If you go to a coffee shop in the middle of the day, you will inevitably find someone with earbuds in, engrossed in whatever work (or streaming service) is up on the laptop screen.

Some say it’s easy to focus with an endless stream of good tasting caffeine, a nearby toilet and no crazy distractions. 

I think coffee is gross, and having strangers around you, loud noises and constant movement in front of you can be distracting, dragging your focus away from work.

Whether you’re on team Caribou or Starbucks, it’s easy to see that the environment you are in can directly affect what you end up doing.

I want you to think about this in 2 different ways:

In my last week’s email, I mentioned that I watch TV while exercising on the bike erg.  If my TV was in front of a comfy sofa, right next to the snack cupboard, full of things that are engineered to make me eat more when I’m trying to eat less, things would be worse for me.  I want you to ask yourself honestly:

1.    How easy is it for me to trip up?

In other words, is my environment designed to make me fail?

2.    How can I remove those tripwires?

By removing these points of friction, we’re just taking away the option of failing – and then we win by default.  This has a much better correlation with success than doing everything you can to succeed and hoping that the tripwires somehow become less relevant.

The second way I want you to think about this is not just about gyms and work and TVs and all those things that are physically around you.  I also want you to think about the people around you.

If you want the best chance of winning, your interactions need to look like people helping you remove temptations and tripwires and encouraging you.  Not people offering you things that they know you don’t want, because somehow, they see your journey as more of a joke and you take it very seriously.  That’s not helpful.

Creating that helpful environment can only be done if:

• people are aware of what you’re doing and

• they know how you’re doing it

It’s a tough conversation, but telling people exactly what they can do to help will give you a greater chance of success and allowing people to figure it out themselves often ends badly because people don’t like putting in extra work – but if you’ve already done the work, you can create a wonderful culture that you can go back into that will support you and support the outcomes you’re looking for.

That’s it for this week.  As always, cheering you on.