🔵 The Optimization Ladder

Last week, we discussed crossing the "Good Enough Line": the strategic decision on which areas of your life to pursue elite performance and which to be content with "good enough."

But here's what I didn't tell you: Most people who decide to cross that line make the same predictable mistakes.

They choose the wrong area to optimize. They skip straight to advanced tactics. They look for shortcuts that don't exist.

The result? They waste years spinning their wheels, convinced they're pursuing excellence when they're actually just staying busy.

Today, let's talk about how to climb the ladder to elite performance once you've decided an area is worth the investment.

Step 1: Choose the Right Path

This may seem obvious, but it's where most people fail before they even begin.

They know they want to cross the good enough line somewhere, but they choose areas that feels safe rather than the one with the highest impact.

The marketer creates a four-hour morning routine before working on mastering their copywriting skills.

The entrepreneur focuses on perfecting their productivity system instead of mastering sales.

The executive spends months fine-tuning their email system instead of developing their leadership presence.

Here's what's happening:

Your subconscious convinces you to optimize the things that feel controllable and safe, and often blocks you from crossing the line in areas that will have the most significant impact.

The real question isn't "What can I optimize?" It's "What would change everything if I became world-class at it?"

That's your right path. It's probably the one you're avoiding.

Step 2: Master the Fundamentals

Once you've chosen the right path, here's where most people go wrong again.

They immediately start looking for advanced hacks, cutting-edge strategies, and secret techniques that will set them apart from the crowd.

They want the exciting stuff. The innovative approaches. The things that sound impressive at dinner parties.

But elite performance doesn't work that way.

As Josh Waitzkin puts it:

"It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set."

The fundamentals are fundamental for a reason. They're essential to everything that comes after.

Elite performance is like a pyramid. The fundamentals make up the bulk of the structure. If your foundation is shaky, everything above it will crumble.

The problem? Fundamentals are boring.

Practicing basic sales conversations feels less exciting than learning advanced persuasion tactics.

Mastering simple cooking techniques feels less impressive than attempting molecular gastronomy.

Developing fundamental leadership skills may seem less innovative than implementing the latest management framework.

Most people will never master the fundamentals because it's not what they picture "elite" to look like.

This is your advantage.

While everyone else is chasing the latest optimization hack, you're building an unshakeable foundation. While they're jumping from strategy to strategy, you're going deeper into the basics that matter.

Depending on where you are in your journey, you could be in this stage for 5-10 years before there's real value in moving to the next step.

That's not a bug. That's a feature.

Step 3: Find Small Edges

Only after you've become one of the best in the world at the fundamentals should you start seeking smaller edges.

Imagine 10,000 people are competing in your area. You find an optimization that moves you 10% up the rankings.

If you're ranked 10,000th, you move to 9,000th. Nice, but no significant impact.

If you're ranked 100th, you move to 90th. A smaller jump, but much bigger movement.

If you're ranked 10th, you move to 9th. That's one spot, but the gap between 10th and 9th place is exponential.

The closer you are to the top, the bigger impact a slight edge will have.

This is why skipping to this rung is so detrimental for most people. They're looking for small edges when they haven't mastered the basics. They're trying to go from 5,000th to 4,500th when they should be focused on going from 5,000th to 500th through fundamentals.

But once you're truly elite at the fundamentals? Now, a 1% improvement can be the difference between good and legendary.

At this level, small edges create exponential rewards.

But these optimizations only work because they're built on a foundation of mastery.

Step 4: Rewrite the Playbook

Once you're one of the best in the world, you have such a deep understanding of your area that you can start rewriting the rules of the game.

You're like Neo in The Matrix. You see the code. You understand the system at such a fundamental level that you can spot where conventional wisdom is wrong.

You can improve upon the fundamentals because you've truly mastered them first.

You can break the rules because you understand why they exist.

You can innovate because you know what's been tried before and why it worked or didn't.

This is where you don't just become elite, you redefine what elite looks like.

Very few people ever reach this level, and too many people make the mistake of trying to imitate those who have. They focus on the things these people are doing once they’ve reached the top, rather than learning what they did to get there.

Your Optimization Audit

Before you take another step toward "optimization," ask yourself:

Have I chosen the right path?

• Is this the area that would transform my life if I became world-class at it?

• Or am I choosing the area that feels safe and manageable?

Have I mastered the fundamentals?

• Am I in the top 10% of people in terms of fundamental skills in this area?

• Or am I still seeking advanced tactics to bypass the mundane tasks?

Am I trying to skip steps?

• Am I looking for edges before I've built the foundation?

• Or am I willing to spend years mastering the basics?

Your Ladder Strategy

Here's what it comes down to:

Most people fail because they try to skip rungs on the Optimization Ladder. They want to jump from step 1 to step 4 and wonder why they fall.

Figure out which rung you're on now, then climb it properly before reaching for the next one.

See you next week,
Elliot Roe