WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.600 Hey guys, a lot of the business game comes down to what is between your ears because if 2 00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:10.360 you cannot stay in the game, you cannot win the game because in an infinite game, the 3 00:00:10.360 --> 00:00:13.200 only way you win is by continuing to play. 4 00:00:13.200 --> 00:00:16.440 And so over the last few weeks, I've done a handful of podcasts and I've had a couple 5 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:20.200 of hard conversations with friends that made this top of mind. 6 00:00:20.200 --> 00:00:26.440 And so these are 15 rules of engagement that make the hard life a little bit less hard 7 00:00:26.440 --> 00:00:31.880 and at least get me through the difficulties I am going through that may be valuable for 8 00:00:31.880 --> 00:00:32.880 you. 9 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:35.880 Enjoy. 10 00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:38.960 These are brutally honest truths you should know before it's too late. 11 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:43.080 I'm Alex Ramsey, I'm an actress.com portfolio of companies that makes all the dollars, 12 00:00:43.080 --> 00:00:44.080 so many dollars. 13 00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:48.240 In fact, that I have these very fancy screens behind me that do nothing but show my logo. 14 00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:49.240 Right. 15 00:00:49.240 --> 00:00:51.560 Anyways, let's start with number one. 16 00:00:51.560 --> 00:01:00.800 Pain is the price of progress, man, or that real fast. 17 00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:04.160 The fastest growth periods are often the most miserable. 18 00:01:04.160 --> 00:01:07.600 If you want to progress, get used to pain. 19 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:12.120 And so if you think about what actually occurs when you grow, you stretch past your point 20 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:13.120 of comfort. 21 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:16.360 So even if you're growing a muscle, like you stretch, you break it down, it's painful. 22 00:01:16.360 --> 00:01:20.480 If you have growing pains like as a kid, it's like you grew too fast and your joints are 23 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:21.760 in a lot of pain. 24 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:25.960 If you're a company and you expand, this is technically supposed to be good stuff, but 25 00:01:25.960 --> 00:01:28.040 it doesn't make it any less painful. 26 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:32.280 And so elite athletes don't get stronger during easy workouts. 27 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:38.520 And so if we want progress, we must accept the price of pain that's attached to it. 28 00:01:38.520 --> 00:01:41.600 You cannot both want progress and live an easy life. 29 00:01:41.600 --> 00:01:43.840 These two things conflict. 30 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:47.200 Number two, happy but not satisfied. 31 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:48.280 So let me explain this. 32 00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:51.800 So you're allowed to be happy before you hit your goal. 33 00:01:51.800 --> 00:01:53.120 Just not satisfied. 34 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:56.480 And so there's a very big difference between being content with your life, content with 35 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:00.400 your work, and complacent, meaning you're not going to take any more action. 36 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.240 There's this great Haitian proverb which is, behind mountains are more mountains. 37 00:02:04.240 --> 00:02:08.680 It's kind of like after every peak, you can just see more peaks ahead of you, right? 38 00:02:08.680 --> 00:02:12.960 And so the work works on you more than you work on it. 39 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:16.400 And so for me, I remember I had a year that I basically went in retirement trying to 40 00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:18.080 figure out what I wanted to do. 41 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:22.120 And the thesis that I came out with was that hard work is the goal. 42 00:02:22.120 --> 00:02:25.640 And so the fact that there's something that happens as a result of hard work is really 43 00:02:25.640 --> 00:02:27.240 just a secondary effect. 44 00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:28.640 It's a consequence. 45 00:02:28.640 --> 00:02:30.640 But the goal is the work itself. 46 00:02:30.640 --> 00:02:34.360 And so I had a friend this morning who messaged me and they're like, why do you still work? 47 00:02:34.360 --> 00:02:37.120 And I was like, because it's the thing that I enjoy doing most. 48 00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:42.480 And when I looked back on my life, when I didn't work, I was bored and felt depressed. 49 00:02:42.480 --> 00:02:47.440 And when I do work, I am stressed, but I do have moments that I really enjoy as well. 50 00:02:47.440 --> 00:02:52.160 And so basically I took this as a kind of a foundational truth for me, not for everyone, 51 00:02:52.160 --> 00:02:53.520 that there is misery on both sides. 52 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:55.320 So I might as well be productive and useful. 53 00:02:55.320 --> 00:03:00.560 And the only way to be productive and useful is to be happy about the process, but not satisfied 54 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:03.960 so you can continue to provide value to the world. 55 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:06.560 Now number three, ignore critics. 56 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:10.920 Now this is probably easy to say, hard to do. 57 00:03:10.920 --> 00:03:12.840 Let me bring this down a little bit more. 58 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:19.400 So friendly reminder that most people are fat, poor, panseys, and don't listen to them 59 00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:22.640 when they try to deter you from doing whatever it takes to succeed. 60 00:03:22.640 --> 00:03:25.400 So the average person will always try to keep you average. 61 00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:30.560 It makes sense that if you want to be extraordinary, you will do things that an ordinary person 62 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:33.480 would see as extra, right? 63 00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:36.920 And so a lot of people, and this is the really hard part that I had to come to terms with, 64 00:03:36.920 --> 00:03:40.680 is that a lot of people want to see you fail, because it justifies the risk that they 65 00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:41.960 chose not to take. 66 00:03:41.960 --> 00:03:45.160 And so we always have to think about listening to people who are closest to our goals, 67 00:03:45.160 --> 00:03:46.760 not closest to us. 68 00:03:46.760 --> 00:03:53.240 And if you want a more violent version of this, your critics are going to eventually die. 69 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:57.560 And their opinion isn't going to matter then, which means it probably also doesn't matter 70 00:03:57.560 --> 00:03:58.560 now. 71 00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:00.280 So might as well do what you wanted to do originally. 