WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.400
The fact that you don't know if it's going to work is exactly what makes it worth doing.

2
00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:08.160
It's why entrepreneurship isn't for the faint of heart. You have to embrace uncertainty.

3
00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.440
What makes entrepreneurship isn't the work itself. It's actually just not knowing

4
00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:15.360
if the work will work. We're afraid of wasted effort. But if it makes you better,

5
00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:16.640
then no effort is wasted.

6
00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:23.360
Welcome to the game where we talk about how to sell more stuff to more people in more ways and

7
00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:27.520
build businesses worth owning. I'm trying to build a billion dollar thing with acquisition.com.

8
00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:30.400
I always wish pesos, musk, and buffet had documented their journey,

9
00:00:30.400 --> 00:00:32.640
so I'm doing it for the rest of us. Please share and enjoy.

10
00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:37.040
This is my most brutally honest advice to my younger self.

11
00:00:38.080 --> 00:00:42.480
You can beat 99% of people simply by continuing to work without needing your immediate reward.

12
00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:45.360
This bit is advice to my younger self on how I'd work harder.

13
00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:49.840
You're going to lose sleep. You'll doubt whether it'll work. You'll stress to make ends meet.

14
00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:53.840
You won't finish your to-do list. You'll wonder if you made the right call and have no way to know

15
00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:56.960
for years. But that's what hard feels like. The other great reason for working

16
00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:00.080
harder is that the harder you work, the more you realize what you used to think was hard work,

17
00:01:00.080 --> 00:01:03.840
isn't even close to what you're capable of. Because if you want to know with the most

18
00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:07.360
dangerous money making combo in the world, it's work ethic and time.

19
00:01:07.360 --> 00:01:10.800
Because once you realize just how much more work it takes to get from good to great,

20
00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:14.320
you realize you can only be graded a few things and you're forced to ignore the rest.

21
00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:19.920
The amount of work it takes to be good negates the ability to be great at more than one or two

22
00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:23.120
things. Because there's just only so much time. It just takes work,

23
00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:26.720
shit loads and shit loads of work and every time I dress it up or cut a corner,

24
00:01:26.720 --> 00:01:30.400
I get brutally reminded by life that the work just needs doing. So yes, this is your friendly

25
00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:35.200
reminder that it's okay to work on weekends. I used to think that if I worked on something for a

26
00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:39.600
day, it was a lot. I was like, dude, I worked on this for a whole day. That was like a huge amount

27
00:01:39.600 --> 00:01:43.680
of work and I would say that to someone to show them how hard I worked. And then it became like I

28
00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:47.120
worked on this for a week and then a month. And I would say now that I can work on the same

29
00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:51.600
project for a year or two years. And that's what like to the books has been huge projects for me.

30
00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:55.920
My quickest shorthand on the shift in work is that I started counting in hundreds. Hundreds of

31
00:01:55.920 --> 00:02:00.400
minutes, hundreds of hours, hundreds of days towards a specific goal. If you count in hundreds,

32
00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:05.760
it just automatically forces you to do a significantly larger amount of effort. Just sheer volume of work.

33
00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:10.160
I think one of my favorite parables about work is that there was an art class. They split the

34
00:02:10.160 --> 00:02:14.720
class into two groups. And one group they said, make the absolute best pot and turn in one pot.

35
00:02:14.720 --> 00:02:19.040
And the other group, they said, make as many pots as you possibly can. At the end of the semester,

36
00:02:19.040 --> 00:02:23.840
the team that had to make as many pots as only possible, not only made more pots, but also

37
00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:27.840
ended up making better pots than the one that's been all their time trying to make one. I think a

38
00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:33.280
lot of people need that permission to have a lot of shitty first drafts in order to start working

39
00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:37.280
harder on anything. But that's not how I operate. Because for me, I'd rather spend a lot more time

40
00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:42.160
my first drafts that don't have to make so many more edits. If you do it the right way, you realize

41
00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:46.080
how many hours you're going to have to put into something. And usually most people that I feel like

42
00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:50.320
haven't done that level of effort confront the work and then they get scared about it. I have to

43
00:02:50.320 --> 00:02:54.400
find a different way. This can't actually be how people do this. That is how you do it. The work

44
00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:58.560
just needs doing and no one's going to do it for you. I started with a normal early job and I think

45
00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:03.680
a lot of people do. A lot of early job thoughts or lessons are that when you show up to work,

46
00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:07.520
you are working because you're getting paid to be there. When you start working for yourself,

47
00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:10.960
you're not getting paid to be there. You're only getting paid on what you do. I've gone on

48
00:03:11.040 --> 00:03:14.480
vacations with other entrepreneurs. They're like, man, we had a crazy workshop. I was like, I was with

49
00:03:14.480 --> 00:03:18.640
you. Homie like, that was not a work. These are off days for me. These are like real work days.

50
00:03:18.640 --> 00:03:24.640
Because work occurred to me is not a work day. Unless I have a clear output for what I have done or

51
00:03:24.640 --> 00:03:30.000
move forward, work didn't have. The longer you can delay when you need to be rewarded for the work

52
00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:33.600
that you do, the greater the outcome is. It's kind of like a plane taking off.

