THE SOVEREIGN DROP 036 — On Non-Negotiables
Not a newsletter, but a ritual. One drop each week. Distilled wisdom for the whole man.
Field Note: On Non-Negotiables
In a field of so many options and variables, it's easy to get overwhelmed. One of the best ways to get your bearings — and your boundaries — is to know your non-negotiables. The absolutes.
It's good to name your gut-instinct non-negotiables. There are usually a couple you can spit out without any thought at all. And that's typically where the thinking ends. That's the problem. A few more minutes given to what should the non-negotiables be here would serve you tremendously.
Something changes in the mind during that process.
For example:
Tomorrow's goal: complete a task that matters — one that will take no less than 2.5 hours of dedicated thinking, focus, and concentrated work.
Gut-instinct non-negotiable: a 3-hour block with no meetings scheduled on top of it.
Less obvious non-negotiables that surface only if you give it a few minutes: 8 hours of sleep tonight. Phone in airplane mode during the block — not silent, off. Your team told in advance that you're unavailable from 9 to 12, and the door gets knocked on only if someone is bleeding out or the paramedics have already been called.
These should be non-negotiables. But we don't take the extra couple of minutes during planning to call them to mind.
And it's the ones you didn't think through that end up killing the productivity. Or the deal. Or the...
Remember:
Gut-instinct non-negotiables
Should-be non-negotiables
The first list you already know. The second list is the one that decides whether the first one holds.
Question
Where have you named the goal, secured the obvious non-negotiable, and left the real conditions of success unnamed?
Integration
Take the one outcome that matters most this week. Write the non-negotiable your gut tells you. Then sit for two minutes and write everything that outcome depends on. That second list is the one you've been skipping.
Benediction:
Give it the two minutes. That's where the deal is won or lost.
I believe in what you are becoming.
— Amy
If you know a man who would benefit from reading this, feel free to forward it to him. One drop each week. Distilled wisdom for the whole man.
