WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.920 The best thing that I ever did was not listen to other people's opinions about my life. 2 00:00:04.920 --> 00:00:12.080 They don't want the best version of you, they want the version of you who best serves them. 3 00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:15.200 Welcome to the game where we talk about how to sell more stuff to more people in more ways 4 00:00:15.200 --> 00:00:16.960 and build businesses worth owning. 5 00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:19.600 I'm trying to build a billion dollar thing with acquisition.com. 6 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:23.040 I always wished pesos, musk and buffet had documented their journey, so I'm doing it 7 00:00:23.040 --> 00:00:24.040 for the rest of us. 8 00:00:24.040 --> 00:00:27.480 Please share and enjoy. 9 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:30.800 People obsessed with their morning routines make less money than people obsessed with 10 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:31.800 making money. 11 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:34.840 People work, sacrifice and then they get rich. 12 00:00:34.840 --> 00:00:37.080 Then they fill their time with weird routines. 13 00:00:37.080 --> 00:00:41.240 Then they forget how they got rich in the first place and then they tell other people 14 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:45.120 the weird routines made them rich rather than what they actually did, which is whatever 15 00:00:45.120 --> 00:00:48.320 it took, not some three hour morning routine. 16 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:53.960 There was a kid who DM me who said, hey, I've been working with this business coach and 17 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:56.160 he has me doing a morning routine. 18 00:00:56.160 --> 00:00:57.440 It could not make this up. 19 00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:03.120 After I do my grounded walking, I do my gratitude journal, I do my list for the day, I do 20 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:04.120 my ice plunge. 21 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:07.120 After I do that, he takes me about three hours in the morning to get all that done. 22 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:09.720 He's like, I barely have any energy to actually get work done. 23 00:01:09.720 --> 00:01:12.840 I just said, I'm going to give you the biggest hack in the world, cut the three hour morning 24 00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:15.880 routine, replacing the three hours work and I promise we'll get more done. 25 00:01:15.880 --> 00:01:18.480 He messaged me back a week later, he was like, dude, I changed my whole life. 26 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:19.480 I'm getting so much done now. 27 00:01:19.480 --> 00:01:21.040 I was like, what a fucking concept. 28 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:22.760 If you work more, more gets done. 29 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:23.760 I love just looking at this. 30 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:27.080 It's like, what actions do I have to take to get what I want? 31 00:01:27.080 --> 00:01:29.800 Something that is not that is a distraction from it, period. 32 00:01:29.800 --> 00:01:33.200 If it takes you five minutes to feel 20% better and you can actually measure that your 33 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:35.280 output goes up by 20%, then cool. 34 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:36.280 That makes sense. 35 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:38.440 I'm not against doing things. 36 00:01:38.440 --> 00:01:42.320 I'm against doing things for the sake of doing them. 37 00:01:42.320 --> 00:01:47.000 One of the biggest issues with learning and education as humans do it is that we make 38 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.080 correlations to things that are approximate. 39 00:01:49.080 --> 00:01:50.320 They're close to one another. 40 00:01:50.320 --> 00:01:51.320 Tall people play basketball. 41 00:01:51.320 --> 00:01:52.720 I should play basketball to get tall. 42 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:57.000 We make these very mistaken correlations, but we should look at is what it took to get 43 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:58.000 there. 44 00:01:58.000 --> 00:01:59.000 Not what they're doing now. 45 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:03.120 The better advice is to look at what someone was doing on their way up in the grind, mirror 46 00:02:03.120 --> 00:02:05.880 that more than what they're currently doing at the top of the mountain. 47 00:02:05.880 --> 00:02:08.760 It would be like assuming Warren Buffett is rich because he drinks coke. 48 00:02:08.760 --> 00:02:11.680 All you have to do also on the correlations are there other people who drink coke who 49 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:12.680 aren't rich. 50 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:15.120 I've had probably ten different podcasts. 51 00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:16.520 Seed the premise. 52 00:02:16.520 --> 00:02:21.600 You think that the fact that you had a hard childhood has created the success today. 53 00:02:21.600 --> 00:02:23.280 I would say no. 54 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:26.480 I would say the work that I did created the success. 55 00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:31.120 All we have to do is look at all the other people who had bad childhoods who aren't successful. 56 00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:34.400 I think there are way more of those than there are that are to prove that it actually has 57 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:36.160 nothing to do with who's successful. 58 00:02:36.160 --> 00:02:40.240 There's also people who didn't have bad childhoods who are successful too. 59 00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:43.160 It's just that many people have bad childhoods. 60 00:02:43.160 --> 00:02:45.040 Some of them become successful. 61 00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:47.480 That's why I'm trying to figure out why something happened. 62 00:02:47.480 --> 00:02:53.520 I have spent less and less of my effort trying to do that and only look at what actions 63 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:57.800 created the result rather than looking at intention or anything else that's amorphous 64 00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:00.520 that can't be measured. 65 00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:02.320 Thirty isn't the new 20. 66 00:03:02.320 --> 00:03:05.280 It's an excuse to take ten years longer to accomplish the same thing. 67 00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:09.040 You can die when you're done until then keep going. 68 00:03:09.040 --> 00:03:10.560 In your 20s, you're young. 69 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:11.560 You can fuck around. 70 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:13.160 It doesn't matter because life is long. 71 00:03:13.160 --> 00:03:15.880 Number one, that assumes that you're not going to die. 72 00:03:15.880 --> 00:03:18.640 If you're in your 30s, you know someone in your high school class who died. 73 00:03:18.640 --> 00:03:20.520 It's not just the drug overdose people. 