WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000
In 2020, my life changed forever.

2
00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:04.480
It was the year that I started acquisition.com.

3
00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:07.360
And since then, four of my companies in our portfolio

4
00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:10.640
have crossed the $100 million enterprise value barrier.

5
00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:12.320
But none of that would have been possible

6
00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:14.240
without the changes I made that year.

7
00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:15.520
And so no matter what your goals are,

8
00:00:15.520 --> 00:00:16.960
whether it's to make more money,

9
00:00:16.960 --> 00:00:18.960
you know, find the relationship or whatever,

10
00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:20.400
here's my brutally honest advice

11
00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:23.040
to make this year the best year of your life.

12
00:00:23.040 --> 00:00:24.640
So there's four steps.

13
00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:26.720
The first thing we have to do is we have to create space.

14
00:00:26.720 --> 00:00:28.480
We have to eliminate the things that are preventing you

15
00:00:28.880 --> 00:00:30.320
from taking the action you want.

16
00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:33.040
The second step is actually to begin taking that action.

17
00:00:33.040 --> 00:00:35.040
The third is that once those actions begin

18
00:00:35.040 --> 00:00:37.760
to improve the efficiency of those actions.

19
00:00:37.760 --> 00:00:40.320
And then finally, fourth, to make sure

20
00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:43.440
that you unlock compounding by not stopping

21
00:00:43.440 --> 00:00:45.680
the actions that are continuously improving.

22
00:00:45.680 --> 00:00:48.560
So number one, elimination of the things

23
00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:49.680
that are distracting you.

24
00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:53.360
So right now, election distraction is over.

25
00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.840
Back to work, because no president is going to make you rich.

26
00:00:57.920 --> 00:00:59.120
You got to do that for yourself.

27
00:00:59.120 --> 00:01:02.160
No matter what side of the aisle that you actually backed.

28
00:01:02.160 --> 00:01:04.160
And so now we're back to the realization

29
00:01:04.160 --> 00:01:06.560
that this doesn't really matter, right?

30
00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:08.560
You need to eliminate everything.

31
00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.000
That isn't the one thing that matters.

32
00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:15.040
And so if we define focus as the number and quality

33
00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:18.720
of things that you say no to, then to be focused,

34
00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:21.280
it means that in a hypothetical extreme,

35
00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:22.560
you would only do one thing.

36
00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:25.440
So if someone was extremely focused at video games,

37
00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:27.520
then they would do nothing but play video games.

38
00:01:27.520 --> 00:01:28.880
They wouldn't eat, they wouldn't sleep,

39
00:01:28.880 --> 00:01:31.280
they wouldn't talk to people, they would only pay video games.

40
00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:33.680
And so if you think about that as your hypothetical ideal

41
00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:36.240
of what focus looks like, everything else

42
00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:38.240
is simply a detraction from that,

43
00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:41.440
which is why the first step is about eliminating everything else.

44
00:01:41.440 --> 00:01:44.160
And so by default, what remains is your focus.

45
00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:46.880
And something that I don't talk about often,

46
00:01:46.880 --> 00:01:51.680
but during COVID, 100% of the businesses that I served gyms

47
00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:53.760
were not legally allowed to do business.

48
00:01:54.320 --> 00:01:57.600
And in that year, we did $31 million in sales.

49
00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:01.120
Two customers who could not legally transact.

50
00:02:01.840 --> 00:02:04.080
And so I bring this up as a testament

51
00:02:04.080 --> 00:02:06.400
that after that point happened for me,

52
00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:09.920
I decided that I would never give outside circumstances

53
00:02:09.920 --> 00:02:12.720
any weight on their outcome in my life.

54
00:02:12.720 --> 00:02:14.720
Now, did they affect the business?

55
00:02:14.720 --> 00:02:17.120
Yes, our sales reduced from the year before.

56
00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:20.480
But how much of that could I control?

57
00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:21.840
Zero.

58
00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:24.880
And so all I could do was look at the things that I could control.

59
00:02:24.880 --> 00:02:27.120
And so within that context, thinking,

60
00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:29.280
oh, interest rates are up by 2%.

61
00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:31.920
Well, 100% of your customers are allowed to do business.

62
00:02:31.920 --> 00:02:33.680
So that's at least better than that.

63
00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:36.000
Oh, inflation is getting out of control.

64
00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:37.760
Are you allowed to do business?

65
00:02:37.760 --> 00:02:39.840
There's this great quote by Phil Knight

66
00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:42.560
who talks about in a shoe dog.

67
00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:44.160
He said, you're not out of business

68
00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:46.960
until they have put padlocks on your door

69
00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:48.960
and no one lets you into the building.

70
00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:50.960
And so what happens is there's so many steps

71
00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:53.120
before that where people think they've failed.

72
00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:54.640
When it's really like they get rejected

73
00:02:54.640 --> 00:02:56.320
or they get rejected 100 times in a row

74
00:02:56.320 --> 00:02:57.440
or there's some issue.

75
00:02:57.440 --> 00:02:59.680
He's like, basically until you physically

76
00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:01.360
are prevented from doing work,

77
00:03:02.320 --> 00:03:03.600
you're still in the game.

78
00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:05.680
When I was young, my father gave me this advice.

79
00:03:06.480 --> 00:03:09.920
Rich people buy time, poor people buy stuff,

80
00:03:10.480 --> 00:03:12.320
ambitious people buy skills,

81
00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:15.040
lazy people buy distraction.

82
00:03:15.040 --> 00:03:18.160
I can give you the first and easiest 2025 prediction.

83
00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:21.200
Look at what you spend money on.

84
00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:23.040
Look at your calendar.

85
00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:26.640
And wherever you invest is what you will get more of.

86
00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:29.040
And so so many people are surprised

87
00:03:29.040 --> 00:03:31.040
when they look at their bank account

88
00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.480
next year and it's lower than they want it to be.

89
00:03:34.480 --> 00:03:36.720
They look at their accomplishments from that year

90
00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:38.720
and it's not the things they set out to do.

91
00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:40.240
But when you look at their calendar

92
00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:42.080
and their credit card expenses,

93
00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:44.640
it's very obvious why those things didn't happen.

94
00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:45.840
Because we vote with our dollars

95
00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:47.440
about the things that we care about.

96
00:03:47.440 --> 00:03:50.400
We vote about the type of person that we want to become.

97
00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:51.680
And so I'll give you this story.

98
00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:54.800
So I remember when I was a few years back,

99
00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:57.280
I was walking with Layla and we went to Sephora,

100
00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:58.400
which is like a makeup store.

101
00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:01.200
So we walked inside and I remember,

102
00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:02.160
you know, I'm sitting, you know,

103
00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:03.040
standing there awkwardly.

104
00:04:03.040 --> 00:04:04.480
I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here.

105
00:04:04.480 --> 00:04:08.320
And there's this lady with the smock who like helps out

106
00:04:08.320 --> 00:04:10.080
and she had these two girls who were young.

107
00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:12.720
They must have been maybe, well, about this, this old.

108
00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:16.880
And so I'm guessing between nine and 40, who knows?

109
00:04:16.960 --> 00:04:18.880
Anyways, I think they were young.

110
00:04:18.880 --> 00:04:20.880
And so she's leaning over

111
00:04:20.880 --> 00:04:23.120
and she has these two paint brushes in her hands

112
00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:25.200
and she says, okay, girls,

113
00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:26.880
now that you guys are women,

114
00:04:26.880 --> 00:04:28.480
you need to start budgeting for this stuff

115
00:04:28.480 --> 00:04:30.000
because you're going to be spending money on this

116
00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:31.680
every single month to do your makeup.

117
00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:33.680
And so the girls grabbing, they're super excited

118
00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:35.200
and they want to go check out.

119
00:04:35.200 --> 00:04:40.960
And I saw that exchange as actually a really beautiful lesson

120
00:04:40.960 --> 00:04:42.720
when it comes to identity,

121
00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:45.280
which is our priorities,

122
00:04:45.280 --> 00:04:48.080
we dictate by what we spend, not by what we say.

123
00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:51.920
And so these girls, because they wanted to step

124
00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:55.280
into this new identity, had to match it with new priorities.

125
00:04:55.840 --> 00:04:58.160
So they had money or they had saved up their shackles

126
00:04:58.160 --> 00:05:01.120
or whatever they do for chores or babysitting or whatever.

127
00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:04.160
And by doing that, they had to start prioritizing

128
00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:06.160
some of that money towards their new identity

129
00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:07.680
from girls to women.

130
00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:09.280
And so with that, they decided to say,

131
00:05:09.280 --> 00:05:11.360
oh, I'm going to spend this amount of money every month

132
00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:14.080
for the rest of my life because I'm now a woman.

133
00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:17.360
But the thing is, is that many people who want to start next year

134
00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:20.480
think, okay, well, I'm just going to see if this happens.

135
00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:22.080
But it doesn't work that way.

136
00:05:22.080 --> 00:05:25.200
You have to basically make the decision that this is the type of person

137
00:05:25.200 --> 00:05:26.560
that I want to become.

138
00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:30.240
And then these are the actions that that type of person would take.

139
00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:33.120
And then we align our calendars and our budgets

140
00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:36.080
in accordance with that so that the investments we make

141
00:05:36.080 --> 00:05:37.920
yield the results that we want.

142
00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:40.720
Because I can tell you this, if you put all of your time

143
00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:42.080
into getting better at one thing,

144
00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:44.720
and you put all of your money into getting better at that one thing,

145
00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:47.120
and you remove all expenses that are not that thing,

146
00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:50.000
and you remove all time expenses that are not that thing,

147
00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.680
I can veritably guarantee you that at the end of next year,

148
00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:55.920
you will have accomplished the thing that you wanted

149
00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:57.680
to do relative to that investment,

150
00:05:57.680 --> 00:05:58.880
and you will have learned the skills

151
00:05:58.880 --> 00:06:00.560
that you wanted ultimately to get.

152
00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:02.960
But the thing is, is that people want to say,

153
00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:04.640
hey, wouldn't it be great if I owned Apple,

154
00:06:04.640 --> 00:06:06.000
but they never buy the stock?

155
00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:07.920
And if so, if you want to be that version of you,

156
00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:10.160
you need to start buying stock in that today,

157
00:06:10.320 --> 00:06:12.640
both by paying in time and paying in money

158
00:06:12.640 --> 00:06:15.200
to vote with your dollars about what you truly care about.

159
00:06:15.200 --> 00:06:17.120
And the reason that I'm hitting this so hard

160
00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:20.320
is that it's never been easier than it is today

161
00:06:20.320 --> 00:06:21.760
to be successful.

162
00:06:21.760 --> 00:06:24.600
It's also never been easier to be distracted.

163
00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:27.800
So along the theme of investing in the things

164
00:06:27.800 --> 00:06:29.840
that matter most, the first thing we do

165
00:06:29.840 --> 00:06:32.000
is we eliminate all the stuff that sucks.

166
00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:35.440
And so I define commitment as the elimination of alternatives.

167
00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:37.880
If you get married, you eliminate all people

168
00:06:37.880 --> 00:06:40.440
of whatever sex you're married to that are not that person.

169
00:06:40.440 --> 00:06:41.680
Actually, you eliminate everyone

170
00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:43.520
who's not that person independent of sex, right?

171
00:06:43.520 --> 00:06:45.000
That is a commitment, right?

172
00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.640
If you enter into a partnership and you say,

173
00:06:47.640 --> 00:06:49.040
I'm not gonna do any business

174
00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:51.320
besides this business as part of the terms,

175
00:06:51.320 --> 00:06:53.320
then you've eliminated all alternatives.

176
00:06:53.320 --> 00:06:55.360
And so if you want someone to commit,

177
00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:58.000
ask them to eliminate everything else that's not the main thing.

178
00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:00.600
These are all the things, a laundry list

179
00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:03.000
of things that are probably not your main thing

180
00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:05.280
that very likely are getting in the way.

181
00:07:05.280 --> 00:07:07.860
And these are the most common things that I see in my DMs,

182
00:07:07.860 --> 00:07:10.660
that I see in my comments from people who are not getting

183
00:07:10.660 --> 00:07:13.500
where they wanna go as fast as they'd like to get there.

184
00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:17.140
And so first big category is bad friends.

185
00:07:17.140 --> 00:07:20.980
So if you want better friends, get used to seeing them less.

186
00:07:20.980 --> 00:07:23.420
Better friends are busy friends.

187
00:07:23.420 --> 00:07:27.420
So I remember when I started working more

188
00:07:27.420 --> 00:07:28.860
and some of the friends that I had

189
00:07:28.860 --> 00:07:30.340
were a little bit more ambitious.

190
00:07:30.340 --> 00:07:33.980
And I started realizing that the people that I liked the most,

191
00:07:33.980 --> 00:07:36.020
I actually didn't spend as much time with

192
00:07:36.100 --> 00:07:38.300
and the people that were always available

193
00:07:38.300 --> 00:07:40.900
were the ones that I didn't wanna become more like.

194
00:07:40.900 --> 00:07:43.660
So these are five questions that came from a

195
00:07:43.660 --> 00:07:46.780
super viral Reddit thread about relationships.

196
00:07:46.780 --> 00:07:49.100
But I actually think it applies just as strongly

197
00:07:49.100 --> 00:07:50.340
with friendships.

198
00:07:50.340 --> 00:07:52.220
And so question number one is,

199
00:07:52.220 --> 00:07:55.340
if someone told you that you're a lot like your friend,

200
00:07:55.340 --> 00:07:57.020
would you take that as a compliment?

201
00:07:58.060 --> 00:08:02.460
Second, are you truly fulfilled by the friendship

202
00:08:02.460 --> 00:08:05.060
or is it just someone to keep you from being lonely?

203
00:08:06.180 --> 00:08:10.900
Third, are you able to be unapologetically yourself

204
00:08:10.900 --> 00:08:13.060
or do you feel the need to act differently

205
00:08:13.060 --> 00:08:16.420
to please that friend or to be around that friend?

206
00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:21.420
Fourth, do you like who this friend is right now today

207
00:08:22.020 --> 00:08:24.940
or do you like the idea of the friend

208
00:08:24.940 --> 00:08:27.260
and who they could be someday?

209
00:08:27.260 --> 00:08:32.180
And then finally, five, would you want your future

210
00:08:32.180 --> 00:08:36.180
or imagine child to be friends with someone like this person?

211
00:08:37.220 --> 00:08:39.300
And I think it's a really wonderful litmus test

212
00:08:39.300 --> 00:08:43.260
because it forces you to take a look outside of yourself

213
00:08:43.260 --> 00:08:46.500
in order to have perspective from a third party angle

214
00:08:46.500 --> 00:08:48.740
on the true quality of that person.

215
00:08:48.740 --> 00:08:53.740
But the reality is that rare people are by definition rare

216
00:08:54.260 --> 00:08:57.100
and so it's normal to have fewer of them.

217
00:08:57.980 --> 00:09:01.860
And so if you only have a few friends or one good friend,

218
00:09:01.860 --> 00:09:06.860
then that's normal if you want rare and exceptional friends.

219
00:09:07.300 --> 00:09:09.940
If you have many friends, it's far more likely

220
00:09:09.940 --> 00:09:12.580
that the bar for your friendship is too low.

221
00:09:12.580 --> 00:09:14.700
And to give you a filter that I actually used

222
00:09:14.700 --> 00:09:17.180
for the most important friend in my life, Laila,

223
00:09:17.180 --> 00:09:20.020
I like to think, does this person have the same scale

224
00:09:20.020 --> 00:09:21.740
of goals that I have?

225
00:09:21.740 --> 00:09:24.700
So it doesn't mean that they have to have the same goals as you,

226
00:09:24.700 --> 00:09:27.580
but it has to be the same level of goals as you

227
00:09:27.580 --> 00:09:29.460
because at least you're going in the same direction.

228
00:09:29.460 --> 00:09:30.740
So that's number one.

229
00:09:30.740 --> 00:09:34.020
Number two, is do they have the same level of dedication

230
00:09:34.020 --> 00:09:35.780
and commitment to those goals?

231
00:09:35.780 --> 00:09:36.620
Because I don't know about you,

232
00:09:36.620 --> 00:09:37.940
but I had plenty of friends who were like,

233
00:09:37.940 --> 00:09:39.740
I want to be an NFL player.

234
00:09:39.740 --> 00:09:42.220
I want to be a really rich tech entrepreneur.

235
00:09:42.220 --> 00:09:45.740
I want to be a touring musician, right?

236
00:09:45.740 --> 00:09:47.100
And they had these goals, but I'm like,

237
00:09:47.100 --> 00:09:49.420
dude, I see you just playing Fortnite four hours a day

238
00:09:49.420 --> 00:09:51.340
and you practice guitar once a week.

239
00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:53.100
Like, do you really want that?

240
00:09:53.100 --> 00:09:56.060
Or do you just like saying it because it makes you feel good?

241
00:09:56.060 --> 00:09:59.300
And so I wanted people who walked the walk

242
00:09:59.300 --> 00:10:02.980
and I wanted people who would keep up with my pace.

243
00:10:02.980 --> 00:10:04.700
And if you are someone who's ambitious,

244
00:10:04.700 --> 00:10:06.500
and this is me just talking specifically to you

245
00:10:06.500 --> 00:10:08.140
because there's only a few people who are watching this

246
00:10:08.140 --> 00:10:11.140
who really are and you'll know that if it's you,

247
00:10:12.140 --> 00:10:14.980
you have to get used to being alone

248
00:10:14.980 --> 00:10:17.100
because there are seasons where you'll basically

249
00:10:17.100 --> 00:10:19.620
transition from one group of friends into another.

250
00:10:19.620 --> 00:10:20.900
And it's not even a group of,

251
00:10:20.900 --> 00:10:22.700
you'll usually transition from a group of friends

252
00:10:22.700 --> 00:10:25.700
into no friends and then you'll find one or two people

253
00:10:25.700 --> 00:10:27.940
who are at a new level and then sometimes those people

254
00:10:27.940 --> 00:10:29.220
introduce you to some of their friends.

255
00:10:29.220 --> 00:10:32.340
And if you keep walking and you keep out pacing,

256
00:10:32.340 --> 00:10:34.860
then that group will then start retiring past you

257
00:10:34.860 --> 00:10:36.900
and then maybe one person stays with you,

258
00:10:36.900 --> 00:10:39.500
maybe no one does and you'll have another lonely period.

259
00:10:39.500 --> 00:10:41.500
I'm saying this because I used to think

260
00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:43.380
that there was something wrong with me.

261
00:10:43.380 --> 00:10:46.060
When in reality, I just didn't understand

262
00:10:46.060 --> 00:10:48.660
what the nature of being exceptional meant.

263
00:10:48.660 --> 00:10:53.660
And so I'm saying this purely from a definitional perspective.

264
00:10:54.860 --> 00:10:57.780
To be exceptional means that you are the exception.

265
00:10:57.780 --> 00:10:59.700
It means that you are not normal.

266
00:10:59.700 --> 00:11:04.020
And so it's normal for normal people to find you abnormal

267
00:11:04.020 --> 00:11:06.700
if you do things that are not normal.

268
00:11:06.700 --> 00:11:10.580
Don't let people who have mediocre goals

269
00:11:10.580 --> 00:11:14.300
deter you from taking actions that make you great

270
00:11:14.300 --> 00:11:16.180
because it makes you different.

271
00:11:16.180 --> 00:11:19.260
Realizing that I thought most people actually made no sense.

272
00:11:19.260 --> 00:11:22.060
They say they had these goals but they took no action

273
00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:23.580
and they called me work obsessed

274
00:11:23.580 --> 00:11:25.220
and they would tell me I should take time off

275
00:11:25.220 --> 00:11:26.700
and they're like, hey, you're not,

276
00:11:26.900 --> 00:11:27.940
you're not as cool anymore.

277
00:11:27.940 --> 00:11:29.460
You're not, you're not hanging out with the boys.

278
00:11:29.460 --> 00:11:31.340
Like why aren't you participating in the fantasy league?

279
00:11:31.340 --> 00:11:33.620
Why aren't you watching football on Sunday with us?

280
00:11:33.620 --> 00:11:35.940
And for me, I actually used to love watching football

281
00:11:35.940 --> 00:11:36.780
with my friends.

282
00:11:36.780 --> 00:11:38.660
It was actually one of my biggest things that I look forward to.

283
00:11:38.660 --> 00:11:40.500
But the thing is, is that like I needed that Sunday

284
00:11:40.500 --> 00:11:41.580
because I had to prep workouts,

285
00:11:41.580 --> 00:11:43.340
I had to prep the music list for the next day,

286
00:11:43.340 --> 00:11:46.060
I had to run billing, I had to do all this other work.

287
00:11:46.060 --> 00:11:49.220
And the thing is that like I looked at that football game

288
00:11:49.220 --> 00:11:52.300
and I was like, my goals are more important to me than this.

289
00:11:52.300 --> 00:11:54.820
And so I think that a lot of people don't actually look

290
00:11:54.820 --> 00:11:56.420
at themselves in the mirror and say like one year

291
00:11:56.460 --> 00:12:00.380
from today, well, I remember this football game

292
00:12:00.380 --> 00:12:03.780
or I remember the fact that I'm not where I said I wanted to be.

293
00:12:03.780 --> 00:12:06.700
And to me, that was significantly more painful.

294
00:12:06.700 --> 00:12:11.060
Now, this is an uncomfortable fact for a lot of people.

295
00:12:11.060 --> 00:12:13.340
Your ability to delay gratification

296
00:12:13.340 --> 00:12:15.940
is actually a function of intelligence.

297
00:12:15.940 --> 00:12:19.420
And so your ability to learn at a longer and longer delay

298
00:12:19.420 --> 00:12:20.780
is something that comes, I mean,

299
00:12:20.780 --> 00:12:22.940
we're talking from primates all the way up.

300
00:12:22.980 --> 00:12:26.540
And so basically, if you want to teach a monkey

301
00:12:26.540 --> 00:12:27.900
how to do something, you have to say,

302
00:12:27.900 --> 00:12:30.540
hey, do this thing and then immediately give them a reward.

303
00:12:30.540 --> 00:12:32.660
And the longer that period goes on,

304
00:12:32.660 --> 00:12:34.420
the less trainable they are.

305
00:12:34.420 --> 00:12:36.780
The sign of intelligence is that you can actually expand

306
00:12:36.780 --> 00:12:40.100
the reinforcement window and they can still abstract it

307
00:12:40.100 --> 00:12:42.140
back to the original action.

308
00:12:42.140 --> 00:12:44.780
If you want to practice intelligence,

309
00:12:44.780 --> 00:12:48.500
then being able to actively delay your need

310
00:12:48.500 --> 00:12:52.380
for a result or reward from the work you do

311
00:12:52.380 --> 00:12:55.100
will make you a more intelligent person

312
00:12:55.100 --> 00:12:58.540
because your rate of learning will actually increase

313
00:12:58.540 --> 00:13:01.460
despite the fact that your reward rate

314
00:13:01.460 --> 00:13:03.780
will decrease in the short term.

315
00:13:03.780 --> 00:13:05.620
And so to give you full transparency

316
00:13:05.620 --> 00:13:07.700
on what 2025 might look like

317
00:13:07.700 --> 00:13:09.820
if you accomplish your goals at the end,

318
00:13:09.820 --> 00:13:11.420
you might have a different friend group

319
00:13:11.420 --> 00:13:14.420
or no friends at all for a season.

320
00:13:14.420 --> 00:13:17.260
Because you don't become like the people you admire,

321
00:13:17.260 --> 00:13:20.180
you become like the people you want to impress.

322
00:13:20.260 --> 00:13:23.420
And so Harvard made this wonderful study years ago

323
00:13:23.420 --> 00:13:26.740
about the best predictor of someone's long-term material

324
00:13:26.740 --> 00:13:29.460
success was what they called their reference group.

325
00:13:29.460 --> 00:13:31.460
Now this has been misquoted in places

326
00:13:31.460 --> 00:13:33.900
by the five people you spend the most time with.

327
00:13:33.900 --> 00:13:36.620
But it's actually the five people you compare yourself to.

328
00:13:36.620 --> 00:13:38.340
And that's a very big difference.

329
00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:39.900
Now I want to take it a step further

330
00:13:39.900 --> 00:13:40.900
because I think to myself,

331
00:13:40.900 --> 00:13:44.500
what are the things that affect our behavior?

332
00:13:44.500 --> 00:13:47.060
And so it's really about the people

333
00:13:47.060 --> 00:13:48.220
that you want to impress,

334
00:13:48.220 --> 00:13:50.820
not necessarily even who you compare yourself to.

335
00:13:50.820 --> 00:13:54.060
Because it's the people whose voices you hear

336
00:13:54.060 --> 00:13:56.940
when you're about to make a big life decision.

337
00:13:56.940 --> 00:13:59.260
And so when you make a big life decision,

338
00:13:59.260 --> 00:14:01.820
you don't listen to the people closest to you.

339
00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:04.340
You should listen to the people closest to your goals.

340
00:14:04.340 --> 00:14:06.500
And some of them may not be in your neighborhood

341
00:14:06.500 --> 00:14:09.060
or your city or your state or your high school

342
00:14:09.060 --> 00:14:10.300
or your college.

343
00:14:10.300 --> 00:14:12.180
They might just be people you follow on the internet.

344
00:14:12.180 --> 00:14:15.580
And you have to abstract what would that person think

345
00:14:15.580 --> 00:14:16.860
about this decision?

346
00:14:16.940 --> 00:14:20.460
Not my mom, not my homie, not my uncle

347
00:14:20.460 --> 00:14:22.420
or that person at church.

348
00:14:22.420 --> 00:14:24.180
And so I think this is a great transition

349
00:14:24.180 --> 00:14:26.580
of thinking through instead of necessarily even having mentors,

350
00:14:26.580 --> 00:14:30.180
having heroes and transposing what you think

351
00:14:30.180 --> 00:14:33.900
their decision making calculus would be onto your life.

