Many years ago, I had purchased a downhill mountain bike for each of our three sons. While the boys and I were excitedly at the store seeking to pick up their new rides, I couldn’t help but listen in on a separate sales conversation. The store owner was chatting with a prospective customer about a different kind of mountain bike. The customer was hemming and hawing over a couple of options. He was looking for a cross-country mountain bike that could manage steep climbs. Weight of the bike was core feature he was considering. He wanted the lightest possible bike. I had heard that the rule of thumb for these kinds of bikes was that for every pound in weight you saved, you paid a thousand-dollar premium. It wasn’t cheap to get less.
The bike this gentleman was considering cost more than all three I had just purchased and the three I had just purchased had emptied my wallet. I was scratching my head over what the customer was considering. In what world did it make sense to pay more than you would for a motorbike for a bicycle just to save a little weight? Eyeballing the customer, it didn’t seem like he was an elite level athlete. His body fat didn’t look to be in the single digits. He, like me, was a middle-aged man that could afford to skip a meal here and there. Knowing the store owner, I couldn’t help but insert myself into their conversation and suggest that the customer skip dinner tonight as that would help him drop a pound. This would allow him to purchase a cheaper though slightly heavier bike saving over a thousand dollars. I’m not sure if he appreciated my input nor what his ultimate decision was, but it struck me as an example of majoring in the minors.
The elite compete for excellence. At the highest levels, the littlest details make a difference. The weight of one’s bike can be a competitive advantage in these circumstances. Yes, once you’re in the top 1% of your field, chasing the smallest of strategies can separate the winner from also rans. However, these strategic choices don’t apply to those of us in the remaining 99% of the crowd. There are plenty of simpler and more economical approaches for those of us well outside the top tier of a field to adopt. They may not be flashy or sexy, but they work.
Fitness is another area where we’re easily distracted by discussing details. What workout routine is better, weights, CrossFit, Barre, or something else? If you’re working out with weights which exercises should you do? How many exercises for a body part should you do? How many sets for each exercise and how many reps per set? In what order should the exercises be done? Is it better to exercise in the morning or the evening? How many days a week should you exercise? The questions are never-ending. The perfect routine is sought. The proper answer is if you’re outside of the top 1% of the field, it doesn’t matter. The right exercises and quantities are the ones that you’ll commit to doing regularly. Doing something, anything, consistently is better than perpetual planning.
Similarly in the realm of nutrition, discussion and debate is endless as to what diet delivers. What foods are better than others? What’s the right amount of caloric intake? What are your macros? What are your micros? What supplements work? When should you eat? On and on the conversations go. Who cares? Again, if you’re outside the top 1% in a field and you’re just concerned about eating a little healthier, it’s no more complicated than eat a little less and try to eat more natural foods.
Crafty marketers conspire to create complexity seeking to steer us into purchasing decisions for their benefit instead of ours. They play on our desire to emulate the elite. We want what the best have and we’re willing to part with our hard-earned dollars with hopes of accessing the tricks of their trade. This is the basis of expert product endorsements. We ignore the fact that what may have helped the best distinguish themselves from other elite competitors was completely different than what got them to the highest levels.
We’re not serious when we’re seeking shortcuts. Majoring in minors is ignoring the cold, hard truth in front of us that we have much simpler strategies that will serve us which are covered in sweat. The limiting factor in our progress isn’t the weight of our bike, the exercises we do, the number of sets, reps, nutrition, etc. The limiting factor in our progress is the boring basics of steady effort over time. We’re detoured by distractions and choose easy, entertaining discussions instead of diligent effort. It’s easier to spend money than it is to spend sweat.
In a separate example, one weekend in the Spring of 2024, I was invited to contribute to a conversation with a group related to a complicated and impactful situation involving a Provincial political party. There were seven of us involved in the conversation. Of the seven, only two people contributed consistently throughout the weekend. The other five either weren’t interested or comfortable in contributing.
However, the following Monday when the Republican National Convention was getting under way and candidate Trump announced his pick for VP running mate, a text conversation amongst this same group lit up like a Christmas tree. The back and forth was fast and furious. Now those that had been silent all weekend were happy to chime in. All those that had been sidelined saddled up to their phones and texted their opinions, criticized the contributions of others, and defended their positions with great passion.
Why was an issue that involved them personally in no way whatsoever far more engaging than the matter that impacted the organization they had made personal commitments to and had a fiduciary obligation to serve? Why did this “breaking news” captivate their attention while the “crisis” in their own backyard wasn’t worthy enough to discuss?
Shouldn’t those things that are closer to home, by definition, be more meaningful and, therefore, warrant our best efforts? We seem to have lost control over our focus and gravitate instead to what’s fun and easy. We favor fun over what’s fruitful. We’re non-serious majoring in minors. Majoring in minors is like arguing about what color band aid to put on a wound instead of cleaning the wound to protect it from getting infected. It’s about focusing on symptoms instead of searching for the root cause. It’s the ease of scratching the surface instead of exploring the depths of a situation.
The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy offered, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one things of changing himself.” This may be at the heart of majoring in minors. Most political conversation today is about opining about issues far removed from our daily lives and advocating for how others should behave. What should x country do about Ukraine? Meanwhile, our own affairs closer to home are in tatters. We have homeless people outside our offices and potholes just off our driveways that we ignore. We may have plumbing leaks in our own homes or exterior siding that could use a touch up. Instead we worry about the burn our neighbor is doing. Worry less about what is going on in the world and more about your own world.
Majoring in minors, it’s easy and immediately rewarding to engage with a hot take on what’s trending. Those that succumb to this are being led by their nose. It’s someone else’s priority that is being discussed. Those responding are on the back foot. This isn’t what leaders do. This isn’t what those that are effective do. This isn’t what those that are focused and clear-minded do. We don’t need to have an opinion on everything. Who’s in charge? Whose game are we playing? Leaders set the agenda, define their priorities, and engage others in working with them towards the defined common end. This is the path we should be seeking to take. Proactively pursue your program. Apply your attention to your agenda. Take charge of your direction and own responsibility for your contributions. Seek to guard against gravitating to what’s fun, cool, or new instead of sticking to what is tried and true. Stick with what works before fiddling with the fringes. What works? Work works?
