The Life-Changing Benefits of Being Boring. [From the Archive - Now with Voiceover]
Earlier this year, we asked our paid subscribers to share how Ultra Successful impacted their career or business trajectories, and the results were astonishing. Not only did a whopping 93% of respondents report that Ultra Successful helped improve their motivation/engagement at work, but 86% reported an improvement in their performance thanks to Ultra Successful — including helping them to achieve more goals, launch a new product or business, increase revenue/income, expand their market share, and more.
To celebrate the growth of this incredible community, we are unlocking one of my favorite posts from the archive, “The Life-Changing Benefits of Being Boring,” to be permanently free and launching our first-ever (and potentially only) summer sale, so you can get an additional 15% off your annual subscription to Ultra Successful for the next week only.
If you’re on the fence about upgrading to the paid version of Ultra Successful, this is a great opportunity to test it out for yourself. Dive into the edition below, set aside time to do the weekly challenge, and show up for yourself. This work is rarely glamorous or easy, but — as you’ll read in the edition below — it’s certainly worth it. If you want to listen, click here or scroll to the bottom of the post to tune in.
Years ago, a client of mine was prepping for an upcoming media interview. As we were rolling through some of the anticipated questions, he was increasingly frustrated by what they seemed to be angling for. This is when I told him, “Look, what they’ll be trying to figure out is what makes you exceptional,” to which he replied, “Being boring is what makes me exceptional, but I don’t think anyone wants to hear that.”
While he had a great sense of humor, he was also right. Being boring isn’t bold, sexy, or exciting — but it produces far more titans than those things ever could.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at why “boring” really blows everyone else out of the water, and how it can help you level up in a massive way.
True Aggression is Under the Hood
What I’ve noticed doing this work for a long time is that people who do big things — outliers by their very nature — are often overlooked. The average person judges entrepreneurs or execs by a media image of what success looks like…and it’s often far from what’s true on the ground. Sure, there are some founders with big personalities who are always in the media or making outlandish statements, and they get a lot of attention in the press, but they’re not the norm at all.
Instead, I’ve often found that incredible builders are quite understated, particularly in certain industries. What’s on the outside tells you *absolutely nothing* about what’s going on under the hood. We see this all the time, especially with things like high-performance vehicles. They might look flashy on the outside, but those visuals are simply refinements supporting the motor — which is really what’s doing the lion’s share of the work.
If you’re reading this and that’s you — know that you’re exactly how you should be. Don’t feel pressured to change, or it will pull you out of your zone. The man above? He felt pretty “boring,” but his engine certainly was exceptional.
When it comes to high-performance individuals, exceptional engines under the hood look like this:
Unquenchable Hunger/Internally Driven
Deep Self-Belief
Strategically Aggressive
Self-Propelled Work Ethic
Relentless Resolve
Resilient Optimism
Always “On”/Thinking about things
Genuine Enjoyment of Risk
Like Winning
These are traits I see all the time in people that others would label as “boring.” Notice they are the things you don’t see. They aren’t visible from the outside, but they do produce spectacular results.
I also want you to notice what is absent from this list. You don’t see traits like being loud, extroverted, flashy, popular, knowing the hottest restaurants/places, flying around the world, etc. It’s not that these things can’t exist, but they’re not the important things that really fuel success.
Boring is indeed exceptional, especially once you look under the hood.
The Secret of the “Grinder”
The rise to greatness isn’t sexy.
Right now, there is an Olympic athlete somewhere in the world getting up to train. They’re putting in another lap, lifting another weight, or running another mile. They go to bed early and train even when they aren’t feeling motivated, but they just keep putting themselves forward to do the work. Making sacrifices.
I wonder what that looks like to you when it comes to what you want. What’s the next lap you need to put in, even when you don’t feel like it?
There is a fantastic paper that examined Olympic-level swimmers versus other levels of swimmers, and I think it highlights this phenomenon perfectly. Here’s a powerful excerpt:
“Different levels of the sport are qualitatively distinct. Olympic champions don't just do much more of the same things that summer league country club swimmers do. They don't just swim more hours, or move their arms faster, or attend more workouts. What makes them faster cannot be quantitatively compared with lower-level swimmers, because while there may be quantitative differences—and certainly there are, for instance in the number of hours spent in workouts—these are not, I think, the decisive factors at all.
Instead, they just do things differently. Their strokes are different, their attitudes are different, their groups of friends are different, their parents treat the sport differently, the swimmers prepare differently for their races, and they enter different kinds of meets and events. There are numerous discontinuities of this sort between, say, the swimmer who competes in a local City League meet and one who enters the Olympic trials.”
It isn’t just the hours (though often important), it is a lot of everything else.
The secret of the grinder is internal, but they also set up their external environment to support that internal push so it is always being reinforced. The “boring” entrepreneur above had no problem grinding for hours on end, but it’s about more than that. His friend group isn’t the type of people who go out on Friday nights — making him feel bad or pulling him in another direction — they’re other entrepreneurs working hard too. It makes a difference.
Behind the curtain of “boring” is:
Mindset, and
External setup.
Your life will look different from the outside than other people your age, no matter what that age is. Other people will be going on vacation, spending more time with family, and having extended weekends and holidays…and you’ll often be working through all of them (at least at first).
If you want to be exceptional, you can’t care about what others are doing. Know that how people spend their time catches up to them. It keeps people in place, and it keeps them average. The good news is, if you’re building, how you spend your time will catch up to you too.
