The Action Filter – Sharran Srivatsaa

Most people don’t fail because they’re lazy. They fail because they don’t know what to do next.

In this episode, Sharran tackles the biggest problem holding people back: useless advice. Phrases like “just do it” or “stay disciplined” sound great, but they don’t tell you what to do next. That’s where the Action Filter comes in. It’s a tactical system that helps you break down advice into steps you can execute immediately. It helps turn vague advice into clear, executable steps that drive results.

Sharran walks through real-world examples from Michael Jordan, Marvel, and Steve Jobs to show how elite performers turn plans into results. If you’re tired of motivation without action, this episode will give you the clarity you need to move forward.

Stop listening to generic advice. Tune in to learn the Action Filter and execute your biggest goals today!

“Execution is what separates winners from wannabes.”

– Sharran Srivatsaa

Timestamps:

01:20 – Why most advice is useless without execution

02:20 – The ‘Just Do It’ myth and why motivation isn’t enough

04:13 – The power of making your goals public (Marvel’s $29B strategy)

07:10 – Why finding the right partner accelerates success (Jobs & Wozniak)

09:40 – The escape room mindset: Just focus on the next clue

11:39 – The 80/20 rule: Why small shifts create massive results

14:52 – How Pixar’s 10-slide rule forces clarity in any project

17:23 – Recap: The Action Filter

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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Hey, this is Sharran Srivatsaa. Welcome back to the Business School Podcast. And in this episode, I want to talk to you about why most people don’t fail because they’re lazy. They fail because they don’t know what to do next. Being this be disciplined or work harder or stay focused or back to basics is all cool, but how, how do you exactly.

[00:00:19] Be disciplined. How do you exactly work harder? How do you exactly stay focused? Today, I’m going to give you a tactical system that I call the action filter to filter out this useless bad advice and turn it into execution execution that you and I both want. No fluff, no theory, just clear moves, practical things that you can do to drive results.

[00:00:36] I break it down a step by step starting right now.

[00:00:45] One thing is for certain, just because it’s tried and true doesn’t mean it’s working right now. So the big question is this, where can you learn what is working right now? The strategies, the tactics, the psychology and the [00:01:00] exact how to. How to grow your business, how to blow up your personal brand and supercharge your personal growth.

[00:01:08] That is the question. And this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharran Srivatsaa and welcome to Business School.

[00:01:20] All right, let’s be real. Most advice is completely useless, right? For example, people say things like, follow your passion or be consistent or just do it or get back to basics. What does that even mean? Well, it sometimes feels good to hear, right? But What does it actually mean? Meaning, how do you actually apply it?

[00:01:38] Imagine, uh, if Star Wars ended with, you know, Yoda telling Luke Skywalker, use the force and then just vanished. Well, no training, no lightsaber skills, just these vibey hands. That’s how bad advice works. It. Sounds inspiring, but it leaves you stuck. Meaning you don’t really know exactly what to do next. And then you get frustrated today.

[00:01:59] We’re going to fix that. [00:02:00] We’re diving into what I call the action filter, a system that turns vague, useless advice into actual execution, because we know this execution. Is what separate winners from wannabes, right? And people talk about execution a lot. They’re like, go just do it. Well, they don’t tell you exactly how.

[00:02:15] That’s what we’re going to actually talk about today. So let’s, uh, let’s jump right in. Here’s the big idea. Number one is I called the myth of just do it. So if you’ve ever seen the movie Space Jam, if you’ve not, I’ll break it down for you. There’s a scene where the Looney Tunes gives Michael Jordan a bottle of the secret stuff.

[00:02:30] Essentially, this is magic water that supposedly, uh, You know, needs to make him play better and Jordan drinks it and he goes crazy and he like totally dominates the game except big plot twist here. It was just water. This is how most motivational advice works. It makes you feel like you can do it, but missing the actual system behind the execution of it.

[00:02:52] Now, let’s talk about the real Michael Jordan. He practiced what six hours a day, 365 days a year. He got cut from his high [00:03:00] school team before becoming a six time NBA champion. Like Jordan knew his stuff. Yes, he was talented, but he worked on his craft every single day. Jordan didn’t get great because of some motivational quote.

[00:03:12] He got great because he followed a process. He hired Tim Grover. He worked with great coaches. Like, that’s how it happened. So, the big kind of takeaway here to start this thinking process is, instead of saying, just start, ask yourself, what is the exact next step? Or what are the exact steps I need to take next?

