CHAPTER 12 - DIFFERENTIATED PERFORMANCE

Achievement manifests itself as the byproduct of distinguished performance in the proactive pursuit of our goals.

Opportunity or Bust

A handful of years ago, I made an audacious professional move. I stopped by my boss’s office and asked if he and I could jump into a conference room for a quick chat.

We were finishing up a large national program evolution and considering what project to start next. I had been pushing to start a brand-new subsidiary with me at the helm. There was only one little problem: I had never started or run a firm like the one I was proposing. The truth is, it was in an entirely different industry, one I was familiar with only peripherally. On paper, I was not the guy you should hire to run this company.

However, what few people knew was that I had been quietly preparing myself in earnest to start this firm for over a year. I had been researching the industry, talking to our partners, running pro formas, building a business plan, engaging with peers who had started similar firms, and teaching myself everything possible about the how the industry works. I had run three different financial scenarios and flown around the country to meet with peers and partners. I had notes, ideas, and learnings on the industry organized on the two large whiteboards in my office. I was committed to the opportunity.

The day before our chat, my boss made a comment to me in passing that he had a call with an outside attorney I didn’t recognize. It was odd that I wasn’t included, as I was involved in all these conversations up to this point. Immediately, I knew what was going on; I was losing any grip I had on being tapped to run this new firm.

As we entered the conference room, I shut the doors behind us. He started to get a concerned look on his face. With a tone that bordered on impertinence, I told him I understood what was going on. Over the next few moments, I made my case. I shared with him my recognition that I wasn’t qualified on paper but assured him I was prepared for the opportunity. I was not only prepared but committed to its successful debut for us. It was my idea to start the company in the first place, and I shared the work I’d done to prepare myself, along with my proposed approach and strategy.

The monologue culminated in my telling him that I deserved to know one way or the other whether I was getting responsibility for the new company, and if I wasn’t, then my work on the project would terminate immediately. I wouldn’t be interested in being involved if I wasn’t at the helm. The subtext being that perhaps this was no longer the right role for me, overall. It wasn’t a threat; if there was no new opportunity after my large recent success, it would have been time to move on.

As you can imagine, he was slightly taken aback by the tone and content of my comments. We had a strong relationship, but even so, I was pushing up against our professional boundaries. The diplomat paused for a moment, then told me that everything I had shared was rather reasonable. He understood my position and agreed to have a conversation with the CEO and would follow up with me in short order.

Two mornings later, he poked his head into my office and handed me a fi le with the contact information of the new legal consultant. He told me the gig was mine and asked me to call the outside counsel and let them know we were moving ahead and that I would be running point on the project moving forward.

Fast forward to my transition out of the firm three years later. We opened eleven states and fifteen markets in the span of eighteen months with that new little venture; we built a cohesive team of ten, aced several regulatory audits, and were spinning off nearly $5 million per year in revenue, with 47 percent gross margins. Not bad for a professional opportunity that almost never happened.

Managing Performance

“The man[sic] who says he can, and the man[sic] who says he cannot…are both correct.”⁶⁴

Underdog Equation

(Two Authentic Stories – Victimhood) + Intentional Relationships + Differentiated Performance = Underdog

Humans have a universal desire to be in control of their own destiny. Underdogs are no exception.

However, being in control and wanting to be in control are two distinctive things. Control requires authority or at least significant influence over our words, actions, decisions, and even our actual performance. We can think of our need to self-regulate in this way as a form of personal agency.65

Agency is abundant for top dogs and privileged achievers. However, it’s a little trickier when it comes to the experiences of anyone living with disadvantage. As we’ve discussed throughout the book, underdogs have the nuanced challenge of overcoming lingering adversity, even while they focus on their current goals and future performance. Lasting disadvantage and the slow shedding of the associated victimhood can make us feel like we are living in parallel realities. We are simultaneously living in the present while seemingly anchored to the events of our past. This push-and-pull effect can have a substantial impact on our performance. The good news is that we are not helpless or bound by its fallout.