352
00:14:33.900 --> 00:14:36.780
And so it's interesting is that I will have conversations

353
00:14:36.780 --> 00:14:38.100
with entrepreneurs and they'll say,

354
00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:39.860
hey, here's my current condition.

355
00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:41.180
This is my desired state.

356
00:14:41.180 --> 00:14:42.980
This is what I perceive my obstacle to be.

357
00:14:42.980 --> 00:14:44.740
And I say, okay, well, what do you think?

358
00:14:44.740 --> 00:14:46.060
And they're like, well, I think you're gonna say

359
00:14:46.100 --> 00:14:47.140
I should do X, Y, and Z.

360
00:14:47.140 --> 00:14:49.260
And I'm like, you're right, why aren't you?

361
00:14:49.260 --> 00:14:52.180
They're like, well, and the thing is,

362
00:14:52.180 --> 00:14:55.420
is that basically what they answer with after that well

363
00:14:55.420 --> 00:14:58.460
is in essence other people's opinion

364
00:14:58.460 --> 00:15:00.660
who aren't at the place they want to be.

365
00:15:00.660 --> 00:15:03.140
Here's the uncomfortable truth,

366
00:15:03.140 --> 00:15:05.500
which is that winners focus on winning,

367
00:15:05.500 --> 00:15:07.420
losers focus on winners,

368
00:15:07.420 --> 00:15:10.900
and you never receive hate from above, always below

369
00:15:10.900 --> 00:15:12.740
because winners have their eyes on the goal,

370
00:15:12.740 --> 00:15:13.980
not on other people.

371
00:15:13.980 --> 00:15:15.660
And so you have to decide whether you want

372
00:15:15.660 --> 00:15:16.980
to be a loser or a winner.

373
00:15:16.980 --> 00:15:18.380
And I'm just being row with you

374
00:15:18.380 --> 00:15:20.580
because if you have your eyes on the goal,

375
00:15:20.580 --> 00:15:22.420
you won't have time for anyone else.

376
00:15:22.420 --> 00:15:24.140
What this looks like in reality

377
00:15:24.140 --> 00:15:27.500
and maybe for you in 2025 will be like this.

378
00:15:27.500 --> 00:15:29.780
First, you look like an idiot

379
00:15:29.780 --> 00:15:32.140
to everyone else while you try to figure it out.

380
00:15:32.140 --> 00:15:35.820
Then everyone else looks like an idiot for ever doubting you.

381
00:15:35.820 --> 00:15:38.180
And so everyone takes a different amount of years

382
00:15:38.180 --> 00:15:41.220
to stop giving a fuck about what everyone else thinks.

383
00:15:41.220 --> 00:15:43.180
And if you're going to get there eventually,

384
00:15:43.180 --> 00:15:44.540
you might as well start today

385
00:15:44.540 --> 00:15:46.220
and enjoy the benefits longer.

386
00:15:46.220 --> 00:15:48.420
So if I'm 85 years old,

387
00:15:48.420 --> 00:15:50.820
I think about what that man cares about.

388
00:15:50.820 --> 00:15:54.020
And that man cares about very, very little.

389
00:15:54.020 --> 00:15:56.420
All you have to do is talk to an elderly person

390
00:15:56.420 --> 00:15:57.820
or a grandparent and be like,

391
00:15:57.820 --> 00:15:58.820
what do you think about this?

392
00:15:58.820 --> 00:15:59.620
A lot of them are like,

393
00:15:59.620 --> 00:16:00.460
ah, who cares?

394
00:16:00.460 --> 00:16:01.300
It doesn't matter.

395
00:16:01.300 --> 00:16:03.060
Life is literally too short.

396
00:16:03.060 --> 00:16:05.300
They literally don't have time for it.

397
00:16:05.300 --> 00:16:06.340
And so I think to myself,

398
00:16:06.340 --> 00:16:08.220
if that's the ultimate version of me,

399
00:16:08.220 --> 00:16:10.220
if I'm going to get there eventually,

400
00:16:10.220 --> 00:16:12.180
and that's what the wisest people think

401
00:16:12.180 --> 00:16:14.540
after having the most life experience,

402
00:16:14.540 --> 00:16:18.060
then why would I not try to cheat code that into today?

403
00:16:18.060 --> 00:16:21.220
And then not have to go looking back from 85 and think,

404
00:16:21.220 --> 00:16:23.420
man, I wish I knew then what I know now.

405
00:16:23.420 --> 00:16:25.460
Look forward to 85 year old self and say,

406
00:16:25.460 --> 00:16:27.900
I am going to choose to learn the lesson

407
00:16:27.900 --> 00:16:30.940
I know I'm going to learn and act as if I knew it today.

408
00:16:30.940 --> 00:16:32.180
If we're thinking about elimination,

409
00:16:32.180 --> 00:16:34.580
we're eliminating bad friends and tangentially,

410
00:16:34.580 --> 00:16:37.500
their opinions about you that are affecting your behavior.

411
00:16:37.500 --> 00:16:39.980
So the next thing or what things are playing interference

412
00:16:39.980 --> 00:16:41.660
on your time and your attention.

413
00:16:41.660 --> 00:16:43.340
I would say opinions of other people

414
00:16:43.340 --> 00:16:45.540
are affecting your behavior and your decisions.

415
00:16:45.540 --> 00:16:48.620
I think that your environment affects your efficiency

416
00:16:48.620 --> 00:16:49.460
of behavior.

417
00:16:49.460 --> 00:16:53.140
So think about how much more you get per hour of output.

418
00:16:53.140 --> 00:16:55.620
And so if you can't sit still,

419
00:16:55.620 --> 00:16:58.580
ignore notifications and focus on one task

420
00:16:58.580 --> 00:17:02.340
for eight hours straight, never expect to build anything great.

421
00:17:02.340 --> 00:17:05.100
And I, and I, and I as uncomfortable as that is,

422
00:17:05.100 --> 00:17:06.660
it's also the truth.

423
00:17:06.660 --> 00:17:09.780
Like I, I don't know a single incredibly successful entrepreneur

424
00:17:09.860 --> 00:17:13.020
that can't sit down and have hyper focused periods of time,

425
00:17:13.020 --> 00:17:15.860
sometimes weekends, weeks at a time where they don't talk

426
00:17:15.860 --> 00:17:17.900
to anyone and they just hammer away.

427
00:17:17.900 --> 00:17:20.220
And it's whether they're coding for software

428
00:17:20.220 --> 00:17:22.460
or they're making some insane marketing campaign

429
00:17:22.460 --> 00:17:24.300
at all the email fobs and all the text fobs

430
00:17:24.300 --> 00:17:27.100
and the affiliate promotions and incentives

431
00:17:27.100 --> 00:17:29.780
or someone's creating a product that they're designing

432
00:17:29.780 --> 00:17:31.780
and they're in the shop and they keep tweaking at it.

433
00:17:31.780 --> 00:17:34.620
Or there's somebody who's hyper-skilling a company

434
00:17:34.620 --> 00:17:37.260
and saying, I'm going to sit in 20 interviews a day

435
00:17:37.300 --> 00:17:40.780
for, for seven days straight so I can hire 20 people this week

436
00:17:40.780 --> 00:17:42.580
because I need to get going, right?

437
00:17:42.580 --> 00:17:46.380
Like if you can't sit still and ignore notifications

438
00:17:46.380 --> 00:17:51.140
and focus for a day, nothing great will get accomplished.

439
00:17:51.140 --> 00:17:52.660
Because it's not about what you want,

440
00:17:52.660 --> 00:17:54.140
it's about what's required.

441
00:17:54.140 --> 00:17:57.220
And it's, and whether that's your best or not is irrelevant.

442
00:17:57.220 --> 00:17:58.380
It's just there's a price tag

443
00:17:58.380 --> 00:17:59.980
and you gotta be willing to pay for it

444
00:17:59.980 --> 00:18:01.140
or you don't get the thing.

445
00:18:01.140 --> 00:18:03.500
And so it's not about doing what you want.

446
00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:05.460
It's about doing what's required.

447
00:18:05.460 --> 00:18:07.500
And a lot of times it's not what you want.

448
00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:10.820
And I spend a lot of time trying to spell the concept

449
00:18:10.820 --> 00:18:12.180
of like follow your passion

450
00:18:12.180 --> 00:18:15.940
because I think it leads more people astray than it helps

451
00:18:15.940 --> 00:18:18.620
because it's very easy for someone who's successful

452
00:18:18.620 --> 00:18:20.660
who's already delegated tons of things

453
00:18:20.660 --> 00:18:22.820
to only then focus on their area of genius

454
00:18:22.820 --> 00:18:26.300
and then say, here for my seat, do what I do.

455
00:18:26.300 --> 00:18:28.740
But there's a very big difference between doing what someone does

456
00:18:28.740 --> 00:18:30.980
and doing what they did to get there.

457
00:18:30.980 --> 00:18:33.180
And I think this is what's lost in a lot of the content

458
00:18:33.180 --> 00:18:34.740
that I see in the entrepreneurial space

459
00:18:34.860 --> 00:18:37.460
and to be clear, whenever I'm trying to get to the next level,

460
00:18:37.460 --> 00:18:40.220
I often have to take on things that I don't know how to do

461
00:18:40.220 --> 00:18:41.500
and I have to learn how to do them,

462
00:18:41.500 --> 00:18:43.300
which means I have to suck for a period of time

463
00:18:43.300 --> 00:18:44.740
and sucking sucks.

464
00:18:44.740 --> 00:18:46.380
But the thing is is you have to be able to embrace

465
00:18:46.380 --> 00:18:49.580
that period of time and say like, this is the cost of greatness.

466
00:18:49.580 --> 00:18:51.540
And so I'll give you something very tactical.

467
00:18:51.540 --> 00:18:53.500
So I have timers in a lot of my offices

468
00:18:53.500 --> 00:18:56.140
and my team has adopted this too, which is,

469
00:18:56.140 --> 00:18:58.380
I like to time block, which is essentially saying,

470
00:18:58.380 --> 00:19:00.260
how long do I think this is going to take?

471
00:19:00.260 --> 00:19:01.700
And you can do this on a weak scale,

472
00:19:01.700 --> 00:19:02.900
you can do it on a daily level.

473
00:19:02.900 --> 00:19:05.180
It depends on the level of project you're tackling.

474
00:19:05.180 --> 00:19:07.020
But for me, even on the most micro level,

475
00:19:07.020 --> 00:19:09.380
I say, okay, how long should this take?

476
00:19:09.380 --> 00:19:10.980
I'll then crank this thing.

477
00:19:10.980 --> 00:19:12.780
Boo, I think this should take 20 minutes

478
00:19:12.780 --> 00:19:15.740
and then I hit start and I let the timer go.

479
00:19:15.740 --> 00:19:18.580
And if for whatever reason something distracts me,

480
00:19:18.580 --> 00:19:22.620
I pause it so that I know that I didn't actually work

481
00:19:22.620 --> 00:19:23.820
that period of time.

482
00:19:23.820 --> 00:19:26.700
And so what happens is it will give you a very real look

483
00:19:26.700 --> 00:19:28.540
at how long you're actually working

484
00:19:28.540 --> 00:19:30.260
versus how long you think you're working

485
00:19:30.260 --> 00:19:31.580
and you tell other people working

486
00:19:31.620 --> 00:19:33.540
and you Instagram how long you're working.

487
00:19:33.540 --> 00:19:35.900
And as I've become more efficient at work,

488
00:19:35.900 --> 00:19:38.740
meaning my output period of time has gone up,

489
00:19:38.740 --> 00:19:41.820
I've realized that there's just been a significant decrease

490
00:19:41.820 --> 00:19:44.700
in the distractions that I allow to interrupt me.

491
00:19:44.700 --> 00:19:46.900
Again, if you wanna stay focused,

492
00:19:46.900 --> 00:19:49.900
staying focused is not like zeroing in and saying,

493
00:19:49.900 --> 00:19:52.140
I'm gonna do it just, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,

494
00:19:52.140 --> 00:19:55.180
I'm gonna just zoom in on this thing.

495
00:19:55.180 --> 00:19:59.700
It's more that focus occurs when you remove everything else.

496
00:19:59.700 --> 00:20:01.580
What's left is focus.

497
00:20:01.580 --> 00:20:04.700
And so Jerry Seinfeld has this famous process

498
00:20:04.700 --> 00:20:05.780
that he talks about with writing.

499
00:20:05.780 --> 00:20:07.620
And I think writers are also wonderful people

500
00:20:07.620 --> 00:20:08.860
for talking to you for deep work

501
00:20:08.860 --> 00:20:10.780
because it's the nature of the work they do.

502
00:20:10.780 --> 00:20:12.740
And so one of the things that he did

503
00:20:12.740 --> 00:20:14.900
and he has done for years for his standup

504
00:20:14.900 --> 00:20:17.460
so he can script it out, is that he locks himself

505
00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:21.260
in a room that has no windows and has nothing

506
00:20:21.260 --> 00:20:23.580
but a yellow, no pad and a pen.

507
00:20:23.580 --> 00:20:27.100
And he tells himself that he has to go on that room

508
00:20:27.100 --> 00:20:30.460
and he doesn't have to write but he can't do anything else.

509
00:20:30.460 --> 00:20:31.700
And so what ends up happening

510
00:20:31.700 --> 00:20:33.780
is that writing occurs as a default.

511
00:20:33.780 --> 00:20:36.500
And so focus kind of works the same way.

512
00:20:36.500 --> 00:20:38.860
You eliminate everything else to create focus.

513
00:20:38.860 --> 00:20:40.780
You don't try and push harder

514
00:20:40.780 --> 00:20:43.060
while also having these disruptions.

515
00:20:43.060 --> 00:20:45.420
So give you three easy things you can do with your phone.

516
00:20:45.420 --> 00:20:49.260
Number one is that I have a zero disturb mode

517
00:20:49.260 --> 00:20:51.100
where no one can contact me.

518
00:20:51.100 --> 00:20:52.860
So one, set that up on your phone.

519
00:20:52.860 --> 00:20:53.660
Most phones can do it.

520
00:20:53.660 --> 00:20:55.620
Number two, set grayscale on your phone.

521
00:20:55.620 --> 00:20:58.460
It takes a couple of seconds and it decreases

522
00:20:58.460 --> 00:21:00.620
your overall desire to go to a phone by 30%.

523
00:21:00.620 --> 00:21:02.780
That's research back.

524
00:21:02.780 --> 00:21:04.780
The third thing that I like to do

525
00:21:04.780 --> 00:21:06.900
is literally just remove it from my physical location.

526
00:21:06.900 --> 00:21:09.420
And so if you can put it outside of the room that you're in,

527
00:21:09.420 --> 00:21:10.980
that's gonna help a huge amount.

528
00:21:10.980 --> 00:21:13.460
Because you're gonna notice you have these like ghost desires.

529
00:21:13.460 --> 00:21:15.420
It's like you have these little like impulses

530
00:21:15.420 --> 00:21:16.780
to just check your phone on stuff.

531
00:21:16.780 --> 00:21:18.220
You'll have these ghost vibrations

532
00:21:18.220 --> 00:21:19.460
where you think your phone vibrated

533
00:21:19.460 --> 00:21:20.580
but it's not even on you.

534
00:21:20.580 --> 00:21:22.700
And you'll actually get a very good idea

535
00:21:22.700 --> 00:21:24.580
of how incredibly addicted to your phone

536
00:21:24.580 --> 00:21:26.340
and social media you are.

537
00:21:26.340 --> 00:21:28.620
The other piece is eliminating all notifications

538
00:21:28.620 --> 00:21:30.180
across all different platforms.

539
00:21:30.180 --> 00:21:33.140
And so none of my apps notify me

540
00:21:33.140 --> 00:21:36.380
because I want to pull things.

541
00:21:36.380 --> 00:21:38.100
I don't want it pushed to me.

542
00:21:38.100 --> 00:21:38.980
Because if it's pushed to me,

543
00:21:38.980 --> 00:21:40.580
then it means that it's sent to me

544
00:21:40.580 --> 00:21:42.940
when it's convenient for the application.

545
00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:46.060
Rather than when I go grab it, then I make it,

546
00:21:46.060 --> 00:21:48.660
I make consumption convenient on my timeline.

547
00:21:48.660 --> 00:21:49.500
Because let's be real,

548
00:21:49.500 --> 00:21:52.060
is there anything urgent on social media?

549
00:21:52.060 --> 00:21:53.140
Of course not.

550
00:21:53.140 --> 00:21:55.180
Are any text messages actually urgent?

551
00:21:55.180 --> 00:21:56.060
Of course not.

552
00:21:56.060 --> 00:21:57.940
If they are, call 911.

553
00:21:57.940 --> 00:22:00.380
If they're not, then you can check them later.

554
00:22:00.380 --> 00:22:02.220
And so you have to just realize that it's a,

555
00:22:02.220 --> 00:22:05.780
like the fallacy of urgency around inane tasks

556
00:22:05.780 --> 00:22:07.420
is that people will disturb you

557
00:22:07.420 --> 00:22:10.940
on their timeline based on their priorities, not yours.

558
00:22:10.940 --> 00:22:12.260
And if you consistently live

559
00:22:12.260 --> 00:22:15.820
on other people's time horizons and priorities,

560
00:22:15.820 --> 00:22:18.180
then you will get what is important to them,

561
00:22:18.180 --> 00:22:19.540
not important to you.

562
00:22:19.540 --> 00:22:21.900
And my team wanted to remind me that I don't email.

563
00:22:21.900 --> 00:22:24.140
And so I don't email.

564
00:22:24.140 --> 00:22:26.780
I heard in, I think it was like 2016

565
00:22:26.780 --> 00:22:28.820
that Bill Clinton didn't use email.

566
00:22:28.820 --> 00:22:30.140
And I was like, if he's the president,

567
00:22:30.140 --> 00:22:32.380
and he doesn't use email, I can not use email.

568
00:22:32.380 --> 00:22:36.300
And so my team doesn't contact me via email.

569
00:22:36.300 --> 00:22:38.820
And so if you can eliminate entire channels,

570
00:22:38.820 --> 00:22:42.540
that's also an easier way to concentrate

571
00:22:42.540 --> 00:22:45.180
fewer flows of communication.

572
00:22:45.180 --> 00:22:46.380
And here's the thing.

573
00:22:46.380 --> 00:22:49.420
It's always harder, takes longer,

574
00:22:49.420 --> 00:22:51.860
and costs more than you think it will.

575
00:22:51.860 --> 00:22:56.860
And that is a reflection of poor expectations,

576
00:22:58.180 --> 00:23:00.860
not that that reality is bad.

577
00:23:00.860 --> 00:23:03.740
And so it makes sense that it would be harder,

578
00:23:03.740 --> 00:23:05.580
take longer, and cost more.

579
00:23:05.580 --> 00:23:07.580
Because if it didn't, then everyone would have it,

580
00:23:07.580 --> 00:23:09.740
and everyone had it, then it wouldn't be worthwhile.

581
00:23:09.740 --> 00:23:12.220
And so literally the difficulty of the task

582
00:23:12.220 --> 00:23:15.220
that you embark on is proportional to the reward

583
00:23:15.220 --> 00:23:16.340
that you ultimately get,

584
00:23:16.340 --> 00:23:18.220
because you are the asset that you build

585
00:23:18.220 --> 00:23:19.260
more than the achievement.

586
00:23:19.260 --> 00:23:21.780
And so if it's hard, that's amazing.

587
00:23:21.780 --> 00:23:24.180
Because it will make you that much harder once you concrete.

588
00:23:24.180 --> 00:23:26.420
And it will also make it harder for anybody else

589
00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:28.020
who wants to follow in your footsteps.

590
00:23:28.020 --> 00:23:30.060
And so the higher up the mountain you climb,

591
00:23:30.060 --> 00:23:31.300
the thinner the air gets.

592
00:23:31.300 --> 00:23:34.580
And the rarer, the climber, or explorer

593
00:23:34.580 --> 00:23:36.460
must be in order to get there.

594
00:23:36.460 --> 00:23:37.980
And so I don't know about you,

595
00:23:37.980 --> 00:23:40.100
but I would so much rather climb a mountain

596
00:23:40.100 --> 00:23:42.140
that so few people have been able to climb

597
00:23:42.140 --> 00:23:44.580
so that I can see a view that other people haven't seen.

598
00:23:44.580 --> 00:23:46.660
And so speaking of expectations,

599
00:23:46.660 --> 00:23:49.020
let me talk about the worst expectation of all,

600
00:23:49.020 --> 00:23:50.300
which is entitlement,

601
00:23:50.300 --> 00:23:52.180
which is the expectation of life

602
00:23:52.180 --> 00:23:55.740
or other people to give you something without earning it.

603
00:23:55.740 --> 00:23:57.420
And so there's the famous quote,

604
00:23:57.420 --> 00:24:01.820
hard times create strong men, strong men create good times,

605
00:24:01.820 --> 00:24:03.460
good times create weak men,

606
00:24:03.460 --> 00:24:05.540
and weak men create hard times.

607
00:24:05.540 --> 00:24:09.500
It makes sense that right now we have a lot of weak men

608
00:24:10.420 --> 00:24:12.700
because it's been pretty good times.

609
00:24:12.700 --> 00:24:16.500
The good news about that is that it's so easy to beat them.

610
00:24:16.500 --> 00:24:18.380
You just have to show up,

611
00:24:18.380 --> 00:24:20.820
be on time, prepare the night before,

612
00:24:20.820 --> 00:24:22.620
remember his people's names,

613
00:24:22.620 --> 00:24:25.420
actually follow up when you say you were going to,

614
00:24:25.420 --> 00:24:27.860
and try like you mean it,

615
00:24:27.860 --> 00:24:31.140
rather than trying like you want to get credit for trying.

616
00:24:31.140 --> 00:24:35.700
And I see this is this thing that's pervasive right now,

617
00:24:35.700 --> 00:24:38.380
is that people will comment or they'll DM me

618
00:24:38.380 --> 00:24:40.980
and they're like, hey, I'm trying really hard,

619
00:24:40.980 --> 00:24:43.940
as though I'm supposed to give them credit for trying.

620
00:24:43.940 --> 00:24:45.860
The world doesn't work that way.

621
00:24:45.860 --> 00:24:47.420
It gives you credit for achieving,

622
00:24:47.460 --> 00:24:49.340
and the reason that you want credit for trying

623
00:24:49.340 --> 00:24:52.060
is because you want it to cost less,

624
00:24:52.060 --> 00:24:54.900
take shorter time period and be easier.

625
00:24:54.900 --> 00:24:58.860
And so if you restate your complaint about the difficulty

626
00:24:58.860 --> 00:25:02.340
as, oh, I have false expectations about the ease

627
00:25:02.340 --> 00:25:04.340
or the price tag of this goal,

628
00:25:04.340 --> 00:25:05.500
then all of a sudden you realize

629
00:25:05.500 --> 00:25:09.380
that the only real problem was that you expected it to cost less.

630
00:25:09.380 --> 00:25:11.060
It's like going to the store and being like,

631
00:25:11.060 --> 00:25:13.220
oh, I've got these Jordans that I really want to buy.

632
00:25:13.220 --> 00:25:15.420
I got $50, I'm so excited to buy them,

633
00:25:15.420 --> 00:25:18.540
you go to the store and see that they're $300.

634
00:25:18.540 --> 00:25:21.380
At that point, you can just say Jordans aren't for me,

635
00:25:21.380 --> 00:25:23.900
or you can say, oh, I will have to keep working

636
00:25:23.900 --> 00:25:26.220
and keep saving so that I can afford this.

637
00:25:26.220 --> 00:25:28.940
And so it's a lot about affording the goals

638
00:25:28.940 --> 00:25:30.260
that you want to achieve.

639
00:25:30.260 --> 00:25:32.260
And a lot of things that we have to spend

640
00:25:32.260 --> 00:25:35.500
in order to get them is the time and the rejection

641
00:25:35.500 --> 00:25:37.820
of not achieving what we want on the timeline

642
00:25:37.820 --> 00:25:39.180
we originally thought.

643
00:25:39.180 --> 00:25:41.700
Like what makes success hard is that the expectation

644
00:25:41.700 --> 00:25:44.540
that society puts because we only see the highlight reel,

645
00:25:44.540 --> 00:25:47.740
you actually only see people after they finish the race.

646
00:25:47.740 --> 00:25:50.860
And so you don't see much of the actual race itself.

647
00:25:50.860 --> 00:25:52.660
And if even you look at a marathon,

648
00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:56.140
where do people actually stand to watch?

649
00:25:56.140 --> 00:25:57.940
They stand at the starting line,

650
00:25:57.940 --> 00:25:59.700
and they stand at the finish line.

651
00:25:59.700 --> 00:26:02.660
And so the perception of how long the race takes

652
00:26:02.660 --> 00:26:05.380
is just that little couple seconds in the beginning

653
00:26:05.380 --> 00:26:07.260
and that little couple seconds in the end.

654
00:26:07.260 --> 00:26:10.220
And the four hours of the marathon in between

655
00:26:10.220 --> 00:26:11.820
is what no one's looking at.

656
00:26:11.900 --> 00:26:13.900
And so their expectation of how hard it is

657
00:26:13.900 --> 00:26:16.060
to run a marathon, they base on what they've seen

658
00:26:16.060 --> 00:26:18.380
with their eyes, which is only the beginning and the end.

659
00:26:18.380 --> 00:26:21.740
But the mundane middle is the part that you have to master.

660
00:26:21.740 --> 00:26:24.700
Like that's the part that you have to conquer.

661
00:26:24.700 --> 00:26:26.740
And that's the part that's always harder,

662
00:26:26.740 --> 00:26:29.460
takes longer, and costs more than you think it will.

663
00:26:29.460 --> 00:26:32.380
It's so easy to beat people nowadays.

664
00:26:32.380 --> 00:26:35.340
You have to start running and you have to keep running,

665
00:26:35.340 --> 00:26:37.620
but you just don't know whether you're running

666
00:26:37.620 --> 00:26:39.980
for a mile or 300.