74 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:23.760 It's the people who got shot, gotten a car accident, had a weird brain cancer. 75 00:03:23.760 --> 00:03:26.840 I've had all of those things happen to people that I went to high school with. 76 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:30.600 In one way, I think it's a little bit arrogant to assume that you're just going to live because 77 00:03:30.600 --> 00:03:31.960 it means you can waste your life. 78 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:33.520 I'm hardly standing against that. 79 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:39.400 The second translation around that I think has hurt a lot of people is that they can do 80 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:41.240 what I would consider dead end jobs. 81 00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:46.120 That means jobs that don't have any direct correlation to your personal growth has nothing 82 00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:47.120 to do with pay. 83 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:49.320 You can work for free and grow more than anyone else. 84 00:03:49.320 --> 00:03:53.440 This is not saying that you need to go into a season of earning in your 20s, but you do 85 00:03:53.440 --> 00:03:57.800 need to be setting yourself up for growth in my opinion if you want the big ultimate 86 00:03:57.800 --> 00:03:58.800 outcome. 87 00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:03.320 So most people that at least consume my stuff, they want to be better. 88 00:04:03.320 --> 00:04:04.320 They want to grow. 89 00:04:04.320 --> 00:04:05.320 They want to get a better shape. 90 00:04:05.320 --> 00:04:06.520 They want to have better relationships. 91 00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:07.600 They want to have a better business. 92 00:04:07.600 --> 00:04:09.000 They want to be bigger in every way. 93 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:10.040 They want to expand. 94 00:04:10.040 --> 00:04:16.120 If you spend the decade of your 20s, not growing and not investing in your skills and 95 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:19.520 your education, if you do that in your 30s, you're going to be further behind than somebody 96 00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:20.520 starts in their 20s. 97 00:04:20.520 --> 00:04:21.680 You're going to be a decade behind. 98 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:23.880 Nowadays, there's kids who are starting out at the entrepreneurial journey when they're 99 00:04:23.880 --> 00:04:24.880 like 13. 100 00:04:24.880 --> 00:04:27.120 So when they're 23, they're Mr. Beast. 101 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:31.440 He's young, but he's actually pretty old in business terms because a lot of people start 102 00:04:31.440 --> 00:04:33.120 their business journey in their mid 40s. 103 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:36.560 So if they're 50 years old and started their business five years ago, Mr. Beast says 104 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:40.360 twice the amount of time in the ring under the bar that they do. 105 00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:45.400 For me, I want to start my time clock on paying down my ignorance debt as fast as seemingly 106 00:04:45.400 --> 00:04:47.920 possible because the debt is a constant for everyone. 107 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:52.080 All of us are trying to pay down that debt as fast as we can and taking a decade, arguably 108 00:04:52.080 --> 00:04:55.960 one of the most productive decades of your life and not paying down that debt. 109 00:04:55.960 --> 00:04:59.320 You just sit in such a deficit compared to your peer group. 110 00:04:59.320 --> 00:05:02.800 Some people might watch this and be 30 or 40 or 50 and be like, well, shit, I took the 111 00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:04.320 wrong advice from the wrong guy. 112 00:05:04.320 --> 00:05:05.320 Guess what? 113 00:05:05.320 --> 00:05:06.320 You're going to die. 114 00:05:06.320 --> 00:05:07.320 Big deal. 115 00:05:07.320 --> 00:05:08.320 Whatever. 116 00:05:08.320 --> 00:05:11.400 The best time to do this was start when you were 10 and get born to an entrepreneurial 117 00:05:11.400 --> 00:05:15.000 parent who got you in their small business and invested in all of your education as a 118 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.520 homeschooled student and taught you all the ways of the Jedi. 119 00:05:19.520 --> 00:05:20.680 But you probably didn't have that. 120 00:05:20.680 --> 00:05:24.040 And so the second best time is to start now because let's play out the alternative. 121 00:05:24.040 --> 00:05:27.720 How much does it serve you to just say, I guess I have no chance? 122 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:28.720 Okay. 123 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:29.720 Die. 124 00:05:29.720 --> 00:05:31.400 There's nothing left for me to do. 125 00:05:31.400 --> 00:05:36.480 I will relinquish the remainder of my living days and years because I choose to lose. 126 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:37.480 And that's a choice. 127 00:05:37.480 --> 00:05:38.480 And if you want that, that's cool. 128 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:43.360 The idea of quitting simply because you're older because you didn't do something. 129 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:48.240 Everybody doesn't do things that they know they should be doing now. 130 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:51.440 And that's because you're always going to know more in the future than you do in the 131 00:05:51.440 --> 00:05:52.440 past. 132 00:05:52.440 --> 00:05:56.480 And so it's a faulty premise to say that I'm not going to take action today because 133 00:05:56.480 --> 00:05:58.840 I didn't know something in the past. 134 00:05:58.840 --> 00:06:00.160 Everyone doesn't know anything in the past. 135 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:02.720 But all you can do is take action with what you know today. 136 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:04.880 And by taking action, you have learned. 137 00:06:04.880 --> 00:06:09.040 And so you actually take one step to making your first payment on ignorance debt through 138 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:10.560 actions, not words. 139 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:13.520 I mean, I think a lot of people know the story of the 30 year old parista. 140 00:06:13.520 --> 00:06:15.320 If you love that, then do it. 141 00:06:15.320 --> 00:06:17.600 You're like, I have no judgment on what you do. 142 00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:21.520 If you don't love that and you wish you were doing something else, that's what I would 143 00:06:21.520 --> 00:06:24.480 say I have a problem with, which is why are you not doing it? 144 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:28.400 And I think diving into that, which is usually some sort of fear, some sort of anxiety, 145 00:06:28.400 --> 00:06:32.480 some sort of label that they believed that isn't true from someone else and just trying 146 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:34.960 to zone in on like, why am I not doing it? 147 00:06:34.960 --> 00:06:38.360 And taking two steps closer to it, not just like, because I don't know what I'm doing, 148 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:39.360 we'll duh. 149 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:40.360 Okay. 150 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:41.360 Neither does anyone. 