The majority of people give up when they face opposition. Lack of persistence is one of the major causes of failure.

It comes as no surprise we read the following in Chapter 9:

> Lack of persistence is a weakness common to the majority of men.

Most people give up when they fail. Most people lack persistence.

What this means is if you persist, you are uncommon. If you persist, you are the minority. With persistence, you will win.

The book actually refers to lack of persistence as a handicap.

> To get RESULTS, you must apply all of the rules until their application becomes a fixed habit with you.

Persistence is a habit. You can develop the habit of persistence just like any other habit.

I recently read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Habit 5 fundamentally changed my life: Seek first to understand then to be understood.

Specifically, the principle within this chapter, Empathic Listening, is what rocked me.

I’ve often lamented that most people in conversations are not listening but instead waiting to talk. They’re not listeners, they’re wait-to-talkers. Two people take turns talking at each other and later say they had a conversation.

Whether this constitutes a conversation is up for debate, but no actual communication took place. Communication is the sending and receipt of a message. If you’re broadcasting and no one is receiving, are you communicating?

I make it no secret that I value effective communication. While I knew I wasn’t perfect, I certainly thought I was doing at least a decent job of listening.

I was wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

What I learned, and will share with you today regarding the principle of Empathic Listening, showed me that I was not listening at all. Even my well-intentioned questions were ill-timed such that they come across as probing! I had no idea until I read this book.

Here I was, thinking I was doing a good job listening, and I was guilty of not just one but ALL FOUR autobiographical responses. In other words, I was actually approaching listening from a selfish frame of reference and feeding my ego—even when I thought I was doing the right things (such as asking questions and repeating what people said). I did not understand even the basics of Empathic Listening.

I’ve since gone through this material many times and applied Empathic Listening in many scenarios to astounding results. It is absolutely incredible—and that’s why I refer to it in the title of this episode as a “superpower”.

But Empathic Listening is hard. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s on par with the difficulty of writing a book. If you ever left an interaction feeling good about the advice you gave and how well you listened, you’re certainly not practicing Empathic Listening.

Empathic Listening is extremely challenging and likely one of the most difficult things you’ll ever do, but it will change your life, make friends, save marriages, close deals, and increase your influence dramatically.

Quick note: Annual Membership is increasing permanently on June 30th. Sign up to become a member at https://seanwes.com/membership now to lock in the current rate and get a bunch of months FREE.

Join the Community, tune in to live shows, and get access to over $7,500 worth of our courses and training by becoming a seanwes member.

I’m on a sabbatical week and wanted to catch you up on a bunch of things!

• If you’ve been thinking about becoming a seanwes member, now is the time to do so! We are increasing the Annual Membership investment forever at the end of June. Lock in the current rate at https://seanwes.com/membership.
• On July 1st, I am writing 100,000 a day and live streaming the whole thing. Visit http://Write100K.com to learn more about how I plan to write a hundred thousand words in a single day.
• While I’m kicking off the month by writing 100,000 words on July 1st, I’m also taking the entire month of July to write my next book, Sabbatical.
• During the month of July when i’m writing my next book, I’m considering having Ben Toalson and Dan Jacobson take over the seanwes podcast instead of just doubling up on podcast recordings for a month in advance.
• Next year, 2020 will be my first sabbatical year. I’m taking off the entire year and traveling. I reveal some of the places I’m going—from Melbourne to Montreal (and much more!).
• This week, I’m attending my favorite conference, Craft + Commerce (where I spoke a couple years ago: https://youtu.be/lCTC81KSReA) in Boise, Idaho. I’m also doing some hiking. As always, follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/seanwes to watch my story and see behind the scenes.
• I created a brand new Sabbatical YouTube channel (https://sabbatical.blog/youtube). I will document my journey of taking a year off and share videos of my sabbatical year on this channel. Go subscribe!
• Learn more about sabbaticals, and my upcoming book, at https://sabbatical.blog.

Lack of decision and procrastination are holding you back:

> ACCURATE analysis of over 25,000 men and women who had experienced failure, disclosed the fact that LACK OF DECISION was near the head of the list of the 30 major causes of FAILURE. This is no mere statement of a theory–it is a fact.
> PROCRASTINATION, the opposite of DECISION, is a common enemy which practically every man must conquer.

Every single one of several hundred millionaires analyzed shared a single trait: they reached decisions promptly and changed them slowly.

