The Aggregation of Marginal Gains
/I graduated from the Elite Lineman Training Institute in Tunnel Hill, GA yesterday with sixteen of my now close friends. We started on September 28th, and for the next twelve weeks we showed up at 7am each day to learn the basics of electrical line work and practice the skills we would need to be successful starting off in this industry. It was challenging. It was uncomfortable. It was stressful.
It was also one of the best experiences of my life.
From not knowing what a bucksqueeze was to understanding how to rig up a triple T-hanger with lightning arrestors and switches, our class progressed to reasonably competent groundmen. Note — we are NOT linemen. Not yet, anyway. That involves an apprenticeship to be completed over the course of several years. What we did learn was how to make our lineman’s job easier from our position on the ground and contribute to the success of future projects.
I chose this path for two reasons:
I wanted a job where I went home happy. Everyone I spoke with in the industry said that line work was difficult, and that those in that life went home happy.
I wanted to be a student again. It had been so long since I had been a pure beginner at something, and I longed to learn something completely new.
The benefits of choosing to switch careers and go to trade school during a pandemic were massive. I went from a summer of malaise to a fall of purpose. From waking up at 1pm and eating Oreos, to waking up at 5am and fasting. From going days without speaking to another person to interacting with over a dozen men from all walks of life every day.
I spent my mornings reading non-fiction or writing, as is my usual habit, but those were my methods to ramp up my mind for the challenging tasks ahead:
Ensuring that safety was always priority #1
Climbing exercises up a 35’ pole
Gaining fluency with different hand tools
Becoming accustomed to working out of my belt in uncomfortable and precarious positions
Communicating around loud and heavy equipment
Completing After Action Reviews at the end of each day
After class wrapped up around 5pm, the owner graciously allowed me to stay late so I could host my virtual workshops, develop websites for some of my clients, and interview on podcasts. Many nights I returned home after 8pm with just enough energy to shower and eat before passing out and repeating that schedule the next day.
It was grueling and invigorating at the same time. I was held to a high standard of attendance, timeliness, and performance by the instructors, which gave me further drive to attend to my other commitments. If last December through February was about getting my mind healthy, then this September through December was about getting my work ethic realigned. It wasn’t instantaneous, but rather a slow accumulation of better habits over time that compounded for greater effectiveness. This is best explained by James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits:
It’s so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making better decisions on a daily basis.
Almost every habit that you have — good or bad — is the result of many small decisions over time. And yet, how easily we forget this when we want to make a change.
So often we convince ourselves that change is only meaningful if there is some large, visible outcome associated with it. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, traveling the world. or any other goal, we often put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about. Meanwhile, improving by just 1 percent isn’t notable (and sometimes it isn’t even noticeable). But it can be just as meaningful, especially in the long run. —James Clear, Atomic Habits
I supplement 80mg of Prozac with behavioral adjustments to improve my overall mental wellbeing, and to reduce the damage on the bad days that are a part of living with depression. This summer, I was jobless and mentally healthy, but depressed because of my environment coupled with my daily actions. Sleeping till noon and eating junk food is not a recipe for a healthy human being. This fall, I was still jobless and mentally healthy, but I was energized with purpose to learn new skills. A change in my environment and my behaviors led to a healthier physique (almost back to a 32” waist), and a significantly higher mood rating over the past several months.
Our minds are excellent at recognizing sweeping changes, but pretty awful at perceiving minor shifts over long periods. We need to trust in the math that says getting 1% better every day leads to unbelievable changes.