151 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:42.360 What are you doing about that? 152 00:06:42.360 --> 00:06:44.360 Just defining it to what actions are I going to take as a result, just makes life a 153 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:45.360 lot easier. 154 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:46.360 What's figured out? 155 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:49.160 I mean, it means that I'm going to read two hours a night on a specific subject until 156 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:52.680 I feel like I can make a decision within 30 days on what I'm going to do. 157 00:06:52.680 --> 00:06:53.680 Great. 158 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:57.040 That is something I can do and I can measure whether I did it or not. 159 00:06:57.040 --> 00:06:59.400 You have seasons of earning and you have seasons of learning. 160 00:06:59.400 --> 00:07:03.280 I had this kid who reached out, he was 18 years old, said he was going to edit videos 161 00:07:03.280 --> 00:07:04.280 for us. 162 00:07:04.280 --> 00:07:10.800 When he came in, he said, I want $100,000 a year as an editor, as a starting job. 163 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:15.080 His reasoning was that somebody else had offered him that amount of money. 164 00:07:15.080 --> 00:07:18.400 I want to make this statement because I think it's logical and also stupid. 165 00:07:18.400 --> 00:07:22.960 If you're optimizing for your earning potential in your 20s, you're missing the fucking 166 00:07:22.960 --> 00:07:23.960 point. 167 00:07:23.960 --> 00:07:29.120 The individual had the potential to be on a team that has a massively globally recognized 168 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:34.720 brand in terms of media and from there learn how to be way better than they currently 169 00:07:34.720 --> 00:07:39.280 are and then become a creative director at another company or at one of my portfolio 170 00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:40.280 companies. 171 00:07:40.280 --> 00:07:43.880 That is the career path and instead was comparing that to something that you would make 172 00:07:43.880 --> 00:07:48.640 $100,000 a year and be the only person in the department and no one there knew anything 173 00:07:48.640 --> 00:07:49.840 about media. 174 00:07:49.840 --> 00:07:51.880 He wasn't going to learn. 175 00:07:51.880 --> 00:07:53.200 He was going to earn. 176 00:07:53.200 --> 00:07:58.840 Whereas somebody who got into the big leagues and learned 10 times the skill set, then 10 177 00:07:58.840 --> 00:08:03.360 years later is either starting a multimillion dollar company or hitting up a multimillion 178 00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:06.320 dollar division in a billion dollar company. 179 00:08:06.320 --> 00:08:09.600 The potential is so much wider because 10 years from now someone says, what's your experience? 180 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:14.040 He's like, well, I worked at a real estate firm and I made their social media content. 181 00:08:14.040 --> 00:08:15.040 Who gives a shit? 182 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:18.080 Whereas if you're like, I work for one of the biggest media companies out there, everyone 183 00:08:18.080 --> 00:08:22.400 will give you the job offer and that is when you can choose to earn over a learn. 184 00:08:22.400 --> 00:08:26.160 But people make the trade too soon because they compare themselves to people on social 185 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:31.080 media and think that the 0.001% is the norm. 186 00:08:31.080 --> 00:08:34.840 Whenever you choose to earn rather than learn, you're right hooking life and saying, I'm 187 00:08:34.840 --> 00:08:36.920 no longer going to develop and this is good enough. 188 00:08:36.920 --> 00:08:40.400 So if $100,000 a year is actually good enough for your long term goals, then do it. 189 00:08:40.400 --> 00:08:43.880 But I would imagine that it probably isn't for what you really want to do long term. 190 00:08:43.880 --> 00:08:47.200 And I'm using 100, you know, six figures as a placeholder, it can be whatever number 191 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:48.200 you want. 192 00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:50.200 When you make that decision that you're no longer going to learn, that's when you stop 193 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:51.920 growing your potential to learn more. 194 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:53.800 I say this because that's what I did. 195 00:08:53.800 --> 00:08:58.440 I had a white collar consulting job for defense contracting at a top-secret clearance. 196 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:01.280 I had everything that looked good on paper, a space-hyper intelligence. 197 00:09:01.280 --> 00:09:05.400 I had a two to three-year path clearly for getting an MBA at an Ivy League school and 198 00:09:05.400 --> 00:09:10.560 then decided to drop all of that and start working for $13 an hour at a gym after I graduated 199 00:09:10.560 --> 00:09:12.760 Magic and Loddy in three years from Vanderbilt. 200 00:09:12.760 --> 00:09:16.680 I know what I'm asking people to do and I'm not asking them to do something that I wasn't 201 00:09:16.680 --> 00:09:17.680 willing to do. 202 00:09:17.680 --> 00:09:20.200 And I think that I might have even a more extreme version that most people are having 203 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:21.200 to live with. 204 00:09:21.280 --> 00:09:26.640 Well, I can't figure out what I want is a really paralyzing place to be that I think a lot 205 00:09:26.640 --> 00:09:27.640 of young people are in. 206 00:09:27.640 --> 00:09:32.400 It's like I want to find my passion, but the big misnomer is actually a language issue, 207 00:09:32.400 --> 00:09:34.800 which is that people say they want to find their passion rather than they want to build 208 00:09:34.800 --> 00:09:36.520 it or create it or learn it. 209 00:09:36.520 --> 00:09:39.120 And so like I can promise you that if you're good at something, you'll like doing it. 210 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:41.640 And the only way that you get good at something is by doing things that you suck at and doing 211 00:09:41.640 --> 00:09:43.840 a lot of it. 212 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:46.040 So let's say you make $50,000 a year. 213 00:09:46.040 --> 00:09:51.480 It costs you $950,000 a year, not to know how to make a million dollars a year. 214 00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:54.000 So how much is that education worth? 215 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:55.640 Answer the difference. 216 00:09:55.640 --> 00:10:00.680 The difference between $1 million and $50,000, which is $950 grand. 217 00:10:00.680 --> 00:10:04.680 If you learn how to make a million dollars, the education is worth the difference. 