The Mountain You're Already Standing On
You are too close to your own value to see it, and the person two steps ahead is more useful than the person twenty steps ahead.
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 93%
Priestley's answer to why people who agree with all of his advice still do nothing is a story from Bali. He climbed Mount Agung through the night, reached the summit at dawn, watched the sun light up the island and the sea — and immediately started asking his guide about Mount Rinjani on the horizon. Which island, how do you get there, how many days, how long to climb, can I book through you. The guide put an arm around him and said: Mr Daniel, you need to learn to appreciate the mountain you are already standing on. Priestley's reading is that standing on the mountain he could see everything except the mountain, because he was too close to it. The application is that everyone already stands on a mountain of value — your story is relevant, your background is relevant, the people you know are part of it, and crucially your relatability is part of it. He adds a counterintuitive corollary aimed at people who feel too far behind to contribute: as you rise, you lose relatability, so someone in the middle takes the place you previously occupied because they are only two steps ahead rather than twenty. The person just starting out is better served by them than by you.
Origin
Priestley offers the story directly in response to Bartlett asking why people who hear the whole framework, agree the foundations are perfect, and understand it completely, still do not act. His answer is not motivation but perception — they cannot see their own value because they are too close to it and too distracted by the horizon.
Core principles
- 01You can see everything except the mountain you are standing on.
- 02Distraction by the horizon is what stops the first step.
- 03Your story, background, network and relatability are all part of the value.
- 04Relatability declines as you rise, opening the position for someone two steps ahead.
- 05One documented result is enough raw material for a business.
How to run it
- 1
Notice the comparison that is stopping you
Priestley names the internal sentences precisely: Steven Bartlett is already so much further ahead, he makes podcasts, I could never do that. Or someone in my industry wrote a book and I could never write like that.
Pro tip Naming the specific comparison makes it a perception problem rather than an assessment of your ability.
Watch out The comparison always selects someone twenty steps ahead, which is the group least relevant to your position.
- 2
Inventory what is already under your feet
Your story is relevant. Your background is relevant. The people you know are part of the mountain. Your relatability is part of the mountain.
Pro tip Relatability is the asset that people further ahead have already lost and cannot recover.
Watch out Discounting your experience as too small is exactly the too-close-to-see-it problem.
- 3
Document one specific result
Priestley's clients built businesses on very little raw material: eight to ten major contracts won, one restaurant run well, some couples helped to conceive. What matters is documenting the process, not the volume of experience.
Pro tip One little thing can become a business bigger than the thing itself.
Watch out Waiting until you have enough experience means the documentation habit never starts.
- 4
Change the goal from quality to quantity
Bartlett's partner spent two years buying cameras and not posting, too focused on how the first video would perform. He changed the objective from making good videos to reaching video 1,000.
Pro tip She posted 30-odd videos in the weeks after the goal changed, having posted none in two years.
Watch out Bartlett names the trap from The Courage to Be Disliked — the possibility gap, where you announce an intention, get credit for it, and no evidence yet exists that you cannot do it, so you can live there indefinitely.
In the wild
A Priestley client ran one successful restaurant with a good process for building regulars and returning locals. He wrote a book called More Bums On Seats and gave it out to a thousand restaurants.
→ He built a large coaching and consulting business teaching restaurants how to do their sales and marketing — from one restaurant and one documented process.
Someone who had won maybe eight to ten major corporate contracts as a small business documented the process and wrote a book about how small businesses can sell to corporates.
→ That became a whole business teaching small businesses to sell to corporates, built on fewer than a dozen deals.
Having helped some couples conceive through her fertility interventions, she wrote a book called Fertility Breakthrough.
→ She now gives away 4,000 copies a year and her business is, in Priestley's word, massive.
Common mistakes
Living in the possibility gap
Bartlett's framing: between announcing an intention and doing it, no evidence exists that you cannot do it. You get credit for the intention and can stay there for years — as his partner did across two years of buying cameras.
Believing you need something bigger to share
Priestley's clients built businesses from one restaurant, ten contracts and a handful of pregnancies. The idea that you must have floated a company for a billion dollars before you have anything to say is the mountain problem.
Optimising the first output
Focusing on how the first video performs is what prevents it existing. Changing the objective from quality to reaching video 1,000 is what unblocked two years of paralysis.
Is it for you?
Best for
People who understand what to do and still have not started, and anyone who believes they have nothing worth publishing.
Not ideal for
People already publishing consistently, for whom the constraint is quality or distribution rather than starting.
From the transcript
“Mr Daniel, you need to learn to appreciate the mountain you're already standing on”
“every single person has this mountain of value but the biggest thing at the moment is the distraction of all the other stuff”
“someone in the middle is going to take a place that you previously occupied because they're more relatable they're only two steps ahead not 20…”
From the episode
The Money Making Expert: The 7,11,4 Hack That Turns $1 Into $10K Per Month! This 90 Day Rule Will 10x Your Income! Daniel Priestley
Daniel Priestley