Underdogs are creative and capable. With the right attitude, support, and advocacy, it’s possible to overcome disadvantage and perform well among even our most “worthy rivals.”66 However, to become the essential credible contender, one must first weather the dependent expectations of others impacting their personal performance. In other words, until we stop letting other people affect our performance, we are trapped by their tyranny of low expectations, whether we realize it or not.

It’s only after this codependency has been addressed that we have any hope of navigating the internal pressures and influences we place on ourselves. Most people expect underdogs to either grossly underperform or flat out fail. For a time, those negative expectations can have the effect of motivating us. Earlier in the book we considered the research that shows our response to viewer expectations is decided by whether the audience is credible or incredible. Typically, when viewers are deemed incredible, we prove them wrong and outperform. When more credible viewers are involved, we typically prove the naysayers right and underperform, as expected. Talk about subtly losing control of our own performance and prospects.

As an underdog in the Renewal phase, outperforming only low expectations can be acceptable in the beginning. It is even normal and expected. Use it to your advantage when it works. However, as we become more practiced and experienced, we should rely less and less on such shallow forms of internal performance influence. Remember, as our viewers improve, our motivational forces need to keep pace with the dynamic expectations of ourselves and our more credible viewers.

Eventually, we’ll want to regain the autonomy over our personal performance instead of being controlled by our response to the stereotypes or expectations of others. Researchers refer to this sort of feedback as stereotype reactance. 67 This idea is characterized by a tendency to behave in ways that do not conform to the stereotypes projected on us or, in other scenarios, the need for someone to tell us that something can’t be done, just so we can prove them wrong. That form of motivation will only take us so far. Recognizing this type of response when it is triggered and learning to adapt and regulate it is an essential part of our personal growth, development, and maturation process.

Too often, underdogs focus on not losing instead of being prepared to compete. There’s a difference, and it’s a big one. A focus on not losing is a defensive strategy. It puts us back on our heels. Preparing to compete, on the other hand, is an offensive strategy. It puts us in a competitive posture, conditioning us as a credible contender, and there’s complementary research to back up the differences. I like to think of these competing ideas as a two-sided coin, with alternative forms of self-fulfilling performance prophecies on either side—one side, positive-expectation effect, and the other, negative.

The negative side is a self-fulfilling prophecy (SFP) known as the Golem effect. 68 It says that when negative expectations are placed on us, we tend to perform down to those expectations. In the case of underdogs, you not only have this projected outcome imposed upon you, but you also have the added distinction of whether the viewers are credible or incredible.

Many of us look to perform only to prove others wrong. Or we feel as if we can succeed only when we’re bucking expectations. Trying to use motivation prompted by low expectations is not a practical or sustainable strategy. Understandably, we may be able to make it work in the short term or immediately following trauma. However, over the long term, the motivations are too weak to extract any lasting benefit. There are just too many external considerations and variables out of our control. Plus, who wants to have their performance manipulated or dictated by others instead of being in control themselves?

The flipside of the SFP coin is known as the Pygmalion effect. 69 This happens when we or the people we surround ourselves with raise our performance expectations. Guess what happens? We perform to the higher expected standard.

And by adjusting our self-talk, expectations, and the quality of the people we bring into our personal and professional circles, we set ourselves up to receive four powerful performance benefits.

These include things like the following:

• Clearing the record of past negative results

• Orienting toward a more positive mentality

• Limiting stereotype reactance and improving response reactions

• Establishing higher ongoing expectations for ourselves

In other words, there are a lot of powerful benefits obtained simply by changing the lens through which we see the world. When we think we can do more or better, we actually can do more and better. We decide what to focus on. It just so happens that the things we focus on have a way of changing the way we see everything else, including past failures and future possibilities.

How freeing would it be to have a more positive outlook on your life?

What if you set goals for yourself and then actually achieved them?

What if you could stop worrying about what others think and, instead, focus on what you want to work toward?

This isn’t some fairytale or Pollyanna approach full of rainbows and unicorns. None of this happens by accident. Like anything worth doing, it takes eff ort and practice.

