This episode tackles the post-holiday productivity slump and the psychological barriers that prevent entrepreneurs from executing on their goals. The core framework presented is Sharran Srivatsaa’s action equation: Outcome × Stakes > Cost + Distraction, which breaks down why most people fail to take action despite having clear objectives.
Key Takeaways:
- Actions first, feelings second The best feelings always come after taking action, not before—relying on motivation or energy levels to start working guarantees failure.
- Stakes are usually zero In Sharran’s equation, most entrepreneurs set no real penalties for inaction, which mathematically ensures the equation fails since anything multiplied by zero equals zero.
- Reduce cost to one millimeter Lower the barrier to starting by making the first action absurdly small—typing one word in an email draft or opening a task manager—to break through inertia and build momentum.
- Work will work when nothing else will work Physical activity and mindset shifts help temporarily, but the only reliable cure for low energy or distraction is actually executing on the tasks you’ve already planned for yourself.
Listen to the full episode to hear the complete breakdown of how to manipulate the action equation variables and specific tactics for forcing yourself past resistance even when everything in you wants to avoid the work.
(Podcast transcript below)
Welcome to Get Serious. We’re at Serious Land Capital. We’ve successfully funded over $6 million worth of vacant land deals and have industry leading 41 % operating margins. Today, I wanted to share a couple of notes, you know, specific to productivity and kind of ensuring that you can maintain the work group here. think this is a really popular topic.
especially coming in after the holidays and folks are trying to maintain New Year’s resolutions or momentum. Heading into another 12 month sprint that so many of us really fall into one way or another, especially living in the US. Capitalist economy is here. I’m certainly no different.
You know, there was definitely, maybe I’m the only one here, but I think, you know, especially coming out of the holidays sometimes, um, you know, getting back into the groove here of just like, okay, I’m just set, you know, back into the day and I can just, you know, operate almost, you know, robotically and take care of business. Um, yeah, I found myself struggling a bit.
More with that this year, I just felt like a little bit more distracted and still had some extra errands run and so forth. um, you know, sometimes my energy wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to be coming into the day to, know, middle of winter and so forth. Even though I live in central Texas, um, where we generally have beautiful weather for, for much of the year, at least hot, weather. Um, you know, the daylight isn’t as good and so forth, like every excuse in the book, right? Um,
I’m probably not the only one here, but, you know, I’ll at least be vulnerable and, and, know, mentioned some things that, that I was struggling with. and. You know, what, what I often find with myself too is like when I really, you know, kind of feel that inertia of just getting started with anything. And I know I have some of these key tasks to take care of. like.
The more minutes that pass by, even the more seconds that pass by, it’s like almost I get more tired and less energized even thinking about it more. And it’s even harder to just get started on the smallest things. And that’s a tough thing about being an entrepreneur sometimes too. It’s like, I have home office and so forth. I don’t have somebody staring over my shoulder and cracking the whip. I have to be cracking my own whip.
against myself. So, you know, that that’s just another thing you have to keep in mind when, you know, if the buck stops with you, like that, that, that’s just, the trade off you have to keep in mind is you have to maintain the discipline to, ensure you’re, keeping your forward momentum. and. You know, it, it, it’s like almost embarrassing to admit some, some of these times it’s like, man, why can’t I do even just the.
simplest thing to get started here. um, you know, it is feeling worse and worse about myself. And just like, when, when, when am I actually going to get to this? And then you can start building up just this, you know, deadline pressure. it’s like, Oh my God, I really need to get something done here. I’m not going to hit the, uh, um, the goals that I set for myself and my team and other constituents and clients and so forth that are counting on me. Family.
Et cetera here. And then that can like finally start to, to, kick, into gear and just like, you know, wanting to have like, okay, what, you know, what’s the smallest possible win that you can get today? Like, you know, it’s not going to be perfect, but what can you still do to make this day, worthwhile? Like trying to figure out every trick in the book or like change your stay a little bit. You gotta jump on the little trampoline here. Just try to.
