The Six Most Important Lessons I Learned At MIT: #1/6

In this six audio series, I'm going to give you some incredible short-cuts and life hacks by laying out the six most important spiritual lessons I learned at MIT...o, if you prefer to do it the hard way, feel free to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and six brutally difficult years to learn these same lessons the same way like I did! :-)

It's kind of funny that I didn't enroll at MIT to learn spiritual lessons; I went there to become a master of technology, figuring that my education would lay the foundation for a successful career in technology. But the really important things I learned had nothing to do with computer or technology; instead, the real value I took away were spiritual lessons about LIFE.

In video #1/5, we'll cover a truly life-changing spiritual teaching that was presented to me in an upper division computer science course at MIT that has been a key to my own success in business, health, love, and consciousness: PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF GOOD ENOUGH!

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Brett Michael Phillips,

And welcome to our series on the six most important spiritual lessons I learned when I was at MIT.

Or,

You might say,

How I got straight A's in the hardest major at the most difficult university on the planet.

And so,

Just so you know,

This didn't happen because I was the smartest kid on campus,

Far from it.

It happened because I learned really important spiritual lessons that I embodied and applied to my life.

And I'm going to reveal them to you over this series.

So let's jump right into it.

What is lesson number one?

Well,

Lesson number one is really interesting because this is actually something I learned originally in theory in the classroom,

But I validated it and embodied it through my day-to-day experience.

And it's this.

Lesson number one.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

Now,

This is enormously important because if you're wasting time and energy aiming at perfect,

When good enough will do,

You will piss away money,

Opportunity,

Even years of your life.

One of the ways I saw this principle in action was when I was a graduate student at MIT,

I had a lot of friends who were also graduate students.

And if you're in the PhD program,

You're required to do a thesis based on your original research.

And this is a big deal.

Typically,

Depending on your course and the nature of your work,

You would spend from three to five,

Maybe seven years of your life working on your thesis.

And so once all the theory is done,

Once all the research is done,

Once all the results are come in,

And you've written the whole thing up,

The only thing left is for you to format it per submission to the library at MIT.

But I knew people who had spent as much as one,

Two,

Even three years just formatting their thesis.

And you go,

That's crazy,

Brad,

Right?

Once all the work is done,

Why would you want to spend another one,

Two,

Three years of your life living as a grad student,

Starving half the time,

Constantly broke,

Living on what at the time we got paid $900 a month,

When you could just format the dang thing,

Graduate,

Get a great job,

Start making money and really living your life.

Well,

It's kind of insane.

And so here's what happened.

When you had to format your thesis,

At least when I was there,

It was according to some pretty stringent standards.

You had to learn this layout language called tech.

And most people,

At minimum,

It would take you a couple months to format your thesis.

But some people spent years on it.

Why is that?

Simple.

They were aiming for perfect instead of good enough.

Well,

At that point in their lives,

You're probably in your late twenties,

Maybe your early thirties,

And you have devoted day and night,

Six,

Seven days a week,

52 weeks a year to creating this incredible piece of original research so you can get your PhD.

And many of the grad students wanted it to be perfect.

They wanted it to be formatted perfectly.

So they would spend months,

Even years,

Just formatting their thesis.

And it's crazy.

But this is what we tend to do.

And learning this spiritual lesson has saved me so many unnecessary headaches and hassles and expenses in life.

What's another way we could say this?

If you really want to move ahead in your life,

Make more money,

Heal your body,

Find love,

Find purpose,

Develop your intuition,

Whatever it is.

Focus on progress,

Not perfection.

That's right.

Focus on progress,

Not perfection.

Why?

Because perfect is the enemy of good enough.

Almost always in life,

All you need is good enough.

Perfect is usually unobtainable,

Often impossible.

So let me give you another great example.

One of the cool things that was happening on campus when I was at MIT was called the MIT Blackjack Club.

You may have heard of it.

There was a popular movie made several years ago called 21,

And it's based on a real thing.