53
00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:39.040
The longer the runway, the bigger the plane. And so a lot of people can barely even get a bottle

54
00:03:39.040 --> 00:03:42.480
rocket off the ground because they have such a short attention span and such a need for a

55
00:03:42.480 --> 00:03:47.760
immediate reward. If you feel like you're behind where you should be by now, if you feel like

56
00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:52.400
you're losing, if you're not sure it's going to work, there's nothing wrong with you. That is

57
00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.320
entrepreneurship. You're on the right path. You're doing the right things. You're seeing the

58
00:03:56.320 --> 00:04:01.600
milestones along the way, but the milestones aren't parades. It's uncertainty. It's a sleepless

59
00:04:01.600 --> 00:04:06.240
nice. It's not knowing if you can make payroll. It's not even being sure that the five years you

60
00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:10.240
put into this idea is actually going to turn into something that you'll get credit for eventually.

61
00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:15.280
The biggest shift that I had internally during those harder times was that I am the output of my work.

62
00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:20.240
All of this effort is to create who I want to become. I get to use that as my reward every day,

63
00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:24.720
rather than the approval of strangers. Sitting in uncertainty is the feeling of entrepreneurship.

64
00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:29.280
You're not doing it wrong. That's what it feels like. It's kind of this weird dichotomy of feeling

65
00:04:29.280 --> 00:04:32.400
like you never have enough time, but then you also have all the time in the world. The biggest

66
00:04:32.400 --> 00:04:36.480
reason that a lot of entrepreneurs don't succeed is because they're in a rush. The rush is what

67
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:40.480
creates poor decisions and so they consistently hop from thing to thing to thing because they think

68
00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:44.640
this thing will get them there faster. By hopping consistently to guaranteed it, they'll never get

69
00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:50.000
there. I think we have a culture that rewards speed because everybody wants things fast and easy.

70
00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.080
In $100 million offers, the book I talk about value. You have a dream outcome and then you have

71
00:04:54.080 --> 00:04:58.960
basically everything that discounts or multiplies it. A discount would be risk associated with it. I

72
00:04:58.960 --> 00:05:02.880
want this thing, but I want it to be guaranteed. I want it to be easy and I want it to be fast.

73
00:05:02.880 --> 00:05:06.960
And entrepreneurship is literally the opposite of that. The dream outcomes there, but it is not

74
00:05:06.960 --> 00:05:12.480
guaranteed, incredibly hard and takes forever. The problem is that it's so compelling to sell people

75
00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:17.920
on that and there's so many more ad dollars that go into its fast, it's easy and it's guaranteed

76
00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:23.040
that it's really tough to shift the landscape of the language around entrepreneurship because there's

77
00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:27.680
just so much money to be made by making that promise. The concept of the billionaire who starts

78
00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:31.600
back over and they're like, could he do it again? It's like, well, of course, the problem with the

79
00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:36.240
show is is that they give you 90 days. The premise is wrong. And I get why they do it is because they

80
00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:39.440
have to cater to people who think that way, which is most people. Can he build a million dollar

81
00:05:39.440 --> 00:05:43.520
business in 90 days? But it's like, but he could build a much bigger business in two years.

82
00:05:43.520 --> 00:05:48.320
And that billionaire would probably never build the business that he builds on the show. So it actually

83
00:05:48.320 --> 00:05:53.040
reinforces the wrong perspective. From a brand foundation perspective, it's how can I build a

84
00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:57.520
reputation over a long period of time, not necessarily with the intent to transact, but simply

85
00:05:57.520 --> 00:06:02.160
to build a reputation associating myself with these positive things? That takes time. For one,

86
00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:07.120
lots of people find out about you and two, for a lot of people to develop a strong affinity and make

87
00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:10.480
multiple associations with you so that it's stronger. The classic example of that is somebody who

88
00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:13.760
makes content for five years and then launches a product and the product's immediately a billion

89
00:06:13.760 --> 00:06:16.800
dollar thing. Well, it's not that they made a billion dollars in a year. It's that they spent five

90
00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:20.720
years letting the roots go down for the bamboo tree and then eventually it shoots up, right? On the

91
00:06:20.800 --> 00:06:24.960
other hand, you've got kind of product-based foundation software. You might take a long time to

92
00:06:24.960 --> 00:06:28.880
code and like write a huge code base that could go after some big problem. It can be regulatory

93
00:06:28.880 --> 00:06:32.320
stuff because if you want to get into like banking, for example, there's lots of barriers to entry.

