If I were to write a book, this is what it would be about
I’m not sure I would ever write a book.
Honestly, I thought about becoming an English teacher. I loved the idea of talking about books with students and real-life stuff (it was tough to pull that off in math).
But I went the math route for one simple reason: I hated writing.
I hated writing so much that I did everything I could to avoid taking classes where I had to write papers (hence, math).
But the joke’s on me because here I am, fifteen years later, and what’s a major part of what I do for a living?
Yup, I write.
I’m writing this email to you.
And it’s a bit less daunting for me to write (and for you to read) than a full book, but, nevertheless, here I am - a “writer.”
So I won’t say it’s impossible that I’d write a book, but it truly has never been a desire of mine.
Even more, I know, and have spoken to, several people who have written full books and they all say the some version of the same thing:
“You don’t write a book because you want to or because you think it’s a cool idea. It’s way too hard to do that and you’ll never complete it. You write a book because you feel like you absolutely have to.”
And, while I think I have a unique perspective on some things, I never thought I’d have an idea or something to say that is so essential that I would feel anything close to this feeling and felt perfectly comfortable with the idea that I will never be an author.
Also, total aside, the English language is silly. Why is it “a unique” instead of “an unique?” I know it’s the first one, but the rules of grammar are basically like whenever I play games with my five-year-old: just make them up as you go. Ridiculous. See why I never thought I’d be a writer? Ok, back on track.
But, for the past several months, I have been stumbling through understanding a fairly overarching concept on human behavior that I’ve been discussing a lot with my clients and myself that I can’t stop thinking about or discussing.
And I’m not sure what that feeling my author friends described feels like, but I think I’m at least in the neighborhood (which, frankly, scares the crap out of me).
So, here’s my plan: for the next several weeks, I’m going to be diving into this concept with you in these emails. I’ll test the waters on writing about it - how it feels for me to do it and how it’s received by you, the reader.
I’m honestly not sure where this will lead, but I’m going to play it out.
To do this, I’d love it if you could help me out by doing one (or several) of the following things:
Listen to the first (of what will likely be many) podcasts I did on the topic here.
Respond to these emails with your thoughts (including telling me if it resonates or is totally off-base)
Ask me questions that you have as I dig into it (this will help me identify holes in the theory)
At this point, 500+ words into this email, you might be saying: “what’s the damn idea, Jeff?”
To which I would respond, fair point. I’ve been stalling, but here it is:
There are leading behaviors and lagging behaviors and we’re focused on the wrong one.
Enticing?
Let me explain on a high level and we’ll get into the weeds with plenty more examples over the next couple weeks.
In business, there are what we call “leading indicators” and “lagging indicators.”
A lagging indicator might be something like revenue. It lags, or is a result of, the leading indicators.
A leading indicator might be something like the number of sales calls offered.
A couple key distinctions: lagging indicators are dependent variables and are very difficult (or even impossible) to directly control. Leading indicators are independent and are mostly completely controllable.
I can determine how many sales calls I offer. How many people actually get on those calls, how many people I close, and, therefore, how much revenue I generate are based on the systems and skills I have in place.
But, at the end of the day, I’m not in charge of how much revenue I make directly. I’m in charge of the process that leads me to the revenue. I’m in charge of the process, not the outcome.
The key is that if we focus on the lagging indicators, we won’t actually be able to affect them until we go back to the corresponding leading indicator.
As I dove into this more and more with the businesses I work with, I realized that this might actually be a universal truth (another place where it’s “a” instead of “an” that I don’t understand, but I digress) that governs all behavior.
I will give you a silly example, but it’s the one that clicked this concept for me: I will almost never cook dinner if I’m wearing sweatpants at dinnertime.
A couple things to clarify: I could literally wear sweatpants all day if I wanted to, I do nearly all of the cooking in our house (it’s just how we’ve divvied up responsibilities), I generally enjoy cooking, and, if I don’t cook, we’re either ordering takeout or, at best, I’m cooking eggs for dinner.
I couldn’t figure out why I would have some nights where I just couldn’t get myself up to cook dinner. We had the supplies. I knew what the planned meal was. I would just be in a spot where the idea of spending 20-30 minutes cooking dinner sounded about as appealing as wiping my butt with sandpaper.
But one day, as I was actually cooking dinner (even though I still didn’t really feel like it that night), I started to ask why I was able to get myself up to cook that night.
