.
If you didn’t put in the work? It wasn’t going to happen for you, plain and simple.
So it was even harder for me to get my head around this sentence, even though the legendary Tim Ferris swore by it…
“What would this look like if it were EASY?”
Real quick, before we get to how to actually USE this sentence effectively, let me explain why it WORKS.
I think it comes back to that 80/20 rule, or even the “Power Law” that I’ve discussed in MANY of my other letters.
Basically, both of these rules state that a SMALL number of your actions ACTUALLY DETERMINE your success or failure, and the rest is just noise.
So while working hard is definitely admirable, this rule clearly proves (with thousands of examples that I’m sure you’ve seen in your own life) that all hard work isn’t created equal.
It’s only the hard work CONCENTRATED and FOCUSED on the things that REALLY MATTER that makes a difference.
And it’s this principle that so elegantly DRIVES the success of the “Easy” rule….
The “Easy” rule, as I’m naming it right now, is SO SIMPLE.
Before every task, every decision (and DEFINITELY before IMPORTANT decisions) you must STOP and ask yourself, “What would this look like if it were EASY?”
Like I said above, all these negative thoughts will come at you.
You will feel super lazy, like you’re trying to “get out of something”.
You need to ignore that feeling and press on.
The key to it being EASY is that it STRIPS AWAY ALL THE USELESS STUFF.
All the useless tasks?
All the random “effort” and “striving” that you could JUMP TO without thinking?
It gets rid of that.
Making something honestly easy strips it down to the bare essentials, and gets you MAXIMUM results for MINIMUM effort.
I don’t want to harp on this too long, because this is one of those things that you really need to TRY to experience the power of it.
It sounds so dumb, but if you actually focus in, take the time to THINK before acting, and take the EASIEST, most EFFICIENT path….
You will feel more peace.
You will feel more in control.
And you will have more TIME than you know what to do with.
Here’s some quick examples of how I’ve used this powerfully.
Problem = “I don’t know who to hire as my head of advertising. It’s probably the #1 most important hire in our company. If I get it wrong, we lose hundreds of thousands of dollars….”
“What would this look like if it were easy?”
Answer: Hire 3 top candidates at the same time. Pay more money up front but virtually guarantee that we find a winner within one month. Problem solved.
Problem = I don’t know what topics people would like to hear about most for the Kale letter….
“What would this look like if it were easy?”
Answer: do a quick email survey and ask people what they want to hear about… write about the most common responses.
Problem = I don’t have time to pursue X, or Y, or Z, I’m worried that it will affect my main business or focus…
“What would this look like if it were easy?”
Answer: Either avoid it altogether, or hire a CEO of that project and leave it up to them. Give them 1 month to pass or fail the project then decide what to do from there.
See? This can be applied to literally anything (I just picked a few business examples off the top of my head…)
Your marriage…
Your relationships…
Your company…
Your task at work…
Your long term goals…
Ask yourself that ONE question at least 5 times each day for the next week.
And then come back to this letter and let me know in the comments if it worked for you :)
If you found this interesting, feel free to forward this email to 10 people who it would help.
Thank you so much!
Kale
P.S. still running this special for 30 days of free access to this letter, take advantage while you can! 100% free zero payment if you don’t like it.
What would this look like if it were EASY?