94
00:06:32.320 --> 00:06:35.280
Even if you're starting an e-commerce brand, you would be talking to different manufacturers,

95
00:06:35.280 --> 00:06:38.720
you'd be going through prototypes, you'd be trying things out, you'd be testing it in beta groups

96
00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:42.320
to get feedback, and then you'd probably have some sort of capital investment to capitalize your

97
00:06:42.320 --> 00:06:46.960
first inventory run. All of those things are the foundations. The reason I like service business

98
00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:50.480
for people who are starting out is that you don't have to do either of those things, but if you

99
00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:55.760
had one or two or both of those things, then you can create something bigger, faster on a longer

100
00:06:55.760 --> 00:07:01.040
time horizon. It's actually the classic example of how long you sharpen the axe. If someone is doing

101
00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:05.440
a business that they have no leverage because they built no foundation, they basically just take whatever

102
00:07:05.440 --> 00:07:09.520
axe is given to them and they just start hacking away at the tree, except in the game of business,

103
00:07:09.520 --> 00:07:14.080
the tree might be a mile wide and the axe that you have could be a lightsaber. If you spend

104
00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:19.920
enough time sharpening it, even if it took one guy a year of going from dull axe to lightsaber,

105
00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:25.120
he would still catch up at year two, and then from year two to 10, doesn't even get close to the

106
00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:28.720
other guy, but the problem is that everybody listens to everyone else who's judging them on their

107
00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:33.200
time horizon. You quit your job on an employee time horizon, your family is like, have you started

108
00:07:33.200 --> 00:07:35.760
making money yet? And you're like, it's been two weeks. They're like, well, yeah, this is when

109
00:07:35.760 --> 00:07:39.360
you would normally get a paycheck. You're measuring stick has to change when you get into a different game.

110
00:07:39.440 --> 00:07:43.680
Sometimes the fastest way to get to a million dollars a year isn't the fastest way to get to

111
00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:46.960
10 million dollars a year. And to the same degree, the fastest way to get to 10 isn't the fastest

112
00:07:46.960 --> 00:07:51.760
way to go to 100. If we're measuring effort in terms of stress and hours per day, running a local

113
00:07:51.760 --> 00:07:56.080
restaurant takes the same amount of work as building an application that could be a billion dollar

114
00:07:56.080 --> 00:08:00.960
application. And it might take you a few years for a restaurant to build a reputation in the area,

115
00:08:00.960 --> 00:08:04.800
get locals coming in, hire and train good talent, like it takes a lot of work to do all that stuff.

116
00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:08.640
And to the same degree, hiring really good development engineers and creating a prototype,

117
00:08:08.640 --> 00:08:13.360
like the actual work and stress is almost identical. It's almost like you have three slot machines

118
00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:17.840
that you're going up to and they all cost the same cost. But one of them has a billion dollar

119
00:08:17.840 --> 00:08:21.120
payout and one has a 10 million dollar payout and one has a 100,000 dollar payout. And everyone

120
00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:24.640
just lines out for the 100,000 dollar payout. Third variable if we're going to like make this in

121
00:08:24.640 --> 00:08:29.680
terms of dimensions, the next one is how long are we measuring the payout for the slot machine? We

122
00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:33.600
assume that slot machines pay out immediately. But if one slot machine pays out now, one pays out

123
00:08:33.680 --> 00:08:38.720
in a year and one pays out in five years. What if the odds were the same, but you only got one coin,

124
00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:43.280
which one would you do? People say they would do the billion dollar one. But based on their behavior,

125
00:08:43.280 --> 00:08:46.960
they're just standing at the fast token machine, not being able to break it.

126
00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:52.880
The fact that you don't know if it's going to work is exactly what makes it worth doing. It's why

127
00:08:52.880 --> 00:08:57.680
entrepreneurship isn't for the faint of heart. You have to embrace uncertainty. What makes

128
00:08:57.680 --> 00:09:01.760
entrepreneurship isn't the work itself. It's actually just not knowing if the work will work. We're

129
00:09:01.760 --> 00:09:06.320
afraid of wasted effort. But if it makes you better, then no effort is wasted. As long as you can

130
00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:10.240
make that connection, you're not going to burn out. You're just doing what it takes. The biggest

131
00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:14.880
meta lesson of my entire life was when I lost everything the first time. I had sold all the gyms

132
00:09:14.880 --> 00:09:19.200
and then that was my nest egg for my five years of work, even though it was not as much as I had

133
00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:22.960
hoped, but it was still something. And then I put that all into the next thing and then lost it all.

134
00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:27.920
But after losing it all, I was able to immediately go out and make 100,000 dollars the next month with

135
00:09:27.920 --> 00:09:32.960
nothing, maxing out a credit card to do it. That moment was like, oh, like I thought that the gyms

136
00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:37.200
were the thing that I had built, but it was my skills is the thing that I had built. I consider

137
00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:40.960
skills income insurance. You just know that you will be able to make money. People want to invest

138
00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:45.040
in the stock market because they want to have a retirement. If you invest in skills, that is your

139
00:09:45.040 --> 00:09:48.880
retirement because you will always be able to trade them for money. And whether the money is in

140
00:09:48.880 --> 00:09:52.480
Bitcoin, C shells, or dollars, you'll always be able to trade something of value.

141
00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:57.200
This is going to piss off the exact same people that we think it's going to piss off. You don't

142
00:09:57.200 --> 00:10:02.320
need a weekend. The concept is barely 100 years old. It's a modern invention. You really need

143
00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:05.520
his work that you don't need a weekend from. Instead of thinking about work life balances like a

144
00:10:05.520 --> 00:10:09.200
seven day work week, think about work life balances like on like a seven year time horizon.

