First Principles Thinking: why your last diet & business plan failed and how Elon Musk's thinking can help you fix it.

Ever wonder why diets fail, business strategies collapse?  

The answer lies not in the approach itself, but in how we think about implementing change.  

Thinking in first principles, Elon Musk's favorite mental model that helped him build seemingly impossible businesses, transforms how we approach challenges across all domains.  

When we stop following rules and shortcuts we don't understand and instead dig into the foundational elements of how things actually work, we create sustainable systems that adapt as our lives evolve.  

Consider the difference between "thinking in diets" versus "thinking like a nutritionist."  

The former might lead you to cut carbs without understanding their crucial role in brain function, hormone regulation, and overall health. The latter empowers you to make informed decisions based on your unique biology, lifestyle, and goals.  

This same principle applies whether you're building a business, improving relationships, or transforming your fitness.  

That's why personalized coaching works so effectively, it combines foundational principles with your specific context, strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations. Generic advice from the internet or social media can't account for your unique circumstances. Even advanced AI tools lack the lived experience necessary to fully grasp what implementation looks like in your particular life.  

Ready to transform your thinking and create lasting change diet or business?  

Tune in today! Grow into a better thinker.  

Transcript

Welcome to Change Wired Podcast

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey, guys, and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. Change Wired Podcast podcast. For leaders, change agents, people who are not satisfied with status quo but instead want to grow, improve, challenge themselves and live a more meaningful life, more fulfilling life, creating more positive impact in the world. Changing ourselves and helping others to change, leading positive change, creating more positive impact, improving, unlocking more of your and other people's potential. That's what we are about here, and we don't talk in some shortcuts or some rules that are not based on any good research in science. No, instead, we actually look into science and when we talk about best practices, we also break them down why they worked, why they didn't work and how can we, based on first principles, apply it better to our life, to our work, to our health, to our mindset. So the change we produce is consistent and reliable. And today's episode, guys, is so fundamental to what this whole podcast and my pursuit of tools for change is all about. Today we are talking about thinking in first principles, one of the most favorite Elon Musk's principles. That's how he was able to build something that other people and industries thought was impossible.

Speaker 1 1:35

I've been in nutrition coaching. Yeah, today we're also going to talk about why your last diet failed you and how, moving forward, you can do better. I'm going to dispel to you why nutrition coaching, lifestyle coaching, works so well, why so many of my clients being on different diet nutrition fitness protocols failed to maintain the results and then, after our work together, they were able to maintain it for months and years ahead. The last diet, guys you tried, it didn't fail you. Well, it did, but it failed because you were thinking in diets by analogy, by some rules and shortcuts that you don't really understand. Maybe you read a book, maybe you heard from a friend, maybe you watched a bunch of YouTube videos, but you didn't really understand how it worked, when it worked and when it stopped working, why it happened as well. Thinking by analogy versus thinking from first principles. Thinking in diets versus thinking like a nutritionist. Thinking in rules, formulas, short-term outcomes versus thinking in fundamental principles of how things work. So I'm going to give you an example.

Speaker 1 2:58

Thinking in diets sounds like and you might have had. You might have had these thoughts and you had before. I definitely had before I learned that there is actually such thing as nutrition science and you actually have different laws that guide that make your biology work. So thinking in diets might sound like I'll cut carbs, I'll drop the weight and I'll feel amazing and done and life is going to be just going better and better from now on. Thinking like a nutritionist sounds like carbs feed your brain, regulate hormones, support your energy and besides that, they have a lot of nutrients, vitamins, minerals that are essential for your health and your well-being. Like if you cut all of them out with this new diet you're such a fan of because it helped you to drop, I don't know, a couple of pounds of water in the first couple of days. Are you sure that your new approach satisfy all of your biological, physiological, all of your human needs? So, so you could not just drop a few pounds in the first couple of weeks, but actually can sustain your quality of life, your mood, your energy, your performance in all the different areas.

Why Coaching Works

Speaker 1 4:20

So that's the difference between thinking in diets and thinking like a nutritionist. This is the difference between thinking by analogy, by examples, by shortcuts, and thinking again by foundational rules and principles. Drinking some water here. I can make any diet work, guys. These days, because I got education, I learned certain again laws and rules, principles of our biology, and when I look at any diet or the approach a person tries, I look at it through this lens of does it actually satisfy all the nutritional, all the health needs that our biology must have in order to thrive long-term? That's number one. Number two does this person's lifestyle, life stage, needs skill set? Do they match the diet they're trying to do or there needs to be an adjustment? And so when I work with clients, I teach them okay, this diet might also work, but you need to make sure that you are getting X, y, z nutrients and you need to make sure that you spread your meals that way, or that you eat that amount of calories or proteins or fats. And because I know that you're busy, you probably might think about, I don't know, meal delivery or combining your foods in this way, because otherwise you'll just get overwhelmed and drop the whole thing altogether. That's why coaching works, especially coaching long-term, because your coach, your guide, gets to understand what your skill set is, what your strengths, what your weaknesses, what your lifestyle, what's your long-term bigger picture of your life, is where you're coming from to this, your past experiences, your personality, and how it all plays out into again this new approach that you're trying. So your coach will help you to personalize, to customize this approach so you don't just get to reach your goals, but you also get to keep it in a way that is easy, that's sustainable and, most importantly, in a way that you actually understand.