Nothing else was really different than it was two nights previous when I didn’t want to cook. If anything, I was more tired. I’d had a longer day, the kids were a bit more emotional, and I was on solo dad duty while my wife was at an appointment.
All the other signs pointed to this being an easy dinner night. So why was I willing to cook tonight, but not the other night?
After racking my brain for a while, my daughter came up and started hanging onto the back pockets of my jeans while I cooked (not at all OSHA-approved kitchen etiquette, but she’s cute, so I let it slide).
And it clicked: I was wearing real pants.
I had been trying to figure out a strategy to get myself to cook even when I didn’t feel like it. I did menu planning, grocery pickup orders, new recipes to peak my interest, you name it. Nothing worked. And I couldn’t figure it out.
I assumed it was because I wasn’t disciplined or was lazy or it was some other personality flaw. I started to blame others - the kids were making it harder or my wife should cook more (even though she offers all the time) which bred silent resentment and unrest that none of them deserved.
I was focused on the wrong behavior. I was focused on the lagging behavior of cooking dinner.
I was trying to solve the lagging behavior in the moment, but the battle of me cooking dinner wasn’t being fought at 5 PM.
It was won or lost at 8 AM when I got dressed for the day after my workout.
Because when I put on sweatpants, I triggered something in my brain that this was a relaxing day. This wasn’t a day to do things. This was a day to chill.
Putting on real pants was the leading behavior.
And that’s WAY easier to actually do. How hard is it to put on jeans instead of sweatpants? Significantly easier than trying to force myself to cook dinner when I had absolutely no desire to because I was in chill mode.
By focusing on the leading behavior of getting myself dressed in real pants in the morning, the lagging behavior became significantly easier to do.
Now, am I 100% going to cook if I’m wearing real pants? Of course not, but my chances increase significantly and with much less friction than trying to deal with it in the moment.
One more quick, simple example:
I have a client whose only time she could feasibly work out was first thing in the morning before her kids woke up.
She was trying to get up to workout, but was struggling to get herself out of bed at 6 AM to do it.
She tried everything: put her alarm across the room, chose a louder alarm sound, used an app that measured her circadian rhythm so it woke her up when she was most rested, everything under the sun to get herself to wake up, but she couldn’t do it.
And she felt frustrated. Was she lazy? Did exercise not matter enough to her? Why couldn’t she get herself to do this simple thing?
Getting up was the lagging behavior and she couldn’t figure out how to change it. And it’s because she was focusing in the wrong place.
So we worked backward and found out that she was getting in bed at 10, but scrolling on her phone until after midnight some nights.
Naturally, she was exhausted at 6 AM and waking up was way harder than it needed to be. The hacks she was trying were merely bandaids on the bigger issue: she wasn’t sleeping enough.
So how did we get her to sleep better? We came up with a leading behavior that would help her get better sleep. Any guesses?
Her new job was to put her phone down by 9 PM. That gave her time to do a little bedtime routine and actually be asleep by 10 PM.
What did that lead to? Waking up at 6 AM became much easier for her.
Because the battle wasn’t won or lost in the morning. It was decided the night before.
Is she 100% on waking up when she puts her phone down? No, but she’s significantly more likely to wake up if she does.
The best part? Putting the phone down at 9 PM is WAY easier than trying to force yourself to get up in the morning when you’re exhausted.
We spend a lot of time getting frustrated with our own behavior. We think that we’re not disciplined or we’re lazy or we don’t have enough willpower, but if we get into a willpower game, we’ll likely lose.
Because trying harder isn’t a plan and being more disciplined isn’t a strategy.
We will always default to what’s easiest, comfortable, convenient, and feels good.
If we want to be successful, we need to make success easier. How?
Focus on the leading behaviors.
If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading. This might be my longest email ever, but it means a lot that you’ve read this far.
If this resonated at all with you or, in particular, if you have questions, I’d love it if you’d hit reply and let me know as I’m fleshing out this concept.
I’m looking forward to exploring it further with you the next few weeks.
To your health,
Jeff
P.s. If you want to hear more of my unfiltered thoughts on this topic, I did the first of many podcasts on it the other week. You can listen here.
P.p.s. when you’re ready, here are a few ways to get more support:
👉🏻 Fit & Present Parent Community - free community for parents with regular tips & strategies
👉🏻 Fit Parent Project - lose 10+ lbs & feel more confident with my signature coaching program
