WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.520
At this point in my life, I have enough passive investments that I make

2
00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:07.120
multiple million dollars a year without doing much.

3
00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:09.840
Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make

4
00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:12.880
more customers, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we

5
00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:17.280
have learned alone the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

6
00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:19.680
And over the last nine months, I struggled

7
00:00:19.680 --> 00:00:23.840
mindedly with this fact. And it was because I had completely

8
00:00:23.840 --> 00:00:27.040
aware of myself from the portfolio of businesses that we own,

9
00:00:27.040 --> 00:00:30.080
which do about 85 million dollars a year in revenue.

10
00:00:30.080 --> 00:00:34.400
What I want to talk about today is kind of what that nine to 12-month journey

11
00:00:34.400 --> 00:00:36.880
was for me, kind of living in pseudo retirement,

12
00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:40.160
and the single thing that has gotten me out of it,

13
00:00:40.160 --> 00:00:43.840
because I was candidly, you know, pretty depressed.

14
00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:50.160
And I couldn't find a way out because I kept looking for the next goal post,

15
00:00:50.160 --> 00:00:54.560
right? The second championship ring, because the desire was that

16
00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:57.440
that ring would somehow make the first one more valuable.

17
00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:01.120
And, you know, at the time of this making, you know, we've now crossed about a

18
00:01:01.120 --> 00:01:04.640
nine-figure net worth. I'm 32. My wife's 29.

19
00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:11.920
And I truly, it's hard for people to conceptualize this, but like I really

20
00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:14.400
don't need anything. Like I need nothing.

21
00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:18.560
And as much as that has been the goal for a long time, which didn't need nothing,

22
00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:21.920
it also introduces a new variable of needing

23
00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:25.680
nothing, which means that there is nothing for me to do.

24
00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:29.680
And so what I want to walk through is the kind of single phrase that I've been

25
00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:33.040
repeating to myself over and over again and has become the chorus

26
00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:39.120
in my mental dialogue to myself. And it's around work.

27
00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:44.400
And so what I realized after pseudo retiring and not really being involved in

28
00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:48.080
the businesses and having them continue to grow and continue to pump out cash flow

29
00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:52.880
is that, you know, the first thing that God gave Adam, and I'm not religious,

30
00:01:52.880 --> 00:01:55.680
but I think that there's power in this, in this story.

31
00:01:55.680 --> 00:02:00.720
The first thing that God gave Adam was not Eve, it was a job.

32
00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:07.840
It was work to do. And as humans, we, wither, without adequate

33
00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:12.880
challenge, we are formed against something else, right?

34
00:02:12.880 --> 00:02:15.600
The hotter the fire, the harder the steel.

35
00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:19.840
And so as a person who desires to continually grow,

36
00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:25.200
I had removed the challenges in my life and felt stagnated or stagnant

37
00:02:25.200 --> 00:02:27.040
as a result of no challenge.

38
00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:34.240
And so I had to re-examine a lot of different pieces of my life, which is why

39
00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:38.560
do I work? And up to this point, the reason that I worked was for the outcome.

40
00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:43.200
It was for me to build up my net worth, to create financial freedom, to be able to have

41
00:02:43.200 --> 00:02:45.200
all the time to do the things I wanted to do.

42
00:02:45.200 --> 00:02:48.960
But instead of doing, I removed the things that I actually wanted to do,

43
00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:54.400
which was challenges, which was work that I found meaningful,

44
00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:59.440
with stakes that are real. And so the single chorus that I continue to

45
00:02:59.440 --> 00:03:02.160
root back to, and I'll show you the background of my phone,

46
00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:11.600
is hard work. That's it. And I love this proverb in the bible.

47
00:03:11.680 --> 00:03:14.560
I can't remember which one it is. I think it's, I can't remember. I think I want to say 14-3.

48
00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:21.920
But it's, our work works on us more than we work on it. That's a loose paraphrasing.

49
00:03:21.920 --> 00:03:25.600
But that's how I like saying it. Is that your work works on you more than you work on it.