667
00:26:40.060 --> 00:26:42.300
And so this is where the pacing is important.

668
00:26:42.300 --> 00:26:44.260
So a lot of people will run really hard.

669
00:26:44.260 --> 00:26:47.540
They'll think because they only saw the beginning

670
00:26:47.540 --> 00:26:50.860
of the marathon on TV and the finish of the marathon on TV

671
00:26:50.860 --> 00:26:52.020
that they can just sprint

672
00:26:52.020 --> 00:26:55.060
because both of those clips only lasted a couple of seconds.

673
00:26:55.060 --> 00:26:57.740
So they start their marathon of success

674
00:26:57.740 --> 00:26:59.420
of whatever it is they're going after

675
00:26:59.420 --> 00:27:01.420
by sprinting as hard as they can.

676
00:27:01.420 --> 00:27:04.340
And then they realize that there's no one around

677
00:27:04.340 --> 00:27:06.580
and there's just a bunch of open road ahead of them.

678
00:27:06.580 --> 00:27:08.420
And they're like, how long is this going to take?

679
00:27:08.580 --> 00:27:10.380
And that's when reality sets in.

680
00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:13.580
And so I make these videos to say that a lot of times

681
00:27:13.580 --> 00:27:15.620
it's going to take longer.

682
00:27:15.620 --> 00:27:17.500
So one of the big nasty things

683
00:27:17.500 --> 00:27:20.220
that you have to eliminate on this path

684
00:27:20.220 --> 00:27:23.620
is the identity that you have about yourself,

685
00:27:23.620 --> 00:27:25.540
the isms that you claim.

686
00:27:25.540 --> 00:27:30.140
And so for example, like, oh, I'm a, I'm a neat freak.

687
00:27:30.140 --> 00:27:33.540
I'm a, I'm not good at math, I'm not techy.

688
00:27:33.540 --> 00:27:36.860
And so you make these statements and they don't serve you.

689
00:27:36.860 --> 00:27:39.220
Fundamentally, you should have one razor

690
00:27:39.220 --> 00:27:41.020
that rules all decisions.

691
00:27:41.020 --> 00:27:43.060
And this is, this is pretty cruel,

692
00:27:43.060 --> 00:27:45.220
but it's also the reality of the world,

693
00:27:45.220 --> 00:27:50.020
which is does this thing, person, belief,

694
00:27:50.020 --> 00:27:53.260
make it more or less likely that I hit my goals?

695
00:27:53.260 --> 00:27:56.100
And so if you run every single thing you do,

696
00:27:56.100 --> 00:27:58.540
the actions you take, the people you hang out with,

697
00:27:58.540 --> 00:28:00.220
you having your phone in the room,

698
00:28:00.220 --> 00:28:03.380
you saying I'm not techy, does this increase

699
00:28:03.380 --> 00:28:06.100
or decrease the likelihood that you hit your goals?

700
00:28:06.100 --> 00:28:07.780
And I'm not saying this to preach

701
00:28:07.780 --> 00:28:10.180
because I had one that I dealt with for a long time.

702
00:28:10.180 --> 00:28:13.340
So I always considered myself to be bad at math.

703
00:28:13.340 --> 00:28:16.140
I remember I was decent at math, and then in ninth grade,

704
00:28:16.140 --> 00:28:17.180
I had a really bad teacher,

705
00:28:17.180 --> 00:28:18.700
and it basically put me back a year.

706
00:28:18.700 --> 00:28:21.260
I basically, after algebra, I didn't really learn anything

707
00:28:21.260 --> 00:28:22.140
because the year after that,

708
00:28:22.140 --> 00:28:24.180
I didn't have the foundations from the year before.

709
00:28:24.180 --> 00:28:26.740
And I basically just cheated through high school math.

710
00:28:26.740 --> 00:28:31.140
But difficulty was, I kept saying after that point,

711
00:28:31.140 --> 00:28:33.060
I'm just not good at math.

712
00:28:33.060 --> 00:28:35.660
But when I was in my 20s, I made the decision

713
00:28:35.700 --> 00:28:37.540
that that didn't serve me anymore.

714
00:28:37.540 --> 00:28:40.780
And so I was like, okay, well, what would I have to do

715
00:28:40.780 --> 00:28:42.180
to feel like I was good at math?

716
00:28:42.180 --> 00:28:44.660
And I was like, well, people who can do math in their head,

717
00:28:44.660 --> 00:28:46.140
I think that's a pretty cool thing.

718
00:28:46.140 --> 00:28:51.140
And so I didn't use a calculator for anything for years.

719
00:28:51.260 --> 00:28:53.980
And then I learned, I mean, I made a lot of mistakes

720
00:28:53.980 --> 00:28:56.180
in the beginning, but then I got better and better

721
00:28:56.180 --> 00:28:57.660
at doing math in my head.

722
00:28:57.660 --> 00:29:00.140
And I would check it obviously after I was done,

723
00:29:00.140 --> 00:29:03.100
but I always let my head try and do it first.

724
00:29:03.100 --> 00:29:05.180
And so nowadays, if you were to ask people, man,

725
00:29:05.180 --> 00:29:06.500
his Alex good at math, they're like, dude,

726
00:29:06.500 --> 00:29:08.420
he just rattles off numbers like crazy.

727
00:29:08.420 --> 00:29:11.100
But the thing is, is that until I was in my 20s,

728
00:29:11.100 --> 00:29:12.940
I thought I was bad at math.

729
00:29:12.940 --> 00:29:14.900
And so it's like, we are so much more pliable

730
00:29:14.900 --> 00:29:15.980
than we think we are.

731
00:29:15.980 --> 00:29:18.460
And we had something that set us on a trajectory

732
00:29:18.460 --> 00:29:19.900
a little bit earlier in life

733
00:29:19.900 --> 00:29:22.140
that just gave us maybe a little bit of disadvantage.

734
00:29:22.140 --> 00:29:25.300
Fine, because you just have to get over it.

735
00:29:25.300 --> 00:29:27.220
Everyone's childhood was difficult.

736
00:29:27.220 --> 00:29:30.860
And if you want to win the award for the hardest childhood,

737
00:29:30.860 --> 00:29:33.260
and if you want to win the award for hardest childhood,

738
00:29:33.260 --> 00:29:35.700
congrats, you win, you feel better?

739
00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:38.620
Right, no one cares about what happened to you then.

740
00:29:38.620 --> 00:29:40.660
Only what you can make happen now.

741
00:29:40.660 --> 00:29:44.100
We only describe people about who they are

742
00:29:44.100 --> 00:29:48.420
by what they do, doing is being.

743
00:29:48.420 --> 00:29:50.740
And so if you want to be somehow different,

744
00:29:50.740 --> 00:29:52.460
you have to do different things.

745
00:29:52.460 --> 00:29:55.220
And then only afterwards will people describe you

746
00:29:55.220 --> 00:29:56.740
based on the actions you take.

747
00:29:56.740 --> 00:29:59.700
Think about back in the day, the actual names people had

748
00:29:59.700 --> 00:30:03.100
was, you know, he's John the carpenter.

749
00:30:03.100 --> 00:30:04.780
He's John the stone smith.

750
00:30:04.780 --> 00:30:06.860
He's John the mason, right?

751
00:30:06.860 --> 00:30:10.420
People literally had their names based on what they did.

752
00:30:10.420 --> 00:30:11.900
That hasn't changed.

753
00:30:11.900 --> 00:30:13.380
The first thing you do when you meet somebody

754
00:30:13.380 --> 00:30:15.020
is you find out what do you do.

755
00:30:15.020 --> 00:30:16.460
And that gives you indications.

756
00:30:16.460 --> 00:30:18.380
And if you want to describe who someone is,

757
00:30:18.380 --> 00:30:19.300
what do you say?

758
00:30:19.300 --> 00:30:20.780
You describe what they do.

759
00:30:20.780 --> 00:30:22.700
And so this means that our identities

760
00:30:22.700 --> 00:30:25.780
100% under our control because we control what we do.

761
00:30:25.780 --> 00:30:27.460
And then only after the fact

762
00:30:27.460 --> 00:30:29.900
what other people describe you in that way.

763
00:30:29.900 --> 00:30:31.700
So we covered environmental things,

764
00:30:31.700 --> 00:30:33.420
like with the phone and having a timer.

765
00:30:33.420 --> 00:30:36.140
We covered interpersonal things in terms of our identity

766
00:30:36.140 --> 00:30:37.820
and voting with our dollars in time

767
00:30:37.820 --> 00:30:39.100
about the things that we care about.

768
00:30:39.100 --> 00:30:41.260
We eliminated the bad people

769
00:30:41.260 --> 00:30:44.540
and their opinions about us that affect our behavior.

770
00:30:44.540 --> 00:30:46.420
And so we've eliminated all these things.

771
00:30:46.420 --> 00:30:49.780
So now we've made room to get started.

772
00:30:49.780 --> 00:30:53.420
And the good news is you only need three things to win.

773
00:30:53.420 --> 00:30:55.860
The balls to start, the brains to learn

774
00:30:55.860 --> 00:30:58.100
and the heart to never give up.

775
00:30:58.100 --> 00:31:00.900
And the best thing is you already have all three.

776
00:31:00.900 --> 00:31:02.420
And for the girls, you have gonads.

777
00:31:02.420 --> 00:31:03.740
So it's fine, it still counts.

778
00:31:03.740 --> 00:31:06.820
And so my ask of you is to make the commitment.

779
00:31:06.820 --> 00:31:09.500
Now this is, again, the elimination of alternatives

780
00:31:09.500 --> 00:31:12.380
to make the commitment to never stop.

781
00:31:12.380 --> 00:31:14.580
And so it doesn't mean that I'm asking you to commit

782
00:31:14.580 --> 00:31:15.980
to be successful.

783
00:31:15.980 --> 00:31:18.100
I'm asking you to commit to keep running,

784
00:31:18.100 --> 00:31:19.660
to keep walking the marathon.

785
00:31:19.660 --> 00:31:22.220
Even if you have to pan and you have to slow down,

786
00:31:22.220 --> 00:31:23.940
you just can't stop.

787
00:31:23.940 --> 00:31:26.860
And so the best way to hit next year's goals

788
00:31:26.860 --> 00:31:29.700
is to not wait until next year to work on them.

789
00:31:29.700 --> 00:31:31.500
It's to start now.

790
00:31:31.500 --> 00:31:32.580
Because I'll tell you this,

791
00:31:32.580 --> 00:31:35.460
if you feel like you need a special occasion

792
00:31:35.460 --> 00:31:37.860
to begin making your life better,

793
00:31:37.860 --> 00:31:40.380
then it assumes that a special occasion

794
00:31:40.380 --> 00:31:44.220
must always be there for you to want to improve yourself.

795
00:31:44.220 --> 00:31:48.540
It shows that you don't think today is worth improving.

796
00:31:48.540 --> 00:31:51.940
And so that means that you typically will always cast forward

797
00:31:51.940 --> 00:31:53.900
when you think things are worth improving.

798
00:31:53.900 --> 00:31:56.500
And so the easiest way to vote with your action

799
00:31:56.500 --> 00:31:58.740
is to make today the only day that is good.

800
00:31:58.780 --> 00:32:01.100
Because it's the only day you have control over.

801
00:32:01.100 --> 00:32:03.780
And I'm purposely posting this before the year ends

802
00:32:03.780 --> 00:32:05.780
because I think it's stupid to wait.

803
00:32:05.780 --> 00:32:08.340
Like, why would you wait on getting better?

804
00:32:08.340 --> 00:32:10.060
Why would you, like if you had a lottery ticket,

805
00:32:10.060 --> 00:32:12.140
why would you wait to cash it in?

806
00:32:12.140 --> 00:32:14.300
You would cash it in as fast as seemingly possible.

807
00:32:14.300 --> 00:32:16.620
And that lottery ticket is the life that you want

808
00:32:16.620 --> 00:32:17.980
on the other side of this.

809
00:32:17.980 --> 00:32:19.900
Why would you, why would you wait?

810
00:32:21.060 --> 00:32:24.140
And so here's a, here's a harsh truth.

811
00:32:24.140 --> 00:32:28.740
Your young, you've got time, false.

812
00:32:28.740 --> 00:32:33.020
All this does that lie is extend how long people,

813
00:32:34.060 --> 00:32:37.380
all that lie does is extend how long it takes people

814
00:32:37.380 --> 00:32:40.060
to realize tomorrow isn't guaranteed.

815
00:32:40.060 --> 00:32:42.900
Nothing is going to be easy, get over it.

816
00:32:42.900 --> 00:32:44.340
It takes time to get good.

817
00:32:44.340 --> 00:32:47.100
And the sooner you start, the sooner you act.

818
00:32:47.100 --> 00:32:49.740
And the sooner you act, the sooner you get.

819
00:32:50.660 --> 00:32:52.740
And don't stop until you do.

820
00:32:52.740 --> 00:32:55.900
And as harsh as that sounds, I do have good news.

821
00:32:55.900 --> 00:32:58.700
It only takes 20 hours of focused effort

822
00:32:58.700 --> 00:33:00.620
to get decent at anything.

823
00:33:00.620 --> 00:33:03.060
The problem is people wait years

824
00:33:03.060 --> 00:33:04.700
before they start their first hour.

825
00:33:04.700 --> 00:33:08.300
So many of you could probably start achieving next year goals

826
00:33:08.300 --> 00:33:10.100
before the end of this year.

827
00:33:10.100 --> 00:33:11.980
20 hours is not that long.

828
00:33:11.980 --> 00:33:13.740
If you're like, man, I really want to learn ads.

829
00:33:13.740 --> 00:33:14.980
I really want to learn how to make content.

830
00:33:14.980 --> 00:33:16.140
I really want to learn how to edit videos.

831
00:33:16.140 --> 00:33:17.700
I really want to learn how to sell.

832
00:33:17.700 --> 00:33:19.580
You can do that now.

833
00:33:19.580 --> 00:33:21.220
And you can have that skill.

834
00:33:21.220 --> 00:33:24.260
We can onboard a new sales guy in a few days.

835
00:33:24.260 --> 00:33:26.180
It's just there's this massive delay

836
00:33:26.180 --> 00:33:28.460
that people think because of the unknown,

837
00:33:28.460 --> 00:33:31.220
they don't know what is going to happen.

838
00:33:31.220 --> 00:33:33.980
And so they therefore assume that it's bad.

839
00:33:33.980 --> 00:33:36.500
And so the reality is that most people don't like surprises,

840
00:33:36.500 --> 00:33:38.060
even if they're good ones.

841
00:33:38.060 --> 00:33:39.020
Have you ever heard people like,

842
00:33:39.020 --> 00:33:40.860
oh, I don't like surprise parties?

843
00:33:40.860 --> 00:33:42.660
It's a fucking party.

844
00:33:42.660 --> 00:33:45.300
Why would you hate a surprise party?

845
00:33:45.300 --> 00:33:46.820
That's in your favor.

846
00:33:46.820 --> 00:33:48.980
You hate it because you don't like the unknown.

847
00:33:48.980 --> 00:33:51.180
And so it's a really good thing to test for yourself,

848
00:33:51.220 --> 00:33:54.700
which is, why would I hate a good surprise?

849
00:33:54.700 --> 00:33:56.380
You hate it because there's a possibility

850
00:33:56.380 --> 00:33:58.540
that the surprise is negative.

851
00:33:58.540 --> 00:34:00.540
But on a long time horizon,

852
00:34:00.540 --> 00:34:01.780
you know, 85 year old you

853
00:34:01.780 --> 00:34:03.780
isn't even going to remember it to begin with.

854
00:34:03.780 --> 00:34:05.260
I tend to have a bad habit

855
00:34:05.260 --> 00:34:07.620
of really not looking back very much.

856
00:34:07.620 --> 00:34:10.580
And so I occasionally will go through my photos

857
00:34:10.580 --> 00:34:14.340
and I am reminded about all of the mistakes

858
00:34:14.340 --> 00:34:17.020
and the detours that I took along the way

859
00:34:17.020 --> 00:34:18.220
to where I wanted to go.

860
00:34:18.220 --> 00:34:19.700
And I'll tell you the story that my father told me

861
00:34:19.700 --> 00:34:22.100
when I was very impatient.

862
00:34:22.100 --> 00:34:23.380
He said, listen,

863
00:34:23.380 --> 00:34:25.580
you think that this is taking too long

864
00:34:25.580 --> 00:34:27.100
for you to be successful.

865
00:34:27.100 --> 00:34:29.460
He said, do you know how long it took me

866
00:34:29.460 --> 00:34:30.660
to become a doctor?

867
00:34:30.660 --> 00:34:32.140
And I was like, no.

868
00:34:32.140 --> 00:34:34.100
So my father's a run-in

869
00:34:34.100 --> 00:34:38.260
and he left the country to get educated.

870
00:34:38.260 --> 00:34:40.300
And there was a program for anybody who's a run-in

871
00:34:40.300 --> 00:34:42.020
that the government would pay for your schooling

872
00:34:42.020 --> 00:34:43.980
as long as you came back with the education.

873
00:34:43.980 --> 00:34:46.700
Now the revolution occurred during the time you was away.

874
00:34:46.700 --> 00:34:48.300
So you actually never got to go back.

875
00:34:48.580 --> 00:34:52.620
And so he went to France, Paris,

876
00:34:52.620 --> 00:34:55.540
to try and enter medical school, only problem.

877
00:34:55.540 --> 00:34:57.020
He didn't speak French.

878
00:34:57.020 --> 00:35:01.380
And so he's trying to do pre-med in another language

879
00:35:02.580 --> 00:35:05.620
as someone who doesn't even share the same alphabet.

880
00:35:05.620 --> 00:35:07.940
And so he failed that year.

881
00:35:08.900 --> 00:35:11.380
He then took the second year.

882
00:35:11.380 --> 00:35:13.500
He tried again because you're allowed in France

883
00:35:13.500 --> 00:35:14.340
to different system.

884
00:35:14.340 --> 00:35:16.180
You can just basically try as many times you want.

885
00:35:16.180 --> 00:35:18.820
So he started again.

886
00:35:18.820 --> 00:35:21.620
And the second year, he failed again.

887
00:35:21.620 --> 00:35:23.180
And then he talked to his brother and he was like,

888
00:35:23.180 --> 00:35:24.420
I don't know if being a doctor is for me.

889
00:35:24.420 --> 00:35:25.780
Like I just felt like, imagine this.

890
00:35:25.780 --> 00:35:29.220
Like failing two full years in a row.

891
00:35:29.220 --> 00:35:31.540
And his brother said, hey, why don't you go to Belgium?

892
00:35:31.540 --> 00:35:33.060
You know, change the environment.

893
00:35:33.060 --> 00:35:34.420
You know, different different school,

894
00:35:34.420 --> 00:35:36.420
different people go there.

895
00:35:36.420 --> 00:35:37.660
So he went to Belgium

896
00:35:37.660 --> 00:35:40.740
and then his third try he made it past his first year.

897
00:35:40.740 --> 00:35:41.940
Now, mind you, at this point,

898
00:35:41.940 --> 00:35:43.580
he had two years of learning French.

899
00:35:43.580 --> 00:35:45.900
And so he was able to finally actually understand

900
00:35:45.940 --> 00:35:47.420
what the professor were saying.

901
00:35:47.420 --> 00:35:50.380
So was it that he wasn't smart enough

902
00:35:50.380 --> 00:35:53.020
to understand how to become a doctor

903
00:35:53.020 --> 00:35:55.060
or was it that he just had other skills

904
00:35:55.060 --> 00:35:56.620
that he lacked along the way?

905
00:35:56.620 --> 00:35:59.300
And so a lot of people right now are judging the fact

906
00:35:59.300 --> 00:36:01.820
that they didn't succeed because they somehow think

907
00:36:01.820 --> 00:36:02.860
it's some innate trait.

908
00:36:02.860 --> 00:36:04.740
I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough.

909
00:36:04.740 --> 00:36:07.900
But sometimes you just lack some prerequisite skills.

910
00:36:07.900 --> 00:36:09.740
Right? Like if you're like trying to learn calculus

911
00:36:09.740 --> 00:36:11.220
and you've never done arithmetic before,

912
00:36:11.220 --> 00:36:13.220
it's gonna be really hard, right?

913
00:36:13.220 --> 00:36:14.740
Dare I say impossible.

914
00:36:14.780 --> 00:36:16.940
And so if you jump straight into calculus,

915
00:36:16.940 --> 00:36:18.100
you're not gonna win.

916
00:36:18.100 --> 00:36:20.100
So sometimes you have to take two tests back

917
00:36:20.100 --> 00:36:22.260
in order to build the foundation to get forward.

918
00:36:22.260 --> 00:36:25.340
So he then graduates in, you know, seven years

919
00:36:25.340 --> 00:36:26.820
that's how long it takes the actual

920
00:36:26.820 --> 00:36:29.940
medical system is different in Europe.

921
00:36:29.940 --> 00:36:31.140
They actually do college

922
00:36:31.140 --> 00:36:33.620
and the next degree, all is one thing.

923
00:36:33.620 --> 00:36:35.580
So seven years later, he graduates.

924
00:36:35.580 --> 00:36:38.060
Okay, then he's this Iranian dude,

925
00:36:38.060 --> 00:36:39.900
can't go back to his own country,

926
00:36:39.900 --> 00:36:42.540
meets a girl in Belgium, she says I'm from the US.

927
00:36:42.660 --> 00:36:44.660
And so he comes back to the US

928
00:36:44.660 --> 00:36:48.140
with the lady who would eventually become my mother.

929
00:36:48.140 --> 00:36:50.260
And when he's in the US,

930
00:36:50.260 --> 00:36:55.260
he then, his doctor, his MD, doesn't apply here.

931
00:36:55.340 --> 00:36:57.860
So he then has to basically do it again

932
00:36:57.860 --> 00:36:59.420
in the United States.

933
00:36:59.420 --> 00:37:02.220
And in order to do this, you have to get a residency.

934
00:37:02.220 --> 00:37:04.740
Now getting a residency as someone who's a foreigner

935
00:37:04.740 --> 00:37:06.780
back then was pretty tough.

936
00:37:06.780 --> 00:37:08.540
And so it took him two years

937
00:37:08.540 --> 00:37:10.780
where he had to basically work minimum wage jobs.

938
00:37:10.780 --> 00:37:14.780
He was like run slides, like radiology slides

939
00:37:14.780 --> 00:37:16.980
back and forth as like a runner, a career

940
00:37:16.980 --> 00:37:19.100
when he was a full surgeon.

941
00:37:19.100 --> 00:37:20.980
But he couldn't do it here in the US.

942
00:37:20.980 --> 00:37:24.300
And so imagine how emasculinating it is, right?

943
00:37:24.300 --> 00:37:28.300
Where your wife comes back, she was a US citizen

944
00:37:28.300 --> 00:37:29.260
and had all this other stuff, right?

945
00:37:29.260 --> 00:37:31.580
And she got her internship immediately

946
00:37:31.580 --> 00:37:34.500
because she was US and she was a girl, whatever.

947
00:37:34.500 --> 00:37:36.060
And my father didn't.

948
00:37:36.060 --> 00:37:39.020
And so he then had to do two more years

949
00:37:39.020 --> 00:37:40.700
where he didn't have progress.

950
00:37:40.700 --> 00:37:41.900
So he told me this whole story.

951
00:37:41.900 --> 00:37:43.900
And then eventually obviously he got the residency

952
00:37:43.900 --> 00:37:45.460
and then he was able to get in the path.

953
00:37:45.460 --> 00:37:46.500
But if you look at that,

954
00:37:46.500 --> 00:37:49.300
he basically had four or five years of his life

955
00:37:49.300 --> 00:37:51.660
where there was basically no net gain

956
00:37:51.660 --> 00:37:53.300
in progress towards his goals.

957
00:37:53.300 --> 00:37:56.020
And so he's telling me this story when he's 50.

958
00:37:56.020 --> 00:37:58.340
And he's like, look at my life now.

959
00:37:58.340 --> 00:37:59.860
He's like, no one knows.

960
00:37:59.860 --> 00:38:02.180
He's like, no one asks me how long it took.

961
00:38:02.180 --> 00:38:04.780
They just know what I have now and what I can do now.

962
00:38:04.780 --> 00:38:08.340
And so you have this idea that it should take

963
00:38:08.340 --> 00:38:09.900
a certain period of time.

964
00:38:09.900 --> 00:38:11.980
It should only last this long.

965
00:38:11.980 --> 00:38:14.500
It should be this level of difficulty.

966
00:38:14.500 --> 00:38:17.340
But the thing is is that that level of perseverance,

967
00:38:17.340 --> 00:38:19.020
when he decided to go out on his own

968
00:38:19.020 --> 00:38:20.340
and start his own practice,

969
00:38:20.340 --> 00:38:23.540
rather than and left the practice that he was working in,

970
00:38:23.540 --> 00:38:25.100
he then didn't know anyone.

971
00:38:25.100 --> 00:38:26.580
And he still had a heavy accent.

972
00:38:26.580 --> 00:38:28.380
Was it new guy in a new area?

973
00:38:28.380 --> 00:38:29.700
And it took him time to build up.

974
00:38:29.700 --> 00:38:30.540
And what did he do?

975
00:38:30.540 --> 00:38:32.380
My dad learned how to be a general contractor.

976
00:38:32.380 --> 00:38:33.940
He built his own surgical center

977
00:38:33.940 --> 00:38:35.620
because he couldn't afford having these

978
00:38:35.620 --> 00:38:36.740
outsourced third parties

979
00:38:36.740 --> 00:38:39.180
that charged $250,000 to build a surgery center.

980
00:38:39.180 --> 00:38:41.260
He built his for a fraction of that.

981
00:38:41.260 --> 00:38:43.260
And so as my dad going to Home Depot,

982
00:38:43.260 --> 00:38:44.740
measuring and figuring this things out,

983
00:38:44.740 --> 00:38:46.660
as a full plastic surgeon,

984
00:38:46.660 --> 00:38:48.740
it's not about the resources you have.

