Retention Funnel
4.5 billion years of the earth’s existence is a fraction of time universe is around, humanity is around for fraction of the earth’s life, and in comparison an average human life of ~80 years is a fraction of humanity’s existence. The last things we, the humans, want is to sleep walk into our lives to meet inevitable death. I built “Retention funnel” as a model to create deliberate environment tuned for purposeful life and long term success. This funnel shows the path of zillions of things we encounter and a fraction of those we retain and if we don’t tune this funnel our way, what remains is a life lived by chance, not by choice.
Encounter:
“It’s hard to make good choices in bad environment and bad choices in good environment”. You are an average of five closest people around you. Be super-selective about configuring both your physical and virtual environments- friends you hang out with to accounts you follow on Twitter, movies you watch on Netflix to relatives you interact for hours.
Consume:
You can influence what you encounter but you can be in charge of what you consume. Be a keen observer not to miss nuances.
Absorb:
Develop strong listening skills. Leverage pause between stimulus and response. Develop your inner filter- Garbage in is garbage out. What you absorb is what you care for.
Understand:
Understand what’s not stated, connect the dots, think critically, and derive patterns. Teach and reflect.
Retain:
Build mind-maps, break and build using the first principle thinking, and most importantly leverage!
As time passes, the details start fading out. We describe elaborate holidays, long books, and even years of associations in few sentences. Those are the remnants of encounters time tested by our retention tunnel. Lets orient and build our retention tunnel that makes this short life worth living!
