Edition #8: How to increase your chance of success
This one’s all about increasing your chances of success. And one of the simplest and most effective ways to do that is to bring someone else along!
So invite a friend to the Hail Mary Friday Club (subscription link here). Tell each other what you are going to do each week. And then celebrate the result!
Not because your Hail Mary Friday worked out.
But because you had the guts to try.
“The most effective way to do it, is to do it.”
~ Amelia Earhart, first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, 1897-1937
The Problem: What if I try, and it ends up being a big waste of time?
I’m not scared of hard work. But I am scared of working hard and having nothing to show for it…
It’s a legitimate concern:
60% of start-ups fail in the first 3 years
80% of Olympic participants don’t win medals
42% of marriages end in divorce
These stats aren’t exactly encouraging. And they leave us with 2 options:
Go all in and take a massive risk
Do nothing, and keep the regret stuffed deep down inside
But what if there was a third option?
The Solution: Fire bullets. Not cannons.
What if it doesn’t have to be all or nothing?
I came across Jim Collins’s work while studying at Henley Business School. I think of him as a business philosopher-scientist fascinated by the pursuit of excellence. This excerpt from his book Great by Choice offers something in between all or nothing.
Picture yourself at sea, a hostile ship bearing down on you. You have a limited amount of gunpowder. You take all your gunpowder and use it to fire a big cannonball. The cannonball flies out over the ocean…and misses the target, off by 40 degrees. You turn to your stockpile and discover that you’re out of gunpowder. You die.
But suppose instead that when you see the ship bearing down, you take a little bit of gunpowder and fire a bullet. It misses by 40 degrees. You make another bullet and fire. It misses by 30 degrees. You make a third bullet and fire, missing by only 10 degrees. The next bullet hits — ping! — the hull of the oncoming ship. Now, you take all the remaining gunpowder and fire a big cannonball along the same line of sight, which sinks the enemy ship. You live.
Bullets, much like Hail Mary Fridays, are low risk and low cost.
Fire them at will and have fun! Don’t take them too seriously, but do pay attention. If it doesn’t work, find out why.
And if it does, then it’s time to fire up that cannon!
The Application:
I had some fun firing 3 bullets these past 3 weeks:
Bullet 1: When invited to attend a Disability History Month reception at Speaker’s House, Palace of Westminster, I replied by asking if I could be one of the speakers
Time Investment: 5 minutes writing the email
Bullet 2: I auditioned to host a new podcast with a brilliant concept
Time Investment: 30 minutes on a Zoom call
Bullet 3: I entered the London regional competition for a spot on the 2026 TED Main Stage in Vancouver.
Time Investment: 2 hours writing the submission on a flight
The result:
Yes to speaking at Westminster
No to the other two.
But now a top podcast producer knows my name, and my TED Talk idea lives on in their database for future events.
Plus, who knows where the speech at Westminster could lead.
And all it took was 5 minutes to ask!
What bullet (aka Hail Mary) are you going to fire on Friday?
You don’t have to have it all figured out because bullets are low risk. Your whole life doesn’t hang on the outcome. So have some fun!
Catch you in your inbox on Nov 27th.
- Stef
