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Hacks Are For Hacks

Writer's picture: Kevin CapeKevin Cape

Updated: Sep 18, 2024

Wanna see something funny?

Watch how this obscenely obvious logical progression is mocking all of us:
  1. We want to be successful at business.
  2. John D. Rockefeller Jr. was successful at business; he’s the richest American in history in terms of wealth vs. contemporary GDP. He amassed a fortune of more than $410 billion, adjusted to 2022 dollars.
  3. We should do what John D Rockefeller Jr. did so that we, too, can be successful at business.
  4. “The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.” -John D. Rockefeller Jr.
  5. We fall at the feet of internet clickbait bullshit like “21 business hacks every founder needs to know” with bonus turd-brownie points if the hacks will boost our “productivity”
  6. 🙄

If I sound annoyed it’s because I am.

I’ve grown weary of coaching prospects coming into program looking for me to magically make them productive. So many are looking from some secret that will save them from what all of us know we all need to do.

I was on a podcast last year and the host was interested in how we help founders and clients create their realities. He referenced things I’d said on other pods about writing a story to live into, creating aspirational fiction we turn into tangible non-fiction (we call these Future Histories but Amazon and Zingerman's (and many more) use their own iterations of the same concept).

He asked me, “How does someone take the first step to winning at business and life like that?!”

Brace yourselves…

You write the fucking story down.

Let’s take you, for instance. Why are you here, reading this? Looking for guidance? Inspiration? HACKS!?
Have you written out what success looks like 6 months from now? NO!? Bro.

Go do that shit right now (Here's an AI shortcut to get you started). Literally, don’t even finish reading this blog.

Look, when an Olympic swimmer is preparing to take their shot at gold, to stand atop a podium that shows the whole world they’re the fastest one doing it, they will take every last sliver of an advantage.

But guess what. They go to practice. And then they go to the gym. And then they dial in their nutrition and their sleep. And then maybe they start adding hacks to get whatever little advantage they can.

What they don’t do? Shave their whole body because the drag reduction gets them three tenths of a second faster, and then skip their training sessions actually swimming in the pool.

When founders are out here “hacking” their “productivity,” but don’t have a clear WRITTEN vision of what success looks like, then my question is: productive towards what!?

Because guess what, “producing” is not inherently valuable. Some production carries an opportunity cost, and counts as wasted resource, because it wasn’t produced towards the outcomes you and your business actually need.

And the fact is that most “productivity” is actually just activity with nothing of value produced.

So yeah, did you read that article, implement those hacks, and check 3 more things off of your to-do list each day this week? Sure, great. Did those 3 things move the needles you need? You have no idea because you haven’t put doen on paper where you wanna go.

And look, I get it, it’s fuckin’ hard. Dialing into where you wanna be in 6 months feels impossible. There are so many unknowns, and risks, and opportunities, how do we account for all of that? Honestly, we can’t. It’s always uncomfortable, it’s always uncertain, and we’re always bad at something we’ve just started doing, but we gotta do it so we can end up good at it.

Luckily for you, we’ve gotten pretty good at helping people work through feeling bad at this process. Click here to find out if you qualify for us to help you, too.
Cause hacks are for hacks, and you’re better than that.
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