[00:03:31] And if you can just write those down, if you can just visualize them in your head, you know, when you start getting used to taking the next step, and it can be as simple as, Hey, I need to take out the trash. What are the next steps? Oh, I need to go wrap all the trash bags up, put new liners in and take the trash out.

[00:03:45] What you’re doing is you’re constantly making yourself in every form of the things that you have to do in life. Always get to the next steps that way, whether it’s taking your kids to school or taking the trash out or brushing your teeth in the morning or building a [00:04:00] brand new product, it all doesn’t matter.

[00:04:01] It all can get synchronized down into, Hey, what are the next steps? That’s the kind of the big idea. Number one, which is you got to operationalize the myth of kind of this, just do it, right? But here’s number two, which will actually make stuff come to life, which is the big idea is. You want to make your plans public, and, or as public as you can make it.

[00:04:18] Meaning, when I just say public, I mean more than just in your head, or more than just a goal that you set for yourself. Because, if You’re going to accomplish it like, let me explain this, right? Most people are afraid of making their goals public for one important reason. Because they are afraid that they’re not going to get it done, which is why they don’t want to make it public.

[00:04:38] Now, think about this for a second. If your goal is going to be manifested in public, then you might as well promise in public. So, for example, if your goal is to lose weight, right, and you know that that goal is going to get manifested in public, which people are going to see you lose weight, you’re doing it for that reason, you want to look good, and you want to feel better, and people are going to see it.

[00:04:59] Well, if they’re going to see [00:05:00] it anyway, you might as well tell them about that stuff in the first place. 99 percent of our goals are in the public domain. Maybe make more money, have more success, uh, you know, have better relationships, lose weight, uh, buy a Lambo, whatever. They all have public ramifications.

[00:05:15] If there’s going to have a public ramification anyway, you might as well make a public declaration about it. Now, if there’s some private goal that you’re trying to figure out and you don’t want to share it in public, that makes total sense because a private goal stays private. But if it has. Impact in the public domain.

[00:05:30] If people are going to see the public version of that goal, you might as well tell them this stuff off front, because then you conspire for the universe to actually help you get there, which is the best part. Let me explain exactly what I mean by making your plans public and how you can maybe do the same thing.

[00:05:42] So let’s talk about Marvel. Many of you know that Marvel’s is the Marvel cinematic universe, Marvel and all of Marvel characters. I love them so much. And. Marvel had like a 29 billion master plan. So let me break down why this was never possible. So in 2008, in the great financial crisis, Marvel [00:06:00] was a struggling company and their big gamble was Iron Man.

[00:06:03] It was an unproven character starring an actor with that. It was Robert Downey Jr. that Hollywood had actually written off. But they didn’t just make a movie. They publicly announced a 10 year roadmap, setting release dates even before any of the scripts were even written. Think about the audacity of that, never before done in Hollywood.

[00:06:22] And that commitment forced them to execute, and it worked. Iron Man alone made 585 million, like completely bringing Marvel back to life. The MCU, which is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, became a 29 billion empire. And they never missed a single release date. That’s the cool part. So, the big takeaway for us is public commitments create accountability just with ourselves.

[00:06:45] They make us keep our promises to ourselves because we’re going to have the public impact of those promises. So, if it’s going to have an impact in the public domain anyway, announce your project, set a launch date, tell the public. Tell people because you get people to support you in the university, university cus conspire against you hitting your [00:07:00] goals because when the pressure is real, the execution just naturally follows because you ask yourself, what am I having going to have to do to hit that next step?

[00:07:07] Right? Pretty cool. Here’s big idea. Number three, this is my favorite one. I call this get a partner in crime. I do really well when I have collaboration, I am. In almost every one of my projects, I have partners, uh, and I try to find partners who are really good at things that I am not great at. And there’s a lot of humility there because that partner realizes they’re like, wait, wait a minute, Tron’s bringing X set of skills.

[00:07:27] I have Y set of skills. This is really cool. So you have a deep mutual respect and I love getting partners in crime. So let me give you an example. If you know, all of you know, Steve Jobs, uh, Steve Jobs wasn’t an engineer. He had a vision, but zero ability to build anything. And that’s when. He met with Steve Wozniak, or Woz, an introverted genius who could actually bring Jobs ideas to life.

[00:07:54] Now, that’s not a bad thing that if you are not a visionary or if you’re an operator, it’s just [00:08:00] you have to live the life and through the gifts that you have. That’s the best part about humanity. So together, they turned a garage startup into Apple, what 2. 8 trillion dollar empire, and you probably are listening to this on an iPhone.

