RL74: How to Create a Legendary 2023 in Q4

It's time to finish the year strong

One of my favorite pieces of marketing psychology is the peak-end rule.

Daniel Kahneman, the father of behavioral economics, named the peak-end rule.

Dr. Kahneman and his research partner, Barbara Fredrickson, studied the experience of patients undergoing colonoscopies. Colonoscopies are among people’s least favorite diagnostic tests - it’s a literal pain in the ass…

The Drs. were studying the experience of pain felt by subjects and noticed something strange - something VERY unexpected in their research.

Before we dive into today’s edition of Retained Learnings, I wanted to share a win with you from last week.

TMV4: Our 4th Career Conference!

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote about a glimpse of Ikigai (linked below) -

We hosted our 4th event last week!

We had >100 veterans attend the 2-day event and had a blast meeting new people from across industries. Executives joined us to share their lessons learned from building incredible careers in business.

I’m grateful for these warriors and teammates who braved the storms in NYC and stuck around until the bitter end!

Alright - enough about the event - let’s learn the importance of finishing the year STRONG!

The Parts We Remember…

While studying patient experiences during their colonoscopies, Drs. Kahneman and Fredrickson noticed something strange - the memory of the colonoscopy was largely dependent upon the patient’s final moments.

They divided patients into two groups -

• Group A: Underwent a 30-minute colonoscopy and the procedure concluded as quickly as possible.

• Group B: Underwent the same procedure, but they extended the length of the procedure 5-minutes. During that extra 5-minutes, the patient experienced less pain than they experienced during the rest of the exam.

Given these two experiences, we would naturally conclude that the patients who endured a shorter procedure experienced less discomfort.

What the Drs. found shocked them.

The reverse was true - patients who endured a longer procedure with less discomfort at the end found the overall experience more palatable.

The Peak-End Rule

In fact, the Drs. found that there were only two variables that accounted for the majority of a patients’ memory of an experience -

1. The ‘Peak’ experience - how painful was the procedure at its worst?

2. The ‘End’ experience - what happened at the end?

Dr. Kahneman later won a Nobel Prize in behavioral economics - clearly not for his naming conventions - ‘Peak-End’ rule is kinda basic…

Today is a Critical Moment for Your Memory of 2023!

That brings us to today - the 3rd day of Q4.

There are 87 days remaining in 2023 - that’s a surprisingly long and short amount of time.

It’s long enough to make a genuine stride forward in whatever you’re building professionally, but short enough to sprint through the finish line.

How you manage the next 87 days will have a disproportionate impact on your memory of 2023.

Get It in Gear

That means it’s time to get it in gear for 2023 - we need to finish strong for our future selves.

What we think of 2023 will be determined by the vigor with which we approach Q4, so whatever you’re working on, it’s time to set some audacious goals and get to work.

My Q4 Strategy Playbook

I’ll be honest - most of the last few quarters, I’ve failed to set goals.

I have every excuse under the sun - I was busy with a thousand things I could claim got in the way, but ultimately none of those excuses matter.

Over the weekend, I completed a set of business strategy prompts to get my mind right to finish the year strong. I’m including the prompts and my responses below for paid subscribers.

If you’re on a free plan - consider supporting this publication (and me) by upgrading to paid.

If it’s not right for you - all good! Let me know how I can be of service by hitting reply to this email!

Stupid Simple Q4 Planning Framework for Life & Business 👇