Do The "Simple"

The secret of life lies in the simplicity of getting things done. Everything that is done and kept simple meets with success at the door.

“Doing the simple thing” is the best way to truly change. It means doing more with less energy. It is taking care of habits, routines, and attitudes.

Habits are the result of repeated actions; they are the best way to save energy. Routines are collections of habits and actions; they are the best way to save time. Attitudes are the way we face situations in life, they are behaviours that show us where we can go.

Summary of the process:

1. Getting things done (that which is not natural, facing obstacles).
2. Feeling (the results).
3. Building trust (which grows in us).
4. Authority arises (commitment to the process is shown).
5. The habit is formed (it becomes easy and automatic).

You only achieve what you face (get done) in the right way, or, rather, with the right motivation.

Of the various proposed methods for personal change, only two have been historically proven to be effective.

The first method begins with “getting it done”, facing what needs to be done, without backing down, resisting the arguments that prevent action, such as: “I don't have the ability, I don't have the time, I don't have the courage, I’m not healthy enough, my beliefs don't allow it,” or any other sabotaging argument that stems from “I don't want to”.

When you “face it”, you feel the result, you build “confidence” and you change your behaviour. This is the approach in a school of war, where warriors are recruited regardless of their will, motivation, culture, qualifications, ideology, beliefs, or choices. The only requirement is to be physically fit for training.

The second method begins with analysing data. A plan is drawn with “feeling” as a starting point, considering the ability to withstand the intensity of the actions and carry them out without flinching. This is the approach in high-risk professions (peacetime armed forces, police, firefighters) and in the training of top-level athletes. The recruits are volunteers motivated by a desire for significance and comfort. They are selected based on physical and psychological assessment criteria that suit the organisation.

The first method is quicker to produce results. Using one method or the other depends fundamentally on your ability to exercise authority, the environment, and the amount of time available for training and maintaining motivation. Authority means the ability to force people to “face it without flinching”.

The life of a dragoon

I must tell you a story I have never told before. My close friends and my family know small parts of it.

I have never done it before because, in the 77 years of my life, I have been able to contain within myself some of the behaviours that I cannot stand in others, such as arrogance or pity. And much of what I have experienced can be interpreted in this way.

I have never illustrated my lessons or lectures with examples from my past experiences. However, I do not think anyone can honestly make such judgements at this point. I no longer have any more time left in my life for anyone to think that I am seeking fame, prestige, or wealth. I am happy with what I have achieved.

I took courage when I realised that summarising my experiences is necessary to knowing what filters were used to sift the information I am telling you here, thus avoiding the waste of dozens of years in testing alternatives, travelling difficult paths, and believing in half-truths, as it happened to me. It is not that I think one’s life lessons are in any way useful to others. But it is possible to save time by starting out with the conclusions I bring you, and with the clear possibility of verifying and “feeling” examples in your life, without the need to believe in the things I say to you, or have any faith. I have also stripped myself of the shame that any judgement might bring, because nothing I tell you is a product of my personal genius or creation. Rather, it is the result of a comparative study triggered by the question that has always tormented me and which I have never answered to my satisfaction: why do people sometimes succeed and sometimes fail? What justifies this?

The many questions that followed these first ones led to “insights” that fuelled motivation, for seven years of dedicated work and endless reflection, seeking not only to understand, to prove by science, but also to validate in each of the contexts I experienced, “feeling” what worked and what failed.

The filter

A filter is what each of us uses to read the World. This filter is made up of the memories we have accumulated throughout our past. They are the experiences of our mistakes and successes logged with the emotions we feel. That is why it is impossible for two people to have the same filters. However, knowing an author's life in a nutshell allows us to evaluate what underpins the criteria they use, and for that reason I feel obliged to talk about myself.

I was born in a former colony in Africa. There I graduated from school and I was drafted into the army. The country was fighting a war. I graduated from an officer's school, trained by elite troops. I served in the armed forces for four years. I took an active part in deploying what were probably the last Horse Dragoons to ever operate in counterguerrilla warfare. I was an instructor to officers, sergeants, and soldiers. I tamed and trained dozens of horses. I fought on foot and on horseback for three years. When I finished my mission, I began a life as an entrepreneur. I built three companies and, just when it seemed that life was getting easier, a coup d'état and the ensuing instability forced me to seek safety in another country. I started again from scratch. A year later, I was already a trusted man in one of the most influential companies in South America. I took part in small, medium, and large projects. I founded, restored, and advised several companies. I have lived through many successes and failures, together with the thousands of people who took part in them. My life has been full of changes, threats, and challenges, many losses, and some joys.

The beginning of the journey

Seven years ago, I began a research project aimed at understanding why training programmes in academic life, in war, and in companies achieve very different results, in time and performance, even though all of them share the need for commitment, determination, discipline, and persistence as principles.

After analysing the fundamentals and the structure of each of these trainings programmes, it became clear that we can roughly divide them into two groups:

• Those that train behaviour from action; and
• Those that train action from information.