218 00:10:04.680 --> 00:10:09.080 This is why education and information are the most viable things that we can know. 219 00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:12.400 Elon has like lost everything and then gained it back. 220 00:10:12.400 --> 00:10:14.840 So many of the best entrepreneurs have stories where they lost it all and then gained 221 00:10:14.840 --> 00:10:15.840 it back. 222 00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:19.240 So how is it that they can go to zero back to a billion where somebody starting at zero 223 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:21.960 can't get there because they didn't lose the education. 224 00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:23.200 They didn't lose the learning. 225 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:28.000 They had a bad role and sometimes in business you do make bets on markets and sometimes 226 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:32.520 they don't shape up, but you didn't lose and a lot of times you actually gain in experience 227 00:10:32.520 --> 00:10:35.280 so that the next bet pays off even bigger. 228 00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:36.280 Everyone gets this wrong. 229 00:10:36.280 --> 00:10:39.960 The most expensive thing you ever pay for isn't your car. 230 00:10:39.960 --> 00:10:40.960 It isn't your house. 231 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:42.320 It isn't your insurance. 232 00:10:42.320 --> 00:10:44.520 It's the information that you don't know but should. 233 00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:48.640 I mean, how many things can you think of right now that if you knew 10 years ago would 234 00:10:48.640 --> 00:10:53.640 have materially changed your financial outcome, your relational outcome, your physical outcomes? 235 00:10:53.640 --> 00:10:54.640 Probably a lot. 236 00:10:54.640 --> 00:10:56.400 What is the value of that information? 237 00:10:56.400 --> 00:10:57.560 Borderline priceless. 238 00:10:57.560 --> 00:11:01.600 And so the idea that we wouldn't invest in paying down that debt of ignorance that we 239 00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:06.200 owe the universe is just because we don't know who we're paying the check to every month 240 00:11:06.200 --> 00:11:09.960 for the things that we don't know that we don't value it appropriately. 241 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:14.040 The cost of success is the years of feeling like an idiot for things that you should have 242 00:11:14.040 --> 00:11:15.040 known by now. 243 00:11:15.040 --> 00:11:18.200 All the decisions that I made up to this point led me to here and I don't regret my 244 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:19.720 life, so I don't regret not knowing. 245 00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:22.760 I mean, if I started over, I'd be wealthier than I am now. 246 00:11:22.760 --> 00:11:24.720 You know what I mean? 247 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:28.560 I can't go back in time, but if I could go back in time to talk to my 20 year old self 248 00:11:28.560 --> 00:11:31.920 and it wouldn't change the outcome of my life now because I would never roll that dice. 249 00:11:31.920 --> 00:11:34.680 As I would say, there's two things that you don't understand that will massively change 250 00:11:34.680 --> 00:11:35.680 your life. 251 00:11:35.680 --> 00:11:39.440 You don't understand brand and you don't understand product because I was obsessive 252 00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:44.480 in my 20s on sales and marketing and what I would consider fast money. 253 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:48.080 I had fast feedback loops, so I would get better at sales and then I'd immediately make 254 00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:49.080 more sales. 255 00:11:49.080 --> 00:11:50.240 I'd get better marketing, immediately make more money. 256 00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:54.000 And so I had this very fast feedback loop that gave me the misinformation or the false 257 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:58.880 belief that this was the right path, but I was actually just playing the wrong game 258 00:11:58.880 --> 00:12:03.480 because it's kind of like in the matrix when Neo says to Morpheus, so you're saying 259 00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:06.840 when I'm fast enough, I'll be able to dodge bullets and he said, no, I'm saying when 260 00:12:06.840 --> 00:12:08.480 you're ready, you won't have to. 261 00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:13.120 Any being obsessive about sales and marketing was me trying to get faster and faster in 262 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:18.160 the matrix and not being the one and seeing the code for what it is, which is that if you 263 00:12:18.160 --> 00:12:22.960 make a product that's good enough, people will do the marketing and sales for you. 264 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:26.800 If you're brand is strong enough, people will make the association that they want to buy 265 00:12:26.800 --> 00:12:31.040 your stuff regardless of how good your copy and your headline and your landing pages 266 00:12:31.040 --> 00:12:34.040 and your conversion and optimization and your media buying are. 267 00:12:34.040 --> 00:12:38.040 I kept getting really good at a game that if I knew how to master the big things that 268 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:40.680 matter would make those skills almost irrelevant. 269 00:12:40.680 --> 00:12:44.160 When $100 million offers came out the book, I didn't make it for anything. 270 00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:47.240 I made it for me and it was originally intended to be an internal document and so I just 271 00:12:47.240 --> 00:12:51.360 wanted to make it exceptional and what happened once I released it is what shocked me the 272 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:55.200 most was that I posted once and I just said, hey, I wrote this book, hope you guys like 273 00:12:55.200 --> 00:12:56.200 it. 274 00:12:56.200 --> 00:12:58.000 And then we sold out in minutes and I was like, that's weird. 275 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:01.680 The next month, more copy sold and then the next month more copy sold and then the next 276 00:13:01.680 --> 00:13:04.720 month more copy sold and it's continued to some more copies month after month after month 277 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:05.720 for two years. 278 00:13:05.720 --> 00:13:10.440 And it's still number one in its category on Amazon and that was with zero paid marketing 279 00:13:10.440 --> 00:13:13.640 purely off of people telling people about the book. 280 00:13:13.640 --> 00:13:19.040 And so when I saw how much leverage that was that that book sells thousands a day, not 281 00:13:19.040 --> 00:13:21.040 dollars, thousands of copies a day. 282 00:13:21.040 --> 00:13:26.280 I have never marketed anything well enough to sell a thousand customers a day. 283 00:13:26.280 --> 00:13:29.180 Now mind you, I've always had more expensive stuff that I've sold, but like I had never 284 00:13:29.180 --> 00:13:32.360 seen that kind of transaction volume and the only way to get that kind of transaction 285 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:34.120 volume is to have a huge amount of leverage. 