145
00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:14.160
And so there are seasons of work and there are seasons of less work. My goal would always be that

146
00:10:14.160 --> 00:10:17.920
I just never have something I want to retire from. In some ways, you could say I retired from

147
00:10:17.920 --> 00:10:21.360
owning gyms for a while, but I haven't retired from work. I don't think anyone who wants to live a

148
00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:25.200
long life should retire from. All the people that I know were really old, they pretty much die when

149
00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:29.360
they stop working. I've seen the people who stay alive the longest every instance to stay alive and

150
00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:33.040
work is a good one. The problem is that everyone's idea like the masses who are listening to this,

151
00:10:33.040 --> 00:10:37.040
their idea of what work is is not what I'm talking about. There's like the soul sucking work at a

152
00:10:37.040 --> 00:10:40.720
job you hate for a boss that doesn't appreciate you for a company that doesn't do good in the world.

153
00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:44.240
I completely understand why you would not be motivated to do that and you would want to get away from

154
00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:49.200
that as soon as possible. You'd be amazed at how much faster you can get to your goals when you

155
00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:54.320
don't go backwards 104 days a year. Contrary to what the mediocre masses will tell you, weekends can

156
00:10:54.400 --> 00:10:58.960
also be for work. We had a contractor once who said, I quit my job so that I wouldn't have to work

157
00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:03.520
weekends and he was upset that he had worked a weekend. Do you do not have an accurate estimation of

158
00:11:03.520 --> 00:11:07.840
reality? If you think that starting a business is going to mean that the first business you ever

159
00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:11.680
started not going to work weekends. Right now, if I started a business, I could take weekends if I

160
00:11:11.680 --> 00:11:14.720
wanted to, but I think that's because there's a level of skill you have to get you to get there.

161
00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:18.880
A buddy of mine was talking to me about how he had an employee who was asking for like six weeks of

162
00:11:18.880 --> 00:11:22.960
paid vacation. They had like not a lot of experience. He was like, I need this time. He's like, well,

163
00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:28.800
I tell you what? He's like, what if I give you 110 days a year off paid without work? They were

164
00:11:28.800 --> 00:11:33.200
like, yeah, and he's like, cool, that's weekends and federal holidays. If you just don't go backwards

165
00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:38.880
on weekends, you can move ahead so much faster. If you go out drinking or you do your cheat days on

166
00:11:38.880 --> 00:11:43.920
the weekend, then you can undo all of the work that you're doing in the rest of the days of the

167
00:11:43.920 --> 00:11:48.640
year and be neutral or even negative, then the year depending on how bad off track you go during

168
00:11:48.640 --> 00:11:52.400
those 104 days. From a business perspective, you might get inquiries over the weekend. If you don't

169
00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:55.760
work your leads over the weekend, you started a deficit and you might lose those sales. If you

170
00:11:55.760 --> 00:12:00.960
generate income during the week and then you don't on weekends, it's 104 days a year that you're

171
00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:05.840
not generating income out of 365. You're also going into a deficit that you have to then make up for

172
00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:09.280
in the first two days. So let's say that the two-day negative has to get offset by two days of

173
00:12:09.280 --> 00:12:13.840
positive. Then you're really only working three days. Now, you compare that to somebody who's either not

174
00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:17.680
losing steam on the weekends or actually getting ahead on the weekends. That person isn't moving

175
00:12:17.680 --> 00:12:21.200
ahead like twice as fast. The movie had like seven times as fast. And so I think that's the

176
00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:24.480
piece that a lot of people are missing is the look at somebody who's further ahead be like,

177
00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:27.120
well, this person works like this. It's like, well, if you work the same amount as them, they're

178
00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:31.040
actually going to keep getting further ahead. So you have to work as much as them to match,

179
00:12:31.040 --> 00:12:34.400
probably a little bit more because they're more skilled at working than you are. And then even more

180
00:12:34.400 --> 00:12:41.120
to get ahead. Success is the only revenge. As you expand, they shrink into a relevance. As you get

181
00:12:41.120 --> 00:12:46.240
louder, no one can hear them. You don't beat them. You cast a shadow so big, no one can see them to

182
00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:49.920
begin with. Because at the end of the day, there's no greater waste of time than justifying your

183
00:12:49.920 --> 00:12:56.240
actions to people who have a life that you don't want. And there's no amount of pain you can inflict

184
00:12:56.240 --> 00:13:01.040
on a hater that will be more painful than their own life. Last part was from Layla. Like, there is

185
00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:05.840
no retaliation. There's no retribution. There's no actual revenge. So I have beaten a lot of

186
00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:09.680
business people in the field. People that I saw as competitors, like where it was very clear,

187
00:13:09.680 --> 00:13:13.920
we're going head to head for a market. What's really weird is that when you actually win,

188
00:13:13.920 --> 00:13:17.520
when someone actually goes out of business, it's like, not cool. You don't like spit on their

189
00:13:17.520 --> 00:13:21.200
corpse. You're just like, oh, there is a tipping point at some point where you start to gain an

190
00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:25.360
advantage. You start to separate from them. But then like, they start flailing and acting erratic and

191
00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:28.800
trying to get ahead. And then that further, you know, they go down that vicious cycle because you

192
00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:33.440
are their hater, their mind or their competition. The biggest mistake in my career I made because of

193
00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:37.680
a competitor, that mistake cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million. Actual money,

194
00:13:37.680 --> 00:13:41.920
not like, like, oh, this is an opportunity that I did. Like, I actually lost like $25 million

195
00:13:41.920 --> 00:13:46.080
on this. And I just swore to myself that I would never let somebody else dictate my behavior.

