Summary
The video introduces a custom memento token designed to symbolize the balance between two critical phases in personal and professional growth: learning and work. The token, called a Memento Decernere (Latin for “a reminder to decide”), features an owl on one side representing learning and a maze on the other symbolizing the complex, often confusing nature of work. The creator emphasizes that growth and leadership require deliberate decision-making and engagement with both ends of this spectrum.
Core Concepts
- Learning and Work as Opposite Ends of a Spectrum
The token visually represents learning and work as opposite but complementary activities that must be engaged in sequentially rather than simultaneously.- Learning phase: Focus on absorbing information with clarity, discernment, and strategy.
- Work phase: Focus on disciplined implementation with practice and fidelity.
- Sequential Engagement for Progress
Attempting to learn and work simultaneously is counterproductive. Instead, one should hyperfocus on learning or work exclusively to maximize effectiveness and foster forward progress. - Non-Duality and Pendulum Swing
The creator references the concept of non-duality, emphasizing movement back and forth between learning and work as essential to evolution and growth. This cyclical process allows for continual refinement and improvement. - Common Pitfalls
- Perpetual learners: Those who never implement ideas, resulting in stagnation.
- Perpetual workers: Those who hustle without reflection or learning, leading to inefficient progress.
- Iterative Improvement
Returning to learning after work leads to a higher-level understanding and better application of knowledge. For example, rereading a book with practical experience enhances insight.
Detailed Explanation of the Token’s Sides and Attributes
| Side | Symbol | Key Attributes | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learning | Owl | Clarity, Discernment, Strategy | Represents absorbing information, making better decisions, and creating coherent strategies. |
| Work | Maze | Discipline, Practice, Fidelity | Represents the complex, sometimes confusing work process requiring daily discipline, consistent practice, and fidelity to serving chosen people. |
- Clarity: Gaining better inputs and knowledge.
- Discernment: Making improved decisions based on clarity.
- Strategy: Using discernment to develop coherent plans.
- Discipline: Consistent daily effort and showing up.
- Practice: Focus on continual improvement rather than immediate outcomes.
- Fidelity: Ensuring work serves the intended audience or purpose.
Practical Application
- The token is intended to be kept on a desk, flipped to the side representing the current phase (learning or work) to serve as a physical reminder of where focus should be.
- This aids in resisting the urge to multitask learning and working, encouraging mindful engagement with one phase at a time.
Additional Resources
- The creator mentions a free virtual implementation kit and course, designed to help users create and execute marketing strategies.
- The physical token is part of a physical implementation kit, which includes workbooks, posters, and blueprints, but participation in the course and use of digital resources is possible without purchasing the physical kit.
Key Insights
- Balanced and sequential engagement in learning and working is critical for meaningful progress and leadership.
- Hyperfocus on one phase at a time avoids the inefficiencies of multitasking or perpetual stalling in either phase.
- Physical reminders like the token can help maintain focus and discipline by externalizing internal decision processes.
- The combination of clarity, discernment, strategy (learning) and discipline, practice, fidelity (work) forms a holistic framework for growth.
Conclusion
This video presents a thoughtful framework and physical tool to help individuals and leaders navigate the often challenging balance between acquiring knowledge and applying it through work. Emphasizing clarity in thought and discipline in action, the token and accompanying resources aim to foster continuous, cyclical improvement and strategic decision-making.
00:00:00
Last night we received these and these are custom momento tokens that I designed and um it’s a momento de Chenere and I’m probably butchering the Latin but it’s a momento. It’s a reminder to decide. It’s a reminder that if we want to grow we have to make decisions. If we want to be a leader we have to be the one making the decisions. And on one end is a or on one side is an owl and on the other side is a maze because I wanted this to represent one end of a spectrum which is learning to
00:00:36
take in uh information inputs and the other is outputs. It’s the maze the work the dayto-day sometimes labyrinthian confusing work. Sometimes we’re not sure where the end is, but it is to do the work. And those exist on opposite sides of a spectrum. And together they make the coin. It It’s not that you can choose one side or the other. It’s that you’re at opposite ends and you have to engage at both ends in order to make forward progress. A mistake is to engage in both of them
00:01:09
sequentially or or sorry simultaneously. So if we’re in a learning phase, the mistake is to be going out there and doing as much work as if we weren’t in only the learning phase. So it’s treating them as separate phases that we have to go through. And the uh other end of the token would be to be focused on work but also be trying to learn new stuff. It doesn’t work. So when we’re learning, we engage in hyperfocused learning. Sure, there’s some work that needs to be done and we can do that.
00:01:42
But and when it’s time to do the work, we kind of put away the learning, hyperfocus on work on the work until we get to a certain point where we have to learn again. And so this goes back to the idea of non-duality that I covered in one of my other videos, but that we have to be moving from ends to ends of a spectrum. We have to be going from the learning to the work. And once we need to go back to the learning, we go back to the learning. And what happens there is we create evolution. We we create
00:02:12
forward progress when we do this. If we’re you might know people who are stuck in perpetual learning or you might know people who are stuck in perpetual work. These people the learners they never implement their ideas. They never actually get their ideas and put it into the world and as a result not much happens. The workers they will hustle. They will bash their head against the wall to make something work without taking a step back and seeing how they can improve how they work. And these people also make
00:02:42
very little progress. But when you’re able to go from one end to the other, you’re able to learn. You’re able to implement it. You’re able to come back, see the implementations, and learn at a higher perspective. Now, you can read the same book. You can like I can read a book, I can implement it, and when I come back to read that exact same book, I will have a higher level of understanding, and I’ll take away different things from the from the book. Or if I go to work and I learn something
00:03:07
new and I come back to the work, then I’m going to engage in the work in a very different way that improves everything. So that’s the effect that we’re after. And so the purpose of this coin is to remind us the things that we can be doing to pursue those spectrums. And the idea is that I would have this on my desk flipped to the side that I’m focused on at the moment. So when I feel like I need to go and learn something but I’m in a work phase, I can say okay that can wait and focus on the work. And
00:03:40
there’s three words here. Um it’s Latin and I don’t want to butcher it but the idea is clarity um discernment and strategy. So we get clarity, we get um discernment and we create strategy. And these are the three things that we need when we’re focused on the learning. And when we’re focused on the work, the three things we need here are discipline, practice, and fidelity. So discipline, the daily showing up, practice, remembering that it’s not about the outcomes, it’s about the
00:04:14
practice. It’s about the day-to-day getting better. And fidelity is making sure that our work is in service of the people we choose to serve. that we don’t do work that is out of fidelity. All right. And maybe I’ll go over the L side once more. Um strategy making sure that with the clarity and the discernment that we’ve gained that we create a coherent strategy. So maybe I’ll start from clarity is receiving better inputs so that we gain knowledge. We gain clarity which is the purpose of
00:04:43
knowledge and discernment which is to be able to make better decisions. Right? It’s it’s about better decisions that we gain from the clarity and using those decisions to ultimately create a better strategy. And so that is the coin um and the concept of learn and work and also swing the pendulum. And this comes with our physical implementation kit, but we also have a free virtual implementation kit. So if you’re looking to create strategy, if you’re looking to create marketing strategy, check out our
00:05:15
course. It’s completely free. And um again, the workbooks, the posters, the blueprints, they’re all available for download for free. Um this is available if you get the physical kit. Um pretty cool, but again, it’s not completely necessary, so that’s why it’s not um I’m not pushing it on you. But uh yeah, that’s about it. Thanks,