286 00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:38.200 The leverage that product unlocked for me or that understanding was that if you make it 287 00:13:38.200 --> 00:13:41.560 good enough and I love this saying, which is there's too big to fail and I love the 288 00:13:41.560 --> 00:13:46.200 other one which is too good to fail. 289 00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:50.160 Most of the nation real quick, if you are a business owner that has a big old business 290 00:13:50.160 --> 00:13:54.760 and wants to get to a much bigger business, going to $50 million plus we would love to 291 00:13:54.760 --> 00:13:55.760 talk to you. 292 00:13:55.760 --> 00:13:59.240 And if you like that, we would like to hear more about it go to acquisition.com and you 293 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:06.080 plan it on the page and talk to one of our team and see if we can help you get there. 294 00:14:06.080 --> 00:14:09.240 My headline for $100 million offers makes no sense. 295 00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:12.520 No one knows that $100 million offers is and it's just like a picture of $100 bill. 296 00:14:12.520 --> 00:14:13.520 It's a big purple book. 297 00:14:13.520 --> 00:14:14.640 Like it actually makes no sense. 298 00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:19.320 But the contents of the book were valuable enough that people were like just read it. 299 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:23.480 And they said it so many times, so many people and most people who when I see the comments 300 00:14:23.480 --> 00:14:28.160 and I see the reviews, they say, I had four different people in the same month tell me. 301 00:14:28.160 --> 00:14:31.280 And different groups that I should read this book, so I decided to do it even though 302 00:14:31.280 --> 00:14:32.280 it looked hokey. 303 00:14:32.280 --> 00:14:33.840 And oh my god, this thing is unbelievable. 304 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:36.360 And then they tell 20 people or 100 people. 305 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:40.240 That was when I realized how much leverage spending more time up front on building a better 306 00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:42.360 product would unlock for me. 307 00:14:42.360 --> 00:14:47.200 What I used to do was spend two months building a good product and spent two years marketing 308 00:14:47.200 --> 00:14:52.200 that product with great marketing rather than spending two years on a great product. 309 00:14:52.200 --> 00:14:56.040 And then for the rest of my life, not having to spend any dollars or effort on marketing 310 00:14:56.040 --> 00:15:00.720 so that it would sell again and again and again because of the quality of the product 311 00:15:00.720 --> 00:15:01.720 itself. 312 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:06.560 And so that was the first lesson that my own yourself needed to understand about business. 313 00:15:06.560 --> 00:15:10.920 And the level of detail that it takes to go from good to great is so much wider than 314 00:15:10.920 --> 00:15:11.920 people think it is. 315 00:15:11.920 --> 00:15:14.320 The difference between an eight and a nine is 10 times the work. 316 00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:16.600 The difference between nine and nine and a half is 10 times the work. 317 00:15:16.600 --> 00:15:19.840 The difference between nine and a half and 9.75 is another 10 times the work. 318 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:20.840 It's so much more effort. 319 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:23.760 And honestly, when I was younger, I couldn't even comprehend the amount of work that I can 320 00:15:23.760 --> 00:15:24.760 do now. 321 00:15:24.760 --> 00:15:28.680 I think that amount of work is the amount of unbroken, focused time that I can stick 322 00:15:28.680 --> 00:15:29.680 with one task. 323 00:15:29.680 --> 00:15:31.080 I did not have that level of focus. 324 00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:32.680 I didn't have a strong enough no muscle. 325 00:15:32.680 --> 00:15:36.240 I didn't know how to turn down other things that would distract me for long enough. 326 00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:39.480 If you can count in terms of hundreds, like I can promise you, if you put a thousand 327 00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:42.680 hours into something, it'll probably be pretty good. 328 00:15:42.680 --> 00:15:46.360 And most people spend like a hundred hours on something or I mean, that's shit. 329 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:47.800 Most people spend even less time in that. 330 00:15:47.800 --> 00:15:48.800 You start a clock. 331 00:15:48.800 --> 00:15:49.800 When you start working, you stop a clock. 332 00:15:49.800 --> 00:15:53.360 When you stop working, you spend a thousand hours or two thousand hours on something. 333 00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:57.320 There's a level of detail because of the number of exposures you'll get to it, the crispy 334 00:15:57.320 --> 00:16:02.800 details of the product or the service that can only come from looking at that thing when 335 00:16:02.800 --> 00:16:06.240 it's cold, looking at thing when it's hot, looking at it when you're angry, looking at 336 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:09.200 it when you're sad, looking at it when you're inspired, looking at it when you're bored, 337 00:16:09.200 --> 00:16:10.600 you see it with different lenses. 338 00:16:10.600 --> 00:16:14.280 And then what happens is it just gives you so much more depth and context to whatever 339 00:16:14.280 --> 00:16:18.600 you're trying to build that that's the difference between mediocre products and excellent products. 340 00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:19.600 And it just takes time. 341 00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:25.640 Ocean of volume, which there's more commoditized products and services today than ever before. 342 00:16:25.640 --> 00:16:28.080 There's outsize returns to being number one. 343 00:16:28.080 --> 00:16:33.240 It is an even bigger winner take all market now than ever has been because of social media 344 00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:35.560 and the ease of letting other people know about stuff. 345 00:16:35.560 --> 00:16:37.960 If you are truly the best, everyone will know. 346 00:16:37.960 --> 00:16:40.560 And if everyone knows you are the best, you will have more demand than you can possibly 347 00:16:40.560 --> 00:16:41.560 deal with. 348 00:16:41.560 --> 00:16:44.640 People think that word of mouth is dead when there's literally never been an easier way 349 00:16:44.640 --> 00:16:49.920 to go viral in a literal sense from people telling other people about stuff. 350 00:16:49.920 --> 00:16:51.520 I said the second lesson was brand. 351 00:16:51.520 --> 00:16:57.720 And so I had to look at a company or brand as a learning tool. 352 00:16:57.720 --> 00:17:02.840 As what are people going to learn to associate my brand with the tangible and the intangible 353 00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:03.840 ideas? 354 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:08.080 There are many people that I associated with when I was younger that I would never associate 355 00:17:08.080 --> 00:17:09.080 with today. 