“To choose is to renounce.”
— André Gide

Every time we decide to focus on something, we make a choice to ignore everything else.

In management consulting, when you decide to get yourself onto a 3rd banking project that year, you know you are starting to go down the financial services specialization path. You effectively decided not to specialize in some other areas you really wanted to specialize in.

As a senior manager at a major company, when you decide to move to another unit, leaving your mentor and team in trouble because they have to scramble to replace you, you choose to ignore your relationship with your mentor and your team in favor of focus on that new shiny role that seems like a step up.

Even as a concert pianist, when I decided to play Rachmaninov Musical Moment No.4 in E minor, I knew I was committing to 5 hours a day, no weekends, no holidays, of practicing that piece. That was in addition to a few other pieces I was practicing. That was in addition to classes and work. Here are choices I did not realize at the time I was making.

– This meant basically zero free time, so no rest time, barely surviving.
– That also meant enormous strain on my hands on a daily basis, significantly increasing the danger of “overplaying” my hands, which would make me worthless as a pianist for the rest of my life.
– That meant tremendous demands on my nervous system as that piece is very dramatic, and to play it from your heart (the only way I do anything) is like doing a climax scene in a horrific drama as the main actor, and rehearsing that scene for 6 months for 5 hours a day.

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When I made that decision to play Rachmaninov Musical Moment No.4 in E minor, I made a decision to ignore many other things I could have been focusing on in my life. I still remember the pain in my hands, and to this day, I can’t type on a computer for a long time because of the strain I put on my hands because of that one decision.

Unlike immediate losses, which punch us in the face, renouncing something because we have chosen something else carries a subtle and insidious cost. We don’t feel it in the moment but it accumulates and grows over time like credit card debt. And one day you may wake up and realize that in passively choosing not to do something, you overlooked the most important things to focus on.

As business professionals, we have many choices. We live in the most exciting time in the history of the world. This is a time when anybody can be successful if they desire to succeed. I am a living proof of that.

We set goals, we pursue them, and we try to have some balance in our lives, but we come short in measuring the cost of what we choose not to see or what we mistakingly overlooked in the process of choosing something else.

Think about so many consulting engagements where a single overlooked detail derailed the project and damaged the relationship with the client. I remember one of my colleagues was working on a financial model for a crown jewel client. It was an amazing, complicated model that was very advanced and sophisticated. It could do so many things. But when the client took a look at the model, within a few minutes, they realized that my colleague forgot to factor in tax. And the proposed new product that looked so profitable was actually a lot less profitable after correcting for this error.

Similarly, we are “overlooking taxes” in our own lives, just like this consultant, by not paying attention to what we say no to when we say yes to something. People miss countless opportunities because they do what is comfortable in the moment versus what is right for the future. Long-term thinking is so rare these days, but it is so powerful, and people are really missing out.

StrategyTraining.com members who cancel usually tell me that they just weren’t watching, they didn’t had time. But time wasn’t the issue. It was the choice. They were choosing to do what was easier (for many, it is scrolling social media, watching too much TV, arguing with their spouse instead of building up the person who decided to spend the rest of their life with them, spending time with people they don’t even like).

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It always saddens me to hear this because I personally spend a few hours per day learning, and I know the cumulative effects it has had on my life over the decades. I even revisit our own programs as it refreshes my mind on what we wanted to teach in a particular program.

Yes, investing in yourself is work. Quick integration is work.

You have to pay attention. You have to make notes. You have to think, “How can I immediately apply it? Meaning, today. If not today, this week.”

But then look at our most successful clients. They have been Insiders/Legacy/SCRA members for years. They write to us about how they are applying what they learned. They ask us to prioritize certain topics. And those are some of the most senior people in their organizations. If someone who is an executive at a unicorn and who has toddlers and a newborn at home has time to listen to programs while at the gym and doing errands, all of us can find time.

It doesn’t have to be our training, even though I never came across anything more powerful. But it has to be something. Every time you choose not to invest in yourself, you are renouncing all the untapped potential that lies within you. You passively choose not to have all the impact, opportunities, experiences, and wisdom that you would have gained if you chose otherwise.

I am certainly not saying don’t rest. Please rest. But humans don’t need that many hours of TV or other semi-zombi like activity to rest. Make sure you leave time to learn and take quick action. The same applies to choices you are making in other areas of your life, too.

The cost of ignoring important areas you knowingly or unknowingly overlook right now is greater than you think.

Want strong capabilities to deliver for your clients (internal and external)? This is where our Insider or Legacy membership comes in. If you want to develop your business strategy, problem-solving, leadership, implementation, influence, and executive presence skills, enroll as a member (scroll down to membership options) on:

www.StrategyTraining.com

P.S. Start with Insider or Legacy membership. Legacy includes everything in Insider, plus additional advanced training courses, plus twice a month Legacy members can submit their questions and get a guaranteed reply from Michael/me.

If you are an Insider, go to the Legacy section on StrategyTraining.com and the system will offer an opportunity to upgrade without losing any of your credit. Insiders can move between Legacy and Insider without losing their Insider status (just please email [email protected] when you move back from Legacy to Insider so we can manually reactivate your Insider status).