72 00:04:00.280 --> 00:04:04.840 Number four, selective productivity. 73 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:08.200 Property comes from all the things that you choose not to do. 74 00:04:08.200 --> 00:04:10.920 So I'm going to define two more terms for each, I think it's important. 75 00:04:10.920 --> 00:04:14.280 I see commitment as the elimination of alternatives. 76 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:18.240 So if I get married, then I eliminate all alternatives to the person that I'm married 77 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:19.240 to, right? 78 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:20.520 That is commitment, right? 79 00:04:20.520 --> 00:04:23.080 Which is very similar to focus, right? 80 00:04:23.080 --> 00:04:27.000 And so focus, if you think of the hypothetical extreme of focus, is that somebody does literally 81 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.680 nothing but one thing, so they don't eat, they don't sleep, they would eventually die. 82 00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:34.120 But they would be 100% focused during the time that they were alive, right? 83 00:04:34.120 --> 00:04:37.360 And so obviously we have to put a couple of things in, you have to eat food, you have to 84 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:38.360 sleep, right? 85 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:42.480 But the most focused person does the fewest things outside of the thing they're focused 86 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:43.480 on. 87 00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:47.720 And so focus is about the number of things that you say no to. 88 00:04:47.720 --> 00:04:53.640 And having this framework is, in my opinion, more power for productivity than just about 89 00:04:53.640 --> 00:04:54.640 anything else, right? 90 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:58.360 People are always trying to figure out like productivity hacks, but they want to add things 91 00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:02.360 to their lives to become more productive, which is completely counter to what focus even 92 00:05:02.360 --> 00:05:03.680 means. 93 00:05:04.400 --> 00:05:08.600 It's getting rid of everything that's not the thing is how you focus. 94 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:10.920 Now part of that also means environmentally, right? 95 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:14.240 So if you like, have a window that you look outside of and you've got people who walk past 96 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:17.440 your office and people can knock on the door or you've got slack notifications, of course 97 00:05:17.440 --> 00:05:21.080 you're not focused because all of those things are not the work. 98 00:05:21.080 --> 00:05:22.680 So I'm going to give you an analogy here. 99 00:05:22.680 --> 00:05:25.480 So imagine there's a wall that you have to get over, right? 100 00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:29.320 In order to, you have to get a critical mass to get above this wall, right? 101 00:05:29.320 --> 00:05:34.160 And so you start putting up, you know, these ladders against the wall to try and climb over 102 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:35.160 the wall. 103 00:05:35.160 --> 00:05:36.160 All right? 104 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:37.160 This should make some sense. 105 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:42.240 But as you try to build up the little rungs of the ladder, you only have enough time 106 00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:46.200 to put, let's say, five rungs on the ladder or rather four rungs, so because I only have 107 00:05:46.200 --> 00:05:47.400 four ladders on this thing. 108 00:05:47.400 --> 00:05:48.400 All right? 109 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:49.400 So you put four rungs up. 110 00:05:49.400 --> 00:05:52.880 Well, you're not going to get the critical mass required to get over the hump to actually 111 00:05:52.880 --> 00:05:54.560 get the success you want. 112 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:59.560 But the idea of the fallacy is that, oh, I'll just do all three or four of these things 113 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:01.520 and I'll see which one works. 114 00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:04.960 When the reality is that any of them work, but none of them will work unless you work 115 00:06:04.960 --> 00:06:06.200 on one. 116 00:06:06.200 --> 00:06:10.040 And so we have to take these four rungs that we're able to build and say, you know what? 117 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:11.040 We're not going to do that. 118 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:13.320 We're going to put that run here because I'm going to take that time that I'm putting 119 00:06:13.320 --> 00:06:15.040 from my second opportunity and put it here. 120 00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:19.040 I'm going to take this run and put it right here and then I'm going to take this run 121 00:06:19.040 --> 00:06:20.280 and what do you know? 122 00:06:20.280 --> 00:06:24.320 I can get over this hump on top and I can get to the other side of the wall, which 123 00:06:24.320 --> 00:06:29.200 of course is where all the money and all the happiness and all the, you know, the girls 124 00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:31.000 with, you know, beautiful, beautiful hair. 125 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:32.480 Look at this beautiful hair, right? 126 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:34.520 This beautiful, now she's looks like a bug. 127 00:06:34.520 --> 00:06:38.520 Anyways, there you go. 128 00:06:38.520 --> 00:06:40.560 And so you have to hit critical mass. 129 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:44.800 And so right now, if you are, and this was crazy, this literally happens at all levels 130 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:45.800 of business. 131 00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:48.320 Like people who are starting out trying to start five things, people who are like their 132 00:06:48.320 --> 00:06:52.280 second or fifth year, I talked to a guy last night who has a really good business, really 133 00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:54.840 good margin, fifth year percent margins has great revenue retention. 134 00:06:54.840 --> 00:06:57.880 He was an cyber, cyber security. 135 00:06:57.880 --> 00:06:59.600 And so people stay with him, people pay. 136 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:00.600 He has no problem getting customers. 