We can start by changing what we expect from ourselves. Then surround ourselves with advocates who will support and expect similar or better results from us too. When we do, the upsides begin to conspire to work in our favor. In time, making this simple shift can have a dramatic impact on our performance, improving the results and making our work that much more enjoyable.

The question becomes whether we’re open to showing up in some new ways and doing some new things that make us uncomfortable. If we’re ready to give it a go, let’s review some essential and counterintuitive ways to establish performances that consistently stand out.

Essential Underdog Performance

Underdogs are differentiated not only by what they say but largely by what they do.

I don’t know about you, but putting in the work has never been the hard part. I’ve been working hard since I was a young kid. Like a lot of disadvantaged people, my personal and professional performance started early. First, taking responsibility for kids and chores at home. Later, performing odd jobs for neighbors. Then working multiple jobs in high school so I could get away and become self-sufficient. That was followed by several years in the military. Like most underdogs, when it comes to putting in hard work, “don’t threaten me with a good time.”

There are two big misconceptions we often have when it comes to our performance. The fi rst is that eff ort alone is enough to get ahead. The second is that performance improvements happens in dramatic leaps. Unfortunately, neither of those is accurate nor sufficient.

Firstly, most credible contenders don’t have an effort problem. That’s one thing they rarely get accused of. Understandably, the biggest problem underdogs have is being consumed by their disadvantage. Yet a shift in focus can reorient us back toward the fundamentals like the table stakes we mentioned in part II—getting our mental health situated, reengaging our education, and forming positive habits become the cornerstones of our personal performance.

Contrary to what some experts would have you believe, effort for effort’s sake is not the goal. One popular example is the idea of grit, which has become a staple of corporate wordle boards. Psychologist Angela Duckworth performed some research and wrote a famous book on her idea of grit. It can be summarized by her equation: talent x effort = skills. Then, skills x effort = achievement. 70 The underlying premise assumes that you focus your efforts on the right things and that you have the resources, network, time, and opportunity to place your effort on those things. It’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t hold up well under the scrutiny of disadvantage.

Instead, we need to be intentional with where we place our efforts. Underdogs have limited time, but especially, resources, so we must focus on the most impactful activities first. That starts with working to heal from our trauma and culminates with our focus on our competitive preparation. Left unfocused we could easily lose ourselves in efforts that only hold us back, like wallowing in victimhood, battling social stigma, or focusing on the tyranny of the low expectations of others.

Alternatively, performance leaps are a myth too. When it comes to performance, we usually don’t make big leaps. Instead, we make rather incremental or accretive improvements, gradually, one step at a time. To think otherwise is to get caught in the trap of binary or all-or-none thinking. As the thinking goes, if we are unable to perform to our standard immediately, completely, or perfectly, then the performance is not worth doing at all. It’s best to avoid getting sucked into that trap by allowing ourselves some grace when it comes to mistakes, learning, and improvement. Therefore, it’s a good idea to begin our evolving performance journey as soon as possible.

As we outlined back in part II, the Fundamental Performance Curve highlights a slow, steady performance progression through development, improvement, and proficiency. Left unchecked, you end up in the Declination phase. But, as you recall, the way to avoid declination is to prepare for and get on the Underdog Curve—to shift your trajectory. That trajectory shift adds new and important elements for you to focus on—things like crafting your story, honing your relationships, and updating your performance behaviors.

Performance can sometimes feel like an ambiguous idea. Really, it’s simple to understand. There’s a basic equation that helps highlight the underlying components that combine to deliver our personal or professional performance.

Performance Equation

Small Actions + Consistency + Time = Performance

Whether it’s mental health, education, or your habits, this equation stands on its own. For example, if you want to get your education in order, start small. Research what you want to focus on. Figure out where you will go. Consider financing options. Call the school to discuss the enrollment process. Sign up for a single class. Take the course. Those are small actions done with consistency and over a relatively short period of time, which reveal our performance orientation.

Similarly, the same equation holds to develop your story. Start by reading this book. Evaluate the story you have today. Examine the language you use. Remove victimhood from it. Retool it and then practice sharing the new version with others. Keep honing your message until it feels good and you can see it working. Then keep sharing that new, compelling story. Those are personal performance improvements.