356 00:17:09.080 --> 00:17:10.720 Even though I would say, well, I don't act that way. 357 00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:13.200 I don't live my life the way they live their lives. 358 00:17:13.200 --> 00:17:14.880 People would still make that association. 359 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:18.200 If I did nothing but talk with porn stars on my show, people would still make a very 360 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:19.840 different association with me. 361 00:17:19.840 --> 00:17:26.840 And so I want to embody certain values that I want my brand to associate with. 362 00:17:26.840 --> 00:17:32.680 And anything that is not those things by default tracks from it because it dilutes the association. 363 00:17:32.680 --> 00:17:34.720 Branding is like creating a garden. 364 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:38.560 We're pretty much anything but the flower that you're trying to grow there is a weed. 365 00:17:38.560 --> 00:17:42.040 Even if it's a daffodil, even if it's a sunflower, even if the flower itself is fine. 366 00:17:42.040 --> 00:17:43.320 Like I said, I have no issues with porn. 367 00:17:43.320 --> 00:17:44.680 I think it's a sunflower or whatever. 368 00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:48.560 But if I'm trying to grow roses, then anything that's not a rose doesn't belong. 369 00:17:48.560 --> 00:17:54.560 Being so vigilant about defending that garden of association and reputation gives you 370 00:17:54.560 --> 00:17:57.960 so much leverage because the reason Warren Buffett now can just do deals that no one else 371 00:17:57.960 --> 00:18:01.720 can do is because his handshake means more than the US governments. 372 00:18:01.720 --> 00:18:04.480 If he says he will pay, we know he will pay. 373 00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:08.440 If he says he will be there to ensure your entire city, we know he will. 374 00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:13.400 He can do a deal on a one page agreement for billions of dollars because people trust 375 00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:16.280 and they know that his reputation matters more than anything now. 376 00:18:16.280 --> 00:18:18.720 And so trust is leverage for deals. 377 00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:20.240 It's leverage for sales. 378 00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:25.360 The first experience I had with having a strong brand was when we were probably a year 379 00:18:25.360 --> 00:18:29.760 and a half into gym lunch, I launched what would become Alan my software project. 380 00:18:29.760 --> 00:18:34.580 And when people heard I had launched a new thing, the clients that I had were sending 381 00:18:34.580 --> 00:18:39.260 screenshots of their credit cards to my customer support team saying, I don't know what it 382 00:18:39.260 --> 00:18:41.380 was, but if Alex made it, I'll buy it. 383 00:18:41.380 --> 00:18:45.500 And so all of the ideas in the obsessions around how it was going to market it and how 384 00:18:45.500 --> 00:18:49.960 it's going to position it, the thing that mattered most was what they had already received 385 00:18:49.960 --> 00:18:53.300 for me and how much I delivered on my first promise. 386 00:18:53.300 --> 00:18:56.980 And so when I realized that I was like, all of the sales and marketing stuff gets you 387 00:18:56.980 --> 00:19:01.900 one sale delivering exceptional product and exceptional reputation around your products 388 00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:04.140 gets you every other sale after that. 389 00:19:04.140 --> 00:19:08.020 And you can always be able to sell the next thing provided you delivered on the first 390 00:19:08.020 --> 00:19:09.020 day. 391 00:19:09.020 --> 00:19:11.260 And that's where there's the obsession with marketing because there's always more people 392 00:19:11.260 --> 00:19:12.260 to sell to. 393 00:19:12.260 --> 00:19:15.180 It's a very, in my opinion, tiring life. 394 00:19:15.180 --> 00:19:16.900 You always have to go get new customers. 395 00:19:16.900 --> 00:19:22.220 If you make sales to get customers, rather than get customers to make sales, you make 396 00:19:22.220 --> 00:19:25.700 the customer the goal and then you get to keep that relationship. 397 00:19:25.700 --> 00:19:27.700 And then next year you still have that customer. 398 00:19:27.700 --> 00:19:30.700 If you've got a customer just to make a sale, you have to go get another customer to make 399 00:19:30.700 --> 00:19:32.060 another sale next year. 400 00:19:32.060 --> 00:19:35.780 But if you make a sale to create the relationship of the customer, then next year that customer 401 00:19:35.780 --> 00:19:38.140 will buy again and the new customer will buy. 402 00:19:38.140 --> 00:19:41.300 And the third you get the first two years and the third customer. 403 00:19:41.300 --> 00:19:43.300 And then that's how you create a compounding vehicle. 404 00:19:43.300 --> 00:19:48.140 And so both of those things brand and product are actually underlying one concept now that 405 00:19:48.140 --> 00:19:51.260 I'm saying it out loud, which is I didn't understand compounding. 406 00:19:51.260 --> 00:19:56.260 I thought that it was normal to have to go out, bang doors, call phones, DM, run ads to 407 00:19:56.260 --> 00:19:57.900 get customers every single month. 408 00:19:57.900 --> 00:20:01.620 And that next month I'm going to have to get another 20 just to keep the lights on rather 409 00:20:01.620 --> 00:20:06.640 than having spent more time on my reputation and the quality of my product so that when 410 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:09.460 I sold the first 100, they would never leave again. 411 00:20:09.460 --> 00:20:12.460 And then they would send me the next 100 and I wouldn't have to do anything. 412 00:20:12.460 --> 00:20:15.220 And then I would be able to fend people off and then I'd be able to raise my prices 413 00:20:15.220 --> 00:20:17.380 and be able to take people on my terms. 414 00:20:17.380 --> 00:20:18.700 But I didn't understand any of that. 415 00:20:18.700 --> 00:20:22.540 And part of that is because I wanted money so fast and building a great product takes 416 00:20:22.540 --> 00:20:26.580 longer, building a great reputation literally never stops until the day you die. 417 00:20:26.580 --> 00:20:31.120 Being into that lesson, you know, the first book I launched and I think it did two or 418 00:20:31.120 --> 00:20:34.920 4,000 copies sold its first month, something like that, you know, the second book that 419 00:20:34.920 --> 00:20:39.500 launched two years later sold 250,000 copies in its first month, which for context, the 420 00:20:39.500 --> 00:20:43.420 average New York Times best seller sell between 10 and 100,000 in its first 12 months. 421 00:20:43.420 --> 00:20:45.660 And we sold 250 in the first month. 422 00:20:45.660 --> 00:20:49.020 The only way that that could happen is if the people who bought the first book buy the 423 00:20:49.020 --> 00:20:52.660 second book and everybody they tell also buy. 424 00:20:52.660 --> 00:20:57.780 And that book still continues to sell at twice the rate of my first book today. 425 00:20:57.780 --> 00:21:00.540 Here's how to spot friends that are worth cutting. 426 00:21:00.540 --> 00:21:03.620 They only talk about your past, not your future. 