137 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:01.600 He has no problem delivering to them. 138 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:02.600 I was like, what's the problem? 139 00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:03.600 He's like me. 140 00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:04.600 He said, I just, I get bored. 141 00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:05.920 He's like, I just want to start more things. 142 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:08.600 And I'm like, yeah, you got to stop that. 143 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:13.000 Like, it's like the thing is, think about how much more successful you'd be. 144 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:14.240 So zoom all the way out. 145 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:18.880 Think of somebody who gets better every single year and works on the same project for 20 146 00:07:18.880 --> 00:07:19.880 years. 147 00:07:19.880 --> 00:07:22.760 Maybe like my God, that guy's probably really fucking good. 148 00:07:22.760 --> 00:07:26.720 And what's interesting about this is that it doesn't matter what project the person works 149 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:27.720 on. 150 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:29.320 You do 20 years of reps and you do nothing else. 151 00:07:29.320 --> 00:07:30.560 You're going to be good. 152 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:34.160 And so if you know that that's a fact, that's a certainty that you're going to be good 153 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:38.520 with 20 years of practice, then the objective is to just get 20 years of practice in one 154 00:07:38.520 --> 00:07:40.960 thing and stick with it. 155 00:07:40.960 --> 00:07:44.080 So like your plans aren't working because the plans are wrong. 156 00:07:44.080 --> 00:07:46.480 The plans aren't working because you're not working on the plan. 157 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:51.280 The hard part about the plan is not creating the plan or even following the plan. 158 00:07:51.280 --> 00:07:53.200 It's sticking with the plan. 159 00:07:53.200 --> 00:07:54.200 That's the hard part. 160 00:07:54.200 --> 00:07:55.200 All right. 161 00:07:55.200 --> 00:07:58.000 Number five, fear versus regret. 162 00:07:58.000 --> 00:07:59.000 Let me use some wild. 163 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:00.000 Let me get some stuff. 164 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:01.000 All right. 165 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:02.000 So change is scary. 166 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:03.000 But so is regret. 167 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:06.400 And so the life you live depends on the one you fear most. 168 00:08:06.400 --> 00:08:10.440 And so the thing is is that the people who the more successful version of yourself also 169 00:08:10.440 --> 00:08:16.440 has fear is that your fear of regret is greater than your fear of rejection. 170 00:08:17.200 --> 00:08:18.200 Think about that for a second. 171 00:08:18.200 --> 00:08:19.200 I'm going to say one more time. 172 00:08:19.200 --> 00:08:25.440 Your fear of regret must supersede, must be bigger, must be greater than your fear of 173 00:08:25.440 --> 00:08:26.440 rejection. 174 00:08:26.440 --> 00:08:29.480 And so I remember when I quit my management consulting job, which took me six months. 175 00:08:29.480 --> 00:08:33.800 So I'm not saying this from a pedestal took me six months of I decided I wanted to quit. 176 00:08:33.800 --> 00:08:35.880 It took me six months before I actually quit. 177 00:08:35.880 --> 00:08:39.760 By the way, you can measure how powerful someone is by the distance between when they make 178 00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:42.680 a decision and what happens in reality. 179 00:08:42.680 --> 00:08:46.560 So if you want to feel impotent, then take as long as you possibly can between when you 180 00:08:46.560 --> 00:08:48.760 make a decision and when you act on that decision. 181 00:08:48.760 --> 00:08:49.760 All right. 182 00:08:49.760 --> 00:08:52.520 Now, for me, it was six months and all I did was I called my friends up every night. 183 00:08:52.520 --> 00:08:54.200 I was like, I'm going to put my job in a startup business. 184 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:55.760 And I didn't know we talk every night. 185 00:08:55.760 --> 00:08:56.760 Literally every night. 186 00:08:56.760 --> 00:08:59.200 And I would be pacing in my condom like, I'm going to do it. 187 00:08:59.200 --> 00:09:00.200 And I wouldn't do it. 188 00:09:00.200 --> 00:09:01.200 I was too afraid. 189 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:02.640 I was too much of a security cat. 190 00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:05.560 But the thing that got me over the hump was this number one. 191 00:09:05.560 --> 00:09:11.440 I knew that when I looked back on my life, if I never took the jump, I would have been 192 00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:13.320 ashamed of myself. 193 00:09:13.320 --> 00:09:14.640 And I would have felt like I was a pansy. 194 00:09:14.640 --> 00:09:16.400 It was like, I can't die a pansy. 195 00:09:16.400 --> 00:09:18.840 I have to be able to make a jump. 196 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:23.640 Number two, I played out Plan B, which is, okay, let's say I actually completely fail. 197 00:09:23.640 --> 00:09:24.640 What happens? 198 00:09:24.640 --> 00:09:27.760 I was like, well, I'm not really going to be homeless. 199 00:09:27.760 --> 00:09:30.280 I know enough people that I can get food, right? 200 00:09:30.280 --> 00:09:31.520 And I was like, okay. 201 00:09:31.520 --> 00:09:32.800 So I'll probably just couch surf. 202 00:09:32.800 --> 00:09:34.120 I'd have a little bit of shame. 203 00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:35.520 But at the end of the day, what would I really do? 204 00:09:35.520 --> 00:09:38.360 Well, I could always apply to get the job that I had back. 205 00:09:38.360 --> 00:09:42.840 Or I could just go to another place with an experience or a story that would set me 206 00:09:42.840 --> 00:09:44.920 out for something cooler later, right? 207 00:09:44.920 --> 00:09:48.800 And so all of a sudden, I was like, wait, so my plan B is that I just have a cool experience 208 00:09:48.800 --> 00:09:52.120 that I could talk about at a job interview or to go to business school. 209 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.920 Okay, that doesn't actually sound that bad. 210 00:09:54.920 --> 00:10:00.520 And so there's just this huge amorphous fear, but I've just noticed in my life that fear 211 00:10:00.520 --> 00:10:02.400 only exists in the vague. 212 00:10:02.400 --> 00:10:04.320 It doesn't exist in the specific. 