I somehow get daily emails from this job search site called “Ladders” (though I can’t recall when I subscribed to it in the first place). Nevertheless I noticed that every few days, I’d still click through to read the featured article of the email. Furthermore, as I recounted the emails, they all had very catchy titles—“Wearing this one thing during video calls make you seem powerful” or “10 phrases that instantly win people over.” How tempting—if only I can do this one thing (or heck even 10 simple things) and it can instantly make me more powerful, more sexy, more likable, or more rich. In the same vein, of the get-sexy quick scheme, I keep on getting video ads on Youtube—instantly get sculpted abs—with Cool Sculpting—for those of you who don’t know about it, it is a technology that freezes your fat cells. (as an aside, I’m also slightly offended Youtube keeps on serving me these ads—if any Google engineers are reading, please feel free to serve me ads on wine, breadmaking or even lipstick if you want to stick to the beauty theme but I am just fine with my waistline, thank you). This did get me thinking, how quick was I to fall for these “silver bullets” to my problems and how much of society also love for short-cuts to getting what they want in life—the classic example being fad diets. But do silver bullets for life actually exist? And if not, is the only answer to muscle through til we reach our goals?

Can I be a billionaire by drinking cherry coke?  Warren Buffett, one of the richest man in the world has a few distinct habits, among them is an avid love of Cherry Coke and a hearty Midwestern diet of steak and potatoes. As quick context, for the longest time, he and Bill Gates always swapped between number one and number two of the world’s richest people. In in the very recent, with the meteoric rise in Amazon stock, the number one position has been ceded to Jeff Bezos. I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Buffett a few years ago and can indeed confirm his cherry Coke drinking habit. Now if I were to come up with an equally catchy tagline as the aforementioned emails for this phenomenon, it would say something like “drinking this one beverage can turn you into a billionaire.” There must be some powerful magic in that high fructose corn syrup that is attracting the worlds richest to you obviously! 

Something better than cherry coke. Digging into Mr. buffets daily habits a bit more, you’ll find that in addition to his cherry coke love, he is also a voracious reader. The man spends hours a day reading. In the early days of his career, he spent most of his days reading companies’ annual shareholder reports. These days, I imagine he probably reads on a very wide variety of topics and the man is essentially a walking encyclopedia. He can tell you about the stock market crash that happened in Kuwait that most of the country citizens may not know about. Now I bet a lot his investing successes has to do with his breadth of knowledge gathered from reading. Can I be 100% sure or prove it? Of course not! But I do know those who are not versed in history is doomed to repeat it and a lot of investing has to do with avoiding the mistakes of the past. Is reading the only path to investment success? Probably not either but I’m still willing to bet a body part (maybe pinky toe) that it gets you much closer than drinking cherry coke.

Everybody does it. Before you feel too bad if you’ve ever fallen into the silver bullet fallacy, let me tell you even the professionals make this mistake too. Allow me to share a story in the business world that illustrates this phenomenon—and will make you feel better. Southwest Airlines has long been known for running efficient operations, good cost management, and above all having a fun culture that keeps customers coming back. Their employees are always friendly, sometimes dressed in funny outfits, and they constantly win best in class for customer satisfaction.  According to founder Herb Kelleher “I tell my employees that we’re in the service business, and it’s incidental that we fly airplanes.” Sometime ago, competitor airlines tried to emulate its success with efforts such as Continental Lite, Ted by United, and Song by Delta, attempting to copy the low-cost model.  The initiatives all turned out as failures. Afterwards, the CEO of Continental admitted that “we weren’t ready to prioritize people over planes.”  I think what contributed to Southwest’s success was not only the low-cost/budget model but its culture—for both Southwest employees and customers, they loved the airline because it was “fun,” and not just because it can get you to point A and point B safely. A Harvard Business Review article commented on these failed endeavors, “you cannot just change your business model, you need to change your mental model.” What does that actual mean? That means you really need to dig deep into the “core” of a person, company, or whatever if you want to emulate his/her/its success. Simply swapping the outer wrapping can’t get you there. It just happens that for most worthwhile endeavors in life, there are no shortcuts… There are ways to make the work easier, but you still got to do the work. But, my friends not all hope is lost…like I just said, let’s now explore how exactly we can make things a bit easier.

The One thing. If you’ve not heard of the Pareto principle, it is also known as the 80/20 rule—and as it relates to silver bullet, you likely can get 80% benefit by doing 20% work. Call it working hard, but working smart if you will. I personally am doing a mediocre job at best following this, but I am such a firm believer in its power that I bet even if you follow the principle haphazardly, you are still significantly better off than not following it at all. Whether it’s trying to improve your health, be more productive at work, gaining better success in dating, there is likely one…. Or maybe two things (but likely not ten things) you can do to have an outsized impact. Unfortunately for most of us, we probably spend too much time on the things that “seem” important but don’t actually move the needle. In the book “The One Thing,” author Gary Keller (of the famed Keller Williams real estate empire) prompts you to ask the simple but powerful question “what’s the one thing I can do such by doing it that everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?” In this case, don’t go big or go home but actually go small and hone your focus.  For example, Keller poses this simple question in his personal life: “what’s the one thing to do with his dog in morning that makes everything else easier?” His answer is to get on the floor and give it a big hug. In reality it may be that there are two or three things that make everything else easier (in which case, feel free to modify that question)—but also “The One Thing” is a much catchier book title than “The One, Two, or Three Things.”

Real world application. For me, my days recently have been very frantic mostly because of work, and I find myself in a state of anxiety with too much agitated energy and an inability to focus. I tried to ask myself the question, what’s the one thing I can do in the morning to make my day more productive and help me lose the anxious and nervous energy. The answer for me was actually what to do….. but what not to do—I realized I should not check my work email until I’ve had my morning meditation, stretched out my old lady muscles, and knocked out a quick work-out. It may seem a bit counter-intuitive—after all, shouldn’t I be more productive if I get a head start on work? Turns out, immediately getting that stimulus only stressed me out and made me start the day on the wrong foot—and then I’d have to spend the rest of the day fighting an uphill battle. It really makes me more appreciate the term, getting up on the wrong side of the bed. It felt like if I let work occupy my thoughts and actions first thing in the am, it literally was like I got off on the wrong side of the bed and the rest of my day was doomed or at least I’d have to take some drastic action to “right the ship.

Well there you have it, the silver bullet to all your life troubles. Though let’s me real, just having this piece of knowledge doesn’t do jack for you. As one of my favorite people, entrepreneur Derek Silvers says, “if information were the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with six-pack abs.” However—just because you don’t always follow the principle or follow it loosely, does it mean you should stop trying? Of course not! One more quote to finish off: “the signature of greatness is a disciplined and consistent focus on the right things.” Therefore as long as you consistently try to follow the principle, I think you’ll already be better off than 80% of the people out there.