985
00:38:48.740 --> 00:38:51.020
It's about how resourceful you're willing to be.

986
00:38:51.020 --> 00:38:55.260
Right now, getting started is 100% under your control.

987
00:38:55.260 --> 00:38:57.180
And I love taking this frame which is that

988
00:38:57.180 --> 00:39:00.700
every self-made billionaire is self-made.

989
00:39:01.580 --> 00:39:02.860
Now, if you're like, wait,

990
00:39:02.860 --> 00:39:04.300
they're a billionaire, you aren't self-made.

991
00:39:04.300 --> 00:39:07.100
Right, that's why it didn't say all billionaires.

992
00:39:07.100 --> 00:39:10.260
Every self-made billionaire is self-made.

993
00:39:10.260 --> 00:39:13.300
And every self-made millionaire is self-made.

994
00:39:13.300 --> 00:39:14.900
And here's the one people hate.

995
00:39:14.900 --> 00:39:19.020
Every self-made person in poverty is self-made.

996
00:39:19.020 --> 00:39:21.780
Now, that may make you feel uncomfortable.

997
00:39:21.780 --> 00:39:22.780
And you know what?

998
00:39:22.780 --> 00:39:23.860
You may be right.

999
00:39:23.860 --> 00:39:25.820
You probably did have more disadvantages.

1000
00:39:25.820 --> 00:39:28.940
You probably did have things that worked against you.

1001
00:39:28.940 --> 00:39:30.180
And now what?

1002
00:39:30.180 --> 00:39:31.420
You're right.

1003
00:39:31.420 --> 00:39:34.220
So that's it then for you.

1004
00:39:34.220 --> 00:39:36.940
The rest of your life will never go the way you want to go.

1005
00:39:36.940 --> 00:39:40.380
The harsh truth here is if you want to feel better,

1006
00:39:40.380 --> 00:39:41.820
blame others.

1007
00:39:41.820 --> 00:39:44.660
If you want to get better, blame yourself.

1008
00:39:44.660 --> 00:39:48.060
My father told me that story multiple times in my life

1009
00:39:48.060 --> 00:39:50.300
as I'm sure your fathers have told you stories

1010
00:39:50.300 --> 00:39:51.940
multiple times in your life or you had a parent

1011
00:39:51.940 --> 00:39:53.580
or an uncle or a brother and they told you

1012
00:39:53.580 --> 00:39:55.380
those big meaningful stories.

1013
00:39:55.380 --> 00:39:57.220
And so I'll tell you another time he told me it.

1014
00:39:57.220 --> 00:40:00.940
So after I lost everything for the second time,

1015
00:40:00.940 --> 00:40:02.660
think about like I tell the story

1016
00:40:02.660 --> 00:40:04.900
but it's very easy to gloss over.

1017
00:40:04.900 --> 00:40:06.700
But think about this.

1018
00:40:06.700 --> 00:40:10.820
I had left my job, went to a new area, didn't know anyone,

1019
00:40:10.820 --> 00:40:12.540
started a gym, didn't have enough money

1020
00:40:12.540 --> 00:40:14.740
to have an apartment, slept at my gym,

1021
00:40:14.740 --> 00:40:17.500
just grassers got it going, made the gym successful

1022
00:40:17.500 --> 00:40:19.140
by working there every hour of the day.

1023
00:40:19.140 --> 00:40:21.340
Was finally successful enough to be able to open a second

1024
00:40:21.340 --> 00:40:23.540
location, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth.

1025
00:40:23.540 --> 00:40:25.700
Finally feel like I tasted the success.

1026
00:40:25.700 --> 00:40:26.700
Like I'm actually doing something.

1027
00:40:26.700 --> 00:40:27.700
I'm actually pretty good here.

1028
00:40:27.700 --> 00:40:31.100
Like that bet that I made actually paid off.

1029
00:40:31.100 --> 00:40:33.100
And then I lose it all.

1030
00:40:34.220 --> 00:40:36.460
And so I sell all those locations.

1031
00:40:36.460 --> 00:40:39.260
I put the money in a new thing and then it's gone.

1032
00:40:39.260 --> 00:40:42.260
And so I could look back and say,

1033
00:40:42.260 --> 00:40:45.100
wow, I just spent all those years

1034
00:40:45.100 --> 00:40:47.900
and I actually have nothing to show for it.

1035
00:40:47.900 --> 00:40:49.380
The only thing I would have had to show

1036
00:40:49.380 --> 00:40:51.500
was the money that I made.

1037
00:40:51.500 --> 00:40:54.020
But my father retold me that story.

1038
00:40:54.020 --> 00:40:57.180
And he said it was never about the amount of failures

1039
00:40:57.180 --> 00:40:59.500
he had, it was about the education that he had.

1040
00:40:59.500 --> 00:41:01.820
And so one of the other repeated fatherisms

1041
00:41:01.820 --> 00:41:05.420
that he gave me was that education is the only thing

1042
00:41:05.500 --> 00:41:06.780
that no one can take from you.

1043
00:41:06.780 --> 00:41:09.740
The skills you have, the skills you acquire along the way

1044
00:41:09.740 --> 00:41:12.340
are the only thing that are truly yours.

1045
00:41:12.340 --> 00:41:13.940
There's nothing else in this world

1046
00:41:13.940 --> 00:41:15.820
that actually belongs to you.

1047
00:41:15.820 --> 00:41:18.980
You're close can get stolen, the belongs you have.

1048
00:41:18.980 --> 00:41:21.860
And he said this from a place of reality,

1049
00:41:21.860 --> 00:41:23.900
which is my family came from a country

1050
00:41:23.900 --> 00:41:25.860
that took all of our assets.

1051
00:41:25.860 --> 00:41:27.100
They seized everything.

1052
00:41:27.100 --> 00:41:29.380
They seized land, they seized homes,

1053
00:41:29.380 --> 00:41:30.540
they seized wealth.

1054
00:41:30.540 --> 00:41:33.460
They just said, oh yeah, all that, that's ours now.

1055
00:41:33.500 --> 00:41:36.180
Because of that, this may not be as real

1056
00:41:36.180 --> 00:41:38.060
for people in the United States.

1057
00:41:38.060 --> 00:41:40.700
But having people who everyone in my family

1058
00:41:40.700 --> 00:41:42.820
had everything taken from them,

1059
00:41:42.820 --> 00:41:46.020
that is very evident in how they talk to me

1060
00:41:46.020 --> 00:41:48.980
and how I've always seen the world as these things

1061
00:41:48.980 --> 00:41:51.220
are ephemeral, these material goods,

1062
00:41:51.220 --> 00:41:53.540
the studio, the set up, the lights, the whatever,

1063
00:41:53.540 --> 00:41:57.700
the platforms, like gone.

1064
00:41:57.700 --> 00:42:00.340
But the thing is is that my father came here

1065
00:42:00.340 --> 00:42:02.500
with a thousand dollars because of the revolution

1066
00:42:02.540 --> 00:42:05.260
and had nothing and built the life he has.

1067
00:42:05.260 --> 00:42:08.380
And you can lose it all and gain it back.

1068
00:42:08.380 --> 00:42:10.380
And so we've seen so many entrepreneurs

1069
00:42:10.380 --> 00:42:11.820
who've actually lived through this cycle.

1070
00:42:11.820 --> 00:42:13.740
It's actually a common thing in entrepreneurship.

1071
00:42:13.740 --> 00:42:17.540
And it's because you have to understand and respect risk.

1072
00:42:17.540 --> 00:42:20.460
The beauty of it is that after you fail

1073
00:42:20.460 --> 00:42:23.620
the likelihood that your successful goes up, not down.

1074
00:42:23.620 --> 00:42:25.500
This is the part that people miss.

1075
00:42:25.500 --> 00:42:27.380
They fail and think it somehow decreases

1076
00:42:27.380 --> 00:42:29.580
the likelihood of success, but it actually increases it.

1077
00:42:29.580 --> 00:42:31.660
And so it's like you wanna just get the failures out of the way.

1078
00:42:31.660 --> 00:42:32.780
Why would you not want something

1079
00:42:32.780 --> 00:42:34.540
that increases the likelihood of your goal?

1080
00:42:34.540 --> 00:42:36.300
And the reason that it increases that likelihood

1081
00:42:36.300 --> 00:42:40.300
is that failure is a requisite probability

1082
00:42:40.300 --> 00:42:41.820
for taking action.

1083
00:42:41.820 --> 00:42:44.180
And so anyone who has failed has taken more action

1084
00:42:44.180 --> 00:42:45.460
than someone who's done nothing,

1085
00:42:45.460 --> 00:42:46.900
which means it increases the likelihood

1086
00:42:46.900 --> 00:42:47.980
that they are successful.

1087
00:42:47.980 --> 00:42:49.820
When you fail, you get feedback.

1088
00:42:49.820 --> 00:42:51.860
And when you get feedback, you get better.

1089
00:42:51.860 --> 00:42:54.340
And when you get better, it increases the likelihood you win.

1090
00:42:54.340 --> 00:42:58.900
Losers become losers by never being willing to lose.

1091
00:42:58.900 --> 00:43:00.220
I'm gonna say this again.

1092
00:43:00.220 --> 00:43:05.220
Losers stay losers by never being willing to lose.

1093
00:43:06.700 --> 00:43:08.900
Everyone loses before they win.

1094
00:43:09.900 --> 00:43:12.220
And so there's this great moment in the Matrix,

1095
00:43:12.220 --> 00:43:13.980
which is the famous jump,

1096
00:43:13.980 --> 00:43:16.700
where Neo is trying to jump across the buildings.

1097
00:43:16.700 --> 00:43:17.860
And everyone's gathered around

1098
00:43:17.860 --> 00:43:19.380
because they think he's the one.

1099
00:43:19.380 --> 00:43:22.500
He obviously takes the jump and he falls.

1100
00:43:22.500 --> 00:43:24.300
And they're like, what does it mean?

1101
00:43:24.300 --> 00:43:25.300
What does it mean?

1102
00:43:25.300 --> 00:43:27.980
And Cypher who ended up eventually being the Judas of this

1103
00:43:27.980 --> 00:43:31.300
says, everybody falls the first time.

1104
00:43:31.300 --> 00:43:33.260
And so even the one, or the person

1105
00:43:33.260 --> 00:43:35.180
who was going to become the one,

1106
00:43:35.180 --> 00:43:37.020
was somebody who had to fail first.

1107
00:43:37.020 --> 00:43:39.780
And I love that because everyone has to,

1108
00:43:39.780 --> 00:43:41.260
everyone falls the first time.

1109
00:43:41.260 --> 00:43:44.540
Your first business is very unlikely to be your last business.

1110
00:43:44.540 --> 00:43:46.940
The first product you have will be a product

1111
00:43:46.940 --> 00:43:49.020
that you will be embarrassed of years from now.

1112
00:43:49.020 --> 00:43:51.380
But what's important is having the product,

1113
00:43:51.380 --> 00:43:53.100
getting the product, building the product,

1114
00:43:53.100 --> 00:43:55.060
launching the product, shooting the shot.

1115
00:43:55.060 --> 00:43:57.420
And so if you're never willing to lose,

1116
00:43:57.420 --> 00:43:59.100
you're never going to win.

1117
00:43:59.100 --> 00:44:01.500
So in 2025, if you start a podcast,

1118
00:44:01.500 --> 00:44:02.940
you start making content and you start doing

1119
00:44:02.940 --> 00:44:07.420
cold outbound or you take a new job, whatever it is.

1120
00:44:07.420 --> 00:44:10.500
Just remember that your second try after you fail,

1121
00:44:10.500 --> 00:44:12.300
which you inevitably will,

1122
00:44:12.300 --> 00:44:14.660
takes twice the emotional effort,

1123
00:44:14.660 --> 00:44:16.380
but half the actual effort.

1124
00:44:16.380 --> 00:44:19.060
So you'll fail and you'll emotionally feel bad.

1125
00:44:19.060 --> 00:44:20.420
But guess what you did?

1126
00:44:20.420 --> 00:44:22.660
You actually gripped your hands on the unknown.

1127
00:44:22.740 --> 00:44:27.580
And you go from unknown optimism to known pessimism.

1128
00:44:27.580 --> 00:44:30.140
So it's like, okay, now I know what it takes.

1129
00:44:30.140 --> 00:44:32.780
I now have realistic expectations

1130
00:44:32.780 --> 00:44:35.180
what is required in order to be successful.

1131
00:44:35.180 --> 00:44:39.420
And although it may be bigger than I originally thought,

1132
00:44:39.420 --> 00:44:42.740
I now can quantify what is required to win.

1133
00:44:42.740 --> 00:44:44.540
The best entrepreneurs in the world

1134
00:44:44.540 --> 00:44:46.900
had the biggest failure resumes.

1135
00:44:46.900 --> 00:44:48.740
And so I don't even want you to win.

1136
00:44:48.740 --> 00:44:50.620
I want you to build your failure resume.

1137
00:44:50.620 --> 00:44:51.780
And so if you're like, oh,

1138
00:44:51.780 --> 00:44:53.940
it must be easy for you to say,

1139
00:44:53.940 --> 00:44:56.900
I lost money on my first two real estate deals I ever did.

1140
00:44:56.900 --> 00:44:58.660
Almost lost all the money I put in.

1141
00:44:58.660 --> 00:45:01.620
I've lost money on crypto when I put it in years ago.

1142
00:45:01.620 --> 00:45:04.020
I lost money on bad hires.

1143
00:45:04.020 --> 00:45:05.620
I've lost millions in bad hires.

1144
00:45:05.620 --> 00:45:07.900
Actual hard costs, not soft costs.

1145
00:45:07.900 --> 00:45:11.700
I've lost money on, I've had six field businesses.

1146
00:45:11.700 --> 00:45:13.740
I've had nine field partnerships.

1147
00:45:13.740 --> 00:45:15.980
And so I bring these things up because like,

1148
00:45:15.980 --> 00:45:18.660
you're not gonna hit it out of the park on the first shot.

1149
00:45:18.660 --> 00:45:20.900
But the crazy thing about how success works

1150
00:45:20.900 --> 00:45:23.060
is that you only need to win once.

1151
00:45:23.060 --> 00:45:25.020
I'll read you this quote from Jeff Bezos,

1152
00:45:25.020 --> 00:45:27.060
which is what I started my first book,

1153
00:45:27.060 --> 00:45:29.420
$100 million dollars offers with.

1154
00:45:29.420 --> 00:45:31.460
We all know that if you swing for the fences,

1155
00:45:31.460 --> 00:45:33.060
you're gonna strike out a lot.

1156
00:45:33.060 --> 00:45:35.380
But you're also gonna hit some home runs.

1157
00:45:35.380 --> 00:45:37.780
The difference between baseball and business however,

1158
00:45:37.780 --> 00:45:40.700
is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution.

1159
00:45:40.700 --> 00:45:43.540
When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball,

1160
00:45:43.540 --> 00:45:46.020
the most runs you can hit is four.

1161
00:45:46.020 --> 00:45:48.220
In business, every once in a while,

1162
00:45:48.220 --> 00:45:49.700
when you step up to the plate,

1163
00:45:49.700 --> 00:45:52.060
you can score 1,000 runs.

1164
00:45:52.060 --> 00:45:54.100
This long-tailed distribution of returns

1165
00:45:54.100 --> 00:45:56.020
is why it's important to be bold.

1166
00:45:56.020 --> 00:45:58.780
Big winners pay for so many experiments.

1167
00:45:58.780 --> 00:46:00.740
And when he says big winners pay,

1168
00:46:00.740 --> 00:46:03.060
they pay in failures.

1169
00:46:03.060 --> 00:46:06.020
They pay in the scars that they have to incur

1170
00:46:06.020 --> 00:46:09.300
and endure along to hitting it out of the park

1171
00:46:09.300 --> 00:46:12.780
and hitting it out so big that they never have to swing again.

1172
00:46:12.780 --> 00:46:15.540
And so I wanna make this as real as I possibly can.

1173
00:46:15.580 --> 00:46:19.940
I just found an old note from myself to myself.

1174
00:46:19.940 --> 00:46:21.820
That's 12 years old.

1175
00:46:21.820 --> 00:46:25.460
And so I talked about my $10,000 per month income goal.

1176
00:46:25.460 --> 00:46:28.140
And reading it got me actually pretty choked up.

1177
00:46:28.140 --> 00:46:30.780
And this is all to say that no matter where you're at

1178
00:46:30.780 --> 00:46:32.820
in your journey, you've just gotta believe

1179
00:46:32.820 --> 00:46:36.300
with all your fucking heart that you're going to make it.

1180
00:46:36.300 --> 00:46:38.300
Because no one else is gonna believe for you.

1181
00:46:38.300 --> 00:46:41.020
Because you can never expect someone to invest in you

1182
00:46:41.020 --> 00:46:42.980
more than you invest in yourself.

1183
00:46:42.980 --> 00:46:44.700
So we've eliminated the distractions.

1184
00:46:44.700 --> 00:46:48.540
All of the things associated with not doing this stuff.

1185
00:46:48.540 --> 00:46:51.940
And now hopefully I've removed some of the mental BS

1186
00:46:51.940 --> 00:46:53.660
around getting started.

1187
00:46:53.660 --> 00:46:57.020
And so now once you start, you gotta get better.

1188
00:46:57.020 --> 00:47:01.340
And so connections, money, looks, intelligence,

1189
00:47:01.340 --> 00:47:02.660
those are all great.

1190
00:47:02.660 --> 00:47:05.660
But you can beat someone with all of those things

1191
00:47:05.660 --> 00:47:07.900
if they have only one trait.

1192
00:47:07.900 --> 00:47:10.740
An insatiable desire to improve.

1193
00:47:10.740 --> 00:47:12.180
No matter where they start,

1194
00:47:12.180 --> 00:47:14.660
it's hard to beat someone who improves every second

1195
00:47:14.700 --> 00:47:16.740
of every day without giving up.

1196
00:47:16.740 --> 00:47:18.700
And this is why earlier I said,

1197
00:47:18.700 --> 00:47:20.820
ambitious people buy skills,

1198
00:47:20.820 --> 00:47:23.740
and they pay for those skills with time and money.

1199
00:47:23.740 --> 00:47:25.540
And in order to have the time and money

1200
00:47:25.540 --> 00:47:27.420
to invest in those skills,

1201
00:47:27.420 --> 00:47:29.380
they have to take them from somewhere else.

1202
00:47:29.380 --> 00:47:33.500
Because the thing is that your resources are zero sum.

1203
00:47:33.500 --> 00:47:35.460
And this is something that a lot of people are comfortable with.

1204
00:47:35.460 --> 00:47:37.260
Whatever you choose to spend your time on,

1205
00:47:37.260 --> 00:47:38.780
you take from something else.

1206
00:47:38.780 --> 00:47:40.500
Whatever you choose to spend your money on,

1207
00:47:40.500 --> 00:47:41.900
you take from something else.

1208
00:47:41.900 --> 00:47:44.700
And so most people don't have a resources issue.

1209
00:47:44.700 --> 00:47:47.180
They have a priorities problem.

1210
00:47:47.180 --> 00:47:49.020
Is that you are choosing to say

1211
00:47:49.020 --> 00:47:50.820
that other things are more important.

1212
00:47:50.820 --> 00:47:52.020
And hey, I wanna be real.

1213
00:47:52.020 --> 00:47:53.900
If that stuff is more important to you,

1214
00:47:53.900 --> 00:47:56.300
then amazing, you want it life, congratulations.

1215
00:47:56.300 --> 00:47:58.260
But if you don't have what you want,

1216
00:47:58.260 --> 00:48:01.540
and you're spending money to proliferate a life

1217
00:48:01.540 --> 00:48:03.620
that is not the one you want to lead,

1218
00:48:03.620 --> 00:48:06.260
then you need to shift the list to invest

1219
00:48:06.260 --> 00:48:08.660
to the time and money and pull from those things

1220
00:48:08.660 --> 00:48:11.020
that you don't want to put more in the ones you do.

1221
00:48:11.020 --> 00:48:14.500
One of the easiest ways to have more money

1222
00:48:14.500 --> 00:48:16.780
is to work more hours.

1223
00:48:16.780 --> 00:48:18.100
And you're like, how does that possible?

1224
00:48:18.100 --> 00:48:21.500
Well, when you work more hours, it actually kills two birds.

1225
00:48:21.500 --> 00:48:24.020
One is that you actually make more money

1226
00:48:24.020 --> 00:48:25.460
when you work more hours.

1227
00:48:25.460 --> 00:48:28.060
But on top of that, you don't spend money

1228
00:48:28.060 --> 00:48:30.220
because you have less time to spend it.

1229
00:48:30.220 --> 00:48:33.540
And so every hour of work is a net positive in two directions.

1230
00:48:33.540 --> 00:48:37.380
So it saves you money you're not spending and makes you money.

1231
00:48:38.340 --> 00:48:41.380
And so you want to find those little twists

1232
00:48:41.380 --> 00:48:43.700
that you can make in your investments of time and money

1233
00:48:43.700 --> 00:48:44.940
that are outsized.

1234
00:48:44.940 --> 00:48:46.940
It's not just that you gain.

1235
00:48:46.940 --> 00:48:49.140
You also stop the loss.

1236
00:48:49.140 --> 00:48:53.020
I've always been willing to bet big on me.

1237
00:48:53.020 --> 00:48:56.700
And so a lot of you guys are trying to bet big on Dogecoin

1238
00:48:56.700 --> 00:48:59.060
or some meme thing or some get rich quick.

1239
00:48:59.060 --> 00:49:01.060
And I promise you, the guys who have all the money

1240
00:49:01.060 --> 00:49:02.420
know how to do it better than you.

1241
00:49:02.420 --> 00:49:05.020
And if you have your last thousand or $5,000 or $10,000

1242
00:49:05.020 --> 00:49:06.820
that you're like, what do I do with it?

1243
00:49:06.860 --> 00:49:09.460
Bet on you because you'll never sell you.

1244
00:49:09.460 --> 00:49:11.460
You're a long-term hold, right?

1245
00:49:11.460 --> 00:49:14.860
And so if you get better, you guarantee the win.

1246
00:49:14.860 --> 00:49:17.180
And every investment you make compounds,

1247
00:49:17.180 --> 00:49:19.660
you guarantee compounding because every skill stacks

1248
00:49:19.660 --> 00:49:21.220
on top of other skills.

1249
00:49:21.220 --> 00:49:23.940
Steve Jobs talked about how when he went to college

1250
00:49:23.940 --> 00:49:25.180
and learned calligraphy was the reason

1251
00:49:25.180 --> 00:49:27.420
that fonts showed up in the Mac later.

1252
00:49:27.420 --> 00:49:32.020
And so he talks about you can only connect the dots looking back.

1253
00:49:32.020 --> 00:49:35.060
And so you want to double down on investing more

1254
00:49:35.060 --> 00:49:35.900
into you getting skills.

1255
00:49:35.980 --> 00:49:37.980
And I'll tell you something that you probably don't know.

1256
00:49:37.980 --> 00:49:42.660
So I spent $10,000 and I only had 50 saved up

1257
00:49:42.660 --> 00:49:44.900
after years of being a consultant.

1258
00:49:44.900 --> 00:49:47.820
So at $50,000 saved up is 23 years old.

1259
00:49:47.820 --> 00:49:49.180
There's my life savings.

1260
00:49:49.180 --> 00:49:52.620
I spent $10,000 to get a gym coach.

1261
00:49:52.620 --> 00:49:55.380
I joined a mastermind for gym owners.

1262
00:49:55.380 --> 00:49:57.780
Fun fact though, I didn't have a gym.

1263
00:49:57.780 --> 00:50:00.660
But I figured if I go to a mastermind of gym owners,

1264
00:50:00.660 --> 00:50:02.540
I'm gonna learn so many of the things

1265
00:50:02.540 --> 00:50:05.060
that they made mistakes on when they started their gym.

1266
00:50:05.340 --> 00:50:06.780
They're gonna have opinions on how I should lay out

1267
00:50:06.780 --> 00:50:09.340
the square footage, what locations I should pick,

1268
00:50:09.340 --> 00:50:10.780
what model I should use.

1269
00:50:10.780 --> 00:50:12.180
And so rather than saying, oh,

1270
00:50:12.180 --> 00:50:14.820
I'm just gonna find out all these failures on my own

1271
00:50:14.820 --> 00:50:17.260
and take five times as long, I was like,

1272
00:50:17.260 --> 00:50:19.700
I'd rather pay $10,000 to pull five years forward

1273
00:50:19.700 --> 00:50:20.860
into the present.

1274
00:50:20.860 --> 00:50:23.060
And so I was able to get that first location

1275
00:50:23.060 --> 00:50:25.820
up and profitable and outsourced by month nine.

1276
00:50:25.820 --> 00:50:28.500
Now some of the guys in the mastermind were at year five

1277
00:50:28.500 --> 00:50:29.740
and still hadn't done that.

1278
00:50:29.740 --> 00:50:34.260
I pay down my ignorance tax as much as I possibly can

1279
00:50:34.300 --> 00:50:37.820
because the cost of you not being able

1280
00:50:37.820 --> 00:50:40.980
to achieve your dreams, the price is ignorance.

1281
00:50:40.980 --> 00:50:43.740
And the debt that you pay is the distance between

1282
00:50:43.740 --> 00:50:46.540
where you are and how much you'd be making

1283
00:50:46.540 --> 00:50:48.300
if you knew how to do it.

1284
00:50:48.300 --> 00:50:50.340
And so I've told the story before,

1285
00:50:50.340 --> 00:50:53.020
but I think it's something that's so ingrained

1286
00:50:53.020 --> 00:50:55.300
in how I think in terms of how I price what I'm willing

1287
00:50:55.300 --> 00:50:57.220
to pay in time or money.

1288
00:50:57.220 --> 00:51:01.660
And before I tell that story, I move geographically

1289
00:51:01.660 --> 00:51:04.140
whenever I see an opportunity to get around someone

1290
00:51:04.180 --> 00:51:05.220
who's better than me.

