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Quick Summary
To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, subtract things everyday.—Lao-Tzu
We live in a culture that celebrates abundance. The idea of “more is better” is everywhere around us—in food, clothes, apps, information, possessions, money, and more.
Therefore we tend to think of addition as a key to our definition of success.
But there’s a paradox at work that we almost never hear about. Sometimes, we get more value, success, and results when we subtract rather than add.
- Products with fewer features are often easier to use.
- Removing clutter from our environment makes us productive.
- Simple designs are often more beautiful than complex ones.
- Saying no to non-essentials frees us up to say yes to essentials.
- Many of the most profound scientific formulas are super simple.
- We tend to better follow through on habits when they are few and simple.
The power of focus is underestimated. When you remove the unnecessary from your life, and focus on the few crucial things, two things happen:
- Once you let go of something toxic, it no longer pulls you down.
- The fewer things you focus on, the deeper you can go in them, which leads to more success.
We all intuitively understand this model on some level. But, here's the thing: SAYING NO IS HARD. There are many biases that make it so.
In this manual, we’ll do the deepest and most comprehensive dive on the mental model of subtraction that (to our knowledge) has ever been done. By the end, you'll have clarity on:
- Why you should be saying NO more often.
- How to identify what to say NO to.
- How to update your mindset to remove clutter from your life.
- How to deal with the many biases that make subtraction hard.
- How to actually say NO with graciousness.
View Full Mastery Manual
Watch Class
Other Resources
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Related Model
Subtraction Learning MethodNavigate Mental Models Related To Success
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Rather than one specific model, the Sculpting Success model is more of a supermodel. It is designed to help you answer the following question about career success and life impact: Given that we all have the same amount of hours in a day, what makes the most successful people in the world create so much more wealth and impact (sometimes a million times more) than others?
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We live in a culture that celebrates abundance. The idea of “more is better” is everywhere around us—in food, clothes, apps, information, possessions, money, and more. Therefore we tend to think of addition as a key to our definition of success. But there’s a paradox at work that we almost never hear about. Sometimes, we get more value, success, and results when we subtract rather than add.
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Recent research from the field of AI makes the case that, to accomplish something big, you do NOT set ambitious goals and then work backwards. Rather, follow the stepping stones right in front of you that give you the most novel paths forward, even if you aren’t sure exactly how that stepping stone will pay off in the future. From that new stepping stone, you look for the most novel path forward again.
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We’ve all heard about goal setting and some of the most common techniques (for instance, SMART goals and BHAGs). In this Mastery Manual, we’re going several layers deeper and we’re also looking at the new research within the field of goal theory, and some of that research overturns previously held conventional wisdom. Read this manual to learn all about it.