213 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:08.080 And so if you're afraid of something, try and break it into pieces and spell it out. 214 00:10:08.080 --> 00:10:11.440 Play out the next two or three steps because all of a sudden, if you're in the developed 215 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:16.320 Western world, the downside risk is not really real. 216 00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:20.560 Like the only real downside risk is the opinions of other people who will say that you failed 217 00:10:20.560 --> 00:10:22.680 who you don't care about anyways. 218 00:10:22.680 --> 00:10:25.200 You think you're going to die, but you're not. 219 00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:28.040 You're just going to learn some stuff and you'll be like, oh, maybe next time I'm not 220 00:10:28.040 --> 00:10:29.040 going to make that mistake. 221 00:10:29.040 --> 00:10:30.120 And that's it. 222 00:10:30.120 --> 00:10:32.960 And I say this and it's easy for me to say, but it took me six months to figure this 223 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:33.960 out. 224 00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:37.200 And so I think it's really important that my final straw was the realization that I had 225 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:42.200 at the time, no girlfriend, no kids, and I had no real, you know, financial responsibilities 226 00:10:42.200 --> 00:10:45.720 besides like eating and having a place to live. 227 00:10:45.720 --> 00:10:51.440 And I said, if I can't make the decision now because it feels too risky, I will never 228 00:10:51.440 --> 00:10:55.000 be able to make the decision because if other people rely on me, now some of you are in 229 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:58.760 a position where people do rely on you and you're like, well, Alex, you know, I've got 230 00:10:58.760 --> 00:10:59.760 people who rely on me. 231 00:10:59.760 --> 00:11:02.120 Yeah, I would say that it makes it harder. 232 00:11:02.120 --> 00:11:03.120 And what now? 233 00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:04.120 Harder and so what? 234 00:11:04.120 --> 00:11:05.680 But for me, that was the thing that got me over the home. 235 00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:07.960 It was like, if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it. 236 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:10.760 I'm never going to have fewer responsibilities. 237 00:11:10.760 --> 00:11:14.960 And to play this out a little bit more, if you have people depend on you, they're probably 238 00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:18.080 going to keep depending on you for a while or they might, they're, their dependencies 239 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:19.080 on you might increase. 240 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:23.560 And so if you can't do it now, you still might as well do it, right, because it's only going 241 00:11:23.560 --> 00:11:24.560 to go one way. 242 00:11:24.560 --> 00:11:28.560 Number six, persistence creates timing. 243 00:11:28.560 --> 00:11:32.800 So you can time everything perfectly if your intention is to never stop. 244 00:11:32.800 --> 00:11:34.880 I'm going to say this one more time. 245 00:11:34.880 --> 00:11:38.600 You can time everything perfectly if your intention is to never stop. 246 00:11:38.600 --> 00:11:40.160 So think about this visually. 247 00:11:40.160 --> 00:11:44.200 So let's imagine that this line right here is the, is your lifeline. 248 00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:45.720 It's life as time passes. 249 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:49.160 Let's say that you have some special thing that's going to happen here and some special 250 00:11:49.160 --> 00:11:52.280 opportunity that happens here and some special opportunity that happens here. 251 00:11:52.280 --> 00:11:55.960 What most people try and do is they don't want to take, they don't want to work at all. 252 00:11:55.960 --> 00:11:57.960 And then they're like, oh, I'm just going to work here. 253 00:11:57.960 --> 00:12:00.880 And then I'm going to work here, and then I'm going to work here. 254 00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:04.640 But the likelihood that you're there in these three moments is very low if you're trying 255 00:12:04.640 --> 00:12:06.080 to time it. 256 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:10.280 But if you work the whole time, then the timing will always be perfect because you will 257 00:12:10.280 --> 00:12:11.480 be ready. 258 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:15.640 And so perfect timing is a complete myth, but perfect preparation isn't. 259 00:12:15.640 --> 00:12:19.120 And then on a long enough time horizon, your opportunity will come. 260 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:22.720 And so people think that they need perfect conditions to start when in reality starting 261 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:24.000 is the perfect condition. 262 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:28.280 It creates the perfect condition for opportunity to be capitalized on. 263 00:12:28.280 --> 00:12:32.520 And I can tell you this firsthand experience with me, like the more you do, the more you 264 00:12:32.520 --> 00:12:34.440 see you can do. 265 00:12:34.440 --> 00:12:38.240 And so opportunities multiply with skill. 266 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:42.440 And so the better you get at doing stuff, the more things you know you would be able 267 00:12:42.440 --> 00:12:44.320 to do and win at. 268 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:48.320 And so the goal is to gain as many skills as possible so that you have access to the 269 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:51.160 maximum number of potential opportunities. 270 00:12:51.160 --> 00:12:54.360 So a lot of people are thinking that, oh, I'm going to wait for the right moment. 271 00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:58.400 But when you have unlimited skills, like Elon can go do whatever he wants. 272 00:12:58.400 --> 00:13:01.760 He can go build a floating spaceship if you like, I mean, he literally does that. 273 00:13:01.760 --> 00:13:05.360 So like I was going to be my extreme example, but he literally does that. 274 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:07.600 So he could build a city in the middle of the ocean. 275 00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:08.600 There you go. 276 00:13:08.600 --> 00:13:09.600 All right. 277 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:10.600 And so he could do that. 278 00:13:10.600 --> 00:13:14.480 He has the skills because the world of opportunities opened to him. 279 00:13:14.480 --> 00:13:18.040 And so the idea and he also spent all of his younger years just developing all these 280 00:13:18.040 --> 00:13:21.120 different skills, becoming a polymath across these different things. 281 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:22.120 And put it a little stuff. 282 00:13:22.120 --> 00:13:23.120 Put it away. 283 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:24.120 The point is, the guy is good. 284 00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:25.120 All right. 