Seven out of Ten

Hi Folks,

Today I want to talk about “7 out of 10” and what it is. This blog has nothing to do with Kimbo, but I wanted to share some encouragement for your week. I hope you enjoy this read.

“7 out of 10” is this idea about what the cause and effect of becoming your best self is. I want to share it in as much detail as I can, and I hope this helps a few folks out there who know the potential of who they can become in life but are pausing before the big steps they know they need to take first.

I’ve had the chance to be the employer of a lot of different folks. Before Kimbo, I was building a company that started in my apartment. There were two shifts of two people who were coming by and helping me build products that we sold online. That company grew quickly to dozens of people, and I found myself in a position of being an employee mediator, trying to help everyone get along. Being a business owner presses you into dynamics that you’d never normally enter into voluntarily in life. But through it all, there are lessons that rise to the top that end up being universal truths that apply to so many other areas of life.

The idea behind 7 out of 10 is that as you aspire to become the best version of yourself, you simultaneously become an image of someone else’s worst version of themselves.

Under the cover of our minds, we’re motivated by carrots and sticks. The carrots are who we imagine we want to become, and the sticks are who we imagine we cannot become no matter what. We all need purpose in life, whether young or old, and aspiring to greater purpose is a good thing—it keeps us growing every day toward something. But we’re also motivated away from what we think are negative qualities. When we’re moving toward purpose and away from becoming those negative qualities, we feel like we’re in balance. And I’m here to say that if you dig a little deeper, you’ll be able to see those two motivators that always follow you. Once you see them, you can work with them, and that’s the good news.

If a version of you who was 10 or 20 years younger walked up to you today and you both sat down for a discussion, you’d probably be able to give them some good life advice. That’s a good thing. Who you are today is the wiser version of who you were. The values that define your identity today are either different, or they’re a more refined version of who you were. You’ve grown a lot as a person. Our values are one of the deepest motivators of our actions. With every new challenge that we face, we’re placed in front of two roads that we’ve never been down before. Our values help us see the outcome of each road, and they help us have certainty in going left instead of right.

But here’s what I’m trying to say. There was another person on that road just a few hours ago. They were looking at the same roads and using different values to try and make the same decision. They chose to go right instead of your left. And they’re confident in their decision because it aligns with the momentum of the development of their identity.

In life, if you decide to be active and bold in becoming the best version of yourself, you simultaneously become the equal and opposite road of someone else’s bold decision-making. In life, no matter the level of great we become, we will always be either disliked or hated by someone else because we represent a confident version of the person they decided not to become.

Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. all have one thing in common—they boldly became their values. And they were all shot.

In life, we can really only ever achieve being liked by 7 out of 10 people. That is the ultimate reachable number. With a random sample of folks who witness the best version of you, there will always be a person, number 10, who hates.

And honestly, that’s kind of awesome. Because today I want to share how it isn’t your stinkin’ job to try to get number 10 to like you—it’s to continue stepping boldly into the best version of who you can become, with faith and confidence and conviction. It’s your job to know that there are 7 out of 10 who think you’re awesome. And that’s what I want to tell you today.

I know this isn’t the kind of thing I should be posting on a camper website, but I’d rather do it to reach the heart of you. And I hope it does.

You’re worth it. And if you’re stuck at a place where you’re bound by people-pleasing, I just want to encourage you that no matter what scenario or decision you make, you’ll always make one person upset and another person glad. Know what your values truly are, and make decisions toward the vision of the best version of you. Don’t make easy decisions that buy you short-term comfort, and be confident in your road left (or right). You can make a difference in the world by being an example of the values that someone else didn’t know how to act on. You’ve got a legacy in you, and you’re valuable to the rest of us. Thank you for being you.

Talk to you soon,

– M