The Navy Seals use the strategy called ‘AAR’ and I use it (works like magic).
The strategy is not a classified information, and civilians should use it to their advantage.
A year ago, I was in business meeting.
I would say, this was a relatively expensive Inner Circle meeting. The Inner Circle was a meeting for serious affiliate marketers. (I am an affiliate marketer btw, it’s my side hustle).
Half an hour to the presentation, I got bored because most of the things he was talking about, I heard of it already.
Then, my mentor discussed something about goal setting. Goal setting is a very familar subject, but there’s one thing that resonated with me so well. And it was the discussions on looking at your goals that were not met or so called ‘failure’.
And in every failure, you can find gold.
What can the failure teach you, is basically what is all about, but there’s more.
There’s treasure in every wreckage…
When I visited Key West Florida a while ago, I was amused by a museum called the Shipwreck Museum. It turns out, because of the shallow waters of Key West, ship goes to a full stop.
The main income of Key West at that time was rescuing and recovering shipwrecks. The first party to help or approach the wreck was the owner of the wreck.
That was the rule. And Key West became the richest region in the United States.
There’s a powerful lesson to be learned here, and that’s every wreck, there’s a treasure trove to be found.
There’s a name for looking for treasure in every shipwreck. The Navy Seals calls it the ‘After Action Report’ or AAR. Last time, I wrote about Gianis and his failure to reach the second round of the NBA playoffs.
It was a wreckage. For a number one team to be eliminated by a number 8 team was a mess.
But here’s the most important part:
Looking for treasure in the wreckage is the hard part. Looking for treasure in a wreckage is what is all about.
Now let me tell you how I looked for gold in the wreckage.
Last summer, my kid was playing basketball in their high school freshmen team.
He was so disappointed that he wasn’t scoring much in high school compared to his middle school basketball career.
I started asking him why is he not taking the shots?
He tried to look for answers and hesitated “because I am afraid that I will miss”.
“I’m scared that my coach will take me out if I miss”, he added. Btw, at the end of the season, during a basketball dinner, this is what he said about Koji: ‘Koji, I didn’t put you in there to swing and pass the ball but to be comfy in taking the shots.’
You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take..
That was the gold that I was looking for: Fear!
Koji was so scared in taking chances, in taking the shots. But I know there were more, so I continued.
What else? I pressed.
“Because I don’t want my stat to look bad because I missed already”, he added.
Fear again. So we went for drills to improve his mental toughness. Koji has been playing well now compared to last summer. He’s not that scared to take the shoot.
Applying AAR to my business and real life
Last year, I made $120 k in affiliate marketing (this is another story that I will share). Of the many inner circle meetings that I attended, I learned tons of business strategy and mindset.
One of strategy that works like gangbuster to me is AAR.
Remember the Inner Circle meeting I attended? My mentor, discussed it as post-mortem. Post-mortem and AAR are similar, but my mentor encouraged me to use Post-mortem to our daily life.
So how do I use AAR/Post mortem in my life?
I have a notebook (Laboratory notebook, since I am a scientist). Every Sunday, and this is key, I devote half an hour to an hour listing my goals.
But the most important one is looking back on the week behind and ask, why did I miss that goal?
Ask that question again and again. You will find the treasure why you failed. I write the failed goals again as my set goals, but this time, I know what to do.
By Friday, I look at my list again, and most of the time, I finished or checked the list already (I call this my Friday finishers).
Then, I rinse and repeat.
Works like magic.
