Ready to Be More Productive? Take a Cold Shower!
The Profound Simplicity of
‘Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got’
Jay Abraham’s “Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got” is one of those evergreen business books every entrepreneur should pick up at some point. Rather than latch on to fleeting business trends or the gimmicks of the early dot-com era, Abraham, a business coach who has spent his entire career solving problems and fixing companies, re-examines the basics of business. By returning to and interrogating the building blocks of growth, he is able to deliver the sort of timeless wisdom most business authors only dream of being able to capture.
The miracle of indoor plumbing means there’s always warm water waiting for you in the bathroom — unless your spouse or kids use up all of the hot water. Being forced into an unplanned icy shower can seem unpleasant, but research from the Netherlands suggests cold showers might be better for you in the long run. Geert A. Buijze led a study in which 3,000 volunteers were instructed to either end their showers with a 30-, 60-, or 90-second burst of cold water, or finish as they usually would. The researchers looked over attendance data of volunteers over the course of a month, and they noticed something interesting: the people who finished their showers with a blast of cold water, for any amount of time, were absent 29 percent less often than the group who didn’t add cold water to their shower habits. Cold showers seemed to result in fewer sick days. In an interview with the Harvard Book Review, Buijze pointed out that the volunteers who took cold showers reported feeling ill just as often as the volunteers who kept their usual shower routines. The difference was that the symptoms of the cold shower group were “less severe” or they had more energy to push through any illness and keep working. How is this possible? Buijze explains that, “Cold temperatures activate the brown — or good — fat in the body … Brown fat doesn’t have any proven connection to immunity, but it does affect the body’s thermoregulation. When activated, it keeps the body warm by burning calories. It may also increase your energy and metabolism and help control your blood sugar. That could reduce your risk of obesity and diabetes.” Buijze admitted that the cold showers could just be a placebo effect, but even psychological phenomenon can have real positive changes. As for whether or not cold showers make you more productive, the jury is still out on that one. “[T]heoretically the cold shower people were cumulatively more productive over the study period, since they were absent less often,” says Buijze. Basically, productivity is all about how you spent that extra time you get when showering in cold water. If 30 seconds is all it takes for 29 percent more time, it’s certainly worth a shot!
What makes “Getting Everything You Can” stand out is the simplicity of the ideas it presents. In fact, Abraham’s central thesis is that our tendency to overlook or dismiss the mundane, everyday aspects of our business is what keeps us from seeing its real value. As Abraham puts it, “You are surrounded by simple, obvious solutions that can dramatically increase your income, power, influence, and success.” Finding those solutions is what “Getting Everything You Can” is all about. What makes Abraham so successful as a business coach for small companies and international brands alike is his practical, methodical approach, which shines through in this book. You won’t find banal platitudes or sweeping summations within these pages. Instead, Abraham uses direct, approachable language to outline clear, actionable steps to get you to “recognize the income- and success-increasing connections that are all around you.” With this workmanlike approach, “Getting Everything You Can” breaks down success in business into its component processes: attracting new clients, increasing the average size per sale of a client, and boosting client retention. These three aspects of success, according to Abraham, hinge on your ability to leverage a “unique selling proposition,” or USP. Put bluntly, a USP stems from the aspects of your business that make it stand out from the competition — what you bring to the table that others can’t. Identifying a USP sounds like a simple-enough concept, but as Abraham explains, business owners are often blind to the real value of their company. Seeing what truly makes your brand unique requires looking at old problems in new ways and fundamentally shifting your perspective on the basics of running a business. Finding solutions hidden in plain sight is no easy task, but “Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got” is committed to getting you there.
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