427 00:21:03.620 --> 00:21:06.740 So if you go and you hang out with your buddies and all they can really reminisce with you 428 00:21:06.740 --> 00:21:10.140 on is the things that you did together, but none of them are talking about what they're 429 00:21:10.140 --> 00:21:12.020 going to do or what you're going to do. 430 00:21:12.020 --> 00:21:14.500 For me, that's a telltale sign that they're living in the past. 431 00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:15.860 They're not even living in the present. 432 00:21:15.860 --> 00:21:17.460 Their best years are behind them. 433 00:21:17.460 --> 00:21:19.860 And for most of us, we want our best years to be ahead of us. 434 00:21:19.860 --> 00:21:22.940 And we want somebody who's also looking at the same goal as us, which is growth, which 435 00:21:22.940 --> 00:21:25.260 is moving forward, which is making progress. 436 00:21:25.260 --> 00:21:29.500 If you are growth oriented individual and you feel like you're not sure about your environment 437 00:21:29.500 --> 00:21:35.380 or for it's conducive, the easiest limit test is who talks about the future and who talks 438 00:21:35.380 --> 00:21:36.380 about the past. 439 00:21:36.380 --> 00:21:37.900 Keep the ones who you're only talking about the future. 440 00:21:37.900 --> 00:21:39.340 Cut the ones talking about the best. 441 00:21:39.340 --> 00:21:44.180 The best thing that I ever did was not listen to other people's opinions about my life. 442 00:21:44.180 --> 00:21:45.820 They don't want the best version of you. 443 00:21:45.820 --> 00:21:48.180 They want the version of you who best serves them. 444 00:21:48.180 --> 00:21:52.420 Now when I first said this, I got flack from a bunch of parents. 445 00:21:52.420 --> 00:21:54.620 They're like, I really want the best for my kids. 446 00:21:54.620 --> 00:21:56.980 I was like, that's not true. 447 00:21:56.980 --> 00:22:03.660 You want a version of your children who serves what you think will make you look the best. 448 00:22:03.660 --> 00:22:08.300 Family I would say more often than not has a closer alignment with your long-term goals 449 00:22:08.300 --> 00:22:09.660 than strangers do. 450 00:22:09.660 --> 00:22:13.700 And so it makes sense that family would have more aligned interests, but not completely 451 00:22:13.700 --> 00:22:15.260 aligned interests with you. 452 00:22:15.260 --> 00:22:17.980 Because the only person who has a completely aligned interest with you is future you. 453 00:22:18.100 --> 00:22:21.380 Keeping that as the limit test of who's opinion I'm going to listen to, although it's 454 00:22:21.380 --> 00:22:24.420 more difficult, has ultimately been very fruitful for me. 455 00:22:24.420 --> 00:22:28.420 Because if you're looking at even two parents, you can just prove that concept by saying, 456 00:22:28.420 --> 00:22:30.740 okay, well, both parents want different things for me. 457 00:22:30.740 --> 00:22:34.820 Of the things that both parents want, which of the things help each of the parents individually 458 00:22:34.820 --> 00:22:35.820 out? 459 00:22:35.820 --> 00:22:38.060 Because I can promise you that the thing that one parent wants doesn't hurt them and 460 00:22:38.060 --> 00:22:40.140 help the other parent if they disagree. 461 00:22:40.140 --> 00:22:43.340 It's usually something that's more aligned with their worldview, their beliefs, or what 462 00:22:43.340 --> 00:22:46.500 they will get status from in their community for you doing. 463 00:22:46.500 --> 00:22:49.780 And so all of the things I just described have nothing to do with you. 464 00:22:49.780 --> 00:22:51.060 So why consider it? 465 00:22:51.060 --> 00:22:52.060 I'll say this up front. 466 00:22:52.060 --> 00:22:54.060 I hate why questions because who knows why. 467 00:22:54.060 --> 00:22:58.620 But I would say that if I had to make a guess on why we care about other people's opinions, 468 00:22:58.620 --> 00:23:01.220 it's because we've learned to care about other people's opinions. 469 00:23:01.220 --> 00:23:05.120 And when we're children, we learn to orient ourselves to the world through other people 470 00:23:05.120 --> 00:23:06.780 telling us what is what. 471 00:23:06.780 --> 00:23:10.340 Literally, when you're a kid, you point and then you say, well, that's that. 472 00:23:10.340 --> 00:23:12.220 And then they say this. 473 00:23:12.220 --> 00:23:15.380 And so you have to listen to other people on the way up. 474 00:23:15.380 --> 00:23:18.460 The problem is at some point you have to turn it off and say, you know, some of the people 475 00:23:18.460 --> 00:23:21.300 I was listening to had no idea what they were saying, but you don't know they have no 476 00:23:21.300 --> 00:23:23.180 idea because you don't have a context to make a judgment. 477 00:23:23.180 --> 00:23:26.580 You have to learn to become human and then you have to learn to become yourself. 478 00:23:26.580 --> 00:23:29.940 And I think that at that turning point, you then have to analyze the beliefs that you've 479 00:23:29.940 --> 00:23:33.580 been given and then keep the ones that you choose. 480 00:23:33.580 --> 00:23:38.020 Most parents are risk averse rather than risk taking for their children. 481 00:23:38.020 --> 00:23:40.940 So like we're willing to take more risk for ourselves, oftentimes that our parents are 482 00:23:40.940 --> 00:23:41.940 willing to take on our behalf. 483 00:23:41.940 --> 00:23:43.580 And I think that's normally what I like to keep you alive. 484 00:23:43.580 --> 00:23:45.140 There's a lot of evolutionary drive behind that. 485 00:23:45.220 --> 00:23:48.140 And so they're playing not to lose, but if you want to play to win and you have to take 486 00:23:48.140 --> 00:23:51.260 different bets, I think a lot of younger people get really confused because they spend 487 00:23:51.260 --> 00:23:55.820 a lot of time talking about ideas and very little talking about doing actions. 488 00:23:55.820 --> 00:24:00.420 And so if you just define the world by only things that occur in it and not things that 489 00:24:00.420 --> 00:24:05.060 occur in your mind, there's a lot less noise and so becomes easier to see the forest 490 00:24:05.060 --> 00:24:06.060 retreats. 491 00:24:06.060 --> 00:24:09.020 Let's say I have an employee and I want to hop on a one-on-one and they said something 492 00:24:09.020 --> 00:24:13.180 in a meeting before and I say, I think the intention behind your statement was that you 493 00:24:13.180 --> 00:24:14.700 wanted me to do this. 494 00:24:14.700 --> 00:24:19.740 And this is how I was feeling about your statement and this is probably where you were feeling everything 495 00:24:19.740 --> 00:24:23.620 I just said is a complete waste of time because all I know is that they said this and so 496 00:24:23.620 --> 00:24:28.340 just focus on the facts and if you can do that, it actually makes living life a lot easier 497 00:24:28.340 --> 00:24:32.660 or navigating life a lot easier at least it has for me because those are the only objective 498 00:24:32.660 --> 00:24:33.660 truths. 499 00:24:33.660 --> 00:24:38.340 An easy frame for that is like, would it be admitted to a court as evidence? 500 00:24:38.340 --> 00:24:40.140 You saying you were offended is not evidence? 501 00:24:40.140 --> 00:24:44.020 John said this to Sally, these words, that's evidence, indisputable. 502 00:24:44.020 --> 00:24:47.220 And so just look at the things that are beyond repro, look at the things that are indisputable, 503 00:24:47.220 --> 00:24:50.580 look at the things that are facts that are observable and the world gets a lot quieter 504 00:24:50.580 --> 00:24:53.540 and you also realize that most people are foolish yet and don't know what they're talking 505 00:24:53.540 --> 00:24:54.540 about. 