MONDAY MINDSET: TWO IS ONE AND ONE IS NONE

WEEK OF 7/1/24

 

“Two is one, and one is none.”  

Commercial airlines have multiple engines but only need one to fly.

Skydivers pack two parachutes.

Automobiles have two sets of brakes (standard and emergency).

The list goes on and on.

In any critical system, there are redundancies and fail-safes installed to prevent any catastrophic failure.  Redundancy being defined as the inclusion of additional components which are not strictly necessary, but lend stability to the system if other critical components fail.

However, as humans, we often get annoyed at redundancy.  We crave novelty, and often presume to be “above” redundancy (seriously, how many people do you know that drive without a seatbelt??).

Redundancy is good.  Redundancy is critical.  Redundancy is part of any important and productive system.

Being redundant means having a kickass Plan B in addition to your kickass Plan A.  And if you are serious about getting something done, you will have a kickass Plan C as well.

We can’t simply hope that our Hail Mary punch will give us that KO win, so to speak.  In the pursuit of a goal (in our case, winning a fight) we have to develop strong redundancies in our game so that we have layers of armor to protect us.

Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone is a great example of a redundant fighter.  In the early days in the WEC (before it was acquired by the UFC), Cerrone was new to MMA after a strong career as a Muay Thai kickboxer.  As such he had excellent standup, but poor wrestling.

His opponents, knowing that he was incredibly dangerous on the feet, would devise ways to take him down to the mat in order to neutralize his strengths.

However, Cerrone had developed an insanely good jiu-jitsu guard off his back, and was equally as dangerous in that position.  This redundancy – the addition of a strong guard designed as a fail-safe should he be unable to kickbox – made him one of the most difficult fighters to defeat.

When examining our game we need to first look at our strengths, and then consider how we would go about defeating ourselves.  Where are we weak?  Where does our system often fail?  

Once we have identified these failure points, we have to work towards bolstering those areas with additional skills so that our weaknesses can no longer be exploited.

Moving away from the world of fighting and into something a little more pedestrian, like dieting, it’s still essential to develop redundancies in your approach.

It’s not enough to just plan on eating well.  Removing all traces of junk food from your house is an effective redundancy, should your resolve to eat healthy fail.  

As humans we often overestimate our resolve, and underestimate our weaknesses.  By creating systems with redundancies we can ensure that we can effectively get the job done, should we (inevitably) come up short in some way.

So remember–to be dominant, to be successful, you have to be redundant.

Two is One, and One is None.