Friendly reminder…

There’s always more action in the banana stand Action Digest X feed:

P.s. More action (also) awaits you in our archives, including how Steve Jobs cultivated great taste, the personality trait shared by 1381 millionaires, and 40 principles relied on by the world’s greatest creatives. 

The Middle Is A Mess

When Stephen Schwarzman sagged into his seat at Logan Airport in 1985, his clothes still dripping from the torrential rain that was hammering the tarmac outside, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a terrible mistake.

Two years prior, Schwarzman and his partner Pete Peterson left their cushy positions on Wall Street to launch their very own investment firm, “Blackstone.” The duo set out with an audacious goal: to raise $1 billion for Blackstone’s first fund—an unprecedented sum in the financial industry at the time.

In the eyes of many former coworkers, Blackstone was a fool’s gambit, and one that many quietly rooted to fail. Fast forward two years to a rainy spring day in 1987 and the doubters were about ready to say “I told you so.”

"Business hadn't been coming in at anything like the rate we had planned," Schwarzman recalls. After “countless rejections” he "was starting to panic." With their backs against the wall, an upcoming meeting with MIT's influential endowment team felt like one of their last and best hopes. But they arrived for their confirmed 3:00 p.m. appointment only to find an empty office—the team had left early for the weekend. As Schwarzman and a less-than-amused Peterson left, it began to pour with rain and they were quickly soaked through. Schwarzman desperately tried hailing a cab, even offering a $20 bribe to a passenger, only to be refused. Once they eventually collapsed into their seats at the airport, drenched and demoralized, a vast psychological canyon opened between their future dream and their present reality.

As Schwarzman later reflected, "Every entrepreneur knows the feeling: that moment of despair when the only thing you are aware of is the giant gap between where you find yourself and the life and business you imagine."

Fortunately for Schwarzman and Peterson, they dried off and persisted in their attempts to cross the chasm, landing a lunch meeting with the CIO of Prudential. The executive listened to Blackstone's pitch in silence while munching on a tuna sandwich. "You know," the executive responded once the pitch drew to a close, placing the last quarter of his sandwich down, "that’s interesting. Put me down for 100."

The casual $100 million commitment was stunning. "If Prudential thought it was a good idea to invest with us, others would follow," Schwarzman realized.

And follow they did.

That crucial commitment spurred others, allowing Blackstone to quickly close their first fund at $850 million just days before the 1987 market crash. From there, Blackstone grew to become the world’s largest alternative asset manager, with over $1 trillion in assets under management.

Reflecting on the journey from that rain-soaked afternoon to global success, Schwarzman writes, “once you succeed, people see only the success. If you fail, they see only the failure. Rarely do they see the turning points that could have taken you in a completely different direction. But it’s at these inflection points that the most important lessons in business and life are learned."

Ambitious goals have a habit of seeming impossible prior to their attainment and inevitable once they have been achieved.

In between those two funhouse mirror perceptions is the long messy reality of “the middle” where uncertainty of outcome is rife.

Understanding the true messiness of the middle is the first step to surviving it.

Fill Your Filing Cabinet

Elite ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter once finished a 240-mile race ten whole hours ahead of her next fastest competitor. While her superhuman endurance can appear effortless, the challenges Dauwalter faces during the messy middle of a race are no joke—brutal weather, debilitating injuries, getting lost, puking in bushes, even temporary blindness. 

When asked about how her approach to handling these challenges has evolved over time, she reflected: “I think just learning from all the problems that come up. Like [as] you do these long races, inevitably there's problems that come up, and then you've experienced those problems, so then you have this filing cabinet in your brain where you can say—’here's all the things that I know of already that can go wrong.’” 

This mental "filing cabinet" isn't just for storage; it's an active resource during races. “If I'm, you know, puking in the bushes,” Dauwalter continues, “I can open up a whole folder in this filing cabinet of times I've been throwing up during a race and the options that I have of what worked before or what I at least tried before.”  “Remembering the evidence that this is something you have been through before helps you to keep pushing and know it will be fine.” 

