My YouTube feed is generally a cheap dopamine dose of worthless tech, sports, and entertainment videos. But last week,
the algorithm did something unusual: it introduced me to the enthralling Jim Rohn.
His philosophy, though decades old, offered a radical system upgrade for tackling objectives, both personal and professional.
It just made sense. Rohn’s core thesis is that success isn’t about luck or talent; it’s about structuring your approach to
maximize output from your inputs. This resonated deeply with me as a software engineer, where system architecture and efficient
resource management are paramount.
A. Intelligent Asking: Writing Explicit Requirements
Rohn calls for “intelligent asking,” which, in our world, means moving from implicit assumptions to explicit requirements.
A “good worker” is someone who writes code all day. A “good asker” is the one who precisely defines the project parameters
before the first line of code is written. A “good asker” asks just the right questions to clarify scope, timeline, and deliverables.
The Specification Power
Detailed requirements (the who, what, when, where, and how much) transform your goal into an API
endpoint. It’s a clean contract that your efforts must satisfy.
Example: Instead of asking for “better fitness,” write the functional specification: “Achieve ≤12% body fat and run 5k in
<25 minutes by D day.” Now, your daily “commits” (workouts and meals) can be clearly measured against the specification.
B. The Adult Planner, The Child Debugger
The ultimate architecture is a hybrid: “Make plans like an adult and believe in them like a child.”
We handle the adult part well—the logic gates, the planning, the risk mitigation. But when the system hits unexpected
latency, we often fail in the “child” phase: unwavering trust in the designed architecture.
Childish faith isn’t naive; it’s the commitment to iterate. It means when the initial build fails, you don’t delete the
entire repository out of self-doubt. You check the logs, identify the bug, patch it, and relaunch with the same conviction.
C. The Teaspoon Analogy: The Input/Output Mismatch
Rohn presents opportunity as an infinite ocean of resources. The problem? Most of us approach it with a teaspoon.
This isn’t about lacking ambition; it’s about a severe I/O Mismatch. You want a high-bandwidth result, but you’re only
dedicating a low-capacity input channel (the teaspoon) to retrieve it.
Example Problem State
Vague desire. “I want to do and achieve ‘a bit more’ in life.” This is mostly a vague wish without a defined scope,
rendering the goal to be weak and in most cases perpetually stalled.
The Fix
The Bucket Upgrade. Assuming that infinite performance upgrade is possible, you must refactor your capacity.
The “bucket” is your defined, high-resolution goal. It doesn’t limit your potential; just lets you incrementally scale
the bucket as you progress.
Creative Implementation
If I want to launch a side project that generates passive income, the “teaspoon” is “I hope it
works.” The “bucket” is: “Launch a multi-tenant SaaS MVP with ARR = $10,000 within the next 18 months, requiring a dev
budget of N hours/week.” The bucket’s capacity immediately dictates the architecture I must build today.
Final Deploy
I’m treating this philosophy as a 90-day beta test. I’ve deployed the “bucket” requirements and committed to
the process. It’s time to stop letting the default algorithms dictate my future and start running my own custom compiled
program.