Never label anything.
People, companies, products, nothing.
People think labeling makes life easier. It’s precisely the opposite.
First, let’s clarify something. We had two paradigms of thinking:
The old one: Get all the information you can at the same time. Stockpile, ignore information, discard it even if it’s important, but stuff yourself full of it.
The new one: Don’t get all the information you can. Get some information, use it well, add a little bit now and again. You might even add information frequently. But process what you have before you take in more.
Labeling belongs to the old paradigm of thinking.
If you had to know about all punks of the world, it was easier to call them “punks”. You could meet a young guy that painted and rode a bicycle, and another one that skated and worked in a marketing firm.
Now, when trying to recall who they were, it was easier to recall “I knew two punks” instead of “I knew a young man that (…) and another one that (…)”.
But the thing is, we don’t need to maintain information about all the punks in the world. We just remember each punk as we meet him.
This works for punks, businessmen, or any other label you can put on someone.
When you label someone or something, the possibilities for that person are immediately limited.
If you meet a young man, that even though he might have punk clothing and such, you talk with him and he suddenly tells you “I want to work in stock market consulting”, you think “okay, considering him as a human being, just like we all are, the possibilities are endless. Of course he can”.
If you meet that same person but you think he’s “a punk”, if he tells you he wants to work in the stock market, you immediately think “hold it. He can’t. He’s a punk”.
When we label people, we make a model. And whatever doesn’t fit that model is ignored.
So break all the models. Break all your presuppositions.
This doesn’t just apply to people. This applies for anything in life.
Imagine you have a product your company is selling. It has three steps:
First you develop it, using your current team.
Then you finish it and materialize it.
Then you market it using determined agencies and methods.
If you consider this as a fixed model, you cut out all possibilities.
If you suddenly remove the label from it, you take a whole new perspective.
If these three steps are not fixed, can we change one of them?
Can we switch their orders?
Can we add or remove steps?
When you remove labels, you free your way of thinking.
Most people that aren’t successful think they need to follow certain models or have certain labels so they’re not free.
They think they need to get a job in an existing company so they never found a company.
They think they’ll only enjoy life when they’re retired so they never travel or fulfill their dreams while young.
They think they need to date a woman 8 times before they enter a relationship with her so they discard being with a fantastic woman the first time they meet her.
They think they need to respect certain people that don’t contribute to their life so they don’t free themselves of them.
They think they need to work on a certain schedule, do things in a certain way, so they never try different.
If you want to succeed in life…
Remove all labels.
I have a more in-depth article about this which I’ll post later.
