Many outcomes in life are mutually exclusive, so if your life has not turned out the way you want, you may be taking actions that rule out the result you desire. Some people live in a paradox of choice. They want something but take the exact opposite actions to get it. Mutually exclusive means that if a coin lands heads, it cannot also have landed tails.
Below are 15 pairs that cannot coexist, plus a bonus on living in your head. See which ones apply to you.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 15 trade-offs at a glance
- You can’t be somewhere else without leaving the old place behind (0:36)
- You can’t get new outcomes if you do the same old things (1:21)
- You can’t have fame and enjoy anonymity at the same time (2:09)
- You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket (3:07)
- You can’t be worth more without investing in yourself (3:51)
- You can’t make everyone happy and still end up happy yourself (5:32)
- You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs (6:10)
- You can’t experience the present if you live in the past or the future (6:44)
- You can’t be always negative and expect to attract positive people (7:16)
- You can’t screw around and expect to have a happy family (8:03)
- You can’t build trust without being honest (9:13)
- You can’t be honest and expect everyone to be pleased by it (9:51)
- You can’t be brave without experiencing fear (10:26)
- You can’t escape struggle (11:02)
- You can’t be successful without the belief that success is attainable (11:40)
- Bonus: stop living in your mind
1. You can’t be somewhere else without leaving the old place behind
Transformation means letting go of what was and embracing what is next. Many people want to be somewhere else but have chained themselves to their current environment. Leaving the cage is scary, but staying means never knowing what is out there.
A common mistake is to assume this means forgetting or renouncing the past. It does not. You do need to let go temporarily if you want to see what else is out there.
2. You can’t get new outcomes if you do the same old things
If your last five years looked the same, it is no wonder you have made no extraordinary progress. Progress is a function of doing more than you do now. Current effort produces the same predictable outcome, more effort produces more outcomes and new effort produces new outcomes.
Learn to change the output by changing the input. You know you are making progress when you take charge of the outcomes in your life.
A sign of growth is more tolerance for discomfort and less tolerance for nonsense.
3. You can’t have fame and enjoy anonymity at the same time
The choice is yours. Fame opens doors, brings preferential treatment and draws people in. The drawback is that once you are on stage, it is almost impossible to get off. Beyonce cannot walk the busy streets of La Rambla in Barcelona.
Anonymity has perks too. The script admits the channel would have grown ten times faster if people connected to a person rather than a persona, but the team enjoys comfortable, regular lives without people turning up at their house unannounced.
4. You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket
This is not about the lottery. The real point is putting yourself out there so luck becomes possible. You cannot complain about not winning if you never bought a ticket, about a poorly managed country if you did not vote, or about having no girlfriend if you never leave your room.
Life is about increasing your luck surface. Hence successful people look incredibly lucky to everyone else. Most of them did get lucky, but they first put themselves where luck was an option.
5. You can’t be worth more without investing in yourself
You invest to increase value. Buy an old house, refurbish it, and it is worth more. Yet people struggle to apply that to themselves. How do you expect to build a million-dollar house without spending any money? Some people have invested nothing in themselves for decades.
Everyone who earns more got there by learning new skills and knowledge, acquiring new tools or making what they sell better. The most popular quote here: your life is cheap because you think investing in yourself is expensive.
The script says this is why some people stay poor: they confuse price with value. If someone offered you a Ferrari for 10,000 dollars, you would do anything to find the money, because the car is worth far more.
6. You can’t make everyone happy and still end up happy yourself
The cost of making everyone happy is making yourself miserable. You can make some people happy, so pick them carefully and make sure you are one of them.
Being yourself annoys some people, because everyone wants the version of you that serves them best, and everyone wants something different. Nobody can be everything everywhere all at once.
Disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.
7. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs
You might even get shells in the yolk until you perfect your technique. The saying rephrases the idea that the ends justify the means, so your job is to work out what the means are. Which sacrifices or collateral damage are you comfortable with?
You can get anything you want as long as you are comfortable paying the price. Some people want the omelet but will not get it, because they are scared of breaking the eggs. Decide which matters more.
8. You can’t experience the present if you live in the past or the future
This is what people mean by mindfulness. It takes practice to be where your feet are, and it is more art than science. The art lies in releasing yesterday’s memories and tomorrow’s worries and treating the present moment as a reward.