285 00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:26.560 And so the goal is to get good. 286 00:13:26.560 --> 00:13:29.240 And then you will never have a shortage of opportunities. 287 00:13:29.240 --> 00:13:30.240 Number seven. 288 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:31.240 NV versus effort. 289 00:13:31.240 --> 00:13:32.240 All right. 290 00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:33.240 Let me break this down. 291 00:13:33.240 --> 00:13:37.840 If people worked for their goals as hard as the envy others for achieving them, they 292 00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:40.560 would already have achieved them themselves. 293 00:13:40.560 --> 00:13:44.320 So think about the amount of mental effort that goes into the heat that people spit out. 294 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:48.560 The envy, the jealousy, right, that people to be fair, jealousy is different. 295 00:13:48.560 --> 00:13:52.920 But the envy that people have for wanting other people's stuff, I'll give you a couple 296 00:13:52.920 --> 00:13:54.360 of hard truths about this. 297 00:13:54.360 --> 00:13:57.760 Number one, no one is doing as well as you think they are. 298 00:13:57.760 --> 00:14:01.160 So by comparison, you're actually better off than you think. 299 00:14:01.160 --> 00:14:04.320 Number two, you don't win by beating people. 300 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:08.480 You win by growing into your potential and then allowing them to shrink into a relevance 301 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:09.480 by consequence. 302 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:12.040 Three, and guess what? 303 00:14:12.040 --> 00:14:15.000 Your biggest threat is not your competition. 304 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:20.200 It's a mediocre version of you that never realized what you could become. 305 00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:23.600 And as pithy as that may sound, it's also true, right? 306 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:26.400 A lot of people think it's like, oh, you know, that guy's doing really well. 307 00:14:26.400 --> 00:14:30.600 It's like, his doing well changes nothing about your reality. 308 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:35.440 And something really ironic that I noticed is that the people who get copied the most 309 00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:39.960 by their competition are the people who ignore the competition who are copying them. 310 00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:44.080 And so fundamentally, you start by focusing on the customer. 311 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:47.240 And if you always put the customer first, everyone will copy you because you were actually 312 00:14:47.240 --> 00:14:49.800 doing the thing that will work, which is focusing on the customer. 313 00:14:49.800 --> 00:14:51.720 And there's a lot of weird things in life like that. 314 00:14:51.720 --> 00:14:55.280 We're like, it's the opposite is what you think, like, oh, I'm going to look at everyone 315 00:14:55.280 --> 00:14:56.280 else. 316 00:14:56.280 --> 00:14:58.160 It's like, no, just do what matters most. 317 00:14:58.160 --> 00:15:01.480 And then people who don't know how to think will just copy you. 318 00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:05.400 But the biggest real threat is that no one copies you at all because you're doing nothing. 319 00:15:05.400 --> 00:15:08.800 And so if you take all this effort that you look that you put into comparing yourself 320 00:15:08.800 --> 00:15:12.400 to other people, that you look to kind of like tearing them down sometimes, even your 321 00:15:12.400 --> 00:15:13.400 mind. 322 00:15:13.400 --> 00:15:14.400 Let's be real. 323 00:15:14.400 --> 00:15:17.560 Maybe you don't say to other people, but in your mind, you're like, that, whatever that 324 00:15:17.560 --> 00:15:23.360 is, whatever that feeling is, that just do that towards you not being good enough. 325 00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:27.360 And what's happened is that when you do that, all of that effort, all that energy goes 326 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:29.560 and do proofing yourself rather than tearing down somebody else. 327 00:15:29.560 --> 00:15:31.640 And only one of those things will help you. 328 00:15:31.640 --> 00:15:36.840 Number eight, heart conversations create opportunities, heart truth. 329 00:15:36.840 --> 00:15:40.360 Everything you want is on the other side of a few heart conversations that you have 330 00:15:40.360 --> 00:15:41.360 been putting off. 331 00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:44.520 So people either grow into their potential or they keep living the same six months of 332 00:15:44.520 --> 00:15:46.600 their life over and over again. 333 00:15:46.600 --> 00:15:50.680 And the difference is how many heart conversations you're willing to have and how fast you have 334 00:15:50.680 --> 00:15:52.960 them once you realize who need to. 335 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:56.480 And so if you shirk away from this and I get it, I'm somebody who like it for a very 336 00:15:56.480 --> 00:15:58.360 long time had a hard time having heart conversations. 337 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.800 I like, I literally traveled across the country before I told my dad that I left. 338 00:16:01.800 --> 00:16:03.480 All right, like I get it. 339 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:08.680 So if you think having uncomfortable conversations is hard, just wait until you see the result 340 00:16:08.680 --> 00:16:10.200 of not having them. 341 00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:11.480 It will be harder. 342 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:16.200 And so you're going to basically the struggle is that you have short term pain versus long 343 00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:17.680 term pain. 344 00:16:17.680 --> 00:16:20.360 And long term pain I call regret. 345 00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:23.120 Comfort is short gain. 346 00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:25.360 Regret is long pain. 347 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:27.720 Fear is short pain. 348 00:16:27.720 --> 00:16:30.000 Fulfillment is long gain. 349 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:35.960 You want to trade short pains for long gains, not short gains for long pains. 350 00:16:35.960 --> 00:16:37.640 It's not the safe bet. 351 00:16:37.640 --> 00:16:40.200 It's a guaranteed loss just later. 352 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:42.400 All right, so I'm going to spell this out. 353 00:16:42.400 --> 00:16:45.640 This is short pain. 354 00:16:45.640 --> 00:16:48.200 This is long pain. 355 00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:50.640 This is short gain. 356 00:16:50.640 --> 00:16:52.680 This is long gain. 357 00:16:52.680 --> 00:16:56.640 You want to trade short pain for long gain. 358 00:16:56.640 --> 00:16:57.640 That's the goal. 359 00:16:57.640 --> 00:16:58.640 It's the best trade. 