50
00:03:26.320 --> 00:03:30.000
And so if I have the desire to grow, I must work.

51
00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:34.480
And the goal cannot be to stop working. That is what most people say.

52
00:03:34.480 --> 00:03:40.880
And I think it's because the word work still has terrible connotations in society.

53
00:03:40.880 --> 00:03:43.680
The amount of people who are like, man, you won't have to work ever again.

54
00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:47.440
Like dear God, that sounds horrible. I just lived it. I never want to do it again.

55
00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:54.560
But hard work is work worth doing. The fact that it's hard makes it worth it.

56
00:03:55.360 --> 00:04:00.320
When you look back, and when I look back at the times that I enjoyed most in our entrepreneurial

57
00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:06.400
journey was the struggle. Was the times of lacking. Was the times where the stakes were high,

58
00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:10.320
and we had to perform anyways, not because of the outside circumstances,

59
00:04:10.320 --> 00:04:18.000
because of what it told me about myself. We do not have values until they are tested.

60
00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:23.040
You cannot say you are loyal until you have a way to cheat on your spouse and know

61
00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:29.600
that no one will catch you. You cannot be honest until you have the ability to steal money and know

62
00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:35.520
that you will not be caught and then choose not to do it anyways. And so to the same degree,

63
00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:44.480
I cannot grow unless I have something to match the ability to conquer that I have now.

64
00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:54.400
I have to match. I can't hang up my suit, my arms, my weapons, just yeah.

65
00:04:55.280 --> 00:05:00.480
And so what's interesting is that as I've shifted my course to this thing, what a lot of people

66
00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:04.160
want to share it say, oh yeah, because if you work hard, all the other things will follow.

67
00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:09.760
I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, you're missing it. And I had to correct this in my own head,

68
00:05:09.760 --> 00:05:13.680
because that's how I started it. If I do the hard work, the things will follow. And that's the

69
00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:18.240
common thing. Like it's all about the process, not perfection, it's not about the outcome,

70
00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:22.800
it's about the journey. Like everyone says this shit, right? But deep down, they still want the

71
00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:31.920
outcome. And I'm telling you that removing the outcome truly has been the most liberating thing

72
00:05:31.920 --> 00:05:39.120
I've ever done. And I can't begin to tell you the joy that I am feeling in being truly present,

73
00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:49.280
because the work is the goal. The work is the goal. Like doing a good job is the goal. And so when

74
00:05:49.280 --> 00:05:54.800
I find myself at the gym, sometimes I would write, you know, I did eight reps when I was really

75
00:05:54.800 --> 00:06:01.280
seven and a half. I don't know why. The hard work is the goal. If I went up or I went down from

76
00:06:01.280 --> 00:06:07.600
last week, it's relevant. How hard I chose to work is the goal. When I'm editing a paragraph

77
00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:12.000
for my next book, I'm like, oh, that's pretty good. I don't want to, you know, it can be better.

78
00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:18.400
And then I remember hard work is the goal. And so then I dive back in when I'm tired. And I don't

79
00:06:18.400 --> 00:06:23.680
really feel like giving lately the emotional energy to be the husband that I know I should be,

80
00:06:23.680 --> 00:06:30.720
or that rather I would like to be. I remember the chorus hard work is the goal. And so it gives me

81
00:06:31.280 --> 00:06:40.640
renewed energy to not only be better, but to be present. And so I have the opportunity to work hard.

82
00:06:40.640 --> 00:06:48.000
And that's really the thing is that now I'm seeking opportunities to work hard because the work

83
00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:55.120
is the goal. And so right now, everyone's trying to shy away. Society's trying to tell us,

84
00:06:55.120 --> 00:07:00.400
you shouldn't work. It's all about passive. It's blah, blah, blah. But work is the goal.

