Tripling down on what seems trivial to the masses is the easiest way to get ahead.
“‘Don’t sweat the small stuff!”
Nonsense.
Sweat the small stuff.
Chase the breadcrumbs.
Triple down on what the masses overlook.
There isn’t an easier way in the world to get ahead.
And guess what?
The small stuff is actually the big stuff.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I know people will get on here and say, “WeLl ThAt AiNt WhAt It MeAnS” and then they’ll give an example about not sweating things that don’t hold significant importance in their lives.
Obviously, I agree that you shouldn’t sweat your neighbor painting their house a color that you don’t like. You can’t control it and it doesn’t affect you.
But the problem with this “don’t sweat the small stuff” mindset is that it muddies the water. Where’s the cutoff?
I agree, don’t sweat your neighbors loud exhaust from his sports car in the morning, that’s small. But so is sweeping the corners in your place of business. Should you not sweat that, too?
And if we don’t sweep the corners, can’t we justify that not sweeping at all is fine, too? Since “it’s just going to get dirty anyway?”
And then before we know it, we justify our lack of attention to detail because we’ve convinced ourselves that we can just write everything off as “small stuff”.
Years ago, and I’ve told this story, but it’s worth retelling, I sent a text to my friend, Vernon Griffith, a titan in our industry.
I had a kid who was squatting with relatively good form, but on some reps, his knee was SLIGHTLY caving in. A very small problem that I wanted to leave alone as I felt we had bigger fish to fry.
I asked Vernon, “Man would you sweat this or just let it go?”
I was hoping he would affirm what I wanted to do, which was just let it go, especially since the kid was at no risk of hurting himself.
Vernon replies, very sternly, “Sweat the small stuff. Chase the breadcrumbs. Identify the problem, create the solution.”
“Fuck!”
Not what I wanted to hear.
I was being lazy, I didn’t want to have to spend the time breaking down a whole bunch of what I felt to be trivial nonsense to “solve a problem” that wasn’t even really a problem.
But boy do I understand the importance of it now.
It was the best gut punch my friend could have ever given me.
Why?
It’s because the small stuff is actually the big stuff.
Sweat the small stuff.
Chase the breadcrumbs.
