I just got an invitation to an event where the speaker had “reverse engineered success.”
This is a common theme that I see. Tim Ferriss has built a whole business around it.
There’s only one problem.
It doesn’t work.
Because it looks at the strategies and tactics and ignores the most critical piece. The doer, the implementer of those strategies and tactics.
You.
It’s as if you read some advice that all you really needed to reach your goal was to drive a particular road.
And yet that road was only accessible by Jeep and you were driving a Camry.
I don’t mean this to read that you aren’t good enough to implement the strategy. It works the other way, too. Jeeps tend to be pretty uncomfortable on the highway, and Camrys excel there.
The thing that these approaches ignore is critical—that strategy and tactics emerge from who you are. Not the other way around.
“Leadership,” says one of my coaches, “is about where you come from, not what you do.”
What is your authentic strategy? What is your come from?
Do that, keep doing that, and you will keep learning. You will keep making progress. And you will reach your destination so much faster than if you take someone else’s road.