Sorry to be the one to share this with you, but there are no silver bullets or magic potions in life. It’s small things done well, every day, over a period that get results. You set your own time horizon, but be consistent and make progress toward what you want every day. Underdogs should try to build on baseline skills, avoid volatile or risky behaviors, and continuously display the behaviors and habits that can help them show up in meaningful ways. Focus on the areas that help you get ahead and highlight your credible performance.

And be careful to avoid buying into the social hype of specialization. Underdogs are generalists by experience, and being a generalist has its advantages in a sea of specialists.

Jack-of-All-Trades

“Jack-of-all-trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” —William Shakespeare

Today, the expression is often hurled as a pejorative, expressing contempt or disapproval. As in, “He’s a real jack-of-all-trades, isn’t he?” The insinuation being that those who specialize are more profoundly qualified than generalists. In my experience, that’s only true in very specific circumstances. It also doesn’t account for the ability to be deeply skilled in one area while maintaining broader skillsets too. Many underdogs know how to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time.

How do the underprivileged become proficient enough to be qualified to work across multiple domains?

Well, when one confronts disadvantage, they often cultivate competencies in multiple areas. Being proficient across various domains comes naturally to them as a function of what they’ve seen, done, and been through. Personal adversity acts as a training ground for enhancing their capabilities. Learning how to integrate disparate skillsets is at the heart of these experiences. They become what I would consider a “utility player”—they learn how to play many positions reasonably well and can be positioned wherever they’re needed most. They should still have a specialty, but they’re not limited to that area. If this sounds like you, you’re in good company.

In lieu of the traditional attitude on generalists, I lean toward David Epstein’s more level-headed and pragmatic interpretation. In his book Range, Epstein intimates that being a jack-of-all-trades is not something to be ashamed of but rather an approach to success we should embrace.71 He suggests that the real value is in the second half of Shakespeare’s couplet: “But oftentimes better than a master of one.” Being qualified to do many different things is very valuable. Varied proficiency supplies improved utility in our lives, more than any single, overly specialized skill ever could.

Interestingly, his attitude reflects both my personal experience and the shifting societal attitudes around how we define achievement and success. Without realizing it, Epstein was really poking around the edges of what makes underdog performance so special.

Underdogs become a jack-of-all-trades, not out of desire but rather out of necessity.

When you’re disadvantaged, you’re forced to be solution oriented. You must be agile and come up with novel solutions to practical challenges. These solutions are often prepared at a moment’s notice, especially when trauma and disadvantage can come from all angles and realms—physical, social, financial, psychological, or political, just to name a few. No one is born knowing how to navigate these sorts of obstacles. Those skills are developed over time and through our experiences. It also happens that those same skills are frequently transferable to other personal or professional parts of our lives too.

Underdogs are better prepared to use these learned skills in the real world. They demonstrate an ability to perform at a high level. Transitions are simple. Tackling new areas of study or industries, or gaining new competencies, comes easy to them. They know how to learn because the stakes of not learning have been so high for them in the past. And it’s not as though they can ever unlearn these lessons or skills.

It is problematic for underdogs, however, when others have difficulty understanding how one person could be so well rounded or proficient across multiple disciplines. The internal struggle advantaged onlookers have with this idea can create barriers for you, as they narrow-mindedly try to typecast your skills. The privileged masses don’t readily understand how one could become so diversely experienced or functionally capable in so many ways.

These multiple proficiencies originate from your disadvantage. Tackling adversity puts you in situations that require you to take on new perspectives or operate with increased dexterity. Over time, the new skills one develops transform into sustainable performance traits. As a result, underdogs get a boost of experience and its resulting confidence, even amid their struggles. All these new perspectives and experiences then work as a silent catalyst for the most valuable organic benefit of adversity— creativity.

Of all the traits underdogs display, there is substantial scientific evidence that speaks to an underdog’s ability to tap into their personal creativity. The logic goes that if they can find creative ways to work through their hardships, they can certainly overcome their daily mundane challenges.