You know, move around a little bit, you know, get outside of drowsiness sometimes like there, there’s so many other methods to, to attempt and usually physical activity will, will help a lot more with this. but I’m, I’m kind of laying the groundwork here to, to, you know, share some items that I think are, you know, just more effective. and, know, a handful of quotes and a handful of frameworks here. One is, that, that I’ve just found, you know, tends to prove true.
more often than not is that work will work when nothing else will work. kind of a bit of a tongue twister there. but it’s like when you’re, you’re just in, just a crappy mind space, like, yeah, you just, you have to figure out something that can just move the puck forward. Then your business somewhere in your life, just to develop, you know, get, get even the slightest momentum, even for like 10 seconds and let that start to build up. because.
You know, you have these goals for a reason. You built a plan for yourself and you have a vision and direction that you want to head into, which you would assume that you had put together when you were in like a more optimistic and more energetic mindsets. Like, you know that that’s the pathway you want to go on. So why can’t you just follow those steps in order to achieve that? And.
You know, I have so many of these, you know, like the James Clears and so forth, these habits specialists and everything is like you got to just make things as easy as possible just to get started on them. And I was reminded as well, too, as I started to build more momentum, especially over the last couple of days here, you know, following Sharran Srivatsaa and he’s a managing partner at acquisition.com, outstanding real estate guy as well, too. And
I heard him remark on this before I had just forgotten it, but now it’s just an extra reminder. He’s like, um, actions, first feelings, second, um, which goes part and parcel to what I was just mentioning before. It’s like, okay, you have these plans and goals that you already set for yourself. You can’t rely on your feelings to, get you there. And, know, generally the best feelings that you’re going to have are when you actually take those actions in the first place. So it’s like.
You can’t rely on what your internal state is. again, your best feelings are going to come after you take those actions. So what do I have on my task list that I just need to start knocking down? What was the smallest thing to even get the ball rolling slightly in the right direction? Even if it’s just a millimeter, that is just so low cost that it would be just like ridiculous. Can I type one word?
in relation to an email, like how basic can you make it just to start building momentum here? Like again, some of this, you know, seems like almost ridiculous to mention, but you know, we’re, human beings, right? Like it’s just, we’re, not AI. We’re not robots. you oftentimes like you need to figure out, you know, tricks and, you know, certain mindsets, whatever it takes, like to just start taking those, those actions.
to achieve what we would like. Like there’s a reason, know, only a handful of folks like really achieve, you know, incredible, you know, freedom, success in their lives because you have to take these types of actions all the time. Like it’s not easy to do that. So that’s why like it’s helpful to remind myself and talk about it within this forum as well here too. And so, you know, when you have that mindset of, again, that actions first,
feeling second, like I think it’s a 100 % success rate. when I’ve taken the right actions, has never, like the things that are like positively related, know, like I’m actually doing the work that I’m heading in the direction of the goals that I set for myself. Like there has never, you know, or at least nothing within recollection that, you know, I ever regretted.
taking those actions or ever felt bad or felt worse. when, when, when I did take those actions. like when, when, when you kind of frame it like that, and I know when, when you’re stuck in some of those negative cycles or just negative mindsets, it’s like, it’s so hard to remind yourself of that. because you, just, you’re so stuck. but you know, this is almost something to return to. It’s like, okay, yeah, start taking those actions because literally every single time you have done this, even the smallest steps forward.
you always feel better every single time. So like know where those good feelings are going to follow. Yeah, I exercise a lot physical activity. mean, it’s like a foundation of humanity. We would all be far better if we had more physical activity exercise. Like I don’t need to beat the dead horse about that. Everybody knows that few people do it.
but same thing too, like I have my trainer set up regimens and so forth. Like earlier today, even in Texas, you know, sun wasn’t really out yet. I mean, was windchill right around 40 degrees or something. Just like, yeah, I body did not want to move, but I’m just like forcing myself to be out there. I got this just sucks. Like for the first, probably, you know, five to 10 minutes and then, you your body starts warming up and it’s like, this start, this starts feeling like pretty good.