85
00:07:01.840 --> 00:07:09.120
And when you make work the goal, it allows the process itself to be meditated. It allows the

86
00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:14.080
process to get you into flow. And for most of us, flow is some of the best feelings that we can

87
00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:20.960
have in our experience because we truly are in the moment. And so we do not work or try our best

88
00:07:20.960 --> 00:07:34.480
so that we do not work hard so that we work hard period because hard work is who we are.

89
00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:42.320
Hey guys, real quick. If you're new to the podcast, I have a book on Amazon called 100

90
00:07:42.320 --> 00:07:46.240
million dollar offers that over 8,000 five star reviews and it has almost a perfect score. You

91
00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:50.240
can get it for 99 cents on Kindle. The reason I bring it up is that I put over a thousand hours

92
00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:54.960
into writing that book. And it's my biggest gift to our community. So it's my very shameless way

93
00:07:54.960 --> 00:08:00.080
of trying to get you to like me more and ultimately make more dollars to that later on in your business

94
00:08:00.080 --> 00:08:05.120
career. I can put it apart in words. So that's my gift. Go check it out. Amazon and back to the show.

95
00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:13.920
And this has been a credo that I have. I'm just beginning to internalize. And it has,

96
00:08:13.920 --> 00:08:26.720
it is giving me more presence than I've ever had. And it's amazing. And I know that I will fall

97
00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:35.600
short of hard work. But I will be damned if I do not try in the present moment to work hard.

98
00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:46.160
And when I die, if all anyone says is that motherfucker worked hard, I don't know what else I

99
00:08:46.160 --> 00:08:52.400
would want anyone to say. Because the outcome is irrelevant. There's luck. There's outside

100
00:08:52.400 --> 00:08:58.560
circumstances, right? There's plenty of things that can affect how well you do. But if we can

101
00:08:58.560 --> 00:09:07.280
appraise our success based on how hard we worked and the work itself and only you know if you

102
00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:13.040
could have done better and if you chose not to. And I'm telling you the more times I recite this

103
00:09:13.040 --> 00:09:18.960
chorus in the present moment where I have the opportunity to not to to finish and know that

104
00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:26.160
based on the standards of others, it's excellent. But not on my own. It gives you this, it takes the

105
00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:34.320
power back from the world and brings it in. Because I'm not allowing them to tell me how well

106
00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:44.000
I did. I'm not allowing chance or luck or chaos or circumstance or outcome to dictate how well

107
00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:53.040
I did. I know because the thing is that that stuff is irrelevant. The only actual thing that we can

108
00:09:53.040 --> 00:10:02.720
control is the work we do now. The hard work. The work that we know that energy, by the way,

109
00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:10.960
side note, your ability to work itself is improvable. You can increase your capacity to work

110
00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:17.920
and to work hard and to work well by working hard and working well. And so the more work I do,

111
00:10:17.920 --> 00:10:25.760
the more work I become capable of. And it's fucking awesome. And so I'm telling you that I was so,

112
00:10:25.760 --> 00:10:32.960
so driven by first the outcomes that others that that I wanted to have to impress other people.

113
00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:37.360
And then I would say the second kind of phase or season of my life was creating outcomes that would

114
00:10:37.360 --> 00:10:42.880
impress me. And I feel like the thing that I'm transitioning towards, which is last 12 months,

115
00:10:42.880 --> 00:10:47.920
has helped me make this transition. And I'm sharing this with you because I have, I have, I've

116
00:10:47.920 --> 00:10:52.160
been to what most people consider the mountain top, right? We cross in nine figuring out worth.

117
00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:56.080
Mind you, I'm 2000 times poorer than Jeff Bezos, but I'm still probably well through

118
00:10:56.080 --> 00:11:02.240
than the guys on Instagram. We're flexing, right? I've been to the mountain top and I could tell you

119
00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:11.520
that there's nothing there. Nothing. You feel nothing. So the same way you feel right now,

120
00:11:12.160 --> 00:11:16.720
truly about the amount of money or the amount of outcomes that you have supposedly achieved up

121
00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:22.240
to this point, everybody's achieved something. These things will be no more meaningful to you.