1291
00:51:05.220 --> 00:51:07.900
And so when I wanted to learn fitness stuff,

1292
00:51:07.900 --> 00:51:09.060
I moved to an area where I knew

1293
00:51:09.060 --> 00:51:10.420
there was other fitness entrepreneurs

1294
00:51:10.420 --> 00:51:11.820
that I was like, well, maybe I'll be able to hang out

1295
00:51:11.820 --> 00:51:13.420
with them a little bit and I'll learn a little bit there.

1296
00:51:13.420 --> 00:51:15.380
And I went to a city I didn't know anything about.

1297
00:51:15.380 --> 00:51:16.580
And you know what?

1298
00:51:16.580 --> 00:51:19.900
And when I wanted to get in the gym space,

1299
00:51:19.900 --> 00:51:22.260
I said, well, California is like the capital of fitness,

1300
00:51:22.260 --> 00:51:24.540
so Cal, so I'm gonna move out to Southern California

1301
00:51:24.540 --> 00:51:26.020
because the best guys will be there.

1302
00:51:26.020 --> 00:51:28.060
And if I can win there, I'll be able to win anywhere.

1303
00:51:28.060 --> 00:51:30.180
And so I moved out to California without knowing anyone.

1304
00:51:30.180 --> 00:51:33.140
Whenever I've had these big transitions in my life,

1305
00:51:33.140 --> 00:51:36.460
it's not only being willing to bet with my money

1306
00:51:36.460 --> 00:51:37.620
and bet with my time,

1307
00:51:37.620 --> 00:51:39.940
but also bet with my geographic location.

1308
00:51:39.940 --> 00:51:43.300
I'm willing to risk losing the relationships that I had

1309
00:51:43.300 --> 00:51:45.180
to gain relationships that I need.

1310
00:51:45.180 --> 00:51:47.420
And so 2025 for you might mean

1311
00:51:47.420 --> 00:51:49.020
that you have to leave where you're at.

1312
00:51:49.020 --> 00:51:50.300
And that could mean across town,

1313
00:51:50.300 --> 00:51:51.740
but it could also mean across the country,

1314
00:51:51.740 --> 00:51:53.740
or even across into a different country.

1315
00:51:53.740 --> 00:51:55.540
It may mean that you're gonna spend,

1316
00:51:55.540 --> 00:51:57.220
take all this money that you used to spend here

1317
00:51:57.220 --> 00:51:59.140
and spend it in an entirely different way.

1318
00:51:59.140 --> 00:52:01.740
You probably are gonna have less stuff

1319
00:52:01.740 --> 00:52:05.700
and that's okay, because that stuff only deteriorates,

1320
00:52:05.700 --> 00:52:08.380
it only gets worse, but you will only get better.

1321
00:52:08.380 --> 00:52:10.620
And so the reality is, anyone can get rich fast

1322
00:52:10.620 --> 00:52:12.660
as long as you're willing to make no money

1323
00:52:12.660 --> 00:52:14.300
for a long period of time

1324
00:52:14.300 --> 00:52:17.820
while you work to get good enough to get rich fast.

1325
00:52:17.820 --> 00:52:20.140
And so I told you, I'll tell you that story.

1326
00:52:20.140 --> 00:52:22.020
And so the salesman used one of my favorite closes

1327
00:52:22.020 --> 00:52:25.740
of all time, and so he wrote a million dollars

1328
00:52:25.740 --> 00:52:27.940
on a whiteboard in front of an audience.

1329
00:52:27.940 --> 00:52:29.820
And so then he called out to a lady in the front row

1330
00:52:29.820 --> 00:52:31.220
and he said, how much do you make, man?

1331
00:52:31.300 --> 00:52:34.180
And she said $50,000.

1332
00:52:34.180 --> 00:52:39.180
And he said, okay, well right now, you pay reality,

1333
00:52:40.020 --> 00:52:45.020
$950,000 every single year for not knowing how

1334
00:52:45.420 --> 00:52:47.420
to make a million dollars.

1335
00:52:47.420 --> 00:52:50.500
And when I saw that, I realized that the value

1336
00:52:50.500 --> 00:52:52.900
of the skill of making a million dollars

1337
00:52:52.900 --> 00:52:54.940
is the difference between what I'm making

1338
00:52:54.940 --> 00:52:56.300
and what I could be making.

1339
00:52:56.300 --> 00:52:59.820
And so people wildly undervalue,

1340
00:52:59.820 --> 00:53:02.500
and people wildly undervalue,

1341
00:53:02.500 --> 00:53:06.820
how much more they could be making once they have a skill.

1342
00:53:06.820 --> 00:53:09.380
And so if you're the type of person

1343
00:53:09.380 --> 00:53:11.580
who can actually follow instructions,

1344
00:53:11.580 --> 00:53:16.580
show up on time, smile, be able to fail and keep going,

1345
00:53:16.580 --> 00:53:20.220
virtually all education will net you a positive yield.

1346
00:53:20.220 --> 00:53:21.940
Because let me ask you a question,

1347
00:53:21.940 --> 00:53:25.380
would you pay $950,000 to make a million dollars

1348
00:53:25.380 --> 00:53:28.300
and be able to make a million dollars every year?

1349
00:53:28.300 --> 00:53:29.780
Well, that would be an insane deal.

1350
00:53:29.780 --> 00:53:31.940
You pay it once and you get the skill forever.

1351
00:53:31.940 --> 00:53:34.900
So every year after that, you make a million dollars a year.

1352
00:53:34.900 --> 00:53:36.140
Well, of course you should.

1353
00:53:36.140 --> 00:53:37.900
Now, once you make the million dollars a year,

1354
00:53:37.900 --> 00:53:39.740
are you willing to give 100% of what you make

1355
00:53:39.740 --> 00:53:41.420
to make $10 million a year?

1356
00:53:41.420 --> 00:53:42.660
Of course you should.

1357
00:53:42.660 --> 00:53:46.260
And that's why education is by far the highest return.

1358
00:53:46.260 --> 00:53:48.580
You can learn how to make a million dollars a year

1359
00:53:48.580 --> 00:53:51.620
for probably close to $200,000 a year.

1360
00:53:51.620 --> 00:53:54.260
And you're like, well, where do I spend that?

1361
00:53:54.260 --> 00:53:55.580
You'll spend that on conferences,

1362
00:53:55.580 --> 00:53:56.740
you'll spend it on seminars.

1363
00:53:56.820 --> 00:54:00.900
And it'll likely be in 2000 to 5000,

1364
00:54:00.900 --> 00:54:04.380
sometimes $30,000 chunks.

1365
00:54:04.380 --> 00:54:07.260
But for some reason, you're willing to spend this

1366
00:54:07.260 --> 00:54:10.700
on some academic who hasn't been in reality for 20 years

1367
00:54:10.700 --> 00:54:13.500
because they're on tenure and thinks that the world

1368
00:54:13.500 --> 00:54:14.740
is just gonna hand you stuff

1369
00:54:14.740 --> 00:54:16.180
because that's their reality

1370
00:54:16.180 --> 00:54:17.740
because they're government funded.

1371
00:54:18.740 --> 00:54:21.860
Or you can pay money to people

1372
00:54:21.860 --> 00:54:24.020
who live in real private businesses,

1373
00:54:24.020 --> 00:54:25.500
who do this stuff for a living.

1374
00:54:25.580 --> 00:54:30.100
And here's the thing, I have never paid for education

1375
00:54:30.100 --> 00:54:32.620
and not gotten more than what I paid for.

1376
00:54:32.620 --> 00:54:35.420
Now, I don't wanna conflate that with the fact

1377
00:54:35.420 --> 00:54:36.860
that I've paid for things

1378
00:54:36.860 --> 00:54:40.180
that I didn't think was worth that money to other people.

1379
00:54:40.180 --> 00:54:43.220
But I always ask myself, okay, number one,

1380
00:54:43.220 --> 00:54:45.220
how can I become the best student

1381
00:54:45.220 --> 00:54:46.700
who's ever gone through this?

1382
00:54:46.700 --> 00:54:49.340
How do I become this person's number one success story?

1383
00:54:49.340 --> 00:54:51.500
And I've told every program, every partner,

1384
00:54:51.500 --> 00:54:53.420
every vendor that I've ever worked with

1385
00:54:53.420 --> 00:54:55.980
that I will be your biggest success story.

1386
00:54:55.980 --> 00:54:59.780
And so the reality is, once I am their biggest success story,

1387
00:54:59.780 --> 00:55:02.420
is that because of them or because of me?

1388
00:55:02.420 --> 00:55:04.860
And I think that's a choice that you get to make.

1389
00:55:04.860 --> 00:55:06.940
Am I going to be the number one success story

1390
00:55:06.940 --> 00:55:10.180
or do I wanna be right and prove that they're not good?

1391
00:55:10.180 --> 00:55:11.540
Well, congratulations.

1392
00:55:11.540 --> 00:55:12.980
Maybe they're not that good.

1393
00:55:12.980 --> 00:55:14.260
Well, what does that leave you with?

1394
00:55:14.260 --> 00:55:16.500
No skills and less money.

1395
00:55:16.500 --> 00:55:18.900
If you choose to succeed anyways

1396
00:55:18.900 --> 00:55:21.020
and say, what can I learn from this person?

1397
00:55:21.020 --> 00:55:23.060
Because I've learned just as much from bad people

1398
00:55:23.180 --> 00:55:24.220
as I have from good.

1399
00:55:24.220 --> 00:55:26.380
Because a lot of times getting good

1400
00:55:26.380 --> 00:55:28.300
is actually the removal of bad.

1401
00:55:28.300 --> 00:55:29.940
And so if you find out other ways

1402
00:55:29.940 --> 00:55:31.460
that people do a terrible job,

1403
00:55:31.460 --> 00:55:33.100
it's also a wonderful way of figuring out

1404
00:55:33.100 --> 00:55:34.780
how to not do a terrible job.

1405
00:55:34.780 --> 00:55:37.820
And so if I want to create a product that's exceptional

1406
00:55:37.820 --> 00:55:40.540
and I say, let's say I wanna put a phone, a camera,

1407
00:55:40.540 --> 00:55:43.700
the internet, email, all in one place.

1408
00:55:43.700 --> 00:55:45.980
If you remove all of the stuff that sucks

1409
00:55:45.980 --> 00:55:49.380
from all of those things, what you're left with is an iPhone.

1410
00:55:49.460 --> 00:55:54.460
And so most times you can always get more

1411
00:55:54.460 --> 00:55:57.420
than what you pay for when you invest in you.

1412
00:55:57.420 --> 00:55:59.740
So let's get really tactical.

1413
00:55:59.740 --> 00:56:01.780
If you really wanna double down on you,

1414
00:56:01.780 --> 00:56:03.340
which will buy, I mean, think about this.

1415
00:56:03.340 --> 00:56:05.740
10% improvement is the S&P 500.

1416
00:56:05.740 --> 00:56:08.500
So you're saying that you could take, okay, let's be real.

1417
00:56:08.500 --> 00:56:10.060
Let's do real math.

1418
00:56:10.060 --> 00:56:14.860
Let's say that you've got $10,000 saved up, okay?

1419
00:56:14.860 --> 00:56:16.140
Let's say that's what your savings is,

1420
00:56:16.140 --> 00:56:20.620
which by the way makes you like a top 40% American FYI.

1421
00:56:20.620 --> 00:56:22.900
So let's say you've got $10,000 saved up.

1422
00:56:22.900 --> 00:56:27.900
You could put in the S&P 500 and have that $10,000,

1423
00:56:28.020 --> 00:56:31.580
be $10,900 one year later.

1424
00:56:31.580 --> 00:56:33.820
Or you can spend that on something

1425
00:56:33.820 --> 00:56:36.300
that can triple your earning capacity.

1426
00:56:36.300 --> 00:56:39.580
And next year, instead of making, let's say,

1427
00:56:39.580 --> 00:56:43.140
$50,000 a year, you make $100,000 a year.

1428
00:56:43.140 --> 00:56:48.140
Well, which of these increases, the $50,000 plus increase,

1429
00:56:48.300 --> 00:56:51.700
is more than the net of the 900.

1430
00:56:51.700 --> 00:56:54.140
Because you lost the 10, you spent the whole thing.

1431
00:56:54.140 --> 00:56:56.660
Here you invested it, here you spent it.

1432
00:56:56.660 --> 00:56:58.540
But did you spend it or did you invest it

1433
00:56:58.540 --> 00:57:00.900
in an asset you could control?

1434
00:57:00.900 --> 00:57:02.620
And so I don't know about you,

1435
00:57:02.620 --> 00:57:05.540
but I'd rather have the extra 50 and put the 10 in

1436
00:57:05.540 --> 00:57:06.980
and then what do I do next year?

1437
00:57:06.980 --> 00:57:09.820
I'm gonna take this 50 and I'm gonna ask myself,

1438
00:57:09.820 --> 00:57:12.540
is there anything I could put this $50,000 into?

1439
00:57:12.540 --> 00:57:15.260
So I could put in the S&P 500 and I could go

1440
00:57:15.260 --> 00:57:19.980
and add myself an extra $5,000, $55,000, whatever.

1441
00:57:19.980 --> 00:57:21.540
Let's say I get 10% that year.

1442
00:57:21.540 --> 00:57:23.900
Okay, so I get $55,000 this year,

1443
00:57:23.900 --> 00:57:27.540
or I could put that 50K into 510K things

1444
00:57:27.540 --> 00:57:30.660
or 225K things and all of a sudden take my earning power

1445
00:57:30.660 --> 00:57:34.420
from 100K to 250K.

1446
00:57:34.420 --> 00:57:37.620
Wow, what a deal, but I'm gonna lose the whole 50 again.

1447
00:57:37.620 --> 00:57:39.380
And so the thing is that on my way up,

1448
00:57:39.380 --> 00:57:41.820
I basically took my savings and I spent it

1449
00:57:41.820 --> 00:57:43.860
almost every year on education

1450
00:57:43.860 --> 00:57:46.220
because why on earth would I want the future

1451
00:57:46.220 --> 00:57:47.860
to take longer to get to me?

1452
00:57:47.860 --> 00:57:51.260
When you buy skills, it's the closest approximation

1453
00:57:51.260 --> 00:57:52.700
to buying time.

1454
00:57:52.700 --> 00:57:55.420
And so there's this big thing like you can't buy time,

1455
00:57:55.420 --> 00:57:59.500
false, you can buy the future at a discount.

1456
00:57:59.500 --> 00:58:01.340
And you buy the future at a discount

1457
00:58:01.340 --> 00:58:04.940
by buying the skills required in order to get there faster.

1458
00:58:04.940 --> 00:58:07.020
And so if it could take you five years,

1459
00:58:07.020 --> 00:58:09.460
if you did it on your own, or it could take you one year,

1460
00:58:09.460 --> 00:58:11.060
if you paid four different people to help you out

1461
00:58:11.100 --> 00:58:12.420
with each step of the process,

1462
00:58:12.420 --> 00:58:15.340
why would you not want to pay all of the money you have

1463
00:58:15.340 --> 00:58:18.100
to get to there and then have four years of gain

1464
00:58:18.100 --> 00:58:19.380
with that new baseline?

1465
00:58:19.380 --> 00:58:22.780
You now are living four years, five years into the future.

1466
00:58:22.780 --> 00:58:25.100
It's like you skipping from being 20 to 25

1467
00:58:25.100 --> 00:58:26.980
and you're getting the earning power at 25 plus,

1468
00:58:26.980 --> 00:58:28.060
but now you're just 21.

1469
00:58:28.060 --> 00:58:30.100
At that point, you pool the next five years for it.

1470
00:58:30.100 --> 00:58:32.060
And when you're 22, it's like living like you're 30.

1471
00:58:32.060 --> 00:58:34.580
Now at that point though, you might spend all your savings

1472
00:58:34.580 --> 00:58:35.420
yet again.

1473
00:58:35.420 --> 00:58:37.700
And this process has been one that I have consistently done

1474
00:58:37.700 --> 00:58:38.940
for the entirety of my career.

1475
00:58:38.940 --> 00:58:42.460
And it just gets to a point where you can't even spend the money.

1476
00:58:42.460 --> 00:58:44.660
And so my very controversial advice

1477
00:58:44.660 --> 00:58:47.260
is spend all your money on education

1478
00:58:47.260 --> 00:58:49.340
for as long as you possibly can

1479
00:58:49.340 --> 00:58:51.740
until you can't even spend the money

1480
00:58:51.740 --> 00:58:53.540
because you're making too much of it.

1481
00:58:53.540 --> 00:58:55.660
And so how do you become an expert?

1482
00:58:55.660 --> 00:58:58.860
You do more repetitions than anyone else in a narrow field,

1483
00:58:58.860 --> 00:59:00.860
which also means you fail more times

1484
00:59:00.860 --> 00:59:02.740
than anyone else in a narrow field.

1485
00:59:02.740 --> 00:59:04.540
And so if you want to beat someone,

1486
00:59:04.540 --> 00:59:06.980
just try 10 times harder than them.

1487
00:59:07.180 --> 00:59:10.060
And you only really need to try two or three times harder,

1488
00:59:10.060 --> 00:59:11.980
but you probably don't realize how much harder

1489
00:59:11.980 --> 00:59:13.580
they're trying than you are.

1490
00:59:13.580 --> 00:59:16.540
So try 10 times harder just to make sure you win.

1491
00:59:16.540 --> 00:59:19.300
And people reject this idea

1492
00:59:19.300 --> 00:59:22.060
that someone can work 10 times or 100 times harder.

1493
00:59:22.060 --> 00:59:25.620
But I define work as output.

1494
00:59:25.620 --> 00:59:29.340
And so for you to say that someone can't produce 10 times more than you,

1495
00:59:29.340 --> 00:59:30.860
it's just factually false.

1496
00:59:30.860 --> 00:59:32.900
There's tons of people who produce 10 times more.

1497
00:59:32.900 --> 00:59:34.660
There's tons of people to do 100.

1498
00:59:34.660 --> 00:59:37.180
There's tons of people who produce 100 times more than you.

1499
00:59:37.180 --> 00:59:39.620
And so I'll give you the easy example in the world.

1500
00:59:39.620 --> 00:59:41.980
A lot of departments run on weekly cadences.

1501
00:59:41.980 --> 00:59:44.980
They say do this thing by end of week.

1502
00:59:44.980 --> 00:59:47.100
Oftentimes you can ask that person

1503
00:59:47.100 --> 00:59:49.020
how many hours will this really take you?

1504
00:59:49.020 --> 00:59:50.700
And then that person will say something like,

1505
00:59:50.700 --> 00:59:52.180
I don't know, three or four hours.

1506
00:59:52.180 --> 00:59:55.500
You say, okay, well, why don't you just get it done by noon?

1507
00:59:55.500 --> 00:59:56.940
And then at noon you say, okay,

1508
00:59:56.940 --> 00:59:58.020
what's the next thing gonna take?

1509
00:59:58.020 --> 01:00:00.260
And they'd say probably another three or four hours.

1510
01:00:00.260 --> 01:00:02.140
You say cool, get it done by the end of the day.

1511
01:00:02.140 --> 01:00:03.540
Now from those two cycles,

1512
01:00:03.540 --> 01:00:06.940
that would have normally taken two weeks or 14 days.

1513
01:00:06.940 --> 01:00:08.660
But instead it got done in one.

1514
01:00:08.660 --> 01:00:11.820
And so just right there, you got something done,

1515
01:00:11.820 --> 01:00:15.380
you got 14 times more done than the competitor

1516
01:00:15.380 --> 01:00:17.180
who's doing things on a weekly basis.

1517
01:00:17.180 --> 01:00:19.860
And so this is how you drag the future to the present.

1518
01:00:19.860 --> 01:00:21.700
Is that you're not focusing on hard you're working,

1519
01:00:21.700 --> 01:00:23.180
you're focusing how much you're getting done.

1520
01:00:23.180 --> 01:00:26.300
You'd be amazed at how much better you get

1521
01:00:26.300 --> 01:00:28.220
after you've done it a hundred times.

1522
01:00:28.220 --> 01:00:30.420
If you wanna win, do it again.

1523
01:00:30.420 --> 01:00:31.700
I wanna be clear.

1524
01:00:31.700 --> 01:00:33.420
You don't just post a hundred videos in a row

1525
01:00:33.420 --> 01:00:34.260
and see what happens.

1526
01:00:34.260 --> 01:00:36.580
You post one, see what worked,

1527
01:00:36.580 --> 01:00:38.740
and then try and do more of that thing.

1528
01:00:38.740 --> 01:00:41.140
And so the idea isn't just raw effort.

1529
01:00:41.140 --> 01:00:43.700
It's raw effort with an improvement loop.

1530
01:00:43.700 --> 01:00:45.820
I remember one of my favorite words

1531
01:00:45.820 --> 01:00:47.340
that I have to teach sales guys,

1532
01:00:47.340 --> 01:00:48.540
because it's the very repetitive task

1533
01:00:48.540 --> 01:00:50.100
to teach someone how to sell.

1534
01:00:50.100 --> 01:00:52.980
Is great, do it again.

1535
01:00:52.980 --> 01:00:56.500
Great, again, great job, again.

1536
01:00:56.500 --> 01:01:00.380
And so it's that repetition that breeds the nuance of skill.

1537
01:01:00.460 --> 01:01:02.500
And you want it to be so drilled into you

1538
01:01:02.500 --> 01:01:05.060
that you no longer have to consciously think

1539
01:01:05.060 --> 01:01:06.780
about how to do the thing,

1540
01:01:06.780 --> 01:01:09.500
because you can then do it as a natural skill

1541
01:01:09.500 --> 01:01:11.300
so that you can move on to putting your attention

1542
01:01:11.300 --> 01:01:12.500
to the next skill.

1543
01:01:12.500 --> 01:01:14.260
So it's not just about learning how to do it once.

1544
01:01:14.260 --> 01:01:16.860
It's about learning how to do it so many times

1545
01:01:16.860 --> 01:01:18.620
that you don't have to think about doing it at all.

1546
01:01:18.620 --> 01:01:20.100
Especially if you're starting out,

1547
01:01:20.100 --> 01:01:22.220
your goal should not be passive income,

1548
01:01:22.220 --> 01:01:24.140
mainly because you don't have enough money

1549
01:01:24.140 --> 01:01:26.180
for the passive income to mean anything.

1550
01:01:26.180 --> 01:01:28.100
Instead, you should learn how to make money

1551
01:01:28.100 --> 01:01:30.020
while you're awake before trying to learn

1552
01:01:30.140 --> 01:01:31.580
how to make it while you sleep.

1553
01:01:31.580 --> 01:01:33.980
You crawl, then you walk, then you run.

1554
01:01:33.980 --> 01:01:35.140
Once you have more money,

1555
01:01:35.140 --> 01:01:36.660
then you can possibly reinvest

1556
01:01:36.660 --> 01:01:38.500
in education and acquiring more skills,

1557
01:01:38.500 --> 01:01:40.260
then you can take the leftover

1558
01:01:40.260 --> 01:01:43.180
and put that into your passive income pool.

1559
01:01:43.180 --> 01:01:44.700
And so very, very tactically,

1560
01:01:44.700 --> 01:01:46.500
this is what I walk you through.

1561
01:01:46.500 --> 01:01:48.900
You should have an education investment budget.

1562
01:01:48.900 --> 01:01:51.260
And so just like you spend X dollars per month,

1563
01:01:51.260 --> 01:01:53.540
so let's say we pull all of your expenses down

1564
01:01:53.540 --> 01:01:55.260
and you're making an extra thousand dollars a month.

1565
01:01:55.260 --> 01:01:57.100
Okay, now if you're not eating out,

1566
01:01:57.100 --> 01:01:58.300
you're not buying new clothes,

1567
01:01:58.300 --> 01:01:59.980
you're not going out with the boys,

1568
01:01:59.980 --> 01:02:01.980
you're not spending money in stupid ways,

1569
01:02:01.980 --> 01:02:04.460
then you're gonna have a thousand dollars left.

1570
01:02:04.460 --> 01:02:07.300
If you have that, then you can take that money,

1571
01:02:07.300 --> 01:02:10.220
and every month you can put it towards a bank account

1572
01:02:10.220 --> 01:02:11.740
that you can either choose to immediately spend

1573
01:02:11.740 --> 01:02:14.700
or save up for something that is more expensive.

1574
01:02:14.700 --> 01:02:17.460
And I can tell you that a lot of what I learned

1575
01:02:17.460 --> 01:02:20.780
when I bought programs and seminars and conferences

1576
01:02:20.780 --> 01:02:23.940
and things like that wasn't even from the content itself,

1577
01:02:23.940 --> 01:02:25.980
but it was connections that I was able to make

1578
01:02:26.380 --> 01:02:27.940
at those types of events

1579
01:02:27.940 --> 01:02:30.980
that I was then able to leverage the one skill I had,

1580
01:02:30.980 --> 01:02:32.260
which I was good at sales,

1581
01:02:32.260 --> 01:02:35.100
and then start giving that away to every person I met

1582
01:02:35.100 --> 01:02:36.860
so that I could collect those IOUs

1583
01:02:36.860 --> 01:02:39.020
and then learn skills for free.

1584
01:02:40.140 --> 01:02:42.020
And so it's like I really just needed the ticket

1585
01:02:42.020 --> 01:02:44.420
to get in the room and then I could trade

1586
01:02:44.420 --> 01:02:46.380
with everybody else with the skills I had

1587
01:02:46.380 --> 01:02:48.180
to then get to learn theirs.

1588
01:02:48.180 --> 01:02:49.860
And so as wild as this sounds,

1589
01:02:49.860 --> 01:02:53.260
at the end of 2025, you could be dead broke,

1590
01:02:53.260 --> 01:02:54.580
but rich in skills.