• Programmes of the first group have been used for thousands and thousands of years and have changed little over time.
• Programmes of the second group have been used for not more than a few thousands of years and are constantly changing.
• The first group is used in schools of war, as well as high-risk occupations and top-tier athletes.
• The second group is used in academic education and in the training of company staff.
• The first group relies on the biological kit to “get it done”.
• The second group relies on reasoning to convince.
• The first group sees the obvious and does the simple things.
• The second group studies phenomena and explains them with the complexity of the scientific method.
• The first group provides training.
• The second group provides information.
• Those trained in the methods of the first group get things done, feel the results, build confidence, learn, and rarely complain.
• Those trained in the methods of the second group understand everything, get few things done, rarely build confidence, and almost always complain.

This leads us to the obvious question: which of these two paths is the most effective. But why do we resist to see this?

Seeing the obvious requires us to “do the simple thing”, and this is the price we refuse to pay, as our ego will not let us do that.

We prefer difficult, complex, intricate paths because then it is easy to come up with excuses for not doing things. Excuses that are often used. “I can't do it, I need to prepare, I don't have time today, maybe tomorrow.”

For example, we all know that forming habits is essential to changing behaviour.

In the first training method, you do the simple things right away and you can see the results in a few days.

In the second method, you study the relevant step-by-step guidelines and, after a few days of reading, you understand everything and put it off until next week.

Understanding why we do not see the obvious enlightens the path and makes choices easier.

The epiphany

As I analysed the step-by-step process of training in each case, as well as what science proves by observing the neuronal responses, the epiphany commenced. And then there was light—it was a revelation about the real reasons why things work. Slowly, moving from point to point, there was the epiphany—I was able to see the obvious, I saw what makes the difference, I saw which lies behind the results. What you achieve in life is a consequence of the way you “face and resist”, facing what has to be done at the right time and resisting the impulses that block you or force you to back down.

I like to use the example of military training school because men are recruited regardless of their will, motivation, culture, qualifications, ideology, beliefs, or options. As one finds all sorts of backgrounds among the intake of recruits, this precludes any kind of explanation used in the various types of therapeutic approaches, whether mystical, magical, or scientific. All that those men need is to be physically fit for training.

The right tactics are trained to perform purpose-driven tasks. Based on commitment to training, high levels of confidence, determination, overcoming, discipline, persistence, courage are achieved. These training methods rely on action, focus, and imagination to make habits and routines out of all that is necessary to fulfil said purpose.

The training aims to provide physical and emotional stability in extreme conditions, ensuring the appropriate response to each case.

In an organisation based on honour, one leads by example. No order shall be questioned, even if it is wrong (one cannot choose or retreat—one can only face it). If this happens, the punishment is certain and equal for everyone.

Creativity and imagination are only used to carry out unexplained tasks and correct mistakes by feeling and adapting skills to the objective at hand.

The quick departure from the comfort zone, the facing of the unusual, and the equal treatment create esprit de corps and convert arrogance into humility.

Doing the little things in an intense, repeated, coordinated, and disciplined way teaches you to face and resist impulses. It builds confidence and, with it, the spirit of a superman—it is about learning to trade dopamine for serotonin. This irrigates the thalamus, boosting attention and motivation, which gives pleasure and strengthens confidence. The shame felt upon failure acts as motivation to refuse giving up and it is replaced by pride in being capable, educating the inner voice. Repeating the actions necessary to the tactical objectives turns them into habits of thought. It is an effort reduction process.

Reviewing mistakes and successes supports continuous improvement, uses frustration to intensify effort, and turns it into wisdom.

It is about knowing that, beyond the limit, there is always “a little more”.

The intensity of the training leads to the Default Neuronal Network (DNN)—when the brain is thinking about itself, remembering the past and planning for the future (“daydreaming”)—being replaced in a few days by the Central Executive Network (CEN), made up mainly of the prefrontal cortex. Concentrating on breathing and focusing on tasks activates the CEN.

This type of training boosts the production of neurotransmitters essential to accelerated learning, such as epinephrine (alertness), acetylcholine (concentration), dopamine (pleasure), among others.

It is now known that, within four days, with this kind of activity, stem cells begin to migrate to the hippocampus and become neurons. You become more creative and intelligent and more motivated. The insula of Reil (the structure that contains the entire map of the body and feelings) converts actions into feelings, reconfigures thoughts, and builds confidence.

To observe all this is to witness neuroplasticity in action. But none of the participants of such training programmes know this. They simply train, feel the results, and the phenomenon happens. It is like a metamorphosis.

Cardio exercise produces the neurotrophins VGF, IGF, and BDNF, which improve learning, memory, and mood. This can be better comprehended in the work of Dr Rita Levin Montalcino, Nobel Prize in Physiology winner. One may understand why these transformations occur by relying on the work of leading neuroscientists, such as the experiments by Dr Andrew Huberman in his laboratory, which explain the effects of neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, epinephrine, and dopamine, among others.

We were able to find in multiple scientific studies the reason behind the effectiveness of each of the practices in this type of training, which has been repeated from prehistoric times to the present day, because it simply works.

The challenge

To face today's world, the important thing is to update our knowledge of ancient and modern threats. In this way, we can help the adaptation system, the immune system, and everything that not only preserves but also increases life, using appropriate solutions with enough speed to “survive with peace and comfort”.

This means knowing how to solve:

• The problems of our physical and mental health.
• The problems of the other people.

It is a possible and effective art if we wisely use everything our biology can teach us wisely. And what has life, as well as the things life built up in us: our memories and emotions, the moments when we failed, when we won, when we were the worst and felt ashamed, or when we were at our best and felt joy. Then there are also our beliefs, truths, and certainties.