And by the end of it, I’m like, okay, I’m really glad I was out there and didn’t have to go do this later as well too. so like that is something I probably say less than half the time that I ever go to do an exercise. Like I’m actually, like gung ho to go do it. I’m heading into a workout. Like it’s more often than not of that. Just got it. Just don’t want to be here. I want to be doing something else more exciting, whatever. but then you just get your body moving. You follow the plan.
and the actions lead to those better feelings. So something to note from there. And then, know, what I also found very helpful too, especially over these last couple of weeks is Sharan had, you know, on his mynextbillion.com website, highly recommend that. He does like one or two blogs per week, shorter articles, you know, in relation to his lessons across his business history and, you know, working at acquisition.com. And he just has this action equation, which I really like. And he’s,
You should read it for yourself here, but in the key takeaways here as we wrap this episode up is that he frames it as outcomes or the outcome multiplied by stakes is greater than the cost plus the distraction.
For example, an outcome could be some monetary thing that you’re trying to achieve. You’re going make a million dollars if you take this certain initiative and build out this system within your business or find these certain deals that are just going to require a lot of… The outcome, that’s what we all dream. We could just have it in our lap with as little effort as possible.
Um, like the stakes are, you know, what are your deadlines? Like, what are you going to lose? Um, if, uh, you know, you, you don’t, uh, uh, try to achieve that particular outcome. Um, and then, you know, the cost could be, uh, you know, all the work that you have to do, um, or, you know, money involved, whatever. Um, but usually like it’s some level of just mental effort, physical effort, what have you in interpersonal relations. Um,
difficult conversations, et cetera. And then the distraction just could be like everything else going on. What’s your daily day-to-day operations, your family, just your dealing with human tasks or notification, Slack email, et cetera, all of that. more often than not, Sharron is pointing out that…
the stakes tend to be zero. So whenever, you know, we know from our, you know, basic math we learned in elementary schools that if you multiply anything by zero, the result is zero. zero can’t inherently be greater than the cost plus distraction because there’s always gonna be a cost and distraction. you know, unless you solve the stakes side of things,
And the cost is the other piece here. Cause he’s like, you know, the, outcomes, the outcome that you’re trying to do at the distraction is like always going to be there effectively. I can try to limit whatever. but it’s just a piece of it. So like the two main pieces of the equation that we can adjust are the stakes and the cost. You want to increase the stakes as much as you, as you can. Cause again, you want to make, make sure the outcome times the stakes is greater than the cost and distraction and lower the cost as much as possible.
like, like the stakes that that’s probably where I’ve struggled the most with is like, what are my tangible stakes? Again, the buck stops with me is like the business owner here. So, you know, who is breathing down my throat? Like I have to breathe down my throat in order to get the, the, you know, most things done. Like I need to have harsher penalties on myself if I don’t, you know, achieve the steps needed to get after certain outcomes. I’ll probably return to this topic more often because I find it just so useful. And then the cost is similar to what I mentioned before, is you just want to like, what is that?
you know, one millimeter direction that you can start taking action on to reduce the cost as much as possible. So, you know, don’t look at this, you know, three month project as, you know, one, you know, just insanely large costs that you’re just going to have to dive into again, like, can it start with one word, one word, opening up an email draft to start sending to somebody that just starts to grease the wheels. And then all of sudden, like you get past that inertia.
And like one test starts falling, um, you know, one after another here and you can just start stacking things together. You know, some folks will say, yeah, always do your hard thing first. Nothing else. I get that. But sometimes like for me personally, like if I can just start getting into a little bit of a groove, take, take a couple of easier ones, um, first. that gets my mindset ready to be like, okay, I’m in like a work mode now. And now I can just like start knocking down the dominoes. So you kind of got to figure out.
what your personal preference might be or maybe what mindset you might be in a certain day. Maybe some days you can just start into that huge hairy task right off the bat and save everything for later. So you gotta fluctuate based on the day as well too. So hopefully this one is helpful here. Use task managers as well too when you get that dopamine hit of, I’ve just started like labeling even just like the small sort of task things that’ll take two minutes.
That just feels good. Give yourself some wins where it’s like, okay, I’m making progress forward. Like you got to do whatever it takes to make sure you’re providing the value and keeping the ball rolling for the goals that you have set for yourself. SeriousLand.Capital for any of your land funding needs, 50K minimum purchase price. Subscribe and share everybody. Take care. Talk to you next time.