In contrast, being hyper-specialized tends to be a luxury of the advantaged. Specialization requires time, resources, and the advantage of no lingering disadvantage. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell popularizes the idea of specialization and the seemingly virtuous idea of ten thousand hours of practice to be world class in any area.72 It’s a nice idea, but most of us don’t have the luxury of what amounts to five or more years of full-time practice. We have real problems to solve today.

At a glacial pace, society is realizing that underdogs are uniquely qualified to differentiate themselves, and not in only a single domain but across many unexpected personal and professional areas. A relatively recent Forbes article highlighted the value of things like transferable skills, flexibility, and curiosity as a few important areas where being a jack-of-all-trades comes in handy.73

When it comes to working and sharing your experiences with others, your broad perspective and unique experiences place you at odds with socially accepted norms. Specialization has been drilled into us socially. That puts your performance at odds with the masses. Many people you interact with will have a hard time understanding how you can see things so clearly and differently or how you can possibly be skilled across multiple domains or disciplines.

Having multiple areas of competency is a powerful differentiator for you, even if others don’t quite understand your perspective yet. Don’t let anyone diminish your experiences or suggest that your alternative skills or perspectives are not valuable. When you find your kind of people, they will recognize your unique talents and performance abilities.

Now that you’ve got the endorsement to let your jack-of-all-trades-flag fly, it’s time to consider how to think about your ongoing performance. You’re getting prepared, but now you must execute. Thinking and talking like an underdog won’t work on their own. Execution is an essential aspect. It’s as important as honing your story and your relationships.

It happens to be the case that you’re already prepared for the performance of your lifetime. Now you need a few ways to stand out and highlight what makes your performance unique.

Credible Contender Differentiation

To be a credible contender, your performance must be worthy of the moniker.

Sure, this involves being comfortable in your own skin and using your learned skills. It also requires small, consistent actions accumulated over time. That’s a good start. There are also a handful of performance areas that can dramatically diff erentiate you from others so profoundly that any comparison to your peers won’t seem fair—with successful implementation, of course.

It can be hard to nail down precisely the activities that we do that help us succeed. I’ve had a modicum of success over the years and view myself as an underdog, and I was curious about how to characterize my own performance.

I began to consciously take notice of both what I was doing and how others were responding to my behaviors. I casually started focusing on responses at work. Then I added interactions with friends and family. As part of this anecdotal research, I asked many people what made individuals stand out in their own lives. In addition, I read numerous books on how people get ahead and dozens of research studies on underdog performance.

In summary, I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking about which performance characteristics have allowed me to stand out and succeed. I’ve come up with a name for each behavior and narrowed the list down to five important performance areas that have been instrumental in my personal and professional life—several of which I didn’t fully appreciate or recognize until I began writing this book. There are other aspects I could have included, but I’m convinced these five areas are the most practical for underdog development.

Below are the five behaviors or activities that can have the largest impact on underdog performance:

1. Functional creativity

2. Do hard things

3. Mindful transparency

4. Disagreeable giving⁷⁴

5. “Verbing”

Now, let’s examine each performance area to see how each of them conspires to help anyone become a credible contender, capable of competing with even the most privileged achievers among us.

Functional Creativity

Underdogs have unlimited creative powers to activate and call upon for their own practical use.

Creativity is the catalyst for differentiated performance.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be able to draw, paint, or carve sculptures to be creative. Creativity is more nuanced and useful than that, and for many of us, it acts like a powerful undercurrent available and coursing right below the surface. The difficult part is recognizing it within us and discovering how to make it work to our advantage.

Creativity often derives from having unique and difficult experiences. It’s not the negative event itself, but rather the resulting mental acuity these events produce as a byproduct. In 2017, researchers considered whether creativity could be manufactured simply by using an underdog story. They gave participants a disadvantaged story prompt (ironically, written by Malcom Gladwell) and then tested their levels of creativity versus a control group’s. They used a test called the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). This test measures the total number of relevant ideas and different categories or types, the rarity or uniqueness, and the amount of detail of each response.75

Researchers found that the participants who read the simple story prompt in advance of the test had significantly improved their creativity scores. They especially excelled against their control group peers in two specific categories. The first was the category known as fluency, which considered the total number of ideas provided. The second was in the flexibility area, which relates to the variety of different ideas shown and an ability to shift among disparate ideas.

