Being Dangerously Underestimated in Life Should Be Your #1 Goal
It's a competitive advantage
Quietly making big moves is such a huge advantage.
The average person seeks validation. It’s why they badly want to give a Ted Talk so the world will finally know their name. It’s why they want to get a golden buzzer on the TV show America’s Got Talent so they can show the world.
A lot of it is ego-based.
The challenge with validation is it’s a form of permission-seeking. If you really analyze permission-seeking, you’ll often find it’s people-pleasing in disguise.
If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, you’ll find people pleasing is just a form of conformity. It’s what strips away your authenticity & makes you like everyone else.
I don’t judge people for wanting validation. I fell for this trap too. I wanted the world to love me so I built a music career and got signed to a record deal. I was so in love with myself I thought I was a genius and the world would eventually find out.
Turns out I wasn’t a musical genius. I was crap. I couldn’t even play a basic chord on the piano.
The solution to this common problem is to aim to be underestimated.
"You are dangerous precisely because they don't think you are."
— Nayyirah Waheed
Do your work in silence
Being recognized is a distraction.
2 years ago, before I had a kid, my wife and I would go out for dinner in inner city Melbourne. We started to hate it.
Without sounding like a total wanker, people would come up to me in the street and say some version of “I’ve read your writing.” One guy wouldn’t let us go. He followed us to our car. It was creepy.
From that day onwards I made a radical shift online. I purposely stopped trying to build a big following, and started helping others do what I did instead.
If I’d kept going down that original path, I’d likely have 50M+ followers on social media and a podcast in the same league as Tim Ferriss. I know the exact path to that influential lifestyle… and I don’t want it.
The smarter path is to work in silence.
It’s to remove all the noise, followers and award ceremonies, and build something online in silence. It’s what I have now. A small cult following knows exactly what I do and hangs onto every word like obsessed maniacs. The rest of the world has no idea, including my friends and family. I like it that way.
You do better work when no one recognizes you.
In the last 7 days my cell phone has rung exactly once. I’m lucky if I get one text message a week. Without all the notifications I can focus on the deep thinking that creates my unusual philosophy and helps the right people have breakthroughs.
Build your dream life in silence.
"Underestimation is the camouflage of the powerful."
— Dean Bokhari
Don’t tell the whole world every time you make a big move
I found when I used to tell the world my big moves it jinxed it.
Whatever I said was going to happen, didn’t. For example, I said I was going to help 100,000 people start writing online. I didn’t get close to hitting that goal. The moment I announced it, I hated myself, and my mission actually changed.
In comparison, in 2013, I bought large amounts of Bitcoin and told no one. I just did it because I believed in it. That single move done in complete silence set me up for life.
The smarter approach is to execute in silence.
It’s to do the daily reps without telling anyone. Then when you become successful people will say you got lucky. I cop that all the time. If the critics saw my daily habits they wouldn’t say that, but they can’t.
When you execute in silence the mission and work become your motivation. No one can take that away from you. No one can steal your peace. There are some nights where I work while everyone in my neighborhood is sleeping.
It feels incredible.
It’s just me against the world. It’s me and my ridiculous ideas and my crazy obsession for writing and digital business. It’s knowing that most people will never see what I do in my own time. It’s special. It’s one of the best feelings in the world.
During my severe battle with mental illness I used to wake up at 4 AM. The magic of that time of day is similar to how I feel nowadays working when the world is sleeping.
Execute in silence. Do it after hours.
Replace the need for attention with results
There are two types of people:
Those desperately seeking attention, trying to get it on social media. Begging people to like and follow them like an attention wh0re.
Those who achieve big results and use that to ethically attract attention.
Category two is underestimated. It’s a much smarter path. When you have results people are drawn to you because they want the same (or similar) results. This is the path I accidentally chose.
The results I’ve produced online are undeniable. It’s no accident either. I’m a practitioner. I do the things I suggest others do. I preach what has already worked for me through trial and error.
It’s such a simpler way to attract people and opportunities.
There’s no need to brag. A simple screenshot or photo of your results does all the talking for you.
The average person is trying to:
Get lucky
Skip the line
Use other people’s success to their advantage
This is the most complicated approach there is. The simple one is just to be undeniable by getting results any way you can.
Living in the past will ruin your life
This one is a note to myself.
I have a habit of living in the past. At 26 I built a successful business. For 10 years I held onto that achievement. It’s all I ever talked about. I soon realized I was a has-been. I was living on past success. But that success was dead.
The business was gone. The money was gone. The BMW was gone. The friends were gone. The employees that I thought worshiped me were gone.
The brutal truth is:
Nobody gives a f*ck about your past. Read that again.All anybody cares about is what you’re doing right NOW. And what you’re doing has to add value to their life or they also don’t give a f*ck.
Credentials rarely matter anymore.
You can cheat on any test or exam with AI. Memorizing information in a world of AI isn’t impressive anymore. Yes, you may have gone to Harvard and studied computer science, but can you actually code? The answer is often no.
No customer has ever asked me if I have a degree. No bank has ever asked me if I have a finance degree or if I can do calculus. All bank bosses ever cared about was “Can you make us a sh*t-tonne of money so we can collect our fat cat bank bonuses?”
Answer: YES MAM.
Real-world merit has replaced credentialism.
An online audience doesn’t care that I built an 8-figure eCommerce business in my 20s. They care about what I do right now. The same applies to you.
Get your head out of your ass and forget about the past. The world moves too fast to care. Focus on what you can do right now. That’s your edge.
The best strategy is to become dangerously underestimated
There’s something about critics I love.
A recruiter from a large American tech company once said to me, “you’re not entrepreneurial enough for this sales job.” It still haunts me.
I think about his ugly face every day.
I’ll never forget him. I wake up every morning just to get even with him. I post on LinkedIn so I can remind him of his error (and I know he sees my posts). Then there were the bank bosses. They said I was an immature cowboy.
When my original team of A-players in banking got disbanded the bosses had big greasy grins. They couldn’t wait to see me demoted and go back to the frontline. Two days before I was meant to start, I quit because I got a job managing 16 people at a social media company.
But those bank bosses eventually got what they wanted. 6 months later I was fired from that manager job and laughed out of the building. The bad boss who fired me called me lazy and useless. “Anyone who works 4 days is a loser” he said.
Then there’s my own family. They think I’m as dumb as a plank of wood.
The point here isn’t to write a diary entry about my life and make you give two hoots about it. It’s to illustrate that being dangerously underestimated is the best.
I’ve proved every one of these critics wrong. They weren’t even a little wrong. Like, they were entirely wrong on a scale so big that many of them are probably embarrassed and would kiss my butt if I ever saw them again.
When people don’t know your true talent, they can’t get in your way.
Your competition can’t see you coming. The critics think they’ve won until they find out much later how wrong they were. By that time, it’s too late for them to re-enter your life and try to use and abuse you.
I’ve always loved silence. I’ve always loved being quiet. I used to love getting into big meetings where I was supposed to be the star of the show and then saying nothing.
It messes with people’s minds. When you don’t talk they have no evidence that you’re good or bad. It makes them doubt their assumptions. “He didn’t say a word all meeting. Maybe he isn’t an immature cowboy after all.”
Become a quiet underdog.
Have you ever felt what it’s like to be underestimated? If so, share your experience in the comments section below.
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I have the "me against the world" feeling when I'm doing my 12 km runs through the city at 5:00 am. Best way to start my day. And people find it weird that I go to bed at 8 pm :)
From what I have experienced, you nailed it. Thanks for writing it down!