196
00:13:47.040 --> 00:13:51.920
Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners. So the same thing goes with competitors.

197
00:13:51.920 --> 00:13:56.000
Winners focus on customers, competitors focus on winners. They're always trying to copy you,

198
00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:59.360
but because they're trying to copy you, they're not looking at the customers, they're looking at you.

199
00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:02.560
And so they're completely distracted. They're not looking at the data source that matters most.

200
00:14:02.560 --> 00:14:06.480
First off, if anyone ever copies you, you already won because they need you, you don't need them.

201
00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:10.000
You should be afraid when people stop copying you because it means that you've got nothing.

202
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:15.200
And so I see people copying what I'm doing as a positive sign that I'm on the right path.

203
00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:19.360
Rather than a distraction that merits all of my attention, getting redirected to trying to destroy

204
00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:24.960
someone, if you walk like downtown in any city, well, that building is a $400 million building.

205
00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:28.160
And that building is $400 million. That's how much money a billionaire has.

206
00:14:28.160 --> 00:14:32.400
Everything else that's there is still up for grabs. There's so much out there. It's super hard

207
00:14:32.400 --> 00:14:36.880
to comprehend. When we had 5,000 plus gyms in gym launch, I think we had 45 gyms in Atlanta.

208
00:14:36.880 --> 00:14:40.640
They would be like, well, there's another gym down the street. And I'm like, there's also 1,500

209
00:14:40.640 --> 00:14:45.920
gyms in Atlanta. So the 45 that are all gym launch gyms are just going to do better than the other

210
00:14:45.920 --> 00:14:51.520
1,455. The pie is so much bigger than people think it is. If you feel like you are the output of

211
00:14:51.520 --> 00:14:55.200
your life, get the end of your life, who you are is the thing that is the thing that you became.

212
00:14:55.200 --> 00:14:58.640
Then competition is good for you. Like, if you look back at that person, would you want that

213
00:14:58.640 --> 00:15:01.760
person to have no challenges? Like, if you were at the end of your life and you looked back,

214
00:15:01.760 --> 00:15:05.680
would you be like, I'm glad I overcame no adversity. I'm glad no one ever put me to the test.

215
00:15:05.680 --> 00:15:10.160
I'm glad I never got to see what I was truly capable of. I'm glad I never had to risk it all

216
00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:13.600
when the chips were down. You would never say that. We just don't like going through it in the

217
00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:16.800
short term, but we do want the outcome of it. If you just accept that that's the price tag

218
00:15:16.800 --> 00:15:18.800
for the person you want to be, then you just pay it willingly.

219
00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:45.200
My two simple lenses for friendship. Number one, do they generally root for you when you win?

220
00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:49.760
Number two, do they make you better? Finding people who do even one of those two things is rare.

221
00:15:49.760 --> 00:15:54.160
Both is even rare, which is why they get the highest title, a friend. One of the highest ROI

222
00:15:54.160 --> 00:15:59.040
traits in life that you can make is all the fake friends that you have for one real friend that

223
00:15:59.040 --> 00:16:03.520
has your back even when all seems lost. Bonus points if it's your spouse. The rear people in

224
00:16:03.520 --> 00:16:07.840
your life who root for you to hit your goals are more valuable than the goals themselves. Consider

225
00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:11.520
yourself lucky if you find even one human who believes in you more than you do and never let

226
00:16:11.520 --> 00:16:15.920
them go. When you start out, people are happy for you that you're doing something, but I,

227
00:16:15.920 --> 00:16:20.000
this is going to be really fucked up, but I actually think that people are happy that you quit

228
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:23.840
your job because it counts you out of the race because the likelihood that you win is so low.

229
00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:27.040
And so they're happy because you're actually taking a step back. You literally take a step back

230
00:16:27.040 --> 00:16:30.880
in income, take a step back in status because you're not doing as well. Like I went from a white

231
00:16:30.880 --> 00:16:34.720
collar job to being a personal trainer. Like it was a big step back. So any of my peer group

232
00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:38.720
were like, oh yeah, so good that you're doing that. If I had immediately jumped and started a

233
00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:42.400
tech startup and raised $100 million, they probably immediately wouldn't have been happy for me.

