there's this lesson that I learned at CIA that I still teach now in my training with Executives and individuals and entrepreneurs where CIA warns us not to get track not to get trapped in What's called the Perfection Paradox and the Perfection Paradox is not the same thing as perfectionism the Perfection Paradox is the idea that you keep making incremental improvements to a plan but you never actually act on the plan so you're seeking perfection and you're making genuine improvements but you're not actually taking action so the impact of your improvements is not felt so they
warn us against getting trapped in this Perfection Paradox because you can imagine if you're planning an operation for whatever it's very very easy to just start how do we make it this 5% better how do we make it 2% better how do we make it 1% better what if tomorrow's intelligence gives us new information what if intelligence the next day gives us better information so you get trapped in this paradox and instead what they tell us to do is engage in something called the uh called Excellence through execution Excellence through execution is the idea that
by executing you will make mistakes and then you will improve upon the mistakes because you will execute again so Your Excellence comes from execution after 911 as a simple example after 911 President Bush declared war people were immediately deployed to the mountains of of Afghanistan and Pakistan immediately did they plan an operation yes in about 48 hours and then they were deployed and then you had paramilitary people on Horseback with mules carrying stuff through the mountains the only way that's possible is through Excellence through execution get them on the ground and let them figure it
out from there because it's the stakes are so high the impact has to be felt right now so to your question how do we give people the ability to bend the rules bend the world around them it's understanding that there is excellence and execution and also understanding that there is a paradox with perfection so if you want to feel the impact you can't keep planning you have to take action and you have to understand that the action you take may only be 20% of what it will be one day but today you take the lumps
you make the mistakes and you get the impact that you need the second thing that came to my mind is actually coming from a I have a centimillionaire client that I work with frequently and he was talking about this idea of ctim millionaire never had that time before I know what it is yeah I have a ctim millionaire client who who was working with me on a on a process to try to resolve some of the challenges that he was having from from the trauma that he was wired that was wired in him as a
kid right and how that trauma has played out in his personal life and his business life and everything else and he made this awesome breakthrough where he was like you know therapists and counselors and spouses because he's been married more than once they all tell you to go through your pain right it's like you've got to face your trauma you've got to go through it you've got to do the work you've got to Bear the burden so that you can heal whereas what I teach which is what CIA teaches is why would you ever go
through something when you can go around it so if you're trying to accept or recover or understand and heal the fact that your mom cheated on your dad when you were seven you can't change it by working through it you might come to accept it but what's the point instead you can just go right around that pain and you can be like my mom she did on my dad and because of that this happened and because of that this other thing happened and because of that I became a self-sufficient independent person who didn't rely on
my mom or my dad and now I'm very successful because all that matters is what's forward I can't change what's behind and he made this Revelation on his own I thought it was such a powerful visual because we so often think that the point from here to here if there's all this mess in the middle you have to go through the mess when in fact you can also just go around the mess and you can go right to the point and you you don't have to heal you just have to accept understand recognize and move
forward and so what did he do so he he was trying to overcome his trauma what how did how does he go around it in that specific example well what he was so in that specific example it was under he went back to the traumatic incident that he experienced and what he realized is that if his mom hadn't cheated on his dad then the domino effect that would have come after that would have probably never led to him starting the business that ultimately made him an ultra high net worth and once he made that connection
he was like oh well I'm glad my mom cheated on my dad because now my daughters are taking care of my sons are taken care of my wives are taken care of like my I've got 500 employees that are taken care of I do business in four different countries everybody's taken care of does that require some time though between the thing that happened and where you are now because you know I was sat here yesterday with a chap who lost his son his 18month year old son in April and you know it's hard to in
that situation got Francis enanu who's a UFC champion um hard in that situation to try and find a way around it it's a couple of months go there's no there's no way around tragedy that's that's loss that very few of us will ever know thankfully what I what we don't know is how that will shape him in the future all we know is what that's doing to hurt him in the present right think about think about all the famous stories all the famous inspirational motivational leaders that you've met who had some kind of tragedy happen
in the past well actually funny enough cuz I CU I mentioned the loss of a son I had a guy sat here called Mo Gat who was the ex- head of Google X and his son passed away in a routine operation that should have taken 10 minutes but killed his son and then he quit his job at Google and went on search of What happiness is and if when I asked him on the podcast I said would you would you bring back your son um now he said no like if you could go back and
well I'm sure he bring back I think what he's saying to me is that if you could go back and um change what happened would he change it and he said no it's important like it's important to understand when you are wired for Success because not everyone is wired for Success a lot of people are wired for mediocrity a lot of people are wired for basic survival a lot of people are wired for pain and suffering but when you are wired for Success you can't regret what's happened to you in the past because to erase
it or change it would be to make you not the person you are now and the person you are now is successful freed fres freedom