360 00:16:58.640 --> 00:17:02.040 All right, number nine, endure. 361 00:17:02.040 --> 00:17:05.200 There's a reason that when I gave instructions to some of the new business owners who were 362 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:10.040 going to start putting a community on school, one of the sole instructions I gave them was 363 00:17:10.040 --> 00:17:11.040 learn to endure. 364 00:17:11.040 --> 00:17:14.680 And so the fastest way to become the person you want to be is to put yourself in a situation 365 00:17:14.680 --> 00:17:16.600 we have no choice but to become them. 366 00:17:16.600 --> 00:17:19.440 You'd be amazed at what you can endure when you have no choice. 367 00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:26.760 And so for me, when I signed my lease for my gym, I had $5,000 in my bank account. 368 00:17:26.760 --> 00:17:28.560 The rent was $5,000. 369 00:17:28.560 --> 00:17:30.880 I had never really made money before. 370 00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:34.280 And so I was like, oh wow, how does this work? 371 00:17:34.280 --> 00:17:38.120 And so if I made 100% of the money that I had made in my job, I would have been able 372 00:17:38.120 --> 00:17:41.480 to pay rent and have no food or anything else. 373 00:17:41.480 --> 00:17:46.720 But one of my favorite flavor text on magic cards is necessity is the mother of invention. 374 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:53.200 It's the constraints that create the innovation that is required to get you out of the constraint, 375 00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:54.880 to get you out of the hard time. 376 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:58.400 And so when I think back on human history, sometimes we think that things that we're going 377 00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:01.440 through are hard, but there's certainly much used in the things that other humans have 378 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:02.640 endured. 379 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:04.080 And how did they endure that? 380 00:18:04.080 --> 00:18:08.520 Well, when the only choice they had was die or endure, you tend to endure. 381 00:18:08.520 --> 00:18:11.520 If you know someone who's going through a hard time and needs to hear this, please share 382 00:18:11.520 --> 00:18:12.520 this with them. 383 00:18:12.520 --> 00:18:14.320 No matter whether they're a business owner or their employee, they're your friend, 384 00:18:14.320 --> 00:18:15.880 they're your kid, they're your spouse. 385 00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:19.760 I make this for you because a lot of the business game is about what's happening between 386 00:18:19.760 --> 00:18:21.240 your ears. 387 00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:25.760 And if you can't survive your head game, you're never going to win in the real game. 388 00:18:25.760 --> 00:18:26.760 All right. 389 00:18:26.760 --> 00:18:29.800 Number 10, results, excuses. 390 00:18:29.800 --> 00:18:31.560 This is not going to be a big surprise here. 391 00:18:31.560 --> 00:18:35.920 The thing with excuses that's interesting is that they may be valid, and I think that's 392 00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:37.160 the part that people struggle with. 393 00:18:37.160 --> 00:18:43.120 Is that they're like, yeah, obviously results matter more excuses, but insert special snowflake. 394 00:18:43.120 --> 00:18:45.920 The thing is, is that you might be right. 395 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:47.640 And I just like this quote from Leila. 396 00:18:47.640 --> 00:18:51.120 She says, it's not your fault, but it is still your problem. 397 00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:55.200 And so you still have to do something about it, or you can just wait and say, you know 398 00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:56.200 what? 399 00:18:56.200 --> 00:18:59.880 I'm going to continue to not live the life that I want until I die. 400 00:18:59.880 --> 00:19:03.520 And everyone will be like, oh, yeah, he had an excuse. 401 00:19:03.520 --> 00:19:05.320 Is that what you really want? 402 00:19:05.320 --> 00:19:11.920 Is that people are like, yeah, it's a weird thing to want a permission slip for mediocrity, 403 00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:14.120 which is fundamentally what excuses are. 404 00:19:14.120 --> 00:19:19.600 You just want permission from everyone else to still get respect without the outcome, 405 00:19:19.600 --> 00:19:22.400 because of your extenuating circumstances. 406 00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:25.680 And the thing is, there's a ton of alert, but the only person who actually believes that 407 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:26.680 is you. 408 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:27.680 And so people might not along. 409 00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:29.880 People who love you might say, yeah, no, what? 410 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:30.880 You are special. 411 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:31.880 You are special snowflake. 412 00:19:31.880 --> 00:19:32.880 Your mama might still love you. 413 00:19:32.880 --> 00:19:34.520 You're not caring anyone's respect. 414 00:19:34.520 --> 00:19:37.560 And I think you certainly won't earn the respect of the person that matters most, which 415 00:19:37.560 --> 00:19:40.440 is you, because you'll always know that you could have done more, that you could have 416 00:19:40.440 --> 00:19:41.440 done better. 417 00:19:41.440 --> 00:19:43.680 And I think that's the one that keeps me up. 418 00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:47.480 And so I have a saying that I tell myself a lot when I'm doing something that I don't 419 00:19:47.480 --> 00:19:48.560 want to do. 420 00:19:48.560 --> 00:19:51.080 And it's, I will do what is required. 421 00:19:51.080 --> 00:19:52.960 And so it's not about doing your best. 422 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:55.680 It's about doing what's required, because what's required might be better than your 423 00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:56.680 best is right now. 424 00:19:56.680 --> 00:19:58.960 And the good news is that your best can get better. 425 00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:01.640 So number 11, and this is, this one's real, all right? 426 00:20:01.640 --> 00:20:03.480 The hard way is the easy way. 427 00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:06.040 You're like, how does that work? 428 00:20:06.040 --> 00:20:09.760 The hard way is the easy way, because the easy way never gets you there. 429 00:20:09.760 --> 00:20:10.760 So think about it. 430 00:20:10.760 --> 00:20:14.480 People always are looking for the shortcut, but you have to accept a very simple truth, 431 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:17.840 which is that the shortcut never actually takes you to the place that you're trying to 432 00:20:17.840 --> 00:20:19.000 go. 433 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:22.000 And it's because it's really one big thing. 