234
00:16:42.400 --> 00:16:45.440
I think the reason that you get that underdog rooting in the beginning is because you actually

235
00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:48.720
take a step down in status. And so they're relative standing actually increases, so they encourage

236
00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:52.480
you. But then as you come up, your success reminds them of the dreams that they didn't pursue

237
00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:57.760
to begin with. It also reminds them that you started with probably the same resources. And that's

238
00:16:57.760 --> 00:17:01.920
why it's so hard to go home for a lot of people because everyone who you grew up with in middle

239
00:17:01.920 --> 00:17:06.400
school and high school, you become a glaring example of what they could have done, but didn't.

240
00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:10.640
It's what you make them think about them. So astonishingly, more people know what they should do,

241
00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:14.960
than claim to know what they should do is usually a voice on some level acting as a hypothetical

242
00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:18.720
punishment. They haven't actually experienced yet. We're taking action that they haven't done yet.

243
00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:21.680
Because we fear this hypothetical punishment, we don't take the real action. A lot of people just

244
00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:25.120
stay stuck there. There was one specific voice that I was like really afraid of for selling gym

245
00:17:25.120 --> 00:17:28.560
launch because I thought 46 million wasn't enough that that person would be impressed. And then

246
00:17:28.560 --> 00:17:32.000
when I thought about it, I was like, this person is going to prevent me from doing like this person's

247
00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:35.520
opinion. I was like, what do I care? You can do his own life. What if he does sell his company for

248
00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:38.560
more money than me? Does that mean I sucked? No, it just means that like I decided to do something,

249
00:17:38.560 --> 00:17:41.600
he decided to do something. I'm only ascribing value to this person's opinion just because I know who

250
00:17:41.600 --> 00:17:45.440
they are. There's a hundred thousand times more people who I don't know. We're beating me. Then

251
00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:50.320
the ones that I do. So why would I listen to this one person? Unless someone is ahead of you,

252
00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:56.160
take their hate as envy and then disregard. Envy is when you want something that someone else has.

253
00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:00.160
Jealousy is when you fear losing something that you have. So if you've got your girl and some

254
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:05.280
guy comes up, you get jealous. If someone has a girl that you wish you had, you experience envy.

255
00:18:05.280 --> 00:18:08.240
So envy is about something you don't have. Jealousy about fear of losing something you do.

256
00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:11.760
If people are further behind you, then they're envious of you. If someone's ahead of you,

257
00:18:11.760 --> 00:18:15.680
then they're afraid that you're going to take what they have. Mind you, in either of those scenarios,

258
00:18:15.680 --> 00:18:21.360
it doesn't. I see hate as feedback. Nothing more, nothing less. And I think feedback is worth

259
00:18:21.360 --> 00:18:26.880
taking into consideration and what level of validity there is. So if someone says, hey, you copied

260
00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:30.800
my entire business and you've never met them, but you know that that's not true. I had this guy

261
00:18:30.800 --> 00:18:34.800
come up to me, saw me on the street randomly. He was like, hey man, I need to apologize to you for

262
00:18:34.800 --> 00:18:40.160
what? I've like really, really hated you for a long time. Why? He's like, because you stole the

263
00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:43.520
closer framework from me. And I was like, dude, I know the fuck you are. He was like, let's be

264
00:18:43.520 --> 00:18:47.360
honest. Like what's the likelihood that we both came up with the same acronym? And I was like,

265
00:18:47.360 --> 00:18:52.080
hi, do you take an acronym that's for a closer than you fit the words? I actually went back. I found

266
00:18:52.080 --> 00:18:55.680
my first document that had closer on it. And I screenshoted the date, and it was before he had

267
00:18:55.680 --> 00:18:59.440
started selling. He squashed it and I was like, you're copying me, motherfucker. I said it joking,

268
00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:03.120
because I'll give a shit. The hate's feedback. If I'm getting data from the environment, it's data.

269
00:19:03.120 --> 00:19:05.920
It's not good or bad. It just is. If everybody ahead of you is afraid that you're going to

270
00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:09.840
beat them, that's probably decent data. If everybody behind you is envious of where you're at,

271
00:19:09.840 --> 00:19:14.480
that's probably decent data to know. If people are all trying to sue you at the same time for

272
00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:18.320
something, then maybe there's something there that you shouldn't have done that you did. It's the

273
00:19:18.320 --> 00:19:22.000
second layer of judgment is the one that everyone gets in trouble with. This thing happened.

274
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.280
Now I'm going to describe meaning to it. What does the hate mean? I mean anything. It's just

275
00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:29.840
feedback. And then you take the data and do it everyone with it. Sadness comes from a lack of

276
00:19:29.840 --> 00:19:34.160
options, which is why it feels like hopelessness. Anxiety comes from many options, but a lack of

277
00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:38.880
priorities, which is why it feels like paralysis. Looking everywhere, but moving nowhere,

278
00:19:38.880 --> 00:19:44.160
solves sadness with knowledge and anxiety with a decision. Understanding this changed my life.

279
00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:46.720
Let's say somebody gets really depressed because they get laid off. Why are they sad? Because

280
00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:50.400
they have a perceived lack of options. If I have five job offers on my table, am I sad that I

281
00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:54.320
got laid off because my job offers are better than what I just left. No. Now if I had 100 options

282
00:19:54.320 --> 00:19:57.840
on the table, am I having anxiety? Because I have too many options that I don't know which one to do.

