The Ceiling of Brute Force

Recently, I heard the saying "the ceiling of brute force" which refers to the inability to grow beyond a certain size simply by "working harder" and it resonated with me. As entrepreneurs, this is typically how we tackle a problem; roll up our sleeves, dig in, and give it a little more juice to make it go. Grit your teeth and grind it out. Just try harder. We've heard all the sayings and some of us, have lived most of them if we're honest. But there truly is a point at which it no longer works. Brute force saps us of our energy and puts us no closer to the goal (that's the ceiling, dummy!). Being unaware, we may not even understand why we're so tired, burnt out, and failing.

So now what?

Humans tend towards what's comfortable and easy. Systems tend towards chaos and disorder. Homeostasis is constantly pulling us towards equilibrium. Entropy pulls us towards distraction. Because we are self-focused creatures, we often focus on what we prefer and ignore what is uncomfortable; fighting to keep things in order, progressing, and moving forward productively is uncomfortable. The ignore can be an outright denial (The claim of "I'm still growing!" when, in fact, you haven't expanded your perspective with anything other than self-reinforcing information) or it can be a rationalization (how many times do we point to externalities for why we make the decisions we make rather than owning them?). All this is HARD! It truly is. Because it's difficult, it's worth the effort because so few will achieve it. I know of very few worthy pursuits that are easily achieved.

So what do I do?

I'm not saying this is the solution, I don't know yet, but here's what I'm working on in an effort to become more aware of the ceiling and then how I might break through it. First, I need to know what I actually spend my attention on. This is an exercise I do regularly (I have for almost 15 years now) to check in and see if my attention is aligned with my intentions. Track my attention for 1 month (I started with weekly but it varied way too much to bring me meaningful data), and track all decisions I made in that timeframe. What was the ask, what did I decide, and any factors I used to make the decision. This was HARD! Mostly because I had to try to put some of my more instinctual decisions into words. It made me slow down, a LOT at first but things did speed back up as I'm progressing. (I'm still in this stage btw).

Next, I'm going to look at all the decisions I've made and who else can make them. The goal is to have at least 2 people for every decision. And then I'm going figure out how to instruct or guide someone else in making them. What alignment do they need? What resources or support and feedback?

Like I said, not sure if this is going to solve the issue but it's the first thing I'm going to try.