My personal summary of the book The GAP and the GAIN by Dan Sullivan & Benjamin Hardy.
Why people are not happy?
- Pursuit of happiness, this implies we don’t have it now
- CEO’s are twice as likely to have a depression
- Entrepreneurs are prone to depression and suicide
-> That is, if we stay in the GAP
GAP = Measuring against an ideal
GAIN = Measuring against what you have achieved
Get off the GAP treadmill
“The day you stop racing, is the day you win the race” – Bob Marley
‘If you focus on what you lack you loose what you gain. If you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack.” – Greg McKeown
Ideals are unreachable by definition
Goals are reachable
When you are in the GAIN, you value your experiences. All of them!
Being in the GAIN makes you psychologically bulletproof
“The person who fails the most, will win”
“Everything in life happens for you, not to you” Byron Katie
The more you are in the GAIN, the less you care what people think about you. You compare less.
Be in the gain for others
The meaning of life, is whatever you ascribe it to be.
Get out of the GAP
Embrace the freedom of wants, avoid the attachment of needs.
Happiness is where you start, not where you finish.
-> Confidence is not what creates success
-> Prior success creates confidence
=> Being in the GAIN creates confidence
Counter-intuitive reality
By no longer needing what you want, you are far more enabled to get it.
Play the long game
Vision and goals is great. You are in the GAP if you wish you were already there.
- You are here, and you love being here
- You love what your life is like
- You’re blown away by your gains
Freedom “from” vs freedom “to”
Maslow, freedom from is below in the pyramid. Freedom to is above in the pyramid.
Freedom “from”
= External
= Objective
= You’re not a slave to someone or something
Freedom “to”
= Internal
= Subjective = You feel free
= You are your own master
=> Free yourself from the GAP
Be self-determined
“Success” is measured against a reference point.
-> Being fixated on outside reference points = GAP
-> Being directed by your own internal reference point = GAIN
Become self-determined
- Make yourself the reference point
- Intrinsically motivated, not extrinsically
- You decided what success means to you
- You don’t need anyone else permission
- You don’t need to apologize
- You are clear on WHY you want what you want
=> Social media stops you from becoming self-determined
Your happiness as a person is dependent on what you measure yourself against.
-> Measure your own gains, rather than caring what other people think
-> Measure yourself against yourself
-> Measure your own gains, rather than worrying about other people
The compound effect of the gap or gain
-> Being extensive periods in the gap, will shorten your lifespan
-> It’s a habit to be in the gap
Stress
-> Short-term stress = Strengthen cellular response
-> Long-term stress = Overwhelms your system, shortens lifespan
Optimistic people live 10+ years longer than pessimistic people.
Your interpretation of events, despite their objective characteristic, determines the impact of stress and illness on your body. Perception shapes biology.
Experiences comes down to the framing we give it. When you are in the GAIN, you experience/perceive everything in life (even challenging experiences) as a gain.
How to quickly go back in the gain
Stop comparing and practice gratitude
-> People that are grateful, don’t overly obsess over “fairness” or comparison
-> Helps you make smart short/long term decisions.
Call yourself out and give others permissions to call you out
-> It’s important to have compassion & appreciation for yourself.
-> Be that person who acknowledge other people’s gains.
“You are in the gap”, mention it.
-> In difficult situations: “How can we turn this into gain?”
Practice mental subtraction
-> Thinking of the absence of the good things in your life, can make you appreciate more. E.g.: Imagining the absence of a person in your life.
-> Think about a good event that happened and the choices that got you there. Imagine making other choices, the event not taking place. Then be grateful it did!
Give yourself 5 minutes in the gap, then move forward
-> Implementation intentions: Plan for the worst, so you can perform your best.
-> Pre-planned responses (e.g. Sugar addiction, whenever you urge the need, you perform something else healthy).
Get into the gain
A.M.B.: Always measure backwards.
“You cannot connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect the dots looking backward” – Steve Jobs
If you are not regularly reminded of the gains, it’s easy to go into the gap and lose hope.
The past, and how we view it, is more a reflection of where we currently are than of the past itself.
=> The present causes the meaning of the past.
Measure wins daily
Have a proactive day architecture, rather than a reactive day architecture.
-> Never go to bed without a question for your subconscious mind.
Transform every experience into a gain
The stories of our lives are under constant revision.
We are able to color our past either happy or sad.
Become antifragile
Antifragile = Getting better out of each experience.
-> Turning every experience into a gain
-> Seeing experiences as gains