283
00:19:57.840 --> 00:20:00.640
It's a perceived lack of option. With sadness, you don't know it's due because you don't know

284
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:04.400
anything to do. With anxiety, you don't know which to do. Disappointment is when an expectation

285
00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:07.680
was on me. You need to change your expectations or change your reality. The stoic frame for that is

286
00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:10.560
that you imagine all the things that could have gone worse. There's a lot of frames, but that's one

287
00:20:10.560 --> 00:20:13.440
of them. The other one is that you imagine that that thing happens a thousand times in a row.

288
00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:17.040
What would you feel in a thousand time? Probably nothing. Why? Because you'd already adjusted your

289
00:20:17.040 --> 00:20:20.400
expectations. If you already adjusted your expectations, then you can adjust them. Buddhist monks

290
00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:24.080
fundamentally basically do that. They just change nothing externally and only change internally,

291
00:20:24.080 --> 00:20:27.680
which is fine, but to a certain degree, I want to benefit humanity. I don't know how beneficial

292
00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:31.760
that is. To be fair, me saying that I want to do that also creates an expectation of myself,

293
00:20:31.760 --> 00:20:36.080
which I could be let down for. I do create a possibility that I am let down by saying I want to help

294
00:20:36.080 --> 00:20:39.680
people. If I don't help them, then I would be disappointed. You can shoot big as long as you

295
00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:45.840
don't make missing mean that you suck. I think that being has been the best goal for me to pursue,

296
00:20:45.840 --> 00:20:49.120
because it's the one that's 100% under my control. If I have something that is disappointed that

297
00:20:49.120 --> 00:20:53.040
occurs, what type of risk do I want to be in this instance? And then what would that man do?

298
00:20:53.040 --> 00:20:56.960
And as closely as I can map my actual behavior to that person's more joy I'll experience,

299
00:20:56.960 --> 00:20:59.760
because I'm present in doing the things that I think I should be doing. And I can still give

300
00:20:59.760 --> 00:21:04.640
myself kudos for how well I handled a shitty situation and then end up driving joy from something

301
00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:08.160
that otherwise might have been bad. I remember seeing this quote once I was like, if you follow your

302
00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:11.360
own advice, you'd already be way further than you currently are. And I thought about that and I was

303
00:21:11.360 --> 00:21:14.800
like, yeah, I don't think I need to follow anyone else's advice. I think I should be doing the things

304
00:21:14.800 --> 00:21:18.400
I already know I should be doing. Then you just have like kind of the emotional component of feeling

305
00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:22.720
like you want to maybe release something or whatever. And me being able to talk to my future

306
00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:28.880
version of myself in a dialogue format allows me to get grace from a future version of self and

307
00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:33.040
also get approval from a future version of self. So somebody that I esteem higher than myself is

308
00:21:33.040 --> 00:21:36.800
future may, who's hopefully better and his judgment on my current situation and his advice.

309
00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:40.800
It tends to be really good advice. The best advice I've gotten has been from future may.

310
00:21:41.760 --> 00:21:46.800
No one's afraid of failing. They're afraid of what other people think of them when they fail.

311
00:21:46.800 --> 00:21:51.360
But if they're afraid of that, imagine what those other people think of you when you're not even

312
00:21:51.360 --> 00:21:55.600
trying. Well, the reality is they're not at all. If they don't have what you want, don't listen to

313
00:21:55.600 --> 00:22:00.080
what they say. Having what you want is a really easy evidence point. That's high likelihood.

314
00:22:00.080 --> 00:22:03.920
Basically, it decreases the risk of whatever advice they're providing. That's not a perfect

315
00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:08.320
frame because there are amazing Olympic coaches that never won the goal. The fastest way to move forward

316
00:22:08.320 --> 00:22:12.880
in life is listening to people who can give you advice that can get you there faster. So not having

317
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:17.840
to suffer and experience and waste all that time and back step to learn the lesson to move forward.

318
00:22:17.840 --> 00:22:21.120
And so the faster you can avoid those lessons and just keep moving forward, the faster you move.

319
00:22:21.120 --> 00:22:26.080
But the problem is we don't know who to trust. And so I have made seven levels of how I weigh

320
00:22:26.080 --> 00:22:30.560
advice that have served me well. But the lowest level, number seven, comments on social media,

321
00:22:30.560 --> 00:22:34.080
which is basically comments from strangers who don't know me and don't have what I want.

322
00:22:34.080 --> 00:22:39.280
Number six, people giving their two cents who do know me, but don't have what I want. Number five,

323
00:22:39.280 --> 00:22:43.600
someone who knows me and knows someone who went to where I'm trying to go. Number four,

324
00:22:43.600 --> 00:22:47.760
someone who's been there. Number three, someone who took someone else there. Number two,

325
00:22:47.760 --> 00:22:52.880
someone who took someone just like me to exactly where I want to go. And number one, someone who

326
00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:57.200
has been there, took someone else there just like me multiple times. Do I trust somebody who has

327
00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:01.120
taken someone else there because I am the someone else more than somebody's only taken themselves

328
00:23:01.120 --> 00:23:04.160
there because if someone's taken someone else there, then I could slide in and there's a likely

329
00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:07.680
they could do it again. If they've only taken themselves there and not taken anyone else there,

330
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:12.160
then they might not be a very good teacher, which happens all the time. Michael Jordan has an insane

331
00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:18.160
record playing basketball has a very poor record owning a basketball team. I'm big on give, give,

332
00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:21.920
give until they ask, right? And especially if you're starting out, the best thing to do is give away

333
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:26.320
stuff for free for multiple reasons. One, because you probably suck because you haven't done it yet.