Picture a life where your existence is not weighed down by past regrets and future anxieties.
9. You can’t be always negative and expect to attract positive people
People say opposites attract, but humans are not magnets. Birds of a feather flock together, so constant negativity creates an echo chamber. If everything around you seems bad, this may be why.
Start with yourself, change your environment and the experience changes. Everyone wants to spend time with people who love life and know how to live it. If you have no cool friends, become the cool friend, and other cool people will find you. The same holds for any character trait.
10. You can’t screw around and expect to have a happy family
A playboy lifestyle does not go with being a present, faithful father and husband. These are different paths, and you have to choose. The worst thing is making no choice, which is a guaranteed way to end up resenting your life. Once you choose, stick to it and do your best at it.
Infidelity breaks individuals, crushes the future and opens the floodgates for other problems. The script says nearly 57% of cheaters confess to their spouses, and that winning trust back will be the hardest thing you ever do, if you manage it at all. Take the long view of what it does to your happiness, your kids, your partner and even your finances.
11. You can’t build trust without being honest
Everything we do can be distilled into a search for truth, because truth is fundamentally immutable. We need trust to move through life predictably, and it is the glue that holds societal structures together.
Once a society drops honesty and accepts untruths as fact, collapse begins. That applies on a macro level and an individual one. The only way to grow is through truth.
12. You can’t be honest and expect everyone to be pleased by it
The world will inevitably divide. A truth that satisfies one belief proves another wrong, and nobody likes being wrong. In your attempt to be truthful, some people will not take it well.
That calls for a distinction. Ask yourself whether you are trying to shed light or just want to be liked. The answer divides your future into two very different paths.
13. You can’t be brave without experiencing fear
Feel the fear and do it anyway. Bravery means exactly that. Most people lack the courage to chase their dreams or risk being labelled crazy or publicly humiliated.
You win in life when you prove the world wrong. Order comes from rearranging chaos, and for that you must throw yourself into the chaos first. At least it gives you something to sort.
14. You can’t escape struggle
A human experience always includes struggle. Levels and kinds differ depending on where you are in life, but struggle is inevitable. It takes some people 50 years to see how true that is. You are just trading one struggle for another.
As society evolves, human life is gradually turning from a struggle against suffering into a struggle against pleasure.
15. You can’t be successful without the belief that success is attainable
Nothing gets achieved if you do not believe it is possible, which shows how powerful belief is. Once you see that something is possible, the belief gets easier to absorb.
The most successful people believe in the possibility even when nobody else has done it. This marks a key difference between those who change the world and those who make it slightly better.
Bonus: stop living in your mind
Most people live only inside their head, seeing themselves in an artificially inflated mirror. You may have a great idea for a book, a business, a movie or a product and believe life starts once it exists. Yet you have had it for years and keep postponing it.
The reason you hesitate is that you have not figured everything out, or the timing seems wrong. But the seed is different from the fruit. You plant the seed, grow the tree and eventually it bears fruit. You do not need to see the fruit when you plant, only the belief that doing everything you must along the way will bring it.
Let the dirt other people throw at you become the soil you grow from.
Pick the outcome, then accept the cost
Each pair works the same way: the result you want has a price, and trying to have both sides leaves you with neither. Change begins when you stop acting against your own goals.
Which mutually exclusive beliefs have you seen play out in your own life?
FAQ
What does mutually exclusive mean?
It means two outcomes cannot both happen at the same time. If a coin lands heads, it cannot also have landed tails.
Why can’t you get new results by doing the same things?
Current effort produces the same predictable outcome. More effort leads to more outcomes, and new effort leads to new outcomes.
Can you have fame and privacy?
No. Fame brings open doors and preferential treatment, but once you are on stage it is almost impossible to get off, and you give up the advantages of anonymity.
Why is investing in yourself important?
Everyone who earns more does so by learning new skills, gaining knowledge, acquiring new tools or making what they sell better. The script argues that people stay poor when they confuse price with value.
What is the difference between a seed and fruit in this video?
You must plant the seed and grow the tree before you get fruit. You do not need to see the fruit when planting, just the belief that doing the work along the way will bring it.
Keep reading
- 15 Things Poor People Don’t Know About Making Money
- 15 Things You Should Know About Yourself (if You Want to Win at Life)
- 15 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Life