There really was an MIT Blackjack Club.

How do I know this?

Well,

I remember seeing the flyers.

I actually talked to some people I thought about joining.

More importantly,

My Taekwondo instructor when I was at MIT,

His name was Steve.

I suppose it still is,

Right?

Probably didn't change.

But anyhow,

Steve,

When he was an undergrad,

Had been part of the MIT Blackjack team.

And the way it worked was this.

They would generally recruit you as a junior.

You would then spend months training,

Hundreds of hours training and counting cards at blackjack.

There was a group of wealthy investors who backed the project,

And they would pay for you for the group,

The team,

Every spring during spring break to fly to Las Vegas and count cards at the blackjack tables to win money.

So it was a very difficult thing.

There's a reason they recruited MIT undergrads in science and engineering.

Not anybody can do it.

It's very difficult,

Great technical challenge.

And so as an undergrad,

You would spend months drilling and training to learn to count cards.

With the goal being you take a bunch of money from the investors,

Spend a week in Vegas,

Win a bunch of money.

The blackjackers would take 10% and the investors will get the rest.

Here's how it worked.

Mathematically it's pretty straightforward.

If you play blackjack with what's called perfect play,

In other words,

You have a little chart that shows you when to hit,

When to take,

Etc.

You will win on average 49% of the time.

Okay.

How long does it take most people to learn perfect play?

Well,

For an MIT undergrad,

Maybe 20,

30 minutes.

It's pretty easy.

So with 20,

30 minutes of practice and study,

You can win 49% of the time.

But if you can execute perfect play while counting cards,

You can win 51% of the time.

That's right.

The difference between normal,

Perfect play on your own versus counting cards,

Especially with a team,

Is just 2%.

So all the kids on the MIT blackjack team had spent months drilling and training,

Learning to count cards in order to get a 2% advantage.

That's all.

It doesn't seem like much,

Right?

You go,

Hey Brett,

That seems kind of silly.

Why would you work so hard,

Spend so much time and energy just for a 2% improvement?

Well,

I'll tell you why.

There's a giant difference between 49 and 51%,

Right?

At 49%,

You're losing money on average over time.

At 51%,

You are making money over time.

But notice it doesn't mean you're going to win every time.

That's a big misconception.

Just because you're counting cards perfectly does not mean you will win every hand,

But it does give you a 2% edge.

So that if you play hundreds or thousands of hands on average,

You'll come out ahead.

And what Steve told me was this,

He went on two trips.

He said the first trip,

The team actually lost one,

But the second trip,

The team made a ton of money.

So here's the takeaway.

A tiny,

Small incremental change can create an enormous difference in your life.

Even if it's just one or 2%.

Let's give you some examples from the world of finance and investing.

Let's say that you have $10,

000 to invest.

And let's say that you're going to get a compound interest rate of 8% for 30 years.

What's going to happen?

Well,

If you let your money compound at 8% for 30 years,

Starting with $10,

000,

You'll have a little over $100,

000 after 30 years.

But let's say instead you can get 10% on your money.

That's not a big difference,

Right?

8%,

10%.

A lot of us would go,

Yeah,

Whatever.

It's only 2%,

Not a big difference.

It is a huge difference.

The difference is if your money compounds at 10% instead of 8%.

After 30 years,

You will have over $200,

000.

That little 2% increase nearly doubles your money.

This is the lesson I want you to hear.

Focus on progress.

Small incremental changes compounded over time make enormous differences in your life,

Deliver huge life-changing results.

This runs a little against our grain,

Right?

This is why it's so important to focus on this.

I remember when I first took my late mentor's intensive life training,

I had heard all these stories.

I started making money.

I felt better.

I found self-esteem.

I found love.

A lot of people talked about doubling,

Tripling,

Even 10Xing their income.

And I was like,

Wow,

This is amazing,

Right?

I honestly thought that I would come out with some kind of superpowers,

Right?