506 00:24:54.540 --> 00:24:57.060 I mean, if someone was like, hey Alex, why did you get into business? 507 00:24:57.060 --> 00:25:00.140 I could make up an answer, it just, how do we know it's true? 508 00:25:00.140 --> 00:25:02.380 Trying to figure out someone's intention is bullshit. 509 00:25:02.380 --> 00:25:05.300 If someone asks me, why did you get into business? 510 00:25:05.300 --> 00:25:07.580 I could make up an answer, anyone could make up an answer. 511 00:25:07.580 --> 00:25:09.260 Why do you like, make you money? 512 00:25:09.260 --> 00:25:10.260 Why do you like sales? 513 00:25:10.260 --> 00:25:11.260 Why do you like marketing? 514 00:25:11.260 --> 00:25:12.260 Why are you good at this? 515 00:25:12.260 --> 00:25:13.260 I could make up any answer. 516 00:25:13.260 --> 00:25:16.100 All I know is that these things have occurred. 517 00:25:16.100 --> 00:25:20.860 And so we can look at my actions and we can look at the results, the rest of it of which 518 00:25:20.860 --> 00:25:21.860 had what influence? 519 00:25:21.860 --> 00:25:24.500 I'm not like, I can't relive my life and I can't run the experiment. 520 00:25:24.500 --> 00:25:27.260 And so trying to determine why, like was it because my mom didn't hug me? 521 00:25:27.260 --> 00:25:28.620 Was it because my dad hugged me too hard? 522 00:25:28.620 --> 00:25:29.620 Who knows? 523 00:25:29.620 --> 00:25:32.820 I can give anyone and someone will not say great because we trained ourselves to say to 524 00:25:32.820 --> 00:25:34.300 answer when someone says, why do you do that? 525 00:25:34.300 --> 00:25:36.540 You give them words and they not and say, oh, that's interesting. 526 00:25:36.540 --> 00:25:38.140 But like, it doesn't mean it's true. 527 00:25:38.140 --> 00:25:41.980 And so I just try and skirt the whole conversation because there's no point. 528 00:25:41.980 --> 00:25:45.620 So when someone's like, well, I'm the type of person who I'm like, just stop. 529 00:25:45.620 --> 00:25:51.300 Then they start using this label to decide whether or why they can or can't do something. 530 00:25:51.300 --> 00:25:53.260 I wouldn't be successful that because I'm going to need free. 531 00:25:53.260 --> 00:25:54.260 Why? 532 00:25:54.260 --> 00:25:56.300 Because you take trash out of your car regularly. 533 00:25:56.300 --> 00:25:58.780 Why does that have anything to do with whether you could do this or not? 534 00:25:58.780 --> 00:26:04.300 I used to think and told people I was bad at math until I was 25 post college post consulting 535 00:26:04.300 --> 00:26:05.620 job, all of it. 536 00:26:05.620 --> 00:26:08.060 And then I decided that I was not going to be better math. 537 00:26:08.060 --> 00:26:10.580 And so I was like, okay, well, I'm not going to calculate her. 538 00:26:10.580 --> 00:26:13.380 And so then I started getting better and better at doing math problem. 539 00:26:13.380 --> 00:26:17.340 And then lo and behold, when I took the GMAT, I was like, okay, I have to study twice 540 00:26:17.340 --> 00:26:18.700 as hard for the math section. 541 00:26:18.700 --> 00:26:23.020 And I did just as well in the math section as I did on my verbal, but my whole life I had 542 00:26:23.020 --> 00:26:24.540 said I was bad at math. 543 00:26:24.540 --> 00:26:27.820 And so I didn't study as hard because I was bad at everyone who's listening to this has 544 00:26:27.820 --> 00:26:29.140 something they say about themselves. 545 00:26:29.140 --> 00:26:30.540 They're like, I'm not organized. 546 00:26:30.540 --> 00:26:32.140 I'm an early bird, right? 547 00:26:32.140 --> 00:26:35.260 Like we have these labels we give ourselves, but like, why do we have these labels? 548 00:26:35.260 --> 00:26:37.900 Like if you needed to wake up early, fucking wake up early, can you just stay up late? 549 00:26:37.900 --> 00:26:38.900 You stay up late. 550 00:26:38.900 --> 00:26:41.380 The labels change our behavior more than we change the labels. 551 00:26:41.380 --> 00:26:45.180 I really abhor labels overall because I feel like it limits my action. 552 00:26:45.180 --> 00:26:49.020 When I get on podcasts and I have talks and people try and label me, you'll probably 553 00:26:49.020 --> 00:26:53.300 actively see me break the label almost every time because I'm really aware of it. 554 00:26:53.300 --> 00:26:54.300 And a lot of people aren't. 555 00:26:54.300 --> 00:26:56.540 And I don't think people do it on purpose in a bad way. 556 00:26:56.540 --> 00:27:00.540 I just think that they will speak things over you, which is why I hate going home because 557 00:27:00.540 --> 00:27:03.700 no one speaks shit over you more than your family and the people in New York in high 558 00:27:03.700 --> 00:27:04.700 school. 559 00:27:04.700 --> 00:27:05.700 Alex has always had a short temper. 560 00:27:05.700 --> 00:27:06.700 You're a hothead. 561 00:27:06.700 --> 00:27:07.700 Literally. 562 00:27:07.700 --> 00:27:08.700 People from home describe me that way. 563 00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:09.700 I was like, I'm a hothead. 564 00:27:09.700 --> 00:27:10.700 They will say that. 565 00:27:10.700 --> 00:27:15.300 And then I feel like I have to really put up my mental like defenses to be like, this 566 00:27:15.300 --> 00:27:16.300 is not true. 567 00:27:16.300 --> 00:27:17.940 Here's the evidence that this is not true. 568 00:27:17.940 --> 00:27:19.300 What would a hothead do in these scenarios? 569 00:27:19.300 --> 00:27:20.500 That is not the way I behaved. 570 00:27:20.500 --> 00:27:21.500 Therefore, right? 571 00:27:21.500 --> 00:27:25.340 And I have to basically unwind that shit whenever I go there. 572 00:27:25.340 --> 00:27:28.100 And so that is why I've been an advocate of like, if you want to change your behavior, 573 00:27:28.100 --> 00:27:30.740 change your environment because they're not going to reinforce labels that you then 574 00:27:30.740 --> 00:27:34.340 also perpetuate in your own mind by the actions you take as a result. 575 00:27:34.340 --> 00:27:37.700 And the only reason they want to label is because it's shorthand for other people to understand. 576 00:27:37.700 --> 00:27:38.700 Not because it's true. 577 00:27:38.700 --> 00:27:40.420 They just want to say he had a bad childhood. 578 00:27:40.420 --> 00:27:42.540 And so they take, oh, you're a whole life and they just say, bad. 579 00:27:42.540 --> 00:27:43.540 That's not true. 580 00:27:43.540 --> 00:27:44.540 There's more nuance to it. 581 00:27:44.540 --> 00:27:48.220 I prefer to think of ideals and think of taking steps towards those ideals. 582 00:27:48.220 --> 00:27:51.580 And since ideals are not binary of like, he is courageous, he is not courageous, but 583 00:27:51.580 --> 00:27:53.820 how courageous is he or how patient is he? 584 00:27:53.820 --> 00:27:55.900 Not impatient or patient, but how much. 585 00:27:55.900 --> 00:27:59.340 Then I know the values that I want to embody. 586 00:27:59.340 --> 00:28:02.940 And then I just take steps towards those every day with the actions I take. 587 00:28:02.940 --> 00:28:06.140 And so if I'm deciding, do I want to take this action, I'll say which action aligns the 588 00:28:06.140 --> 00:28:09.060 most with the values that I want to embody, and then I try to do that. 589 00:28:09.060 --> 00:28:13.660 So rather than being like, Alex is patient, I'd be like, Alex attempts to act in accordance 590 00:28:13.660 --> 00:28:17.100 with the value of patients and sometimes fall short, but tries to start.