334
00:23:26.320 --> 00:23:30.960
And it's a gift if someone allows you to work for them because you have a chance at providing value

335
00:23:30.960 --> 00:23:35.360
and from there, you can leverage that into testimonials, referrals, and potentially even a paying

336
00:23:35.360 --> 00:23:38.880
customer. They might, if you continue to provide this value for free, eventually say, hey, I've got

337
00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:43.440
too many people providing for free. I have too much demand on my time at price of free and I can go

338
00:23:43.440 --> 00:23:47.040
to 20% of the price that I want to go to. And if everyone says yes and you still have demand,

339
00:23:47.040 --> 00:23:51.040
then you go to 40% of the price and then 60 and then 100 and then 100 and then 500%, right? You keep going.

340
00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:55.520
But what happens is a lot of people will shortchange that. And so I get DMs every day of people saying,

341
00:23:55.520 --> 00:24:01.360
hey, I want to give you value in exchange for and it's just stop. Don't tell me what value you want

342
00:24:01.360 --> 00:24:07.040
to give me and what you want to trade that value for. And usually it's them actually massively undervaluing

343
00:24:07.040 --> 00:24:12.240
my time. As though them making it free to me is somehow more valuable than me paying for something.

344
00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:16.320
Like I have tons of money. I don't have tons of time. And so it's my much scarier resource.

345
00:24:16.320 --> 00:24:19.600
And this kid was like, yeah, I have a lot of advice that I think I can give you on social media.

346
00:24:19.600 --> 00:24:23.520
And I click over his profile. He's got 100 followers. And he said, I'll do it in exchange for

347
00:24:23.520 --> 00:24:28.240
a testimonial. And it was just like, it was so blind to reality. First off, you have no evidence

348
00:24:28.240 --> 00:24:32.960
that you're good. Second off, it's delusion. And so the way to do it right is to go above and beyond.

349
00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:38.320
Do a ton of work and then just give it to the person not in exchange for or an expectation of,

350
00:24:38.320 --> 00:24:41.520
but just give it to that person. And then guess what will happen? Nothing. Because most times,

351
00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:44.480
if someone's way ahead of you, they might not want it or might not need it. But you make your best

352
00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:47.920
approximate guess of what they might need. Do your best shot at it. There's probably three things

353
00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:51.360
that can happen. One, most likely, nothing happens. They don't respond to you. They don't care.

354
00:24:51.360 --> 00:24:55.520
The second option is that they see how hard you worked on something. And even though they don't

355
00:24:55.520 --> 00:24:59.600
need that thing, everyone, one level up needs people who work hard on things. And then you

356
00:24:59.600 --> 00:25:04.080
see, you still prove how hard you work by how good the thing that you give is. And so they might

357
00:25:04.080 --> 00:25:08.000
have an opportunity for you not even in the main thing, but on something else. And then the third

358
00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:11.920
and probably the least likely, but probably the one you want the most is that they say, wow,

359
00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:15.680
that's amazing. I would love for you to do that. Now to be fair, most of people, my team,

360
00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:20.480
came from doing that. You roll the dice and people roll the dice one time with their time and say,

361
00:25:20.480 --> 00:25:24.960
I did this work for this one guy. And he didn't immediately hire me and on retainer.

362
00:25:24.960 --> 00:25:28.400
But did you do it for a hundred people? If you give tremendous value to a hundred people,

363
00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:32.800
you'll be able to make more income than most jobs in America, simple, but by providing

364
00:25:32.800 --> 00:25:36.640
a tremendous amount of value to a hundred business owners, one of them or five of them,

365
00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:40.720
or respond back and say, yes, I would like more work from you. Or I can offer you a job.

366
00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:44.480
I was afraid to charge people money, but I did want them to like be invested. And so I started

367
00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:48.400
a nonprofit called the free training project where I said, if they donated $500, $2,000,

368
00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:51.600
the charity, their choice, I would train them for 12 weeks. That's how I got my first customers.

369
00:25:51.600 --> 00:25:55.440
But then after the 12 weeks, some of them were like, I still want to keep training with you. And I was

370
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:59.280
like, hey, I'm the charity now. I am poor, please help me. That's literally at the end of the 12

371
00:25:59.280 --> 00:26:01.840
weeks, I was like, I think I want to do this full time because I did it while I slept my job.

372
00:26:01.840 --> 00:26:05.200
And then I was like, I think I want to do this full time. I hope you guys are okay with this.

373
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:09.280
I like, if you could pay me instead, I just kind of like everyone dead. No one had any problems with it.