[00:08:15] The lesson is you don’t need to do everything yourself. The fastest way where you can realize that you don’t need to do everything yourself and you only need to work in your zone of genius in your gifting. And for that, you need to realize what your zone of genius and what your gifting is. This is no different than putting a.

[00:08:31] Team together to go and be a, you know, us Navy SEAL team or to go and, and to be like oceans 11 to rob a casino. It doesn’t matter what it is. You just have to figure out what your zone of genius is and what your skill set isn’t, what you’re gifting this and be really honest with yourself and know that, Hey, what’s the gap because when you start plugging other people in with their zone of genius, they start to realize and respect you more for who you are and what you bring to the table, which is awesome.

[00:08:55] So here’s. A piece of advice, start looking for partners right now, [00:09:00] start looking for accountability buddy right now, start looking for the hires and worst case scenario, you can just hire a coach. Like I’ve hired a coach to get me to do a project. I remember in one of my past companies, I hired a coach just to help me sell the business.

[00:09:12] So she worked with me for a good nine months and helped me with every single process, both my mindset, but the team, uh, but the, you know, the entire diligence process, she was my support system and helping me sell the business. And just having her for a nine month period was insanely helpful because I knew that I had a partner in crime to help me get the thing that I wanted to do done, which was super, super helpful.

[00:09:35] So that was big idea number three, get a partner in crime. Here’s big idea number four. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this, but I like to treat projects like an escape room. Now, if you’ve not, Uh, ever experience an escape room. Let me kind of explain how an escape room works. It’s a, you’re, it’s a puzzle of sorts.

[00:09:50] You’re in a room or set of rooms, and the rooms have clues, and your job is to find the clues in the rooms, and then unlock the mystery and the [00:10:00] prize at the end, meaning you escape from this room. It’s called an escape room. Uh, it’s, it’s a, It’s a pretty cool team building idea that people love to do. You can find an escape room in your town or city.

[00:10:10] It’s under a timer where you go and work as a team to find the clues to escape from this escape room. But the interesting part about the escape room is that they always ask, what’s the next clue? So I’ll give you an example. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Iron Man one and I’m, I know I’m going through a lot of Marvel ideas today.

[00:10:26] Maybe Marvel’s on my mind. Tony Stark gets kidnapped in Afghanistan. And his captors demand that he builds them the Stark weapon, but instead of panicking Stark breaks it down differently. He thinks, he’s like, all right, what do I need? One, I need to build a power source. Two, I need to make a crude metal suit and three, I need to blow my way out.

[00:10:44] So he knows what’s the next clue. And if he had focused on the whole problem at once, he’d have frozen in fear and said he took one step at a time. Make the power source, create a metal suit, blow myself out, blow my way out. Right? So the big takeaway here is if you are feeling stuck and you feel like you’re, There’s, there’s a lot [00:11:00] of things to get done and you feel like, man, I feel overwhelmed that just you’re not just asking the right question.

[00:11:05] You’re in an escape room. You’re just saying, Hey, what is my next clue? If you just ask, what is my next clue? It’ll force you to put one foot in front of the other and you don’t need to solve every problem. You just need to solve the next clue and. You, if you solve the next clue, you always make progress.

[00:11:19] So whenever you’re stuck, just ask yourself, force yourself with this question, which is what’s my next clue. Small wins build a ton of momentum. And so if you keep asking, what’s my next clue, you’ll always find that the easiest possible way to take the next big step. So that’s big idea number five is treat it like an escape room.

[00:11:36] Here’s big idea number five, which is I like visually mapping it out and following like this 80 20 rule. If you’ve been around me for a little bit and listen to this podcast, you know, that big goal for our theme for the year for me is the 20 percent obsession, which is the 80 20 rule. I’ve just found the 80 20 rule be so prevalent in our lives where.

[00:11:54] 80 percent of the things that we come up with are kind of useless. They don’t move the needle that much. The 20 percent actually drive [00:12:00] so much more of the result. Most of the things, if you just get the 20 percent result, it gets so much easier, so much faster. So I’ll give you, I’ll give you kind of an example.

[00:12:07] In 2009, uh, Domino’s pizza was dying. And by the way, I know Domino’s because my children are, they’re emphatically in love with Domino’s. They will, they would rather stay home and eat Domino’s than do anything else, right, which is crazy. Uh, so Domino’s stock price was like. 2. 80 a share, their customers hated the pizza, they called it cardboard, the sales were crashing.

