The Gap and The Gain is a book based on the teachings of Dan Sullivan who founded Strategic Coach, a highly successful company focused on entrepreneurial training and coaching. Dr. Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist and best-selling author in his own right, takes the helm as the primary writer and organizer of Dan Sullivan’s material and does an excellent job of communicating its important lessons and fundamentals.
Measuring your own personal progress keeps you out of comparison with others – Dan Sullivan, The Gap in the Gain
This quick read is structured as two primary sections. Part 1 is aptly named ‘Get Out of the Gap’ while Part 2 hopes to bring the concept full circle to help us ‘Get Into the Gain’.
But what exactly are The Gap and The Gain?
Get Out of The Gap
Let’s start by defining The Gap. According to the authors, The Gap is where many people spend their lives. This is a place where you measure success by some future ideal goal or scenario. The Gap is the distance between you and some “ideal” future state. It’s based on an “unhealthy need or attachment to something outside of yourself.” In other words, rather than looking inward toward a solution to your unhappiness, you are laser focused on an artificial external “need”. For example, in order to be financially independent you might believe, “I NEED ‘X’ million dollars”: or to be happy at work “I NEED that promotion.”
The Gap and Gain argues that you can only find happiness through internal means. The authors define this as Harmonious Passion, which is to say that one is “purposeful and goal driven” rather than “need driven”. When you’re harmoniously passionate, you become intrinsically driven, and, as a result, you will live in the here and now. The gap is really about being physically here but mentally and emotionally “there”, in some ideal future state. The gap is the distance between “here” and “there”.
Like the horizon receding into the distance as quickly as you approach it, “there” often acts in a similar way, constantly moving out just beyond your grasp. The solution proposed by the authors is to embrace your vision and goals, but to truly exist in the present. To quote Dr. Hardy, when you exist in the present, “You’re already ‘there’ because you’re completely at peace and want to be ‘here’.” In this state, you are free to pursue your wants without being encumbered by unhealthy Gap inducing needs.
Measuring the Gap and the Gain
The Gap and the Gain then introduces the concept of measurement. What are you measuring yourself against? In the Mindful Money section of this blog, I focus on a single insidious measurement above all others – The Joneses and keeping up with them. I view measuring your success and wellbeing against acquisition of material possessions and the experiences of the Joneses is a surefire way to get yourself into and firmly stuck in the Gap. After all, when you are measuring yourself against external factors (people & things), you may feel compelled (an unhealthy “need”) to play catch-up or keep-up with the Joneses.
When you choose to measure your life against external factors, the target is always moving. You wind up forever in pursuit of an idealistic “there” while losing sight of the all important “here”. The authors call this ‘the hedonic treadmill’. Should you really care what car your neighbor is driving or where your third cousin’s kid is going to college? Really?
Only after you decide to make your own self the reference point are you truly in pole position get into the Gain. Being in the Gain means you are living a self-determined life. You, not others, determine your definition of success. Then somewhat miraculously, you become happy and content in the here and now.
According to Sullivan and Hardy, this has to do again with measurement. When you’re in the gap, you are measuring against some future external need. When you’re in the gain, you measure backwards from a present “want”. To frame this, think about all of the gains you’ve made over the past 24 hours, week, month, and year.
From my own personal application of this principle, I no longer measure my guitar playing skills against virtuosos like Jimi Hendrix, Billy Gibbons (ZZTop), or Eric Clapton. Instead I choose to measure my playing abilities against myself looking backward. Now, I can appreciate the songs, riffs, and chords that were impossible for me to play three, six, or twelve months ago, but are now second nature. This perspective gives me the intrinsic motivation to continue to press forward and tackle ever more intricate and technical material. I do this in the present, in the here and now. I want to keep learning in the present. Because although I can learn much from his genius, I don’t need to become Eddie Van Halen in some idealistic future.
Get Into the Gain
Sullivan and Hardy recommend daily journaling as a way of measuring backward. This way you keep track of your Gains. It’s an important exercise because your brain, like everyone else’s, is wired to forget Gains. Journaling reinforces the remembering of all you’ve accomplished. By measuring your gains daily, your gains will improve and accelerate. Dan Sullivan describes this habit as a way to build “the winning muscle”. This advice got me started journaling about my struggles with pot and alcohol addiction. That journal, which I continue to reflect in daily, eventually led to my starting this blog.
Even things that seem negative to you should be reframed as gains. Failure often paves the road to success for those who frame their failures as learning opportunities. When asked by a reporter how it felt to fail 10,000 times, Thomas Edison famously responded, “I didn’t fail 10,000 times. The lightbulb was an invention with 10,000 steps.”
When you’re living in the Gain, you are not trying to avoid failure, but rather adapting to it so that you can continue to improve over time and do so at an ever-accelerating rate. There is so much to learn from failure when examined through the lens of the Gain. Done consistently, the authors describe a transformation beyond simple reliance. You enter a state they call “anti-fragile” which The Gap and The Gain defines as getting better or constantly improving in the face of resistance. You “take any experience and be better, not bitter”.
The Gap and the Gain
The Gap and the Gain is more than a tired regurgitation of the old ‘glass half empty, glass half full’ trope. Rather, it’s a tool kit for reframing how you measure yourself against yourself looking backward. In other words, how much are you gaining over your past selves? The authors provide easy to follow steps that guide readers from pessimism to optimism and from optimism to happiness. I highly recommend The Gap and The Gain to anyone feeling stuck in a rut, chasing happiness but never arriving “there”, or seeking a more positive and fulfilling perspective on life.
Again, for me, The Gap and The Gain is the reason you are reading this blog. I now employ the technique of measuring backward as daily reinforcement to demonstrate my forward progress each and every day. I do this in my journal, with my scale, and my system of measurement. I’ve found adopting these methods not only propel me forward, but are increasing my forward momentum over time. Let’s take my guitar playing. While I’m no Joe Satriani, I’m so much better than I was a year ago. I’m also greatly improved over even three months ago, and that improvement is accelerating. Measured against myself, I’m making incredible progress. And that’s what really matters.
I hope The Gap and the Gain can accelerate you toward your passions.
You use your winning brain to identify, achieve, and measure daily progress, which continually expands your ownership over every area of your life.
-Dan Sullivan, The Gap and the Gain