The study also showed that being exposed to the underdog story had what they referred to as a carryover effect. In essence, the increased creativity stayed with the participants who simply read a one-page story long after their initial exposure to it. This creative improvement held, regardless of the participants’ positions in the world—privileged or disadvantaged.

In other words, humans can be primed to be more creative. That primer just happens to be a story of disadvantage. This begs the question: If we can increase our creativity simply by reading a made-up prompt, how much more powerful could an authentic underdog experience be as a stimulus to our own personal creativity and thereby our performance?

Well, there is no limitation to one’s creative abilities once they learn how to tap into them. Underdogs can leverage their own story, viewed objectively, as a spark to help them solve problems across their personal and professional lives. I’ve been doing this for years but didn’t realize what was driving it. I knew I had an ability to come up with novel ideas, but I never understood why I seemed to have this skill when others around me lacked it. It has always felt rather natural or intuitive.

After considering the research and my own experiences, I arrived at the idea of what I now call functional creativity. It simply means that underdogs already have a ready-made narrative to tap into (their own), and it’s constantly available to us. This on-demand nature has practical implications for everyday problem solving. We can use it for disparate challenges, from helping our kids solve a school challenge to solving professional problems in the boardroom. There is no limit to how or where we can use this wellspring of creativity available to us.

I would like to take it a step further and think of the use of this benefit as “Creativity as a Service” (CAAS). Unlike most services, you don’t have to pay anything, and there are no subscription fees or other downsides for the user. The only caveat is that we must practice tapping into this form of creativity.

A good place to start is with the struggles in your own life; pick one issue that’s lingering for you. Then, think back over your life, your struggles, and what you’ve had to overcome. Take a few moments to be proud of all that you’ve achieved and reflect on what helped you overcome those challenges in the first place.

Then get serious about coming up with a novel solution to the issue you selected. Spend some time thinking about it, write down some ideas, and see if anything jumps out at you. Consider using multiple ideas together. Try to think of analogs between your challenge and where it shows up in other places in the world. Think about how others have tackled this type of issue in the past and how their learnings might help you solve the problem in front of you.

I bet that with a little patience, you’re able to come up with a solution quicker than you think. Now the only question is this: For what other practical purposes will you begin to leverage your functional creativity?

My hope for you is that you become more acutely aware of your power to leverage this skill and decide to use it to solve pressing problems and stand out from the crowd.

Do Hard Things

Doing hard things should not be confused with mere effort or hard work. It’s about doing things others are unwilling or unable to do. Most people are unwilling to make the necessary time, energy, or resource investment needed for fundamental, structural change. This creates an opportunity for underdogs willing to roll up their sleeves, put in the work, and standout.

There are two contrasting ways to do hard things, each with their own value. They can seem at odds with one another, but both serve to differentiate your performance when you integrate them effectively:

1. First-principles thinking

2. Willingness to iterate

First-principles thinking has to do with examining the things we take for granted at a more fundamental level. It bucks conventional wisdom or how things have always been done. It considers the idea that if you had to deconstruct an idea, system or process to its core and rebuild it, in what ways could you improve the finished product?

In any domain, it’s all about challenging the underlying assumptions about the way things are typically done. It’s being a useful contrarian. It’s questioning “why” things are done a particular way and considering whether there is a more productive, efficient, or less costly way of doing things. It often looks and feels disruptive because often it is. You also have the added benefit of likely being the only person in the room asking these types of tough questions.

Peter Thiel refers to this idea in his book Zero to One. He points out that creating or doing something that has never been done before (from zero) is far more difficult, yet transformational, than simply improving something that already exists (one to two, for example). As a simple example, consider the difficulty of ending a romantic relationship that no longer works for you. Starting over with someone else can be difficult and time consuming, but you have the benefit of doing things differently and better the next time. It’s also hard to place a price on happiness.