The man I mentioned above has a profitable company with a reliable revenue stream, and he pulls millions of it personally every year. Head down, eyes focused ahead. Now, it seems, people care about what he’s up to…but he knows the building of it was very, very boring. I wish more people would say that out loud.
Build in Private, Fall Like a Thunderbolt
Realistically, a lot of success is learning to show up when it’s boring. The client I mentioned at the beginning of this edition would tell you that it was the same for him: Long hours. Long nights. Sitting in front of his computer. It wasn’t always fun. It wasn’t always engaging…but he kept showing up.
This is why I dislike the “build in public” movement. It’s largely a distraction masked as many other things. You don’t need cheers from strangers to do this thing — you need resolve. Unless you’ve already made it, keep your detailed cards close to the vest, and absolutely do *not* build in public. Who does it benefit? Maybe some organization, but not you. People rarely share their real winning secrets.
Put your head down and build something you want to build. If you want to use social media, then use it for insights, high-level ideas, or inspiration — but not for input or critiques. Strangers existing in an echo chamber on social media guiding your idea isn’t great. Half of them won’t have built anything themselves, and those who have done big things are likely not paying attention to you yet (and you don’t want them to).
The Dark Truth About Social Inputs
Negative Inputs: You know the drill here. There will be packs of “reply guys” and people who think they’re smarter than you looking to tear you down when you build in public. That stuff messes with your head and, at worst, your confidence. If it has the capacity to make you start operating in fear or questioning yourself, rethink if that’s something you want in your space.
Positive Inputs: Here’s where it gets interesting. Those who are telling you that your product or what you’re building is AMAZING? They do you no favors either.
Here’s some killer research: Getting external validation (atta boys, cheers, praise) for something you haven’t yet completed actually *decreases* motivation to follow through. Read that again. So yeah, it feels great…but you are stimulating the brain’s reward center without earning the reward, so that praise is actually stealing from you.
***Note: This is different than a co-founder relationship where you might be plotting and planning for executing *together* and excited about an idea…because you are excited about moving forward, the execution. A partnership is different than getting socially praised for something that hasn’t happened yet.
As I often quote on Twitter, “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
There will be a time to pull back the curtain and show the world what you’ve got (if that’s what you want to do). However, that time is not in the building phase. Be tenacious and aggressive behind the veil, and when you’re ready…fall like a thunderbolt.
Look Out for False Empathy & “Good Intentions”
If you’re a boring builder, look out for how others may use empathy to pull you from your path. People will approach you all the time in “nice” ways that seem like they are trying to be helpful…but these are often unhelpful, guilt-inducing, and even damaging.
It’s often uncomfortable for other people to watch you engage in behavior that they themselves would not want or would not be able to do. They feel bad that you’re working so much or that you seem to “have no life.” That you spend so much time in front of a computer. Maybe they want to “help” you by inviting you to build in public. No.
They want you to share *their* priorities, they are not valuing yours.
Are these people genuinely wanting you to be better — to fulfill your aspirations, goals, and dreams — or are they looking to satisfy something for themselves? Be careful out there. A lot of people will look to pull you off your path under the guise of “good intentions.” While there can definitely be a major benefit to having communities and people rooting for you, think like the man above. He has friends who are building, just like him. Sometimes they’ll exchange ideas or bounce things off of each other…but this is a very different animal.
People who want you to win will genuinely support you, honor your vision, and respect your commitment and sacrifice — not pull you away from it.
Step #1: Tap Into Your Own Aggression.
Often entrepreneurs and others don’t see themselves as aggressive — particularly if they are building behind the scenes. However, if you’re reading this newsletter, there is likely a part of you that has a lot more than you’d like to admit. Here’s the task:
Take a moment and write out what makes you a “beast under the hood.” Spell it out. Look at it. Connect with it. Don’t distance yourself from your own aggression — own it. This is the good stuff.
Next, connect the dots. How does this aggression connect to what you want to achieve and what you want to do? What’s your edge?
Write it out, get in touch with it, and don’t worry about how it reads or what it looks like — this is just for you. If you need to, feel free to reference the traits listed in the section “True Aggression is Under the Hood.” Elaborate on any of the same traits you might have, and add your own.
Step #2: Set Up Your External Environment.
Take a hard look at what’s in your solar system. Do you have people with “good intentions” dragging you down? What about your social media? Your habits? Your friends? It’s time for an audit and adjustment, and that needs to happen in two main areas:
1. External Environment.
Remember the example of the Olympic swimmers and what differentiates them from the club level, aka where everyone else is. It’s not just hours logged, it’s so many other things.
You’ve got mindset covered in Step #1, but what about your environment? Check your social media, your friends, and your surroundings…are they in support of your goals? Any “good intentions” in there you can limit or cut?
2. Your Own Habits.
If you want to show up consistently and reliably, you can’t be going to bed at 3 AM (though sometimes you might want to). Examine your sleeping, eating, and exercise habits — even if the latter is just taking time for a walk.
Setting yourself up isn’t just sitting down in front of a screen — you’ve got to be able to concentrate, pay attention, and focus while you’re there. Where can you tweak and be 1% better or more?
The truth we don’t like to hear is that “boring is exceptional,” but grit, perseverance, and resolve contribute to winning far more than flash does—and I’ve seen this to be true time and time again. If you want to build something incredible in your life, then it’s time to commit. Show up for yourself, settle into doing the “boring” work, and do not stop.
Notes: Paper on Olympic Swimmers: The Mundanity of Excellence.
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Always appreciate the voiceovers Dr. Gurner.
Thank you.