[00:12:29] So what did they do? They didn’t try to fix everything, they could have, but instead they said, hey, what is the 80 20 rule here? And they focused on just two things. How do we make the pizza taste better and how do we get the delivered faster? That’s it. That’s all they did. How do we make it taste better?

[00:12:42] How do we get it delivered faster? And just in two years from like two, from in the, in the two to like a 10 year process of just implementing this Domino’s stock price hit like a 564. Like that’s 19, 000 percent increase. They outperformed Apple and Google and Amazon all in stock growth, which is [00:13:00] crazy if you think about it.

[00:13:01] So the big lesson is trying to do. Everything kills progress. You can’t do that. What are the one to two things that if you actually put your effort, the effort in and focus on what would significantly move the needle? So if you are a real estate agent or a mortgage broker or a coach or consultant, does you may think that lead generation is if you’re like, Hey, if I had more leads, I would close more leads, but that may not be true.

[00:13:22] Maybe it’s the conversion process. Maybe it’s like, Hey, when someone says yes, they’re interested to get them from a yes. To a signed client. How does that process happen? Do you lose a lot of people there? Because if you can just tighten that process, maybe it gets better. So if you say, Hey, you know what?

[00:13:36] I’m just going to tighten my conversion process. I’m going to type and type my presentation process. Or every time I get an appointment, I’m going to close that appointment. If you know that, then you may be able to solve a much bigger 80 20 problem than just saying, I just need more leads. And then complaining that the leads are not good.

[00:13:50] And you never call them anyway, cause you don’t like doing that because there’s no one likes making the cold calls, right? The big question is how do you find the 80 20 in your business? And how do you only work on that? Because. [00:14:00] If you only have to work on a couple of things, you spend a lot of time just doing a good job working on those things.

[00:14:05] The lesson really, really, really here is to try to do everything totally kills progress. So, big idea here is to you, you write all these tasks down, you map it out, you identify the 20 percent that work and that get 80 percent of the results, and then you decide to whether do it or not do it. Right. I always think about do it or not do it.

[00:14:21] The do it is means I do it now. Not do it means and not now it’s people say, Oh, I’m going to do it. I’m going to delegate it. I’m going to put it on organize it. I’m going to my someday list. Oh, that’s interesting. You’re either going to do it or you’re going to not do it. That’s it. Right. So it’s either now or not now.

[00:14:34] And once you figure out that there’s, it would be weird if there were more things on your now list, then you’re not now list, right? That means that you have way too much that you’re saying yes to, and you just don’t have the finite time to manage those things. All right, here is the, the, my last idea, which is the big, big idea number six, which is you got to turn your idea into some kind of simple presentation.

[00:14:55] So whether you’re writing a book or whether you’re creating a company or whether you’re [00:15:00] creating a new project or whether you’re doing whatever, you got to find a way to just figure out if you can sell the idea first, like what is the big idea? Can you, instead of going and building something and making a prototype, can you actually pitch the idea?

[00:15:12] Uh, Pixar has a 10 page rule. So before making. Toy Story or Finding Nemo or Up, directors had to explain the entire movie in 10 slides or less. Like imagine that. And if they couldn’t do it, the movie was just not ready. And this forced simplicity to led to a 14 billion box office. It’s like, think about how crazy this is.

[00:15:31] They forced simplicity, right? So before starting your next project, just create a tense like that. It’s just explaining the idea. Hey, what is this? How’s it going to help people? What if we don’t do this? Uh, this is what it’s going to take. This is why it’s hard. This is why it’s not hard. You’re just telling a story.

[00:15:45] And the interesting part about all of it is just answer a question. You don’t need a fancy chart. You don’t need a bunch of bullet points. Just ask a question like, Hey, what is it? What is the pain? What is the problem? How will make our life better? Just answer the question one by one for 10 slides. And when you do.

[00:15:58] You’ll start to realize [00:16:00] whether you have it tightly or not, you’ll start to realize the ability to get more feedback. You’ll start to realize you’d be able to share that idea with someone else. And then instead of saying, Oh, it’s a, it’s a little complex. So let me, you know, let me give you the 411 or let me give, you know, just send them the deck.

[00:16:12] That’s the best part because it allows people to show that you’re serious enough where you actually. You know, it’s crystallize your ideas and pay on paper. And then as you get feedback, you just make the idea better and better and better. And the deck better and better. And then finally, when the crazy part is this, if you, I invest in a lot of startup companies, I take a lot of these, I see a lot of these decks, right?