> Analysis of several hundred people who had accumulated fortunes well beyond the million dollar mark, disclosed the fact that every one of them had the habit of REACHING DECISIONS PROMPTLY, and of changing these decisions SLOWLY, if, and when they were changed. People who fail to accumulate money, without exception, have the habit of reaching decisions, IF AT ALL, very slowly, and of changing these decisions quickly and often.

How would you rate yourself on your ability to make decisions promptly? Do you make decisions fast and change them (if at all) very slowly? Or are you slow to make decisions?

If you are slow to make decisions, it’s not likely you will become very successful.

Let’s talk about how to change that.

Is your success taking longer than you’d like it to?

Are you experiencing nothing but failures and setbacks?

How many years does it take to make it?

Many of the most prominent examples of success you’re familiar with came just on the other side of more failures than you’re probably willing to endure. From Disney, with nothing but failures and setbacks for the first 10 years, to Seth Godin, with 900 rejection letters in a row and being on the verge of bankruptcy for 8 years.

How willing are you to put in the time and show up consistently? Are you committed enough to put in your 10 years?

There is a lot of nuance to this topic—for instance, there is something to be said about knowing when to quit. But that’s what makes a podcast such a good format for a discussion like this.

As John Maxwell says, “I changed my question from, ‘How long will it take?’ to ‘How far can I go?'”

I’m going to share an extremely powerful idea in this episode. I’ve talked about it with a couple close friends, but this is the first time I’m sharing the concept publicly.

I want you to meditate on the question I’m about to ask.

What if you already possessed the skills you need to make a million dollars a year and it was just a matter of alignment with the right people?

You don’t lack any ability. You don’t need to develop more skills.

Is it a good idea to continue to develop yourself? Absolutely. But right now, you don’t lack anything other than alignment with whomever would benefit significantly from the skills you already possess. The only thing that is missing is connection. It’s all networking. It’s all people. It’s all who you know.

After I lay out this idea in full, we put it into practice. Ben has an idea for documentary filmmaking and we discuss it in the context of this idea.

You’re working too hard!

I’m not saying you should put in less effort necessarily, but you can get so much MORE out of the effort you’re already putting in to produce content.

It takes a lot of time and energy to create content, and you’re working too hard to produce it. Instead of making new pieces of individual content from scratch, you can repurpose content creatively into different formats and mediums for distribution on more platforms.

I share my strategy for generating 6X more content from a single topic. All it takes is a few tweaks to your production process.

The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life, says neuroscientist and sleep expert, Matthew Walker.

Think you can survive on less than 7 or 8 hours of sleep per night? Think again. You’re more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than to possess the ultra rare gene that allows you to sleep fewer than 7 hours without mental impairment, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

You can’t cheat your body on sleep. You’re only taking years off the end of your life.

Studies show you also can’t make up for lost sleep. If you’re shorting yourself on sleep in anticipation of “making it up on the weekend”, you’re doing irreparable damage. You can’t pay back sleep debts by getting extra hours in later.

Studies also show those who sleep five to six hours a night will on average eat between 200 to 300 extra calories each day, That’s 10 to 15 pounds of obese mass each year. It also tends to be more of the wrong kind of food, which we’ll talk more about in the show.

As a chronically under slept person, who for most of my 20s believed he could get by just fine on 5 or 6 hours of sleep, I am now adamant about sleeping no fewer than 8 hours each night. It’s practically become my religion.

You will never think about sleep the same way again after this episode.

This is by far the longest chapter yet! There’s just so much packed into one chapter.

Chapter 7: Organized Planning contains lists of dozens upon dozens of items on how to build practical plans, major attributes of leadership, and 10 major causes of failure (among many other lists).

One notable formula provided is the the “QQS” Formula which is:

Quality + Quantity + the proper Spirit of cooperation = Perfect salesmanship of service.

While we won’t be able to get to every list in this chapter, we will touch on a number of items from some of the following lists covered:

• How to Build Plans Which Will Be Practical
• The Major Attributes Of Leadership
• The 10 Major Causes Of Failure In Leadership
• Media Through Which Services May Be Marketed
• Information To Be Supplied In A Written “Brief”
• How To Get The Exact Position You Desire
• What Is Your “QQS” Rating?
• The Thirty Major Causes Of Failure. How Many Of These Are Holding You Back?
• Self-Analysis Questionnaire for Personal Inventory