Dauwalter’s ability to reframe present pain as future fuel fosters incredible resilience. “When things get tough,” Dauwalter counsels herself:  “I’ve been here before. This is what I did. I got through it. So I know I can get through it again.” 

When you find yourself in the messy middle, see it as an opportunity to fill your filing cabinet. Your future self will be grateful for the precious evidence that you collect.

Giving-up-because-it's-working mode

Around 2018, after years of grinding with little traction, things finally started turning around for Tommy Nicholas, CEO of identity verification platform, Alloy. 

A deal they'd chased for 18 months went live and another they'd written off suddenly reactivated. They went from having zero momentum to having their first two active customers. But Nicholas was caught off guard by the profound sense of doubt that accompanied this long-awaited progress.

Their small victory, after years of struggle, felt disproportionate when compared to the effort that they’d put in. 

Years of grinding → two measly customers.

It was precisely this moment, the beginning of the turnaround, that Nicholas later identified as the most psychologically dangerous: "You're most likely to give up when you're out of the hardest part and things first start getting better," he explained. "You're the farthest away from when you were first hyped up. And you're putting in the maximum amount of effort with the least to show for it... you basically get demoralized and give up. And I now know how to see 'this person's in the giving-up-because-it's-working mode.'"

The moment you first start seeing results is often the point at which there is the greatest discrepancy between how much effort you’ve put in (high), the results you’re getting in exchange (low), and the results you first hoped you would achieve when you started out (high). This dissonance can cause some to give up right as their fortunes start to improve.

Bolstered by his cofounder Laura Spiekerman's conviction during that critical moment, Nicholas pushed through the doubt. And we can assume he’s grateful that he did, with Alloy now serving over 600 clients, generating an estimated >$100 million in annual revenue, and enjoying a rapidly accelerated growth curve.

There is only one thing worse than giving up during the messy middle when success is just around the corner—and that’s pushing through the messy middle with an opportunity that will never succeed.

How do we determine the difference between a future hit and a dead end?

There is of course a long period where it’s impossible to tell.

But Scott Belsky (the person who coined the term “The Messy Middle”) has a framework that can offer us a clue…

Do you still believe?

One of the most common questions Scott gets asked is: how do you know whether it’s time to stick or time to quit?

"To me,” Scott advises, “the answer boils down to: do you still have as much, if not more, conviction in the end state as you did when you started? Or, in the process of trying, have you lost conviction that this is the right solution? If you still believe in the end state—the problem that you’re trying to solve, and that your solution is going to be the one that changes that part of the world—and you’re just in the messy middle, you’ve got to stick with it. But if you’ve lost conviction, based on all that you’ve learned in the process, then you should quit. Why should you continue to do something that you have lost conviction in? You should totally revert and try something completely different."

Based on all that you’ve learned in the process, do you still have conviction in the end state?

Let that be your litmus test.

If you still have conviction, then here’s what you need to focus on…

Hit the next shot good

After what has been described as “a tumultuous 11-year journey since his previous major win,” Rory McIlroy won the 2025 Masters Tournament last week.

In a post game interview, McIlroy reflected on his dramatic final performance. "It’s such a battle in your head,” McIlroy revealed, “of trying to stay in the present moment—and hit this next shot good—and hit the next shot good. That was the battle today. My battle today was with myself. It wasn’t with anyone else. You know, at the end there, it was with Justin, but my battle today was with my mind and staying in the present." 

Stay present. Hit the next shot good. Rinse and repeat.

The formula for success…

@theactionmethod

The formula for success

♬ Idea 10 - Gibran Alcocer

The Action Method is now on TikTok and TikTok Shop!

You can even become an Action Method affiliate and make a sweet 20% sales commission from any viral vids you make showing off your favorite productivity tools.

Thanks for subscribing, and sharing anything you’ve learned with your teams and networks (let us know what you think and share ideas: @ActionDigest).