Hit A Fking Home Run

In Episode 293204032 of ‘Why we should look for lessons outside of the fitness industry’

It’s worth having a look around and noticing how other fields are operating.

Rory Sutherland talks about fat tailed distributions in marketing, which was popularised by Nicholas Taleb.

This is the idea that ideas aren’t normally distributed - they’re non linear. Lots of ideas we try fail, but a tiny few do so enormously well, that they make up for the failures.

When you think about this idea, you see it everywhere.

Music labels sign hundreds of bands, but only a handful ever make it big - they pay for the rest. Book publishing is the same, sport is the same, so is acting. Pharmaceuticals, Hollywood films, the lottery.

Venture capital funding also operates on a similar principle. The vast majority of investments fail, but the few that succeed make up for them.

Now if we think about how coaches work, they do the opposite; they optimise to not fail - one more discovery call, one more safe low-ticket offer, one more cautious post agonised over a week.

Every action is a small, predictable return.

They built a career out of singles, in a game that rewards home runs.

I can trace my whole career and find the times where a handful of bets paid for everything else, amongst lots of other failures.

In a fat-tailed world, your results don’t come from the average effort; they come from those outliers.

When we understand this, it changes how we think about risk, effort and actions within our business.

We don’t need to get more things right (as is a common misconception amongst coaches) - we need to take more shots at things that could go huge

AND (the important bit)

Stop flinching if they miss.

Take that into your work this week - ship more ideas, build things that scale, reach out to people with a suggestion for a collab / offer

When something does take off - pour everything into it.

In the same way a label doesn’t distribute money evenly - it finds songs that work, and then pours fuel on that fire.

And if you’re worried?

Make the downside cheap - small experiments, fast launches, low ego.

If you swing and the worst thing that can happen is someone says ‘no’

That’s a great start - keep swinging.