Speaker 1 6:38

Coaching done well is education. A lot of my clients, yes, start getting some results in the first weeks and months, but the majority of results actually just accumulate closer to few months of our work together, because that's where really clients start getting why certain things work for them and don't, and how to adjust on the fly, no matter how much life shifts and it always will shift how to adjust to still get progress towards their goals in a way that works for them, that doesn't overwhelm them or their life or doesn't compromise quality of their life in other areas. That's why coaching works, because you also get to know why things work and why they don't. And then let's talk about business and life and relationships.

Building Your Own Custom Plan

Speaker 1 7:30

There is so much content on the internet right now that again, that's relationships, that business, depending on what you're trying to achieve and what your goals are. And there is all this advice. But the thing is the internet doesn't know your past, it doesn't know you, it doesn't know bigger picture of your life. That coach on Instagram that you follow, they've never met you. It doesn't know your past. It doesn't know you. It doesn't know bigger picture of your life. That coach on Instagram that you follow they've never met you and doesn't know your values, your needs again, your skills, your strengths like what's your whole picture of your whole life. Even ChatGPT doesn't know the full picture for you to get the result that you want. That's why longer prompts for ChatGPT work so much better, because the more content you give, the more personalized and customized. The reply is going to be. But still, chatgpt is not in your head, it's not getting to know you and it doesn't have personal life experience with. Well, it does have all this data that it's fat, but it didn't have life experience and it doesn't know exactly what it means to implement that advice in a person's life, unless, again, chatgpt was a live person, which is not true. But anyhow, that's why longer prompts for ChatGPT works so much better, because you give so much context.

Speaker 1 8:50

And so the takeaway of today's podcast, the mindset shift I'd like you to have, guys, is stop thinking in diets, stop thinking in hacks, in rules and shortcuts, principles that you don't really get. Because when life changes and you can't apply those rules precisely even if you were able to before and they worked, like dropping all the carbs or doing this exact business plan that might have worked for a short period of time, but then other things happened in your life, in your business, and you changed your life, changed, your long-term priorities, changed. You know the environment is shifting so freaking fast these days and if you don't understand the foundational principles, the first principles, first principle thinking, look it up, learn about it Again. Elon Musk's first rule, probably for doing anything. That's again why he broke, so to speak, so many impossible laws when he built his businesses car business, space business, energy business. So, thinking from first principles, right.

Transform Your Thinking and Share

Speaker 1 10:03

Stop thinking in those rules and shortcuts that you don't really understand and dedicate some time to understand foundational principles that guide those plans that you got somewhere, either from ChatGPT, on the internet and then start asking questions like but what is a long-term picture here? And then, if you work with ChatGPT, give it this long-term picture. I'm trying to do X in that many years, right? What's long-term perspective? What are my skills, what are my strengths, what are my values? What are the foundational principles in this business plan or health plan or nutrition plan, and then you combine all of it together full context of your life, your personality, your strengths, values, weaknesses, your shortcomings or just things that you don't possess or the skills that you haven't developed yet.

Speaker 1 11:03

Take all of this into consideration before trying to follow some playbook, and the best playbook is the playbook that is built with you or by you, based on first principles and taking into consideration the whole picture of your life and you and your goals and your vision for your life, career and relationships. So, micro-practice, build your own life nutrition plan. Pick one area, whatever it is you're working on work, career, business relationships, food, nutrition, fitness and list all the essentials for you to function well in this area. First, like, if it's your health, what are all the things that need to be met by the approach that you're going to choose, or design, what all of the things that need to be present in order for it not just work for a couple of weeks, but for months and years? And then ask is the current strategy I'm considering meeting all of those needs that I have for short and long term? And then adjust the approach based on the foundational truth and principles, like laws of physics. They have to be that precise and, again, chad GPT can help you with that.

Speaker 1 12:32

Adjust your approach based on the whole picture of your life or your business, your relationship, your fitness and the goals, the specific short and long-term objectives that you have. Again, understanding all of the foundational principles and building blocks and thinking in first principles, not in some shortcuts, not in some rules and playbooks that you don't really get or that just simply don't apply, and moving forward. That's what you got to do. Becoming a more in-depth thinker, a someone who doesn't just again look at the surface but gets under the hood and before making a decision, before jumping to conclusion, before committing to some plan of action, become a person who asks yourself on a regular basis like how does it actually work and does it really apply to my situation, my skillset, my short-term goals? And if it doesn't, based on my full understanding of the first principles, how can I adjust to make it work short, short and long-term. Again, most of the things you learn in life they make no sense unless applied to the context of your life, of your goals, of where you're coming from and where you're going.

Speaker 1 14:06

Guys, this podcast, changewired doesn't trend any ads, so please do. If you find any value, if you find it useful and you find that huh, I'd like to share this with people that I do work with or I live with. Then please do share. This helps us to help more people improve their life, live better life, improve outcomes in health, in fitness, in relationships, in business. So, please, guys, share this podcast episode screenshot. Share on WhatsApp rate review for us to reach more people so together we can change the world faster. That's what we are all about here helping each other grow, elevating each other's game, unlocking more of each other's potential. And, believe me, guys, in each interaction, you have a chance to uplift, to unlock more potential, to help yourself and others grow. Thank you, guys, and let's commit to each other from now on, think more in first principles, not in diets, but thinking as a nutritionist. Thank you for your attention, for your time and until next time, keep growing and thinking in first principles.