Like I was a Jedi Knight or like a mutant in a superhero movie.

It wasn't about that at all.

What I learned was it's all about becoming a little better version of who you are.

Little adjustments here and there.

What would happen in your life if you were just 2% better at your job?

If you were just 2% better at being a parent?

Just 2% better at marketing your business,

At managing your investments?

It would make a gigantic difference in your life.

Huge,

Right?

In terms of finance,

We saw the difference.

Between 8 and 10%,

You double your money.

So in terms of perfect is the enemy of good enough,

There's another thing I want to mention.

A very common trap people fall into when we're aiming for perfect is called the second system effect.

What is the second system effect?

Well,

It comes from science and engineering.

You go create one system the first time,

Right?

The draft,

The prototype,

And you keep it lean.

Why?

It's your first system.

You don't really know what you're doing.

You want to minimize the complexity.

So you create your first system and it works really well.

Often successful.

And then it comes time to make the second system.

And so because you had success with the first one,

You try to make the second system perfect.

And there's literally an untold number of projects in this world,

Whether they be software programs,

Or business ventures,

Or movie sequels,

That have been ruined by the second system effect.

Because you try to put too much into it,

You try to do too much at once,

And it wipes out the whole thing.

So watch out for that.

This happened in real life.

A lot of people criticized IBM.

They made one of the original second system mistakes.

They created their first generation of centralized mainframe business computers,

And they were very lean and very successful.

Then they made the second version.

And it was a disaster,

At least at first.

Why?

It was way too complicated.

They tried to make it perfect.

So let go of perfect.

Aim it good enough.

You'll make more money.

You'll feel better.

Your life will work much more smoothly.

Now,

In terms of self-improvement,

Many of us make the same mistake.

I know I did.

I certainly made this mistake over and over and over for years and years.

And it's this.

You run around from one teacher,

One modality,

One program,

One system to another,

Dipping your toe in the water,

Hoping to experience a giant life-changing miracle.

And maybe you do a couple sessions,

You do one weekend seminar.

And if you don't experience your gigantic life-changing miracle,

If you don't make a billion dollars in a week or completely heal your body or find your perfect soulmate,

You go,

Oh,

This is garbage.

It doesn't work.

And I've seen people,

Including me,

Go around spending thousands,

Tens of thousands of dollars over months and years chasing that silver bullet.

That's kind of a mistake.

Why?

You're aiming for perfect.

There is no perfect teacher.

There is no perfect system.

There is no magic wand that's going to fix your life completely with one go,

Right?

No,

There's not.

But there are things that can help you improve to get 1%,

2% better.

And if you do that,

If you seek out improvement rather than perfection,

You're going to move a lot faster.

You're going to have a lot more success.

You're going to have a lot more validation and benefits and wonderful things coming into your life.

All right,

Cool.

So if you want to move ahead in your life to make more money,

To find love,

To heal your body,

To raise your consciousness,

You might want to let go of that necessity of perfection.

Ask yourself the hard question,

What's good enough?

And make that your goal.

Because if you're going to aim for perfection,

It's going to be so much more difficult.

You're going to waste so many resources,

Your time,

Your energy,

The years of your life.

And it's really almost no return.

It's kind of funny.

When I was an undergrad at MIT as a freshman,

The only time I ever aced a test in all my years there,

Undergrad,

Grad school,

Everything,

Was the very first test I took in a multivariable calculus class as a freshman.

Never again did I get 100%.

But I'm so glad.

Why?

It ruined my life for a couple weeks studying around the clock preparing for that test.

It was so difficult.

I thought,

Oh my gosh,

If I do this for every test,

I'm literally going to die before I graduate.

So that's the message I want you to hear.

Aim for good enough.

Let go of perfection.

Perfection is a neurosis.

It's an idea.

It's cool,

But it's not real life.

And if you want to move your life ahead,

You need to identify good enough.

This is Brent Michael Phillips signing out.

Goodbye.

Take care and namaste.