1591
01:02:54.620 --> 01:02:56.620
And so let's say at the end of next year,

1592
01:02:56.620 --> 01:02:58.300
you actually have no more money,

1593
01:02:58.300 --> 01:03:01.100
but you now have the ability to make more money.

1594
01:03:01.100 --> 01:03:03.340
And so just like my father had to start over

1595
01:03:03.340 --> 01:03:05.180
from nothing after losing everything,

1596
01:03:05.180 --> 01:03:06.420
he didn't lose everything.

1597
01:03:06.420 --> 01:03:08.260
He still had the most valuable thing he had,

1598
01:03:08.260 --> 01:03:09.580
which is that he was a surgeon.

1599
01:03:09.580 --> 01:03:12.780
And so he knew a skill and he could make it work here,

1600
01:03:12.780 --> 01:03:14.060
like he could make it work there.

1601
01:03:14.060 --> 01:03:16.060
And that is something that no divorce can take from you,

1602
01:03:16.060 --> 01:03:17.460
no government can confiscate,

1603
01:03:17.460 --> 01:03:19.300
and it's something that's with you till the day you die.

1604
01:03:19.300 --> 01:03:21.300
We've eliminated everything that's bad.

1605
01:03:21.300 --> 01:03:22.860
We've started something that's good,

1606
01:03:22.860 --> 01:03:25.100
we've gotten even better at being gooder.

1607
01:03:25.100 --> 01:03:27.340
And now finally, we've got to stick to it

1608
01:03:27.340 --> 01:03:29.340
when it gets tough, because it will.

1609
01:03:29.340 --> 01:03:31.900
Here's something that's taken me way too long to learn.

1610
01:03:31.900 --> 01:03:34.220
Staying focused is like beating addiction.

1611
01:03:34.220 --> 01:03:35.700
It's not a one-time victory.

1612
01:03:35.700 --> 01:03:38.340
You have to fight it all day, every day.

1613
01:03:38.340 --> 01:03:40.940
Then wake up and do it again tomorrow.

1614
01:03:40.940 --> 01:03:42.460
Because the thing that's going to distract you

1615
01:03:42.460 --> 01:03:43.500
is gonna change every day.

1616
01:03:43.500 --> 01:03:45.300
The thing that's gonna trigger your addiction

1617
01:03:45.300 --> 01:03:48.940
to distraction is going to keep morphing

1618
01:03:48.940 --> 01:03:52.780
and changing its form so that it can steal

1619
01:03:52.780 --> 01:03:55.180
or rob you of your future.

1620
01:03:55.180 --> 01:03:57.180
And so you have to be adaptable in knowing

1621
01:03:57.180 --> 01:03:58.660
that you have to fight it every day.

1622
01:03:58.660 --> 01:04:00.300
And so it's not good enough to just say

1623
01:04:00.300 --> 01:04:01.540
I was focused for this week.

1624
01:04:01.540 --> 01:04:03.300
You've got to wake up on the eighth day

1625
01:04:03.300 --> 01:04:05.380
and the ninth day and do it again.

1626
01:04:05.380 --> 01:04:08.260
And so you remember that guy who got rich,

1627
01:04:08.260 --> 01:04:10.980
dropshipping and day trading and buying crypto

1628
01:04:10.980 --> 01:04:13.300
and wholesaling all at the same time?

1629
01:04:13.300 --> 01:04:15.020
Yeah, me neither, focus.

1630
01:04:15.020 --> 01:04:19.220
And so to win in business, you need to be able to say no

1631
01:04:19.220 --> 01:04:21.620
without remorse and hear no

1632
01:04:21.620 --> 01:04:23.620
without a loss of enthusiasm.

1633
01:04:23.620 --> 01:04:27.740
Which means that you have to keep feeling rejection,

1634
01:04:27.740 --> 01:04:32.180
keep failing and keep going

1635
01:04:32.180 --> 01:04:36.420
while being willing to reject basically everyone else.

1636
01:04:36.420 --> 01:04:38.300
And that seems so counter because you're right there

1637
01:04:38.300 --> 01:04:40.460
and you're like, man, I don't wanna reject this person

1638
01:04:40.460 --> 01:04:42.220
because I know what it feels like to be rejected.

1639
01:04:42.220 --> 01:04:44.820
But you have to be able to maintain this discrepancy

1640
01:04:44.820 --> 01:04:46.820
so that you can create the space to do the work

1641
01:04:46.820 --> 01:04:49.740
that you need to be able to maintain this discrepancy

1642
01:04:49.740 --> 01:04:52.060
so that you can create the space to do the work

1643
01:04:52.060 --> 01:04:53.060
that needs doing.

1644
01:04:53.060 --> 01:04:55.420
So there have been a couple of lessons

1645
01:04:55.420 --> 01:04:59.620
that I have learned over and over again in my career.

1646
01:04:59.620 --> 01:05:00.540
I've had to relearn.

1647
01:05:00.540 --> 01:05:03.100
So it's a lot like a fine wind.

1648
01:05:03.100 --> 01:05:05.140
It's like, it gets better with age

1649
01:05:05.140 --> 01:05:07.260
and there's more nuance to the flavor.

1650
01:05:07.260 --> 01:05:11.060
So I think focus is not, are you focused or not?

1651
01:05:11.060 --> 01:05:12.500
It's how focused are you?

1652
01:05:12.500 --> 01:05:13.740
And you can measure someone's focus

1653
01:05:13.740 --> 01:05:15.460
by again, the quality and quantity of things

1654
01:05:15.460 --> 01:05:16.500
that they say no to.

1655
01:05:16.500 --> 01:05:19.580
Which means that as you get better,

1656
01:05:19.580 --> 01:05:21.980
more opportunities will emerge, which is interesting

1657
01:05:21.980 --> 01:05:24.820
because people who start out can't see opportunity anywhere.

1658
01:05:24.820 --> 01:05:26.500
And it's because they have so few skills

1659
01:05:26.500 --> 01:05:28.740
and so there's very few opportunities for them.

1660
01:05:28.740 --> 01:05:30.220
When you have a lot of skills,

1661
01:05:30.220 --> 01:05:32.660
there are so many opportunities that are in front of you

1662
01:05:32.660 --> 01:05:35.100
that you feel like you're missing out.

1663
01:05:35.100 --> 01:05:38.420
But the real opportunity is actually

1664
01:05:38.420 --> 01:05:40.380
in solving the problems in front of you.

1665
01:05:40.380 --> 01:05:44.380
And so I was able to, in my opinion,

1666
01:05:44.380 --> 01:05:47.100
become another order of magnitude greater

1667
01:05:47.100 --> 01:05:48.180
in terms of entrepreneurship,

1668
01:05:48.180 --> 01:05:50.860
which I would just measure by wealth.

1669
01:05:50.860 --> 01:05:55.540
Once I was able to learn to say no

1670
01:05:55.540 --> 01:05:58.540
and accept that I would not be able to pursue

1671
01:05:58.540 --> 01:06:01.460
the many things that I know I could crush.

1672
01:06:01.460 --> 01:06:04.180
Because once you realize how much actual work

1673
01:06:04.180 --> 01:06:06.140
it takes to make something good,

1674
01:06:06.140 --> 01:06:08.380
you realize how few things you're actually going

1675
01:06:08.380 --> 01:06:10.860
to be able to do in your entire life.

1676
01:06:10.980 --> 01:06:14.340
And so this is why picking becomes so important.

1677
01:06:14.340 --> 01:06:16.780
Right now, the things that you're gonna have to say no to

1678
01:06:16.780 --> 01:06:18.940
are really the distractions and kind of,

1679
01:06:18.940 --> 01:06:19.980
in some ways, easy.

1680
01:06:19.980 --> 01:06:22.420
Say no to vanish football, say no to drinking beers

1681
01:06:22.420 --> 01:06:24.340
with the boys, going out with the club, whatever.

1682
01:06:24.340 --> 01:06:26.860
But in a year from now, once you have more skills,

1683
01:06:26.860 --> 01:06:27.900
there will be more opportunities.

1684
01:06:27.900 --> 01:06:30.180
You're gonna have multiple $10,000 a month

1685
01:06:30.180 --> 01:06:32.180
thing I'm opportunities that you're gonna have to say no to

1686
01:06:32.180 --> 01:06:33.580
to stick with the one that you have.

1687
01:06:33.580 --> 01:06:36.220
And then once that thing becomes $100,000 a month,

1688
01:06:36.220 --> 01:06:37.060
thing that you're doing,

1689
01:06:37.060 --> 01:06:39.300
you're gonna have to start saying no to multiple $100,000

1690
01:06:39.300 --> 01:06:40.500
a month opportunities.

1691
01:06:40.500 --> 01:06:43.180
And here's the thing with opportunities that come up.

1692
01:06:43.180 --> 01:06:45.780
They only show you the upside and not the downside.

1693
01:06:45.780 --> 01:06:48.020
You have to know where the skeletons are buried.

1694
01:06:48.020 --> 01:06:49.900
You have to know where the bodies are.

1695
01:06:49.900 --> 01:06:52.180
And so if you don't know,

1696
01:06:52.180 --> 01:06:54.100
and I've gone through this visual

1697
01:06:54.100 --> 01:06:56.860
because I think about it every single time

1698
01:06:56.860 --> 01:07:00.020
I have to walk through not doing something.

1699
01:07:00.020 --> 01:07:01.620
You are here.

1700
01:07:01.620 --> 01:07:03.980
You see this new opportunity here.

1701
01:07:03.980 --> 01:07:06.540
Then you understand the downsides here.

1702
01:07:06.540 --> 01:07:08.340
Then you live the downsides.

1703
01:07:08.340 --> 01:07:10.020
Then you experience the upside.

1704
01:07:10.020 --> 01:07:11.540
Then you achieve your goal.

1705
01:07:11.540 --> 01:07:14.900
And so this is the starting point.

1706
01:07:14.900 --> 01:07:17.420
This is called uninformed optimism.

1707
01:07:17.420 --> 01:07:19.980
This is now informed pessimism.

1708
01:07:19.980 --> 01:07:21.780
This is the value of despair.

1709
01:07:21.780 --> 01:07:23.940
And this is where most people quit.

1710
01:07:23.940 --> 01:07:26.140
But what they do is they don't even quit

1711
01:07:26.140 --> 01:07:27.620
because they don't wanna say they quit.

1712
01:07:27.620 --> 01:07:29.820
What they do is they start another one of these things.

1713
01:07:29.820 --> 01:07:32.860
And they say, oh, this is now my uninformed optimism.

1714
01:07:32.860 --> 01:07:35.580
And then, now I understand this more.

1715
01:07:35.580 --> 01:07:37.420
But the thing is that they never actually get

1716
01:07:37.500 --> 01:07:38.580
through to this upside.

1717
01:07:38.580 --> 01:07:41.460
And so they just keep jumping from thing to thing

1718
01:07:41.460 --> 01:07:43.380
to thing over and over again.

1719
01:07:43.380 --> 01:07:47.060
And so the reason it takes so long is because you're in a rush

1720
01:07:47.060 --> 01:07:50.300
because you have to start from zero over and over again.

1721
01:07:50.300 --> 01:07:51.900
And if you actually stick with it,

1722
01:07:51.900 --> 01:07:54.500
it's actually the shortest way to get to where you wanna go.

1723
01:07:54.500 --> 01:07:56.220
It just takes longer than you think.

1724
01:07:56.220 --> 01:07:58.700
Big things don't happen on small timelines.

1725
01:07:58.700 --> 01:08:01.060
Must be easy for you to say is probably something

1726
01:08:01.060 --> 01:08:03.660
that you might think by watching this or listening to this.

1727
01:08:03.660 --> 01:08:05.340
I like to tell the story

1728
01:08:05.380 --> 01:08:10.380
because in July of 2017 is when I started my podcast.

1729
01:08:10.380 --> 01:08:14.180
And it was 90 days after I lost everything the last time.

1730
01:08:14.180 --> 01:08:17.900
And from that point until now,

1731
01:08:17.900 --> 01:08:19.700
it's taken that period of time

1732
01:08:19.700 --> 01:08:21.780
to get to over a million downloads a month.

1733
01:08:21.780 --> 01:08:23.980
And for the first three years,

1734
01:08:23.980 --> 01:08:25.380
and I was making multiple podcasts,

1735
01:08:25.380 --> 01:08:27.260
we're talking three, four hundred episodes.

1736
01:08:27.260 --> 01:08:28.980
For the first few years,

1737
01:08:28.980 --> 01:08:31.940
I never really cracked three thousand downloads a month.

1738
01:08:31.940 --> 01:08:35.020
And so I could say, man, why is this taking so long?

1739
01:08:35.060 --> 01:08:39.900
But the real real is that it took me that long to get good.

1740
01:08:39.900 --> 01:08:42.540
It also, being extra real,

1741
01:08:42.540 --> 01:08:44.900
took me that long to have proof on the outside

1742
01:08:44.900 --> 01:08:47.260
that what I was saying was true on the inside.

1743
01:08:47.260 --> 01:08:48.100
Right.

1744
01:08:48.100 --> 01:08:50.460
And right now, no one who listens to my podcast

1745
01:08:50.460 --> 01:08:53.020
cares that it took me seven years to get here.

1746
01:08:53.020 --> 01:08:54.620
They just care that it's good today.

1747
01:08:54.620 --> 01:08:57.380
And so people quit here when things get hard

1748
01:08:57.380 --> 01:08:59.540
because the thought of something being hard forever

1749
01:08:59.540 --> 01:09:00.620
is unbearable.

1750
01:09:00.620 --> 01:09:03.540
They think that this line is just gonna keep going

1751
01:09:03.540 --> 01:09:05.780
this way forever, but it's not.

1752
01:09:05.780 --> 01:09:08.860
Because once you fully understand all the bodies,

1753
01:09:08.860 --> 01:09:10.820
where the skeletons are hidden,

1754
01:09:10.820 --> 01:09:13.940
then you can actually start solving them one by one.

1755
01:09:13.940 --> 01:09:17.580
The thing is that that distraction only is distracting

1756
01:09:17.580 --> 01:09:19.700
because you don't know what sucks about it.

1757
01:09:19.700 --> 01:09:21.660
You might think you know what sucks about it,

1758
01:09:21.660 --> 01:09:23.420
but you don't know what sucks about it.

1759
01:09:23.420 --> 01:09:26.060
And so the big difference is you have something

1760
01:09:26.060 --> 01:09:29.500
called declarative versus procedural knowledge.

1761
01:09:29.500 --> 01:09:30.860
And so there's two types of learning.

1762
01:09:30.860 --> 01:09:31.940
And this is actually formal.

1763
01:09:32.380 --> 01:09:33.820
This is from academia.

1764
01:09:33.820 --> 01:09:35.340
So you have declarative knowledge,

1765
01:09:35.340 --> 01:09:37.500
which is knowing about something.

1766
01:09:37.500 --> 01:09:38.860
So if you go memorize a fact,

1767
01:09:38.860 --> 01:09:41.740
or you learn how private equity works, right?

1768
01:09:41.740 --> 01:09:43.620
This is knowing about.

1769
01:09:43.620 --> 01:09:46.340
The other type of knowledge is procedural,

1770
01:09:46.340 --> 01:09:48.580
which is knowing how to.

1771
01:09:48.580 --> 01:09:51.740
And so a lot of people mistake declarative knowledge

1772
01:09:51.740 --> 01:09:52.780
for procedural.

1773
01:09:52.780 --> 01:09:56.540
And so they mistakenly think that if they watch 10 videos

1774
01:09:56.540 --> 01:09:58.300
on doing a private equity deal,

1775
01:09:58.300 --> 01:10:01.020
then it means they understand how to do a private equity deal.

1776
01:10:01.020 --> 01:10:03.060
Or they watch 10 videos on cold outbound

1777
01:10:03.060 --> 01:10:04.700
and they think it means they understand how to

1778
01:10:04.700 --> 01:10:08.260
cold outbound or 10 videos on sales and so forth.

1779
01:10:08.260 --> 01:10:10.740
But you're never really gonna learn how to do it

1780
01:10:10.740 --> 01:10:12.260
until you do it.

1781
01:10:12.260 --> 01:10:14.940
And so you're gonna learn more from your first hundred

1782
01:10:14.940 --> 01:10:18.300
cold calls, your hundred cold knock on doors

1783
01:10:18.300 --> 01:10:21.580
than you will from 100 books or videos that you watch.

1784
01:10:21.580 --> 01:10:26.580
But I have good news because nothing hard lasts forever.

1785
01:10:26.740 --> 01:10:28.780
There's only three things that can happen.

1786
01:10:28.820 --> 01:10:33.220
You either quit, it gets easier, or you get better.

1787
01:10:33.220 --> 01:10:35.540
So no matter what, it always ends.

1788
01:10:35.540 --> 01:10:37.780
You only lose when you quit before you see it

1789
01:10:37.780 --> 01:10:38.900
all the way through.

1790
01:10:38.900 --> 01:10:41.140
And I think that's incredibly encouraging.

1791
01:10:41.140 --> 01:10:44.180
So no matter how hard whatever it is that you're doing is,

1792
01:10:44.180 --> 01:10:45.980
which by the way just means that your expectation

1793
01:10:45.980 --> 01:10:47.300
doesn't match reality.

1794
01:10:47.300 --> 01:10:51.220
But no matter how hard it is, you either quit,

1795
01:10:51.220 --> 01:10:54.020
it gets easier because something changes externally

1796
01:10:54.020 --> 01:10:57.780
or you get harder, something changes internally.

1797
01:10:57.780 --> 01:11:00.260
But no matter what, it will end.

1798
01:11:00.260 --> 01:11:02.980
And so think about it like you're mining for gold, right?

1799
01:11:02.980 --> 01:11:06.220
You're chiseling away underground and you've got this pile of gold.

1800
01:11:06.220 --> 01:11:07.380
You don't know how far away it is,

1801
01:11:07.380 --> 01:11:09.460
but it's underground and you're digging towards it.

1802
01:11:09.460 --> 01:11:13.540
So you can, this difficulty of swinging the pickaxe

1803
01:11:13.540 --> 01:11:16.580
can end when one, you walk out of the mine and say,

1804
01:11:16.580 --> 01:11:18.900
there's, you know what, marketing doesn't work.

1805
01:11:18.900 --> 01:11:20.100
Sure.

1806
01:11:20.100 --> 01:11:22.980
The second is that all of a sudden you hit a soft patch

1807
01:11:22.980 --> 01:11:24.140
and then you're like, oh my God,

1808
01:11:24.140 --> 01:11:25.260
I'm digging so much faster now.

1809
01:11:25.260 --> 01:11:28.020
This is great and then you get to the gold.

1810
01:11:28.020 --> 01:11:31.060
Or you just start swinging the axe harder

1811
01:11:31.060 --> 01:11:32.460
because you get more muscle,

1812
01:11:32.460 --> 01:11:34.220
you get more efficient with your movements

1813
01:11:34.220 --> 01:11:35.820
and you just keep chiseling away

1814
01:11:35.820 --> 01:11:37.780
even if it goes from dirt to rock.

1815
01:11:37.780 --> 01:11:40.420
You just keep chiseling away at a slower pace

1816
01:11:40.420 --> 01:11:42.700
but you eventually break through and get there.

1817
01:11:42.700 --> 01:11:44.860
But in all three of those scenarios,

1818
01:11:44.860 --> 01:11:46.740
hard doesn't last forever.

1819
01:11:46.740 --> 01:11:48.940
And so you have to accept that you have a fundamental

1820
01:11:48.940 --> 01:11:52.220
different understanding of how life works.

1821
01:11:52.220 --> 01:11:56.140
And I believe that is a more accurate view of reality.

1822
01:11:56.140 --> 01:11:57.700
The reason that the rich can get richer

1823
01:11:57.700 --> 01:12:00.620
is because they see the world differently than the poor.

1824
01:12:00.620 --> 01:12:02.980
And so it makes sense that if your poor friends

1825
01:12:02.980 --> 01:12:04.580
don't see what you see,

1826
01:12:04.580 --> 01:12:06.980
that they see through the lens of poverty.

1827
01:12:06.980 --> 01:12:09.620
And all my goal in life is to be able to see

1828
01:12:09.620 --> 01:12:11.580
reality more accurately.

1829
01:12:11.580 --> 01:12:13.980
And so in the beginning, you have to develop this armor,

1830
01:12:13.980 --> 01:12:16.140
this thick skin around people saying

1831
01:12:16.140 --> 01:12:19.060
those little snide comments of like, you worked you hard,

1832
01:12:19.060 --> 01:12:22.740
you're too obsessed, you have a toxic work capacity.

1833
01:12:22.740 --> 01:12:24.300
And why are you working weekends?

1834
01:12:24.300 --> 01:12:25.380
Why are you working late nights?

1835
01:12:25.380 --> 01:12:27.340
You're not like, this is not worth it.

1836
01:12:27.340 --> 01:12:29.780
They're not paying you enough for the work that you do.

1837
01:12:29.780 --> 01:12:31.580
All of these different things,

1838
01:12:31.580 --> 01:12:34.940
because eventually that armor on the outside

1839
01:12:34.940 --> 01:12:36.780
actually just becomes one with you

1840
01:12:36.780 --> 01:12:39.700
and you don't even hear it anymore.

1841
01:12:39.700 --> 01:12:42.180
Because I can promise you that those people

1842
01:12:42.180 --> 01:12:44.540
who were in my life decades ago,

1843
01:12:45.540 --> 01:12:49.040
they're just not even, I don't hear those claims anymore.

1844
01:12:49.040 --> 01:12:50.160
For two reasons.

1845
01:12:50.160 --> 01:12:53.120
One, because my reality changed so drastically

1846
01:12:53.120 --> 01:12:54.600
that they couldn't say anything.

1847
01:12:54.600 --> 01:12:58.320
And secondarily, they're just not in my world anymore.

1848
01:12:58.320 --> 01:12:59.640
I was only able to get here

1849
01:12:59.640 --> 01:13:02.720
because what they deemed acceptable,

1850
01:13:02.720 --> 01:13:04.640
I deemed intolerable.

1851
01:13:04.640 --> 01:13:08.720
How far you go in life, I truly believe this,

1852
01:13:08.720 --> 01:13:11.440
is based and predicated only on one thing,

1853
01:13:11.440 --> 01:13:13.480
which is your actual standard.

1854
01:13:13.480 --> 01:13:16.520
The person who runs any company or runs any division

1855
01:13:16.520 --> 01:13:19.000
should be the person who has the highest standards.

1856
01:13:19.000 --> 01:13:20.280
And if there's ever a day

1857
01:13:20.280 --> 01:13:21.440
that someone has a higher standard

1858
01:13:21.440 --> 01:13:23.080
for acquisition.com than me,

1859
01:13:23.080 --> 01:13:25.160
they should run this instead of me,

1860
01:13:25.160 --> 01:13:26.400
because they would be the one

1861
01:13:26.400 --> 01:13:27.960
who's best serving the company.

1862
01:13:27.960 --> 01:13:29.120
And so the person who should have

1863
01:13:29.120 --> 01:13:32.440
the highest standard for you is you.

1864
01:13:32.440 --> 01:13:34.720
And so it makes sense that they have a lower bar,

1865
01:13:34.720 --> 01:13:37.880
but why would I listen to their bar on my life?

1866
01:13:37.880 --> 01:13:41.040
I think that that standard is the one thing

1867
01:13:41.040 --> 01:13:43.720
that rich kids get from rich parents.

1868
01:13:43.720 --> 01:13:45.680
More than anything else.

1869
01:13:45.680 --> 01:13:48.520
It's because they have an expectation of life.

1870
01:13:48.520 --> 01:13:52.840
They don't accept opportunities that are below that standard.

1871
01:13:52.840 --> 01:13:56.920
And so they actually get their huge leg up on the pick,

1872
01:13:56.920 --> 01:14:00.120
on the vehicles that they choose to pursue.

1873
01:14:00.120 --> 01:14:01.600
And so one of the tougher parts,

1874
01:14:01.600 --> 01:14:03.960
if you're not from an area where people make a lot of money,

1875
01:14:03.960 --> 01:14:05.680
or not from, you don't know anybody

1876
01:14:05.680 --> 01:14:07.520
who's a super successful entrepreneur,

1877
01:14:07.520 --> 01:14:09.080
is that you basically have to borrow

1878
01:14:09.080 --> 01:14:10.720
someone else's measuring stick.

1879
01:14:11.720 --> 01:14:12.720
And you have to say,

1880
01:14:12.720 --> 01:14:15.960
is this the standard that Elon would pursue?

1881
01:14:15.960 --> 01:14:18.440
Is this the standard basis would pursue?

1882
01:14:18.440 --> 01:14:21.480
Is this the standard jobs would pursue?

1883
01:14:21.480 --> 01:14:23.520
If it isn't, then why are you doing it?

1884
01:14:23.520 --> 01:14:26.160
If you want to be like them, then act like them.

1885
01:14:26.160 --> 01:14:28.080
If you want to be like your friends,

1886
01:14:28.080 --> 01:14:29.160
then you can act like your friends,

1887
01:14:29.160 --> 01:14:31.280
but don't be surprised that you have what they have.

1888
01:14:31.280 --> 01:14:32.720
And so I'll give you a little rule of thumb

1889
01:14:32.720 --> 01:14:35.760
that I've seen on how do I do more of what's working, right?

1890
01:14:35.760 --> 01:14:37.160
How do I keep going?

1891
01:14:37.160 --> 01:14:39.080
When it's easy, do more.

1892
01:14:39.080 --> 01:14:41.160
When it's hard, do different.

1893
01:14:41.160 --> 01:14:42.440
And so I told this story years ago,

1894
01:14:42.440 --> 01:14:43.320
and I'll tell you guys again.

1895
01:14:43.320 --> 01:14:46.880
So when Jim Launch just barely started to work, all right?

1896
01:14:46.880 --> 01:14:49.480
So I'm like three months into Jim Launch working.

1897
01:14:49.480 --> 01:14:50.320
Guess what?

1898
01:14:50.320 --> 01:14:52.800
Guess what Brilliant Alex thought he should do.