[00:16:32] And the thing that I’ve learned the most is the companies that already have made it are the ones that have the best decks. Like, think about that for a second. The companies that have already made it, they have the best decks. Why? Because their ideas are clearer and clearer. They know exactly what they’re doing.

[00:16:46] So now Take that lesson and put it early on. Imagine if you could just get that clarity early on, you’ll just have significantly better clarity in this entire process. So before you’re starting your next project, create like a simple 10 slide deck. It doesn’t have to be [00:17:00] fun, uh, complex. It doesn’t have to be pretty.

[00:17:02] It’s just answer the 10 questions that you think, uh, are on your mind or people’s minds around this and then see if it flows well. Because if you can’t make it that simple, you’re just not quite ready yet. So, The main idea that I want to share with you is like, stop consuming, start doing. And the doing is what affects most people because it feels very, uh, overwhelming because it feels like there’s so many things to do.

[00:17:23] So, so here are the six big, six big ideas, right? Number one, make your commitments public, just like Marvel. Number two, get a collaborator like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Number three, uh, treat the obstacles like escape rooms, like. Tony Stark. Number four, use the 80 20 rule, like Dominos turnaround. Number five, clarify your ideas, like the Pixar process of the 10 slide deck.

[00:17:45] Just write those up, because once you do that, It gets really fun really quickly. So I’m going to give you, thank you for waiting and listening to this. I’m going to give you probably the gold that you need right now, which is how do you recognize when something is generic advice [00:18:00] and something is good advice?

[00:18:01] There’s a big difference there. And let me tell you what, what that difference is. The difference is good advice, practical advice allows you, teaches you a behavior. teaches you to go do something. Just do it is generic. It doesn’t teach you a behavior, right? But build a 10 slide deck teaches you a behavior and a result gives you a very clear action.

[00:18:24] So the next time you get here as some generic advice, which is. That, that makes my, you know, blood boil, like, Oh, let’s go back to basics. Which is dumb advice. Back to basics is dumb advice. If someone ever told you back to basics, you should look at them and punch them in the face with a banana. Because back to basics doesn’t mean anything.

[00:18:41] It is not telling you what to do. It doesn’t teach you a behavior or set of action. Just do it. Is dumb advice, you know, it’s, it’s a great slogan for a company, but it’s not good. It’s not good advice at all or follow your passion is dumb advice. It doesn’t tell you what to do next or be consistent is dumb advice or it [00:19:00] you don’t want those things you you’re like Oh just uh, you need to not have fear like that’s it’s dumb advice What you want is you want to find a way to?

[00:19:09] To take the generic dumb advice and make it specific advice for you. And the way to do that is asking yourself this question. How do I turn this into a behavior? How do I turn this into behavior? My friend, Alex Hermosi has this really great phrase about patience. And a lot of people are like, Oh, just be patient.

[00:19:25] Just be patient. That’s dumb advice. It’s really bad advice. But the question is because you can’t define patience. So how do you define, turn that into a behavior? Patience as a behavior is, what do I do while I wait? Think about that. That’s very specific. Hey, I just have to be patient. Okay, what does that mean?

[00:19:45] Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything. But turning that into a behavior is, what are you going to do while you wait? Now you get to choose to do A, B, C things while you wait. That gives you very specific behavior. That’s how you turn dumb advice, generic advice, [00:20:00] trite advice, cliche advice into something that is helpful to you, which is, how can I turn this into a behavior?

[00:20:05] Because when information is useless, it only frustrates us more and doesn’t help us execute. We all want to do well. We all want to do great things, but The world and most people, most influencers, most influencers are terrible, right? They’ve never really done anything in their lives. Most, most coaches and consultants, most of them have never actually talked to a client in their lives.

[00:20:23] They’ve never actually done the thing that they’re talking about. That’s why I love operators, because they tell you what they actually did yesterday. And that’s really, really important. So the main part about this is, if you are good at what you do, don’t take generic advice. Ask yourself this question, how can I turn this into a behavior?

[00:20:37] When you turn it into a behavior, you know, whether you’re going to do it now or not going to do it now. This was the action filter. Hope this was broadly helpful to you. So please do me a favor. If you like this, could you please screenshot this episode and just screenshot it wherever you’re watching this and share it on social media and tag me that way I’ll know that this was helpful to you and then I can make more like this for you.

[00:20:55] So please do me a favor that I have no other way of getting any feedback to screenshot this and [00:21:00] upload it and tag me that way I can make more like this.

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