122
00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:27.600
The second ring does not somehow make the first more meaningful. Moving the goal post does not

123
00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:33.200
make the thing more meaningful, which transitions me to the third chapter, right? The third season for me,

124
00:11:33.760 --> 00:11:42.160
which is that the hard work itself is the goal. And that's it. And when I look at my wife,

125
00:11:42.160 --> 00:11:45.680
and I think, oh, I'm just going to say hi rather than saying, hey, sweetie, what's going on?

126
00:11:45.680 --> 00:11:51.760
How can I help? Right? It just, like, it doesn't, like, it's just mental energy. I've just trying

127
00:11:51.760 --> 00:11:58.240
harder. And then once I try hard over and over and over again, that will become the new baseline.

128
00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:04.320
And then I will be able to try harder still. And so it's been this repeated course in my mind

129
00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:08.560
when I'm at the gym, when I'm talking to Layla, when I'm working on a project, when I'm making

130
00:12:08.560 --> 00:12:23.440
these videos, try and work hard, work hard, hard work is the goal. And it feels amazing

131
00:12:24.400 --> 00:12:36.240
because there's nothing else. Because at the end of my life, at least, if I look back and I had two

132
00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:42.400
lives, one life where I achieved everything that everybody thought, I would know that I would feel

133
00:12:42.400 --> 00:12:49.360
the same way I do now, which is not empty, but just nothing. I feel the same as I did when I had

134
00:12:49.360 --> 00:12:54.480
$10 million, same as I felt when I had $1 million, same as I felt when I had $100, I felt the same.

135
00:12:55.920 --> 00:13:04.560
But if I look back and I can see that consistently, over time, I worked to the limit of my capacity to work.

136
00:13:06.800 --> 00:13:13.760
True and honest to myself. And so like I said at the very beginning of this, you only have the value

137
00:13:13.760 --> 00:13:21.520
if you have the opportunity to not exercise it and do it anyways. So you cannot be loyal unless

138
00:13:21.520 --> 00:13:26.720
you have the opportunity to cheat and not get caught and then you don't do it. That is when you

139
00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:35.440
have the gift of knowing and having evidence that you have loyalty. And so if I desire the character

140
00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:44.880
trait of hard work and work ethic, then the only way that I will be able to have that is to do work

141
00:13:45.760 --> 00:13:52.320
and know that I could work and stop and everyone else would be satisfied and I would have no negative

142
00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:57.760
status ramifications. Because most of us work to the point where we would have, we reverse the negative

143
00:13:57.760 --> 00:14:03.280
status ramifications that the outcome of the work delivers. All right. So you do stuff just enough

144
00:14:03.280 --> 00:14:07.280
that your boss says it's good. You do stuff just good enough that your clients think it's good.

145
00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:15.040
But that means that you have the opportunity to work harder, to work better, to make it for

146
00:14:15.040 --> 00:14:23.360
its own sake, for the sake of the work and chose not to. And so therefore you cannot say or claim

147
00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:31.760
that you know how to work hard. You work just enough to escape the social negative consequences.

148
00:14:31.760 --> 00:14:36.000
You are just loyal enough to not cheat on your wife because you know you get caught in the negative

149
00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:42.080
consequences that way. You are just honest enough that you won't steal because you don't want to get caught.

150
00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:47.360
And if you are only truly motivated by the negative consequence, then you do not have the value.

151
00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:55.360
And so the value that I am trying to grow in myself is the ability to work. And the beautiful

152
00:14:55.440 --> 00:15:01.520
thing about this is that I get to test this every fucking day is that I can have work that is good

153
00:15:01.520 --> 00:15:07.920
enough that people will see it and think that's good stuff. And I would know that it wasn't as good

154
00:15:07.920 --> 00:15:14.320
as I could have made it. But I get that opportunity again tomorrow to try and raise the bar.

155
00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:21.680
And that is what I am focused on in this season. And so I love you all. Mosy Nation, appreciate you,

156
00:15:21.680 --> 00:15:29.280
keep being amazing and I'll see you guys in the next videos. Bye!