1899
01:14:52.800 --> 01:14:54.520
So I went to this meetup of 10 entrepreneurs.

1900
01:14:54.520 --> 01:14:56.360
All the entrepreneurs were eight figure entrepreneurs,

1901
01:14:56.360 --> 01:14:57.680
so 10 million plus per year.

1902
01:14:57.680 --> 01:14:58.720
I was not making that.

1903
01:14:58.720 --> 01:15:00.040
I would be pacing probably three or four hundred

1904
01:15:00.040 --> 01:15:01.720
thousand dollars a month at the time.

1905
01:15:01.720 --> 01:15:03.160
And it was just me, Laila,

1906
01:15:03.160 --> 01:15:05.560
and I think we had an assistant over kitchen sink, right?

1907
01:15:05.560 --> 01:15:08.960
So I was making the most money I'd ever made

1908
01:15:09.000 --> 01:15:10.880
in my life and probably to this day,

1909
01:15:10.880 --> 01:15:13.000
because it was the most material change

1910
01:15:13.000 --> 01:15:14.720
in my life by percentage.

1911
01:15:14.720 --> 01:15:17.000
When you go from no money to hundreds of thousands

1912
01:15:17.000 --> 01:15:18.000
a month within 90 days,

1913
01:15:18.000 --> 01:15:20.800
me looking at bankruptcy attorneys six months earlier,

1914
01:15:20.800 --> 01:15:25.800
to that, I can't explain how crazy reality shifted.

1915
01:15:26.120 --> 01:15:28.560
But I had this guy who came up to me

1916
01:15:28.560 --> 01:15:30.120
after I gave my little presentation

1917
01:15:30.120 --> 01:15:31.360
of like, hey, this is what's working.

1918
01:15:31.360 --> 01:15:32.840
And so of course, what I want to do now

1919
01:15:32.840 --> 01:15:34.360
is start a supplement company.

1920
01:15:34.360 --> 01:15:36.760
And so he came up to me and he said,

1921
01:15:36.880 --> 01:15:38.720
if what you're saying is true,

1922
01:15:38.720 --> 01:15:40.960
if the economics of the business that you've outlined

1923
01:15:40.960 --> 01:15:43.360
really do work as well as you say they do,

1924
01:15:44.280 --> 01:15:47.560
when it gets easy is when you go hard.

1925
01:15:47.560 --> 01:15:50.560
It's when you double down on what's working.

1926
01:15:50.560 --> 01:15:51.720
And he said that to me,

1927
01:15:51.720 --> 01:15:52.560
and I remember he said,

1928
01:15:52.560 --> 01:15:54.480
because what's gonna happen is that if it really works

1929
01:15:54.480 --> 01:15:56.960
this well, someone bigger and better

1930
01:15:56.960 --> 01:15:59.960
is gonna take all your stuff and immediately try and do it

1931
01:15:59.960 --> 01:16:02.840
with their distribution, their audience, and their leverage.

1932
01:16:02.840 --> 01:16:06.000
And so if there's ever been a time to focus

1933
01:16:06.120 --> 01:16:08.960
on the thing that's in front of you, it's right now.

1934
01:16:08.960 --> 01:16:12.600
And I remember, Laila and I felt this huge weight of pressure

1935
01:16:12.600 --> 01:16:13.680
that started us at that point,

1936
01:16:13.680 --> 01:16:15.920
because literally, I think I was really content

1937
01:16:15.920 --> 01:16:18.040
for like six weeks.

1938
01:16:18.040 --> 01:16:18.960
And I was really thrilled.

1939
01:16:18.960 --> 01:16:19.840
We had just gotten married,

1940
01:16:19.840 --> 01:16:21.960
we're six weeks into being married,

1941
01:16:21.960 --> 01:16:23.840
we're making really good money.

1942
01:16:23.840 --> 01:16:27.000
She's 23 or 24, I'm 26 or 27.

1943
01:16:27.000 --> 01:16:29.120
So like we're, I was like, holy cow, this is amazing.

1944
01:16:29.120 --> 01:16:31.200
Our rent for context was $1,200 a month.

1945
01:16:31.200 --> 01:16:32.960
I was taking over 400, right?

1946
01:16:32.960 --> 01:16:35.520
And so I've always lived far below my means.

1947
01:16:35.520 --> 01:16:38.320
And at this point though,

1948
01:16:38.320 --> 01:16:41.720
we went back home with the devil inside of us

1949
01:16:41.720 --> 01:16:46.520
in terms of the fear of us losing everything that we had.

1950
01:16:46.520 --> 01:16:48.600
And so we basically worked around the clock

1951
01:16:48.600 --> 01:16:50.440
like someone was trying to put us out of business.

1952
01:16:50.440 --> 01:16:53.080
And the thing is, is that people did eventually,

1953
01:16:53.080 --> 01:16:54.640
but by the time they did,

1954
01:16:54.640 --> 01:16:57.760
we had gone so far ahead that they were way behind us,

1955
01:16:57.760 --> 01:17:00.160
because we were working against a hypothetical enemy

1956
01:17:00.160 --> 01:17:01.560
who was trying to destroy us,

1957
01:17:01.560 --> 01:17:05.480
not the ones that were actually mediocre and distracted.

1958
01:17:05.480 --> 01:17:08.400
And so when it's easy, do more.

1959
01:17:08.400 --> 01:17:12.520
Once it starts working, put the blinders on and hit the gas.

1960
01:17:12.520 --> 01:17:16.080
And I would challenge you with this tactical setup.

1961
01:17:16.080 --> 01:17:19.360
Right now, if you've never worked for 30 days straight,

1962
01:17:19.360 --> 01:17:20.960
I would encourage you to try it.

1963
01:17:20.960 --> 01:17:25.680
And so in China, there's something called the 669.

1964
01:17:25.680 --> 01:17:28.880
Sorry, there's something called the 996,

1965
01:17:28.880 --> 01:17:33.040
which is basically the standard for Chinese tech work hours,

1966
01:17:33.040 --> 01:17:36.120
which is you work 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.

1967
01:17:36.120 --> 01:17:37.520
That's the bar.

1968
01:17:37.520 --> 01:17:41.240
And so I like to state that because we think we work so hard,

1969
01:17:41.240 --> 01:17:43.040
that's just the average.

1970
01:17:43.040 --> 01:17:46.240
And so I would encourage you, remember hard times,

1971
01:17:46.240 --> 01:17:48.400
hard men, right, good times.

1972
01:17:48.400 --> 01:17:50.560
Well, we need to act as though it's hard times,

1973
01:17:50.560 --> 01:17:53.360
because if you don't, you're surely gonna become soft.

1974
01:17:53.360 --> 01:17:57.920
My challenge for you is work 30 days straight,

1975
01:17:57.920 --> 01:18:01.640
work 10, work 12 hours a day, 30 days straight.

1976
01:18:01.640 --> 01:18:03.320
What you will realize at the end of this

1977
01:18:03.320 --> 01:18:06.520
is one, how much work you can actually do.

1978
01:18:06.520 --> 01:18:09.760
Two, that you're not gonna die, you're not made of glass.

1979
01:18:09.760 --> 01:18:13.120
And third, you'll know that you have that gear

1980
01:18:13.120 --> 01:18:15.120
if the time calls for it.

1981
01:18:15.120 --> 01:18:17.120
Now, I will be very real with you.

1982
01:18:17.120 --> 01:18:21.120
I work more now than I have ever worked in my life.

1983
01:18:21.120 --> 01:18:24.840
Save maybe when I opened my very first gym.

1984
01:18:24.840 --> 01:18:28.280
So I work in absolute hours more than I ever have,

1985
01:18:28.280 --> 01:18:31.360
and I produce significantly more than I did then.

1986
01:18:32.280 --> 01:18:34.560
And this year, I think I've taken something

1987
01:18:34.560 --> 01:18:38.080
like 10 or 11 days off in 2024.

1988
01:18:38.080 --> 01:18:41.600
And I would measure a day off as any day

1989
01:18:41.600 --> 01:18:46.040
where I worked probably fewer than four hours.

1990
01:18:46.040 --> 01:18:48.680
And so I put this as context,

1991
01:18:48.680 --> 01:18:53.520
and I had a security guard who was here at acquisition.com

1992
01:18:53.520 --> 01:18:55.440
earlier this year, and he was talking

1993
01:18:55.440 --> 01:18:58.080
to some of the younger guys on the team.

1994
01:18:58.080 --> 01:19:01.840
And he said, you should never let Alex work more hours

1995
01:19:01.840 --> 01:19:05.160
than you, because he's already ahead of you.

1996
01:19:05.160 --> 01:19:08.120
And so if you wanna catch up with him,

1997
01:19:08.120 --> 01:19:10.440
certainly don't let him out work you.

1998
01:19:10.440 --> 01:19:15.440
And so some of the who do mental health,

1999
01:19:16.360 --> 01:19:19.560
whatever people are gonna disagree with me.

2000
01:19:19.560 --> 01:19:21.720
Also, don't give a shit.

2001
01:19:21.720 --> 01:19:24.560
And so the thing is, you can just go

2002
01:19:24.560 --> 01:19:27.040
and make those mental health people happy,

2003
01:19:27.040 --> 01:19:30.920
or you can get what the fuck you came here to get.

2004
01:19:30.920 --> 01:19:33.680
You can do what you came to do.

2005
01:19:33.680 --> 01:19:35.320
And I have found that in my life,

2006
01:19:35.320 --> 01:19:38.440
I've gotten significantly more purpose and more drive

2007
01:19:38.440 --> 01:19:41.680
from a long day's hard work,

2008
01:19:41.680 --> 01:19:44.800
from earning my shower at the end of the day,

2009
01:19:44.800 --> 01:19:47.040
than anything that I've ever had

2010
01:19:47.040 --> 01:19:49.440
from a pleasure-seeking perspective.

2011
01:19:49.440 --> 01:19:52.520
Like as much as it's great to go to the pool for a day

2012
01:19:52.520 --> 01:19:53.960
and hang out with some people,

2013
01:19:53.960 --> 01:19:56.120
or maybe just watch movies.

2014
01:19:56.120 --> 01:19:58.040
As great as that may be,

2015
01:19:58.040 --> 01:20:01.600
there's nothing that I get more film than out of,

2016
01:20:01.600 --> 01:20:03.720
than knowing that at the end of a day

2017
01:20:03.720 --> 01:20:05.480
that I work 16 straight hours,

2018
01:20:05.480 --> 01:20:08.280
that I have some product that I pulled out of my brain

2019
01:20:08.280 --> 01:20:12.640
and into the world, that this thing got life now.

2020
01:20:12.640 --> 01:20:15.480
And looking back on the best days of my life,

2021
01:20:15.480 --> 01:20:17.640
it was those types of days.

2022
01:20:17.640 --> 01:20:21.240
And so when I realized that I stopped trying to satisfy

2023
01:20:21.240 --> 01:20:23.600
what everyone else told me my life was supposed to be like,

2024
01:20:23.600 --> 01:20:25.360
they're like, you should take vacations.

2025
01:20:25.360 --> 01:20:27.760
I took my first vacation this year,

2026
01:20:27.760 --> 01:20:30.080
and it was supposed to be a two-day vacation,

2027
01:20:30.080 --> 01:20:32.120
and Layla and I left after one,

2028
01:20:32.120 --> 01:20:34.480
because what happened was I got there

2029
01:20:34.480 --> 01:20:37.040
at this beautiful resort, $5,000 or $10,000 night,

2030
01:20:37.040 --> 01:20:38.920
very expensive, and I say that just to say

2031
01:20:38.920 --> 01:20:41.480
that it was ritzy, right, it was luxurious.

2032
01:20:41.480 --> 01:20:42.600
I get there.

2033
01:20:42.600 --> 01:20:44.760
I sit out on the back of this beautiful patio

2034
01:20:44.760 --> 01:20:46.680
for this really expensive room,

2035
01:20:46.680 --> 01:20:49.720
and I look out on this mountain view,

2036
01:20:49.720 --> 01:20:52.640
and I think to myself, this is beautiful,

2037
01:20:52.640 --> 01:20:54.200
and I don't care.

2038
01:20:55.360 --> 01:20:57.440
I wish I felt something.

2039
01:20:57.440 --> 01:21:00.200
And all I wanted was to get back in the game.

2040
01:21:00.200 --> 01:21:03.880
And so I realized that even that little mini-vehication

2041
01:21:03.880 --> 01:21:04.960
was something that I had done

2042
01:21:04.960 --> 01:21:06.960
because I thought it was an expectation.

2043
01:21:06.960 --> 01:21:09.840
It was unspoken or spoken from someone else in my life.

2044
01:21:09.840 --> 01:21:11.640
And so I have this quote that I live by,

2045
01:21:11.640 --> 01:21:15.160
which is, if you don't know why you believe what you believe,

2046
01:21:15.160 --> 01:21:17.800
it's not your belief, it's someone else's,

2047
01:21:17.800 --> 01:21:20.360
that double applies with this political season.

2048
01:21:20.360 --> 01:21:22.680
And so at that time, it's like,

2049
01:21:22.680 --> 01:21:26.000
I had this belief that I should take a vacation.

2050
01:21:26.000 --> 01:21:27.200
But why?

2051
01:21:27.200 --> 01:21:30.000
Now, if I can't explain it, which I really can,

2052
01:21:30.000 --> 01:21:31.400
then I shouldn't do it.

2053
01:21:31.400 --> 01:21:33.040
And now, I want to be very clear.

2054
01:21:33.040 --> 01:21:35.640
This doesn't mean that there's no time for rest,

2055
01:21:35.640 --> 01:21:37.880
but I like to think about the hypothetical extremes.

2056
01:21:37.880 --> 01:21:39.440
I like to think about the 996

2057
01:21:39.440 --> 01:21:42.040
that is just the standard in China.

2058
01:21:42.040 --> 01:21:44.760
And I like to think about people in the middle ages

2059
01:21:44.760 --> 01:21:45.880
and the dark ages.

2060
01:21:45.880 --> 01:21:48.160
They worked above their shop

2061
01:21:48.160 --> 01:21:51.000
and they didn't have like the seven day or five day work week

2062
01:21:51.000 --> 01:21:53.480
is something that was invented in the last hundred years.

2063
01:21:53.480 --> 01:21:56.480
This is not pointing to your human capacity.

2064
01:21:56.480 --> 01:21:59.200
This is pointing to a societal constraint.

2065
01:21:59.200 --> 01:22:03.040
And so I think that a truly liberated individual

2066
01:22:03.040 --> 01:22:07.200
operates purely from first principles of what do I want?

2067
01:22:07.200 --> 01:22:08.560
What does it take to get it?

2068
01:22:08.560 --> 01:22:10.360
And then what are the things that hold me back?

2069
01:22:10.360 --> 01:22:12.160
And those things that hold you back

2070
01:22:12.160 --> 01:22:13.800
are gonna be physical constraints.

2071
01:22:13.800 --> 01:22:15.400
You can't operate without sleep,

2072
01:22:15.400 --> 01:22:16.880
not for an extended period of time.

2073
01:22:16.880 --> 01:22:19.280
So I'm not saying no sleep, sleep as much as you can.

2074
01:22:19.280 --> 01:22:23.000
I'm not saying that you can work physical labor

2075
01:22:23.000 --> 01:22:24.760
all hours of the day without rest.

2076
01:22:24.760 --> 01:22:25.680
You need rest.

2077
01:22:25.680 --> 01:22:27.080
And sometimes you need mental rest,

2078
01:22:27.080 --> 01:22:29.200
which is different than physical rest.

2079
01:22:29.200 --> 01:22:30.040
And that's okay.

2080
01:22:30.920 --> 01:22:33.360
So if you need, and I'm gonna put needing quotes here,

2081
01:22:33.360 --> 01:22:36.560
if your way of unplugging is watching Netflix,

2082
01:22:36.560 --> 01:22:38.600
cool, if your way of unplugging is gardening,

2083
01:22:38.600 --> 01:22:40.680
cool, if your way of unplugging is working out,

2084
01:22:40.680 --> 01:22:42.600
cool, do what works for you.

2085
01:22:42.600 --> 01:22:46.160
But fundamentally, the goal is to increase total net output

2086
01:22:46.160 --> 01:22:47.680
over the longest period of time.

2087
01:22:47.680 --> 01:22:51.360
And so it's not about, okay, I'm gonna work 24 hours straight.

2088
01:22:51.360 --> 01:22:52.920
Well, you're actually gonna take from tomorrow

2089
01:22:52.920 --> 01:22:56.000
so your net output over two days is gonna be much worse.

2090
01:22:56.000 --> 01:22:57.920
And so it's really balancing that,

2091
01:22:57.920 --> 01:23:00.200
and I learned that much later in life,

2092
01:23:00.200 --> 01:23:02.680
I was able to get significantly more out of myself

2093
01:23:02.680 --> 01:23:06.120
working seven days a week and working 10 hours,

2094
01:23:06.120 --> 01:23:07.840
12 hours on those days,

2095
01:23:07.840 --> 01:23:11.280
rather than working, call it 18 every day.

2096
01:23:11.280 --> 01:23:13.800
That was for me a little bit too much.

2097
01:23:13.800 --> 01:23:16.600
Now, I have had seasons where I call it three shifts.

2098
01:23:16.600 --> 01:23:19.440
So basically I work six to noon, noon to six,

2099
01:23:19.440 --> 01:23:22.880
and then I work six to basically sleep time

2100
01:23:22.880 --> 01:23:24.040
when I get back home.

2101
01:23:24.040 --> 01:23:27.480
I only usually have to go into that gear.

2102
01:23:27.480 --> 01:23:30.920
Probably once a year for maybe six weeks to eight weeks

2103
01:23:30.920 --> 01:23:32.960
is when I have to go into the third shift.

2104
01:23:32.960 --> 01:23:34.920
But most of the times, I can pretty much

2105
01:23:34.920 --> 01:23:38.360
sustain 12 hours of work a day, kind of indefinitely.

2106
01:23:38.360 --> 01:23:40.520
I bring this up to kind of set the bar

2107
01:23:40.560 --> 01:23:41.560
for at least where I'm at.

2108
01:23:41.560 --> 01:23:43.480
So maybe you have some sort of benchmark.

2109
01:23:43.480 --> 01:23:46.160
But if you're wanting to get ahead,

2110
01:23:46.160 --> 01:23:49.480
I can promise you working less is probably not the way to do it,

2111
01:23:49.480 --> 01:23:51.760
especially when you don't have as many skills.

2112
01:23:51.760 --> 01:23:53.880
Because the fewer skills that you have,

2113
01:23:53.880 --> 01:23:56.480
the more labor or volume you have to compensate with

2114
01:23:56.480 --> 01:23:59.280
in order to make up for the ineffectiveness

2115
01:23:59.280 --> 01:24:01.000
per unit of time you work.

2116
01:24:01.000 --> 01:24:04.400
And so in the beginning is when you actually have to work the most.

2117
01:24:04.400 --> 01:24:06.520
But in the end is when you want to work the most

2118
01:24:06.520 --> 01:24:09.000
because of how much more you're getting for it.

2119
01:24:09.000 --> 01:24:10.800
So my team wanted me to make this point

2120
01:24:10.800 --> 01:24:12.360
because they've obviously seen me work

2121
01:24:12.360 --> 01:24:14.040
and they're like, I don't think this is coming through

2122
01:24:14.040 --> 01:24:17.440
in this video, which is that I have an obsession with speed.

2123
01:24:17.440 --> 01:24:19.640
And so this seems kind of weird

2124
01:24:19.640 --> 01:24:21.040
in juxtaposition with patience.

2125
01:24:21.040 --> 01:24:22.360
But this is the very classic,

2126
01:24:22.360 --> 01:24:26.560
microspeed, macropatians, whatever is them you prefer.

2127
01:24:27.680 --> 01:24:31.200
The idea is though, that you want to pull reality forward.

2128
01:24:31.200 --> 01:24:33.040
And so I always like to break things down

2129
01:24:33.040 --> 01:24:35.240
whether it's me or my team into how many hours

2130
01:24:35.240 --> 01:24:36.720
and minutes something's going to take.

2131
01:24:36.800 --> 01:24:39.400
And then I like to stack those things back and forth.

2132
01:24:39.400 --> 01:24:41.840
And rather than using arbitrary deadlines of,

2133
01:24:41.840 --> 01:24:43.720
okay, let's get this done by next week,

2134
01:24:43.720 --> 01:24:46.880
you use actual deadlines based on how long it should take.

2135
01:24:46.880 --> 01:24:48.960
And then when you find out how long something takes,

2136
01:24:48.960 --> 01:24:50.080
you then ask the next question,

2137
01:24:50.080 --> 01:24:52.240
which is how can I make this take less time?

2138
01:24:52.240 --> 01:24:53.360
How can I automate this thing?

2139
01:24:53.360 --> 01:24:54.960
How can I automate portions of this work?

2140
01:24:54.960 --> 01:24:57.080
How can I give away chunks of this?

2141
01:24:57.080 --> 01:24:59.480
How can I deem some of this unnecessary?

2142
01:24:59.480 --> 01:25:03.960
And so that continuous cutting and pulling forward of tasks

2143
01:25:03.960 --> 01:25:07.040
is how you can move so much faster through life

2144
01:25:07.040 --> 01:25:08.840
and towards your goals.

2145
01:25:08.840 --> 01:25:11.680
And so in 2025, by the end of the year,

2146
01:25:11.680 --> 01:25:14.680
you actually could go from zero to making a million dollars a year.

2147
01:25:14.680 --> 01:25:16.160
The way that you would do that

2148
01:25:16.160 --> 01:25:18.480
would be doing five years of work in one.

2149
01:25:18.480 --> 01:25:22.400
And so I have this weird mental belief that

2150
01:25:22.400 --> 01:25:25.280
there's like this big path in front of me

2151
01:25:25.280 --> 01:25:26.480
that I have all these skills

2152
01:25:26.480 --> 01:25:29.040
that I have to achieve to hit these milestones.

2153
01:25:29.040 --> 01:25:33.440
And the thing is that that is laid out on this time span.

2154
01:25:33.600 --> 01:25:37.040
And so I reject the timeline, but I accept the skills.

2155
01:25:37.040 --> 01:25:38.760
And so the idea is like, okay,

2156
01:25:38.760 --> 01:25:40.920
it's like I'm a pack man of like eating those little dots

2157
01:25:40.920 --> 01:25:42.320
and each of those dots is a skill.

2158
01:25:42.320 --> 01:25:44.720
It's like I want to pull it towards me as fast as I can

2159
01:25:44.720 --> 01:25:49.600
so I can ingest the skills and basically power up myself faster

2160
01:25:49.600 --> 01:25:51.720
because I know that these skills are requisites.

2161
01:25:51.720 --> 01:25:54.000
I can't move on to calculus without knowing arithmetic.

2162
01:25:54.000 --> 01:25:56.080
I can't move on to calculus without knowing algebra.

2163
01:25:56.080 --> 01:25:57.320
There's no way around it,

2164
01:25:57.320 --> 01:26:00.520
but I can choose to learn algebra faster.

2165
01:26:00.640 --> 01:26:02.080
And so then it's like, okay,

2166
01:26:02.080 --> 01:26:03.840
what is required to learn algebra?

2167
01:26:03.840 --> 01:26:06.320
Oh, and if I do more problems faster

2168
01:26:06.320 --> 01:26:09.240
than the standard person, then I'll get there faster.

2169
01:26:09.240 --> 01:26:10.880
And so if the class says, okay,

2170
01:26:10.880 --> 01:26:12.680
I need you to do these 10 problem sets

2171
01:26:12.680 --> 01:26:13.920
and they'll do next week,

2172
01:26:13.920 --> 01:26:16.680
well then how long does it take for me to do those problems?

2173
01:26:16.680 --> 01:26:17.840
Maybe 30 minutes.

2174
01:26:17.840 --> 01:26:20.640
Then why can't I do my second lesson 30 minutes later?

2175
01:26:20.640 --> 01:26:21.920
And then do another 10 problems

2176
01:26:21.920 --> 01:26:24.320
and do my third lesson 30 minutes after that

2177
01:26:24.320 --> 01:26:25.760
and do another 10 problems?

2178
01:26:25.760 --> 01:26:26.840
Well, if that's the case,

2179
01:26:26.840 --> 01:26:30.680
then I can do an entire years worth of work in a week.

2180
01:26:30.680 --> 01:26:33.880
And this is how, in my opinion, pulling forward

2181
01:26:33.880 --> 01:26:35.560
is one of those things that I've seen

2182
01:26:35.560 --> 01:26:38.200
so many of the most successful entrepreneurs do

2183
01:26:38.200 --> 01:26:42.320
is they simply question timelines aggressively

2184
01:26:42.320 --> 01:26:45.760
and ruthlessly eliminate any waste or gap

2185
01:26:45.760 --> 01:26:49.680
between the actions required to win and everything else.

2186
01:26:49.680 --> 01:26:51.040
Honestly, I think the things

2187
01:26:51.040 --> 01:26:53.400
that I'm working on right now for my skills

2188
01:26:53.400 --> 01:26:58.400
are I'm learning how to reinforce cultural norms

2189
01:27:00.440 --> 01:27:03.560
across a company that continues to scale

2190
01:27:03.560 --> 01:27:07.280
which I define as the rules that govern reinforcement

2191
01:27:07.280 --> 01:27:08.960
in an organization.

2192
01:27:08.960 --> 01:27:10.280
That is the culture

2193
01:27:10.280 --> 01:27:13.240
and those are both spoken and unspoken rules.

2194
01:27:13.240 --> 01:27:14.720
And when I say rules, I mean,

2195
01:27:14.720 --> 01:27:17.240
when someone does this, they get a pat on the butt.

2196
01:27:17.240 --> 01:27:20.400
When someone does this, they get chastised

2197
01:27:20.400 --> 01:27:22.160
or they get a ding, right?