Or, perhaps, consider taking on a new team at work. Can the team members be trained up, improved upon, and prepared to do the work at hand, or are they no longer qualified? Would you be willing to make the tough decision to remove some or all the existing team members and build a new one from scratch? While difficult, these decisions are valuable and necessary.

But difficulties don’t appear only at this level either.

In stark contrast, iteration can be as difficult as pure disruption. Iteration involves the evolution of a thing: a friendship, work product, or hobby. Think of it as slow improvement over time. Do you have the patience to involve others, working through competing opinions to arrive at an improved solution? Iterating has its own challenges. Obtaining objective feedback from others can be daunting but improves both the number and quality of ideas. It will also make the finished product better. And, like most things in life, there is a point of diminishing returns too.

In either scenario, you step into a realm where the thing you propose to do is difficult. Others have not done it for that reason. When you demonstrate your ability to approach personal and professional challenges in either of these ways, you immediately stand out. Most people would never attempt something so radical. It’s seen as too hard. Too much work. Not worth the effort. But that’s where the value and opportunity lie.

Be willing to do hard things. Make the time, put in the energy, and commit the resources to do things no one else thinks are possible. In short, do hard things, and you will set yourself apart in no time.

Mindful Transparency

While we touched on this topic in the last chapter, it’s worth taking a more robust look. Most people tend to be rather guarded in everyday life. While I intellectually understand the rationale, I don’t agree with the approach. Underdogs need ways to stand out. One way to do that is by being more transparent in your dealings with others. People will be surprised but appreciate the refreshing candor. But, as with all things in life, moderation is the key.

Being transparent is not about wearing your heart on your sleeve or oversharing in toxic ways. It also doesn’t mean you should hurt the feelings of others or erode their trust and confidence. Therein lies the mindful aspect of this performance activity. It has to do with letting others get to know your thoughts, feelings, opinions, or beliefs in a way that opens and stirs dialogue. That opening helps others feel included and leads to better, more fulfilling conversations in every context. It shows others our willingness to be vulnerable and authentic with them. In return, they reciprocate by being more transparent. Wow, that feels nice.

While everyone else is walking around with a superficial defensive air of having it all figured out, transparency is unique and refreshing. It’s difficult to express how many times this approach has worked to my advantage in my personal and professional life. In dating, for example, being clear about what you’re looking for (or not) can be a relief for both of you. In the professional world, peers, colleagues, and leaders usually appreciate you saying, “I don’t know.” Conversely, it’s often saying the thing that others are thinking but dare not say. As with anything in life, you will find critics to this approach too.

It’s impossible to remember how many times people have commented to me about how they appreciate my candor and willingness to be direct or explicit. How grateful they are for me to share my goals and opinions with them. When it’s done respectfully, with boundaries, folks appreciate not having to read between the lines. There’s real value in sharing what you truly think, being forthright, and providing context or rationale for your logic and conclusions.

Being mindfully transparent is perfectly suited to underdogs. It saves time and fosters relationships, and it’s a fantastic way to go against the grain and differentiate yourself.

Disagreeable Giver

When I first get to know people, they sometimes tell me I have a rather “prickly” demeanor. Over the years most of my friends and colleagues eventually share something interesting with me about our relationship. They tell me the first time they met me that they either didn’t like me or, a more diplomatic version, that they didn’t know “how to take” me. Yet somehow we go on to develop great personal or professional relationships. How are people initially turned off and yet we end up becoming friends or great work colleagues?

I didn’t have a descriptor for this phenomenon until I came across Adam Grant’s work. In his book, Give and Take, Grant breaks people down into two broad groups: givers and takers. Givers are net givers in a relationship, supplying more value than they receive. Takers get more than they give in a relationship.76

Then he characterizes people as either agreeable or disagreeable. Being agreeable sounds nice on the surface but turns you into a “yes” person, or a doormat. Not a good look. As you can probably guess by now, I fall into the disagreeable category, and so do a lot of you reading this.