434 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:28.080 And I would postulate, fancy word, that there are a lot of shortcuts that exist in life. 435 00:20:28.080 --> 00:20:29.400 And everyone already uses those. 436 00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:33.880 And so whenever an actual shortcut gets found, all humans immediately do it. 437 00:20:33.880 --> 00:20:35.360 And it no longer becomes a shortcut. 438 00:20:35.360 --> 00:20:38.920 It's just a thing that everyone does, and it's not really a thing anymore. 439 00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:40.280 Like we learned how to tie knots. 440 00:20:40.280 --> 00:20:41.280 That was a big breakthrough. 441 00:20:41.280 --> 00:20:44.360 And then everyone ties their shoes and they're like, oh my God, let me show you the shortcut 442 00:20:44.360 --> 00:20:45.360 to this. 443 00:20:45.360 --> 00:20:46.800 It's like, oh, you tie, like, oh my God, everyone does it. 444 00:20:46.800 --> 00:20:48.200 And it's like not a thing anymore. 445 00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:52.320 And so all the things that you want to have that most people don't have don't have shortcuts. 446 00:20:52.320 --> 00:20:54.080 But things is so many people waste so much time. 447 00:20:54.080 --> 00:20:59.040 They literally waste longer than it would have taken the hard way or the only way to get 448 00:20:59.040 --> 00:21:02.600 there in search of the easy way that doesn't exist. 449 00:21:02.600 --> 00:21:08.600 And so the reality of this is that it's usually a hundred small things that make days, weeks, 450 00:21:08.600 --> 00:21:09.600 and months hard. 451 00:21:09.600 --> 00:21:12.240 It's the never ending onslaught of shit. 452 00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:15.640 And then you remember, after going through that onslaught of shit, that you signed up 453 00:21:15.640 --> 00:21:16.640 for this. 454 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:19.440 But then again, you figured that it would be hard. 455 00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:22.680 And then you reminded that this is what hard feels like. 456 00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:25.800 And so you keep going because it's the only choice you have. 457 00:21:25.800 --> 00:21:30.760 And so I want to remind you that a lot of times what we imagine hard to be is different 458 00:21:30.760 --> 00:21:35.920 than how we experience hard because the nature of hard changes too. 459 00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:39.760 And it's more of a limitation in how we describe hardship and I actually think there's a big 460 00:21:39.760 --> 00:21:40.760 problem with this. 461 00:21:40.760 --> 00:21:43.760 So just kind of like Eskimos have like seven different words for snow. 462 00:21:43.760 --> 00:21:48.040 I feel like I should have like 25 different words for hard, right? 463 00:21:48.040 --> 00:21:51.400 Like the amount of things that you go through, there's like lifestyle hard. 464 00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:55.160 Like okay, so there's sacrifice hard of like you're giving up things that you enjoy. 465 00:21:55.160 --> 00:21:58.720 There's also like effort hard of like starting to do things that you hate doing that you're 466 00:21:58.720 --> 00:21:59.720 not good at. 467 00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:03.360 There's a risk hard of the fact that you could lose something that you currently have, 468 00:22:03.360 --> 00:22:05.640 that you have the chance of losing what you currently have. 469 00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:09.320 You have the uncertainty hard of the fact that you might be doing all of the sacrifice 470 00:22:09.320 --> 00:22:10.320 for nothing. 471 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:13.800 There's lots of different flavors of hard and each one of them presents it different 472 00:22:13.800 --> 00:22:14.800 times. 473 00:22:14.800 --> 00:22:19.000 And for some reason when it gets a new kind of hard, it's a new seventh type of snowflake 474 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:20.000 hard. 475 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:21.000 Then you're like, oh, this is different. 476 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:22.000 But it's not. 477 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:26.800 It's just that the thing that you grow comfortable with, then you conquer and then you're 478 00:22:26.800 --> 00:22:28.560 exposed to a new level. 479 00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:30.960 And so I love this quote from Paul Graham. 480 00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:35.160 He said, if you want to make a million dollars, you have to endure a million dollars worth 481 00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:36.160 of pain. 482 00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:40.120 And fundamentally, in my opinion, the people who end up building, building, not inheriting 483 00:22:40.120 --> 00:22:45.360 building, tremendous wealth, just have massive concentrations of pain. 484 00:22:45.360 --> 00:22:48.240 So don't go looking for the easy way because it will never get you. 485 00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:52.360 Number 12, don't, this is a big one, they're all so big, right? 486 00:22:52.360 --> 00:22:54.120 Don't give away your power. 487 00:22:54.120 --> 00:22:58.480 Now, this sounds very like, you know, girl power or a little, a little like raw raw, but 488 00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:01.280 I will, I will break this down in a little bit less raw raw way. 489 00:23:01.280 --> 00:23:07.680 So what offends you, controls you, whatever you point your finger of blame towards is what 490 00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:13.840 also you point your power towards, meaning if we had, we talked about excuses earlier, 491 00:23:13.840 --> 00:23:18.760 I can't do it because insert X, insert X is the thing that has power over your life. 492 00:23:18.760 --> 00:23:24.000 And I remember when I realized this was that I had this, I had this belief that I would 493 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:28.240 never be able to be in a long term committed relationship because my mother had hurt me 494 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:29.240 as a child. 495 00:23:29.240 --> 00:23:31.880 Enough hugs, who gives a shit, whatever. 496 00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:38.520 But I realized that by using that excuse and by saying it's her fault, I'm broken, it's 497 00:23:38.520 --> 00:23:39.520 her fault. 498 00:23:39.520 --> 00:23:40.520 I can't trust people. 499 00:23:40.520 --> 00:23:44.640 Her fault, I can't love anybody by saying that over and over again. 