2198
01:27:22.160 --> 01:27:24.080
And the thing is is that people like to say

2199
01:27:24.080 --> 01:27:26.120
they have a good culture here,

2200
01:27:26.120 --> 01:27:30.960
but the culture is 100, 1000 unspoken rules

2201
01:27:30.960 --> 01:27:33.720
and that's why it takes people time to learn and figure out

2202
01:27:33.720 --> 01:27:36.160
what the culture is when they go somewhere new.

2203
01:27:36.160 --> 01:27:38.320
You can give someone a list of 100 rules

2204
01:27:38.320 --> 01:27:41.040
and if you were very granular, you could figure it out.

2205
01:27:41.040 --> 01:27:42.840
The problem is that the culture changes

2206
01:27:42.840 --> 01:27:45.480
based on the people who changed the reinforcers.

2207
01:27:45.480 --> 01:27:46.960
The culture and a team could be different

2208
01:27:46.960 --> 01:27:47.880
than the culture in the company

2209
01:27:47.880 --> 01:27:50.600
because the person who's closest to them

2210
01:27:50.600 --> 01:27:51.760
manages it differently

2211
01:27:51.800 --> 01:27:53.360
and so that changes the behavior.

2212
01:27:53.360 --> 01:27:54.640
And so that's why a sales team

2213
01:27:54.640 --> 01:27:56.160
can have a different culture than a marketing team,

2214
01:27:56.160 --> 01:27:57.400
a different culture than a finance team,

2215
01:27:57.400 --> 01:27:59.200
a different culture than an HR team.

2216
01:27:59.200 --> 01:28:02.160
And so I'd say right now, a big focus of mine

2217
01:28:02.160 --> 01:28:05.240
is trying to standardize the rules

2218
01:28:05.240 --> 01:28:06.920
that govern reinforcement across an organization

2219
01:28:06.920 --> 01:28:09.960
that scales and making sure that everyone is aligned

2220
01:28:09.960 --> 01:28:13.160
with that style of work.

2221
01:28:13.160 --> 01:28:15.800
The second thing that I'm working on right now

2222
01:28:15.800 --> 01:28:17.960
is basically the highest level of recruiting.

2223
01:28:17.960 --> 01:28:21.520
And recruiting and talent is actually kind of

2224
01:28:21.520 --> 01:28:23.680
like focus where it's one of those skills

2225
01:28:23.680 --> 01:28:26.000
that I don't think you ever master.

2226
01:28:26.000 --> 01:28:28.600
You just keep learning the depths of,

2227
01:28:28.600 --> 01:28:30.840
or how many more levels are to it.

2228
01:28:30.840 --> 01:28:31.760
It's like right when you finish it,

2229
01:28:31.760 --> 01:28:33.400
you realize that you're at a sub peak

2230
01:28:33.400 --> 01:28:34.760
and there's actually another peak beyond it,

2231
01:28:34.760 --> 01:28:36.720
the mislifts and then you see the next steps.

2232
01:28:36.720 --> 01:28:39.520
And so like focus, I thought,

2233
01:28:39.520 --> 01:28:41.120
oh, I was focused at $100,000 a month

2234
01:28:41.120 --> 01:28:42.320
because I could turn these opportunities down

2235
01:28:42.320 --> 01:28:44.080
and then you got some even sexier opportunities

2236
01:28:44.080 --> 01:28:45.680
you got to learn how to say new to those.

2237
01:28:45.680 --> 01:28:47.160
So the same thing happens with talent

2238
01:28:47.160 --> 01:28:48.760
is that you're willing to tolerate

2239
01:28:48.760 --> 01:28:50.960
a certain amount of mediocrity at one level

2240
01:28:50.960 --> 01:28:53.400
that is no longer tolerable at a level above that.

2241
01:28:53.400 --> 01:28:55.360
And the types of people that you bring in,

2242
01:28:55.360 --> 01:28:57.600
you have a higher standard, a higher bar for those people

2243
01:28:57.600 --> 01:28:59.720
and attracting them in the process associated

2244
01:28:59.720 --> 01:29:01.960
with getting them to buy into your culture, your vision,

2245
01:29:01.960 --> 01:29:03.440
and getting them to take their skills

2246
01:29:03.440 --> 01:29:05.000
and apply them to your opportunity

2247
01:29:05.000 --> 01:29:06.840
is a skill set that I am working on now

2248
01:29:06.840 --> 01:29:08.160
because fundamentally I believe

2249
01:29:08.160 --> 01:29:10.280
which is the best talent is always yet to come.

2250
01:29:10.280 --> 01:29:11.760
And that's predicated on the idea

2251
01:29:11.760 --> 01:29:14.120
that if I get better, my opportunity will get better

2252
01:29:14.120 --> 01:29:17.240
and that will attract more people and better people.

2253
01:29:17.240 --> 01:29:20.280
And I bring this up because I basically wanna translate

2254
01:29:20.280 --> 01:29:23.600
one thing which is that the reinvestment

2255
01:29:23.600 --> 01:29:26.160
in learning skills never ends.

2256
01:29:26.160 --> 01:29:28.360
And so Charlie Munger said this,

2257
01:29:28.360 --> 01:29:30.400
you just have to be a lifelong student.

2258
01:29:30.400 --> 01:29:32.640
You have to be willing and want to learn.

2259
01:29:32.640 --> 01:29:34.880
So I actually had an example of this.

2260
01:29:34.880 --> 01:29:36.480
So recently there was somebody on teams

2261
01:29:36.480 --> 01:29:38.800
I did a bunch of 101s over the last week

2262
01:29:38.800 --> 01:29:40.360
because I was looking at one of the departments.

2263
01:29:40.360 --> 01:29:42.520
And one of the guys said,

2264
01:29:42.520 --> 01:29:43.920
hey, I have this particular skill.

2265
01:29:43.920 --> 01:29:46.640
I was hoping that we could eventually have a role

2266
01:29:46.640 --> 01:29:48.520
that only does this thing.

2267
01:29:48.520 --> 01:29:51.600
And I said, you know, it's interesting that you ask

2268
01:29:51.600 --> 01:29:54.600
or you make that request because if I were you,

2269
01:29:54.600 --> 01:29:56.400
I would not think that way at all.

2270
01:29:56.400 --> 01:29:59.560
I would think, how could I learn 10 more skills?

2271
01:29:59.560 --> 01:30:02.560
Rather than how can the organization meet my demands?

2272
01:30:02.560 --> 01:30:05.760
It should be, how can I let my skills meet the demands

2273
01:30:05.760 --> 01:30:07.080
of the existing business?

2274
01:30:07.080 --> 01:30:09.240
It's asking reality to meet you where you're at

2275
01:30:09.240 --> 01:30:11.480
rather than meeting reality where it is.

2276
01:30:11.480 --> 01:30:13.120
And I think that too many people do this.

2277
01:30:13.120 --> 01:30:17.620
Why can't the world insert be more convenient for me?

2278
01:30:18.640 --> 01:30:21.360
Well, the world is uncaring and doesn't care about you at all.

2279
01:30:21.360 --> 01:30:24.400
And underpinning that statement is the entitlement,

2280
01:30:24.400 --> 01:30:27.400
is the expectation that it somehow should.

2281
01:30:27.400 --> 01:30:29.720
And I think that is a poverty lens.

2282
01:30:29.720 --> 01:30:32.560
And so the wealthy accept the world for what it is

2283
01:30:32.560 --> 01:30:35.160
and then choose to maximize and adapt.

2284
01:30:35.160 --> 01:30:37.040
Everyone else tries to stop their feet

2285
01:30:37.040 --> 01:30:39.240
and throw tantrums and say how it's not fair.

2286
01:30:39.240 --> 01:30:40.360
And they're right.

2287
01:30:40.360 --> 01:30:41.920
And so what?

2288
01:30:41.920 --> 01:30:44.960
So I want to read you this quote by Sun Suj,

2289
01:30:44.960 --> 01:30:48.160
I think applies to what I'm kind of working on right now,

2290
01:30:48.160 --> 01:30:51.600
personally, which is, the skillful leader

2291
01:30:51.600 --> 01:30:54.560
does not rely on the quantity of troops or resources,

2292
01:30:54.560 --> 01:30:57.400
but instead on the quality of his strategies.

2293
01:30:57.400 --> 01:31:00.960
Just as one skilled worker is worth 10 unskilled men,

2294
01:31:00.960 --> 01:31:02.840
a good plan well executed

2295
01:31:02.840 --> 01:31:05.960
while I'll perform a larger disorganized effort.

2296
01:31:05.960 --> 01:31:07.960
When troops are well trained, disciplined,

2297
01:31:07.960 --> 01:31:09.960
and their energy is channeled efficiently,

2298
01:31:09.960 --> 01:31:13.080
their effectiveness increases exponentially.

2299
01:31:13.080 --> 01:31:16.000
The strength of one can equal the strength of 10,

2300
01:31:16.000 --> 01:31:18.880
not by numbers, but by mastery and discipline.

2301
01:31:18.880 --> 01:31:22.080
And so that is fundamentally what I'm trying to transfer

2302
01:31:22.080 --> 01:31:24.040
into the organization and the organizations

2303
01:31:24.040 --> 01:31:25.200
within the portfolio.

2304
01:31:25.200 --> 01:31:27.560
I want to transfer that energy efficiency.

2305
01:31:27.560 --> 01:31:29.520
And I would define all of that

2306
01:31:29.520 --> 01:31:31.640
as another and higher form of leverage,

2307
01:31:31.640 --> 01:31:33.480
which is getting more for what you put in.

2308
01:31:33.480 --> 01:31:36.120
And so I believe that leverage and supply and demand

2309
01:31:36.120 --> 01:31:38.360
are the two most powerful forces in business.

2310
01:31:38.360 --> 01:31:41.480
And so this is what we try to consistently reinvest with

2311
01:31:41.520 --> 01:31:42.840
and think through as our lenses

2312
01:31:42.840 --> 01:31:45.280
for making decisions in business.

2313
01:31:45.280 --> 01:31:46.680
There's a Haitian proverb,

2314
01:31:46.680 --> 01:31:50.480
which is behind mountains are more mountains.

2315
01:31:50.480 --> 01:31:54.280
Goals aren't finish lines, they're mile markers.

2316
01:31:54.280 --> 01:31:57.960
And I think that's a great, a great mental frame,

2317
01:31:57.960 --> 01:32:00.480
which is that you think that your goal

2318
01:32:00.480 --> 01:32:03.320
is to get to $10,000 a month, or $100,000 a month.

2319
01:32:03.320 --> 01:32:04.600
I'm really in a month or 10 million a month,

2320
01:32:04.600 --> 01:32:05.960
whatever your goal is.

2321
01:32:05.960 --> 01:32:09.120
And I can promise you, having hit those,

2322
01:32:09.120 --> 01:32:10.320
you just move it again.

2323
01:32:10.320 --> 01:32:12.440
You just the mislifts when you get there

2324
01:32:12.440 --> 01:32:14.440
and you realize there's another mountain top.

2325
01:32:14.440 --> 01:32:16.520
But where people lose their way is when they start listening

2326
01:32:16.520 --> 01:32:18.280
to people at the bottom of the mountain,

2327
01:32:18.280 --> 01:32:19.920
who see them at the subhead,

2328
01:32:19.920 --> 01:32:21.440
and say you weren't happy last time

2329
01:32:21.440 --> 01:32:22.640
when you got to the last peak,

2330
01:32:22.640 --> 01:32:24.480
why are you gonna be happy the next time?

2331
01:32:24.480 --> 01:32:26.200
But that's under their assumption

2332
01:32:26.200 --> 01:32:28.400
in their poverty lens that you did it

2333
01:32:28.400 --> 01:32:29.960
to get to the mountain top.

2334
01:32:29.960 --> 01:32:31.320
You did it for the climb.

2335
01:32:32.560 --> 01:32:34.160
And they'll never understand that

2336
01:32:34.160 --> 01:32:35.720
and don't expect them to.

2337
01:32:35.720 --> 01:32:39.200
I remember I was trying to understand this person

2338
01:32:39.200 --> 01:32:40.840
who had made this really irrational decision

2339
01:32:40.840 --> 01:32:41.960
and I kept thinking like,

2340
01:32:41.960 --> 01:32:43.520
how does this decision make sense

2341
01:32:43.520 --> 01:32:46.040
and I was talking to my father actually?

2342
01:32:46.040 --> 01:32:50.680
And he said, you're trying to apply logic

2343
01:32:50.680 --> 01:32:54.760
to someone who's illogical and that itself is illogical.

2344
01:32:55.680 --> 01:32:56.880
And I remember thinking about that.

2345
01:32:56.880 --> 01:32:58.600
I said like there are these people in our lives

2346
01:32:58.600 --> 01:32:59.640
that say these things that you're like,

2347
01:32:59.640 --> 01:33:01.080
I don't understand why they'd say that.

2348
01:33:01.080 --> 01:33:03.160
And then you try and make sense of it.

2349
01:33:03.160 --> 01:33:04.960
But the effort of trying to make sense

2350
01:33:04.960 --> 01:33:07.880
if somebody who doesn't make sense is nonsensical.

2351
01:33:07.960 --> 01:33:11.000
And so if it doesn't make sense to you, ignore it

2352
01:33:11.000 --> 01:33:12.640
because they're gonna disappear anyways.

2353
01:33:12.640 --> 01:33:14.520
One of the things that has been true in my life

2354
01:33:14.520 --> 01:33:17.920
is that the lazy don't know how to start.

2355
01:33:17.920 --> 01:33:20.320
The losers don't know how to finish

2356
01:33:20.320 --> 01:33:22.520
and the legends don't know how to stop.

2357
01:33:23.440 --> 01:33:26.280
And if I look at that, the lazy loser than legends,

2358
01:33:26.280 --> 01:33:28.280
I know which one I would rather be.

2359
01:33:28.280 --> 01:33:30.680
And I also say that as somebody who doesn't believe

2360
01:33:30.680 --> 01:33:33.680
in legacy or anything after we die.

2361
01:33:33.680 --> 01:33:37.280
Here are a few final consolidating thoughts

2362
01:33:37.360 --> 01:33:41.720
for how to make 2025 the best year you've had so far.

2363
01:33:41.720 --> 01:33:43.320
So this is tactical.

2364
01:33:43.320 --> 01:33:46.320
Find what works, do more of what works,

2365
01:33:46.320 --> 01:33:47.920
find the thing that's preventing you

2366
01:33:47.920 --> 01:33:49.400
from doing more of what works,

2367
01:33:49.400 --> 01:33:52.920
solve that thing and get back to doing more of what works.

2368
01:33:52.920 --> 01:33:54.520
Then repeat.

2369
01:33:54.520 --> 01:33:57.520
And so the reality is that in health, marriage, business

2370
01:33:57.520 --> 01:34:00.960
or any game worth playing, you don't win by winning.

2371
01:34:00.960 --> 01:34:03.120
You win by staying alive long enough

2372
01:34:03.120 --> 01:34:05.400
that you outlast everyone else.

2373
01:34:05.400 --> 01:34:09.000
So I will give you the advice that I gave a sub group

2374
01:34:09.000 --> 01:34:11.400
in school that we picked 100 people who had applied

2375
01:34:11.400 --> 01:34:14.440
out of 500 plus to basically do a 90 day sprint

2376
01:34:14.440 --> 01:34:15.560
to help them start a school community.

2377
01:34:15.560 --> 01:34:18.240
So we wanted to do a more in depth kind of training,

2378
01:34:18.240 --> 01:34:20.160
things like that for this special group

2379
01:34:20.160 --> 01:34:22.000
so that we could see if this new implementation

2380
01:34:22.000 --> 01:34:23.440
yielded better results.

2381
01:34:23.440 --> 01:34:25.840
And so the guy who we had running the group asked me,

2382
01:34:25.840 --> 01:34:27.600
he said, can you give any kind of like words of wisdom

2383
01:34:27.600 --> 01:34:28.800
these guys before we kick it off?

2384
01:34:28.800 --> 01:34:30.680
And so this is what I told them.

2385
01:34:30.680 --> 01:34:33.760
Number one, follow instructions.

2386
01:34:33.760 --> 01:34:35.280
Number two, when you read

2387
01:34:35.320 --> 01:34:37.840
something that you don't understand how to do,

2388
01:34:37.840 --> 01:34:39.480
Google first.

2389
01:34:39.480 --> 01:34:42.640
Number three, when you figure it out, post it.

2390
01:34:42.640 --> 01:34:44.760
Others also may have struggled.

2391
01:34:44.760 --> 01:34:47.960
Four, actually follow the rule of 100 daily,

2392
01:34:47.960 --> 01:34:50.640
which is that you reach out to 100 people,

2393
01:34:50.640 --> 01:34:53.480
you make a post that you spent 100 minutes on,

2394
01:34:53.480 --> 01:34:56.520
you spend $100 plus on ads,

2395
01:34:56.520 --> 01:34:58.800
and you spend at least 100 minutes a day

2396
01:34:58.800 --> 01:35:01.840
making and improving ads and researching ads.

2397
01:35:01.840 --> 01:35:04.600
As long as you do those things consistently

2398
01:35:04.640 --> 01:35:08.480
and you get better, you will see results.

2399
01:35:08.480 --> 01:35:10.240
And the amount of you that I see who tagged me

2400
01:35:10.240 --> 01:35:12.840
in like day four, day 20, day 30,

2401
01:35:12.840 --> 01:35:15.080
the guys who are at day 60 of rule of 100

2402
01:35:15.080 --> 01:35:17.360
are like, I have more business than I can possibly handle.

2403
01:35:17.360 --> 01:35:18.920
The problem is no one sticks to anything.

2404
01:35:18.920 --> 01:35:21.600
And this is why I want you to stick with it.

2405
01:35:21.600 --> 01:35:25.280
Rule number five, you will be excited for a week.

2406
01:35:25.280 --> 01:35:27.680
Then excitement will end,

2407
01:35:27.680 --> 01:35:29.560
and that is where the work begins.

2408
01:35:30.520 --> 01:35:35.200
Six, your work works on you more than you work on it.

2409
01:35:35.200 --> 01:35:37.400
You are the product that's getting built

2410
01:35:37.400 --> 01:35:39.280
more than anything that you're actually putting

2411
01:35:39.280 --> 01:35:40.200
into your business.

2412
01:35:40.200 --> 01:35:41.120
Remember that.

2413
01:35:42.120 --> 01:35:46.240
Seven, everything is unscalable in the beginning.

2414
01:35:46.240 --> 01:35:47.640
That's the point.

2415
01:35:47.640 --> 01:35:49.920
It's how you learn every piece of it.

2416
01:35:49.920 --> 01:35:51.760
And once you learn every piece of it,

2417
01:35:51.760 --> 01:35:53.360
people will call you an expert.

2418
01:35:54.240 --> 01:35:57.440
Eight, the pain of repetition is what forces you

2419
01:35:57.440 --> 01:35:58.880
to seek improvement.

2420
01:35:59.000 --> 01:36:01.800
When you figure out ways to get more for what you do,

2421
01:36:01.800 --> 01:36:03.440
you've gained skill.

2422
01:36:04.320 --> 01:36:07.480
And so people want to avoid the pain.

2423
01:36:07.480 --> 01:36:11.640
But one of my favorite bodybuilding coaches, Milo Sarchev,

2424
01:36:11.640 --> 01:36:16.480
talks about this in the context of how to grow a muscle.

2425
01:36:16.480 --> 01:36:18.560
He says, find the pain.

2426
01:36:18.560 --> 01:36:20.680
And then he'll just shout, he'll suffer.

2427
01:36:20.680 --> 01:36:23.880
Suffer, he's like, stay there, find the pain.

2428
01:36:23.880 --> 01:36:25.640
Because the thing is that that pain

2429
01:36:25.640 --> 01:36:27.480
is what forces you to change.

2430
01:36:27.680 --> 01:36:30.360
And so if you encounter the pain and then say,

2431
01:36:30.360 --> 01:36:32.520
oh, it's not working, that's the pain

2432
01:36:32.520 --> 01:36:33.960
that you need to lean into.

2433
01:36:33.960 --> 01:36:35.440
Because when it's not working,

2434
01:36:35.440 --> 01:36:38.440
is what will force you to do an improvement.

2435
01:36:38.440 --> 01:36:41.520
And that's how you get good at making better content.

2436
01:36:41.520 --> 01:36:43.440
Get good at making better ads.

2437
01:36:43.440 --> 01:36:45.680
Get good at having more effective reach outs

2438
01:36:45.680 --> 01:36:47.920
on different channels, whatever.

2439
01:36:47.920 --> 01:36:50.200
It's that pain that forces you to improve.

2440
01:36:50.200 --> 01:36:53.760
Nine, if you complain, you are dead to me.

2441
01:36:54.760 --> 01:36:58.240
And I said this because I believe it.

2442
01:36:58.240 --> 01:37:02.480
Like there is nothing weaker and more helpless

2443
01:37:02.480 --> 01:37:05.000
and there has lower agency than someone

2444
01:37:05.000 --> 01:37:08.320
who simply complains about what has occurred.

2445
01:37:08.320 --> 01:37:10.240
It's something that happened in the past

2446
01:37:10.240 --> 01:37:11.800
or is in front of them in the present.

2447
01:37:11.800 --> 01:37:16.200
And regardless, complaining literally does nothing.

2448
01:37:16.200 --> 01:37:18.080
It's a net zero.

2449
01:37:18.080 --> 01:37:20.440
Like it's a net loss.

2450
01:37:20.440 --> 01:37:23.440
You both lose the energy that you could have spent

2451
01:37:23.440 --> 01:37:25.880
improving and you also lose respects

2452
01:37:25.880 --> 01:37:29.080
from every single person that you complain to.

2453
01:37:29.080 --> 01:37:32.600
And they will associate the complaints with you.

2454
01:37:32.600 --> 01:37:35.120
They won't remember what you complain about.

2455
01:37:35.120 --> 01:37:36.920
Only that you complain.

2456
01:37:36.920 --> 01:37:41.160
Ten, literally thousands of people have already succeeded.

2457
01:37:41.160 --> 01:37:42.720
You are not special.

2458
01:37:42.720 --> 01:37:44.280
Repeat the same activities

2459
01:37:44.280 --> 01:37:47.440
and you will be able to repeat the same outcomes.

2460
01:37:47.440 --> 01:37:49.920
And so before you make a conclusion

2461
01:37:49.920 --> 01:37:50.880
that something doesn't work,

2462
01:37:50.880 --> 01:37:53.040
I want you to state the objective truth

2463
01:37:53.160 --> 01:37:54.400
of what you're claiming.

2464
01:37:54.400 --> 01:37:57.440
You're like, Facebook ads don't work.

2465
01:37:57.440 --> 01:38:00.200
Sure, so the 400 billion year in advertising

2466
01:38:00.200 --> 01:38:02.560
that gets spent on Facebook just somehow doesn't work.

2467
01:38:02.560 --> 01:38:04.960
People aren't doing it because it's not working.

2468
01:38:04.960 --> 01:38:07.000
Cold outbound doesn't work.

2469
01:38:07.000 --> 01:38:09.960
Yeah, so the gazillion companies

2470
01:38:09.960 --> 01:38:12.840
that do 10,000 emails, 10,000 calls a day,

2471
01:38:12.840 --> 01:38:15.360
they just, it doesn't work.

2472
01:38:16.440 --> 01:38:18.600
What you have to reframe it as is,

2473
01:38:18.600 --> 01:38:21.400
I don't know how to make it work.

2474
01:38:21.400 --> 01:38:25.440
I am not good enough to know how to make it work.

2475
01:38:25.440 --> 01:38:28.240
11, write down every reason

2476
01:38:28.240 --> 01:38:30.240
that you're going to stick with it.

2477
01:38:30.240 --> 01:38:32.680
Put it in front of you and revisit it

2478
01:38:32.680 --> 01:38:35.400
when you need a reminder of why to stick with it.

2479
01:38:35.400 --> 01:38:40.080
12, business is shockingly simple but surprisingly hard.

2480
01:38:40.080 --> 01:38:42.840
The hard comes in the form of consistency.

2481
01:38:42.840 --> 01:38:44.600
The moment you don't want to do it

2482
01:38:44.600 --> 01:38:47.280
or just skip today is the day you realize

2483
01:38:47.280 --> 01:38:49.640
what hard actually feels like.

2484
01:38:49.640 --> 01:38:52.520
Learn to endure, overcome.

2485
01:38:53.760 --> 01:38:56.640
13, just win.

2486
01:38:56.640 --> 01:38:58.440
Because at the end of the day,

2487
01:38:58.440 --> 01:39:00.800
all of this hardship will be forgotten.

2488
01:39:00.800 --> 01:39:02.600
It will fade into your memory.

2489
01:39:02.600 --> 01:39:04.400
And so know that as you're going through it,

2490
01:39:04.400 --> 01:39:06.400
you're actually just going to disproportionately

2491
01:39:06.400 --> 01:39:07.840
in your memory, remember the good stuff

2492
01:39:07.840 --> 01:39:09.160
and not the bad stuff.

2493
01:39:09.160 --> 01:39:12.400
I only have a few glimpses in my memory of the time

2494
01:39:12.400 --> 01:39:13.840
when I was sleeping on the floor

2495
01:39:13.840 --> 01:39:15.880
and I had my jam and I was getting started.

2496
01:39:15.880 --> 01:39:17.200
I remember being so tired that like

2497
01:39:17.200 --> 01:39:18.800
a good night's sleep couldn't fix it.

2498
01:39:18.840 --> 01:39:20.040
I remember that.

2499
01:39:20.040 --> 01:39:21.760
But it's almost like I remember the words

2500
01:39:21.760 --> 01:39:24.240
that I told myself more than I even remember the experiences

2501
01:39:24.240 --> 01:39:25.840
because it was so long ago.

2502
01:39:25.840 --> 01:39:28.160
And so things will get better

2503
01:39:28.160 --> 01:39:29.440
and you will remember the betterness

2504
01:39:29.440 --> 01:39:31.120
more than you remember the suffering.