# **Mapping Your Life and Work** Using Scenario-Based Growth Strategy - MGNOTE: Revise Headings and Do Final Edit > An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. > \- Ben Franklin For many, the goal is ***Work More Now So You Work Less Later.*** I believe that to be an admirably lazy goal, but an incomplete thought for the Lazy Entrepreneur. For myself and those reading this book, a better rephrasing of this might be: ***Work More Now So You Work Less On Things You Don't Enjoy Later, And Work On Projects You Love And Are Passionate About Instead!*** In order to speed your vector towards that that point in time, we'll need to consider things from a long term perspective. As we extend our timeline outwards, things necessarily become fuzzier. Our loops must be designed to keep us on track over months, quarters, years, and decades. The primary loop I use to maintain foresight, strategy, and a calm mind over these distances in scenario based planning. Since we're always seeking to grow and improve ourselves, consider this a growth strategy for the marathon minded entrepreneur. ### When (And If) To Start A Company You’re ready to start a company when you’re qualified and you feel like you are. In order to start a company you need enough capital to get legally incorporated in most places, and you’re probably going to want enough money to pay yourself a small salary as well. Unlike the hustlers, I do not recommend founding without resources and your back against the wall If you can’t work on it full time, I would recommend working a second shift on the business, but that’s really a hustle. That’s not the laziest option. The lazy option would be to continue working until you can make enough money that you can pay somebody else to work on your business, [[GOTBook/2. Final Edits or Revision/First Principles Project Planning|which is what I did]]. That would be a lazier entrepreneurs’ strategy. Lazier still (and potentially more profitable) is buying and growing an existing company. If you think you are ready to start or acquire a company and you have the time and money, that is when you know you are ready. ### **Where Are You Going and Why?** If you [[GOTBook/1. Ready For Final/5 Core Guidelines#Four Know Your Endgame|Know Your Endgame]], this is a simple question. If not, then it may be much more difficult. Either way, you probably know what you want your life to be like in the next month or year, perhaps even next 5 years. ***As far out as you know you are going, you can chart out your scenarios.*** For businesses and profitable projects, I map things out on an annual basis alongside either months or quarters depending on the maturity of the operation. ### The Rule Of Four The Rule of Four is a core concept within Mapping, it is used to limit the complexity of the map. This is when you plan 4 scenarios: 1. Ideal 2. Middle Good 3. Middle Bad 4. Catastrophic I have found it is easier to plan for outcomes that are not quite the true middle of the path. Using these strategies will allow you to paint a more realistic picture because you are unlikely to get a perfect 50/50 split of positive and negative outcomes among the determining factors. You’re more likely to lean one way or the other. **** ### Charting a Path Charting a path is the idea of pinpointing at where you and determining which scenarios are available. It starts with looking back on how you got here.. Look at where you are now and remember where you want to go. starting from the end and walk back through each step along the way, Then figure out what’s stopping you from getting there along the way,. I think the most common hurdles one faces when trying to chart a path are - not knowing where you want to go, - suffering more failure than you expect and becoming discouraged. If the end of your path is too far away to start backwards, then you’ll simply have to take the first step in its general direction anyway. ### **Setting Milestones and Goals** The easiest way to set actionable and achievable plans is to ***start from the end.*** We do this by asking ourselves a few key questions: 1. What must be done for me to achieve this goal? 2. What resources will I need to accomplish it? 3. Do I have those resources? 4. What happens if I do not achieve this goal? #### **Case Study: Charting From 2017 Through 2021 *1 Is Best, 4 Is Total Failiure* ** ![[Pasted image 20211214162607.png]] ![[Pasted image 20211214162643.png]] ![[Pasted image 20211214162730.png]] ![[Pasted image 20211214162818.png]] ![[Pasted image 20211214162841.png]] ![[Pasted image 20211214162853.png]] ### Gates & Prioritization Gates are events or scenarios that, if failed, prevent future pursuit of a given scenario or pathway. For example, let’s say you have a business that sells Widgets, and Walmart likes your Widgets, and they place an order for 1 million Widgets. It then turns out that you are unable to fulfill the order. At the last minute, you call up Walmart and tell them that you are incapable of filling the order. The guy at Walmart might tell you that that is a shame because he told all his buddies about these Widgets, and about you, and now he has to tell them all that you were incapable of filling that order, which informs a large part of that market that you are unreliable. This means you lose a large portion of this market, and it also means that you may not be able to reach your ideal scenario of launching directly into big box retail anymore. There is an expectation that you will lose at some Gates. To never fail is to never really attempt anything worthwhile. It means you are not putting yourself in a position to truly challenge yourself and grow. You will most likely have to abandon some pathways entirely because Gates change or shut down in such a way that progression through them is no longer an option. A time will come when you need to rechart your path entirely. Continuing on with the Widget example: Walmart has shut you out of the big box stores. You can no longer sell wholesale that way. What do you need to do? You would make a store on Amazon and Shopify to sell directly to the consumer. Your widget solves a real issue. Over time, you'll be able to revisit wholesale retail after proving yourself and your production capacity in the