Reverse Engineering

Below is a weekly email I sent to my team to explain the idea of reverse engineering any goal, I thought you might find value in it’s application personally or even to your team so I thought I’d repost for you here!

Enjoy!

Do you use reverse engineering in your life?

If not you should, and it’s a great concept to understand and be able to teach friends, family and especially our clients.

Reverse engineering is just as Stephen Covey (author of the 7 Habits books) would put it, “beginning with the end in mind.”

Most commonly people might think of this in terms of money or finances, and certainly in my crazy entrepreneurial world it’s a way I use reverse engineering frequently; but it’s so much more than that.

It can and should be used for any goal.

Why?

Simple, what’s the only thing that stops us from reaching any goal? (Finances, fitness, personal, any goal.)

FEAR.

Yup that’s it. We can be too intimidated to start, too stressed out about the work or how hard it will be, or fearful because we fail one or more times along the way (or have previously failed in our attempts to reach the goal.)

Reverse engineering helps absolve fear by shoring up another thing I’m a big fan of talking about with you and hour clients; and that’s confidence.

You know what I’m talking about, that when the step or next task is so small or easy that we’re not afraid motivation or action comes easy because well it appears easy.

Now what feels easy to you may not to me and vice versa, which is where reverse engineering comes in.

Step 1: What’s the big outcome you want? (ex. Buy a new car/lose 30 lbs)

Step 2: What time frame do you want this to happen in? (ex. 6 months/12 weeks)

Step 3: Break down to next increment. (ex. each month I need to earn an additional $500/each week I need to lose 2.5lbs)

Step 4: Break it down to next smaller increment until it feels easy.

Ex.

I need to earn and additional $125/week, I work an average of 30 hours so I’d need to earn about $4.25 an hour more or increase my working hours by 5-8 / I need to lose only 0.35lbs/day)

Does it feel small enough to you yet, if not break it down further or begin creating a plan.

Ex.

Earnings

Could I talk to my teammates and offer to take some extra shifts?

Do I have a skill or hobby that I’m good at and could pick up a freelance project on the side?

What could I do to add enough value to increase my earnings by an additional $4.25 an hour?

Every testimonial/before and after we publish helps increase our reputation, every new Google/Facebook review we get helps someone on the fence make a decision, every new person that has a great workout has a chance to sign up, every new person you get to come workout the first time has a 50/50 chance of deciding to stay.

Every person you talk to about staying longer has a better than 50% chance of deciding to stay. Have a look at the “Levels in your job description” for ideas on how you can quickly achieve this. Could I speak to 3 people per day about continuing and basically “1-2” memberships per week? Or find 1-2 new people per week to try a workout by asking daily on my personal social media? Does that seem easy and sustainable?

(Now boys and girls, full transparency, I mention this because I want you to choose this one, as selfishly it’s the one that can help me the most, but there’s also a bigger reason. This is the one where if we all work together the results/potential are limitless so selfishly it should appeal to you too!)

Could I learn about something new and start building a passive or additional income?

Last year I became curious about Amazon, in September I sold $184 on Amazon all things I bought in clearance bins with less than $100 of starting capital, in October that was $1994 with a profit of $330, last month we sold nearly $40,000 on Amazon! Now I wish I could say you could grow like that with $100 to invest but that isn’t true. But my point is that anyone could easily generate $300-500/month on Amazon with 5-10 hours/month worth of effort and I will even teach you how.)

Could you dedicate 1 hour/day Monday-Friday to learn about how to sell on Amazon and another 3-4 hours/week to go and shop for things to sell? Does that seem easy and sustainable?

Fitness

0.35lbs of fat = 1430 calories of energy.

30 minutes of boot camp = approx. 400 calories

Reducing daily calorie consumption by 10% = approx. 180 calories

Adding 30 minutes of slow distance cardio = approx. 200 calories

Reducing starchy carbohydrates and replacing with fibrous to increase energy utilization during digestion = approx. 150 calories

To me this is about the maximum that seems “easy” and might be overwhelming already for many, so we must re-evaluate the goal, if it took 16-18 weeks to lose 30lbs would you still be satisfied? Does the above seem simple? Only works if you can answer yes to both!

Anyways, that’s my attempt to teach you the power of reverse engineering, it can work for anything like: setting dedicated working hours or working less, like improving your relationships with others, like accomplishing any big milestone in your financial life, and even spirituality or emotional growth.

Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help!