Being disagreeable doesn’t mean you are contrarian for the sake of it. Instead, it has to do with pushing against the status quo, questioning the underlying premise of situations or the logic that others use. It is a respectful but sometimes intense way of interacting with the world. It comes from the right place—a place of passion and empathy, which shows you care by insisting that things be done to the highest agreed-upon standards.

Putting the two ideas together to become a disagreeable giver can be powerful, especially for those of us who already have unique perspectives and more robust experiences. If you’re anything like me, it comes naturally. Disagreeing with others may upset a few folks along the way, but opinions change when they better understand your motives. In the long run, this strategy will make you an invaluable friend and colleague. You will stand out by giving more than you receive and demonstrating your passion and willingness to discuss tough subjects with a goal of making meaningful progress.

There is a shortage of disagreeable givers in the world—you can take advantage of that to become more prominent in your daily interactions.

Verbing

Finally, we come to “verbing.” This is a real word, typically when a person or thing (a noun) is turned into a verb. I use it here to describe an action orientation and performance delivery. Some years ago, a leader used my name in conversation as a verb to make his point about my ability to effectively execute and meet objectives. He was comparing me to one of my peers who was struggling with one of her projects. It came out in the form of, “Why can’t she just fuckin’ George-it?”

Turning my name into a verb was a shortcut way to analogize my action orientation and ability to get things done. It’s aggressive, but I take it as a compliment. I share it with you not from a place of ego—honestly, publishing this story makes me cringe a little on the inside. Instead, what I hope you take away is how in demand the quality of successful execution really is. Many people are capable of starting things; far fewer are competent to finish them.

In short, it’s about the rare ability to get shit done!

When a friend is stranded at 3:00 a.m., go pick them up. Car won’t start? Walk to work. Last-minute work project due tomorrow? Work through the night to get it done.

Underdogs have a special knack for finding ways to get things done. They have little patience or time to wait for the perfect solution. They’re action oriented. Their inclination is to start now and get a workable version, at least for the time being. It’s an ability to cut through the noise and nonsense to look for practical solutions and solve a problem. Overcoming trauma tends to have this sort of effect on us, and we should be leveraging it as one of our superpowers.

Over the years, I’ve tried to distill the drivers for what having an action orientation looks like—the specific, resultant character traits that help underdogs get things done.

Here’s what I’ve narrowed it down to:

• Durability (resilience)

• Refusal to quit (tenacity)

• Giving a shit (care)

Durability is essentially a sense of toughness that allows someone to get hit and keep on chugging along. Refusing to quit refers to tenacity. Tenacity is all about being undeterred and able to withstand setbacks and obstacles. Finally, giving a shit refers to one’s ability to care deeply about their endeavors. When results matter, credible contenders make it their job to see things through. As a former colleague of mine used to like to say, “You can’t fake giving a shit!”

You also can’t fake getting things done.

Successful execution is a performance ability that underdogs have usually mastered. You know how to complete things better than anyone. The ability to get shit done is a powerful and valuable skillset to own—don’t discount it or take for granted that everyone else can do the same. They cannot.

Successful delivery has the added value of being a highly desirable quality, which makes the right people pay attention—people you want to be your friends, lovers, colleagues, and advocates.

Underdogs will always attract optimal support and opportunities when they genuinely care, refuse to quit, and demonstrate they can perform.

Optimize Your Story, Relationships, and Performance to Harness Adversity

• Avoid the trap of the tyranny of low expectations of others by always minding your performance motivations.

• Whether we like it or not, small actions done consistently over time manifest as our performance.

• While specialization has its place, there is everyday value for underdogs to be skilled in multiple disciplines or domains.

• Differentiation is the key to getting noticed, standing out from the crowd, and proving you’re ready and capable for new opportunities.

• Become a Credible Contender by leveraging the use of the five underdog points of differentiation—functional creativity, do hard things, be mindfully transparent, be a disagreeable giver, and let your actions speak for your performance.

• Go to UnderdogCurve.com/book to get free access to book images, bonus resources, courses, and practical materials to continue your personal underdog evolution.

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