market. That may be years in the future though, and no longer an immediate scenario around the product launch. #### Failure There are 3 main types of failures, James Clear outlined them well in his blog post [The 3 Stages of Failure in Life and Work (And How to Fix Them)](https://jamesclear.com/3-stages-of-failure)) 1. Failure of Tactics (How) 2. Failure of Strategy (What) 3. Failure of Vision (Why) **Failures of Tactics** occur because you failed to execute properly. They are caused by poor systems, measurement, or lack of attention to detail. Luckily, they are also the easiest to solve. Simply do the thing properly. To do that: 1. Map out your process 2. Measure its outcomes 3. Review and adjust until the desired result is achieved This is a never ending cycle, like most of the loops we've talked about up to this point. Tactics must change with the times. **Failure of Strategy** is a result of choosing the wrong pathway or tool for the job. They may require a larger re-evaluation of the tactics required for success if the strategy changes drastically. The key to finding strategic success: LAUNCH! If you never test the strategy, it will never succeed. 1. Launch early and often 2. Minimize time and money investment 3. Review & revise as needed Starting to see a similarity with these loops? **Failure of Vision** is one of the traps we seek to avoid by using scenario planning and by [[GOTBook/1. Ready For Final/5 Core Guidelines#Four Know Your Endgame| knowing our endgame]]. It occurs when your actions are no longer aligned with your goals. To fix this you must first [[#Charting a Path | Chart Your Path]]. From there, you can revise your endgame and develop a new set of strategies and tactics to achieve them. Without regularly taking stock and knowing your past, you will fail to maintain course and drift farther and farther from the happiness you seek #### Experimentation Experimentation is the key to success and the whole point of this system. By charting multiple scenarios - a.k.a potential experimental outcomes - of things that you are trying to do. You know you will be successful on some, and others not so much. Charting the path you are going down, understanding when a Gate blocks a scenario from your future, and building a system of loops to move you forward you are able to conceptualize the possibilities and maintain your course over time. ## Seek Asymmetric Risk/Return Ratios Risk/Reward Ratios - and its BFF cost-benefit analysis are foundational to evaluating whether or not any particular scenario is worth pursuing. The bigger the Reward, the bigger the Risk. Maybe... Nine out of ten times the goal of the entrepreneur is to reduce risk. This concept of understanding Risk/Reward ratios is fundamental to evaluating both the scenarios that you’re planning and to evaluate the cost-benefit analysis of pursuing any one scenario. #### Asymmetric Risk/Return: Different things have different risk/return ratios. The best ones have returns that are orders of magnitude larger than the risk. A classic example of this is entrepreneurship, where your rewards are likely 100-1000x your investment if it succeeds. That is an asymmetric reward where you need to only win once. Look for and play games with low risk and high reward, those are the things where you risk the least and you stand to gain the most. This may seem very simple, but it’s actually a very difficult rule to live by. If you want to avoid these ruinous decisions and avoid ruinous scenarios, then make sure most of your assets are entirely protected. Place the rest into higher risk, 1000x reward endeavors such as entrepreneurship. #### Cost-Benefit Analysis Cost-benefit analysis is evaluating and analyzing the risks and rewards in any decision or in pursuing a particular scenario. Cost-Benefit Analysis is a core step in every research phase. During cost-benefit analysis, we will be forced to create a model that explains why we believe this is the right course of action for ourselves as compared to the other ways we can deploy the given resources. When doing Cost-Benefit Analysis. It is important to take a few things into consideration: 1. Choose and record the decision framework you'll use for final evaluation. 2. Research your costs for each potential option (Real and Opportunity costs). 3. Consider the benefits associated with potential success/failure scenarios for each option. 4. Consider the likelihood of success/failure for each option. 5. Use your chosen decision framework to pick the best * Develop scenarios and gates that have minimal downside risk and maximum upside potential * Never move forward with a plan if a catastrophic scenario (4) would be totally ruinous for you personally or financially * Barbell Strategy - If you are in high risk endeavors like entrepreneurship, it may be wise to limit most of your assets to a near 0 risk position since the rest of them will be in an ultra high risk option **** ## Example: Scenario Planning for 2022 and Q1 *(Note: Could Be Cleaned Up With An Image)* - MGNOTE: Expand Through Q4 1. See Above For My Path Until Now 2. Review/Determine Goal End State for Q4 2022 1. 2nd Property 2. 2nd Book 3. FT Job OR a 200K+ profit from new businesses 4. 5-6 Figure MRR Creator/Side Hustles 3. Outline Key Pathways and Gates For Q1 1. Job Search 1. PT Job Going FT - Failed 2. Other Job Offer - 1-2 Applications/week 2. Book Published 1. Podcast Tour 3. Creator Life 1. CD Launched & Monetized 1. Creating Weekly Content 2. Co-promote with No Code Ops 2. NoCode Bros 1. NoCodery Bought? (GATE) 3. Content 1. Twitter @ 2-3K engaged following 2. Blogging 2-3x Week Publish 5. CFC Redux 1. On WP, Generating Affiliate Revenue 2. First Course Done & Selling 4. Outline Projects & Processes 5. Setup Dashboard 6. Time Block For Success ## How Does I Move Forward? 1. First you start by [[#Charting a Path]] 2. Review What Must Be Done To Succeed using [[GOTBook/2. Final Edits or Revision/Scenario Planning]] 3. Put Together A Flexible Plan using the [[GOTBook/2. Final Edits or Revision/First Principles Project Planning]] 4. Maintain and Measure it using [[GOTBook/2. Final Edits or Revision/Dashboard Management]] 5. Then Execute On It by following [[GOTBook/3. Rewrites/Performance Enhancing Work Methods]]