500 00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:49.920 All I did was I said, my mother controls how my love life will go. 501 00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:54.200 And so then I was like, well, I don't want her to have control over how I choose to love 502 00:23:54.200 --> 00:23:58.960 or not love or how content I get in a relationship or anything like that. 503 00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:03.760 And so I actively had to say, maybe all these things happened, maybe they didn't also 504 00:24:03.760 --> 00:24:04.760 who cares. 505 00:24:04.760 --> 00:24:05.760 Me, I care. 506 00:24:05.760 --> 00:24:08.960 I'm the one who's getting, I'm the one who's affected by this. 507 00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:12.280 Me, like, and what's crazy about this, it's kind of a weird thing with like parents is 508 00:24:12.280 --> 00:24:18.480 that you think by hurting yourself, you get back at them for hurting you. 509 00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:22.280 And you do hurt them when you hurt yourself, but you hurt you more. 510 00:24:22.280 --> 00:24:26.000 And so at some point, and this is like, this is like super real. 511 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.560 Let's say that you were parented tough, whatever that means for you, right? 512 00:24:30.560 --> 00:24:31.960 You had lots of bad things happen. 513 00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:32.960 Okay. 514 00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:34.640 And it was probably because you were a child trying to deal with the world without the 515 00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:36.600 skills of dealing with the world as an adult. 516 00:24:36.600 --> 00:24:39.120 But you had these things happen, right? 517 00:24:39.120 --> 00:24:44.840 And on some level, you might believe that you becoming successful, you making it work 518 00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:47.920 validates the way that you were parented. 519 00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:50.920 And so you have this conflict where you're like, well, I don't want them to think that 520 00:24:50.920 --> 00:24:53.280 they did a good job by me being successful. 521 00:24:53.280 --> 00:24:58.360 And so then you want to keep not being successful to prove to them and to hurt them for hurting 522 00:24:58.360 --> 00:24:59.360 you. 523 00:24:59.360 --> 00:25:02.800 And you stay there as long as you want them to control you. 524 00:25:02.800 --> 00:25:08.520 And so the day that you choose to control yourself is the day that you choose to divorce 525 00:25:08.520 --> 00:25:13.800 your results from the very viable reasons that you have to not win. 526 00:25:13.800 --> 00:25:14.800 You are right. 527 00:25:14.800 --> 00:25:15.800 And so what? 528 00:25:15.800 --> 00:25:18.760 Number 13, rejection versus regret. 529 00:25:18.760 --> 00:25:23.020 At some point, everyone needs to choose whether they'd rather risk rejection now or 530 00:25:23.020 --> 00:25:24.500 guarantee regret later, right? 531 00:25:24.500 --> 00:25:27.700 And so losers, fear rejection, winners, fear regret. 532 00:25:27.700 --> 00:25:30.700 And most attempts fail of anything. 533 00:25:30.700 --> 00:25:33.340 Failure is literally a prerequisite for success. 534 00:25:33.340 --> 00:25:40.180 And one of my favorite quotes of mine is greatness rejects all first time applicants. 535 00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:45.940 So let me say that again, greatness rejects all first time applicants. 536 00:25:45.940 --> 00:25:49.460 And so it's kind of like that person that's just like, oh, I can't get a job. 537 00:25:49.460 --> 00:25:50.460 And you're like, well, what have you done? 538 00:25:50.460 --> 00:25:53.180 Like why I applied somewhere and you're like, what do you mean? 539 00:25:53.180 --> 00:25:56.740 They're like, I applied somewhere and I didn't, I didn't get the job they didn't call 540 00:25:56.740 --> 00:25:57.740 me. 541 00:25:57.740 --> 00:26:01.380 And you're like, you went to one place and you're like, and they're like, yeah. 542 00:26:01.380 --> 00:26:05.980 So actually, this is gonna be a really good analogy for somebody who's listening to this. 543 00:26:05.980 --> 00:26:08.340 Only for people who don't have a business yet. 544 00:26:08.340 --> 00:26:13.300 A lot of starting a business is the number of reachouts that you had to do in order to 545 00:26:13.300 --> 00:26:16.620 get the path, the job, the career that you want right now. 546 00:26:16.620 --> 00:26:20.820 So think about the amount of interviews, think about the amount of outreach, think about 547 00:26:20.820 --> 00:26:23.540 the amount of job ads, think about the amount of resumes that you sent out. 548 00:26:23.540 --> 00:26:28.700 Think about all of that and all of that work got you what I would consider one sale. 549 00:26:28.700 --> 00:26:31.940 You got one person to say yes to you and they would give you money for work, all right? 550 00:26:31.940 --> 00:26:34.860 Now, obviously within the context of an employee relationship, but fundamentally actually 551 00:26:34.860 --> 00:26:36.420 works the same way. 552 00:26:36.420 --> 00:26:40.660 And so all you do in a business is the same thing. 553 00:26:40.660 --> 00:26:45.380 And so if you can handle that level of rejection, then you can handle the same level of rejection 554 00:26:45.380 --> 00:26:47.340 and business is not actually that different. 555 00:26:47.340 --> 00:26:51.260 The question is whether you can handle that level of regret years later for not doing it. 556 00:26:51.260 --> 00:26:54.420 One of the things that I've noticed between champions and everyone else is that people, 557 00:26:54.420 --> 00:26:56.940 everyone else is so excited when they win. 558 00:26:56.940 --> 00:27:00.340 They're so excited, you know, by the idea of them getting first place. 559 00:27:00.340 --> 00:27:02.340 But there's a reason that they never get first place. 560 00:27:02.340 --> 00:27:04.180 It's because they're excited about it. 561 00:27:04.180 --> 00:27:07.580 The people who always and very consistently hit first place and win the championships 562 00:27:07.580 --> 00:27:12.140 are relieved because they tend to hate losing more than they love winning. 563 00:27:12.140 --> 00:27:15.260 And they expected to win because of the level of preparation they had compared to what 564 00:27:15.260 --> 00:27:21.260 else, which brings me very, very magically to number 14, consistency, beats. 565 00:27:21.260 --> 00:27:23.780 I'll just go greater than shorter effort. 566 00:27:23.780 --> 00:27:24.780 Like, how does that? 567 00:27:24.780 --> 00:27:25.780 Who shit? 568 00:27:25.780 --> 00:27:27.780 Consistency beats talent. 569 00:27:27.780 --> 00:27:29.180 I didn't read my own notes. 570 00:27:29.180 --> 00:27:30.180 Okay. 571 00:27:30.180 --> 00:27:35.220 So you can beat most people at anything if you just stick with it for a year. 572 00:27:35.220 --> 00:27:39.940 So you can learn, you can become competent at just about any skill in 20 hours. 573 00:27:39.940 --> 00:27:43.460 You see that people wait 10 years to get the first 20 hours logged. 574 00:27:43.460 --> 00:27:46.780 Well, like, if you want to learn how to play the first few notes of a guitar, you can learn 575 00:27:46.780 --> 00:27:47.780 about 20 hours. 576 00:27:47.780 --> 00:27:52.140 Now, are you going to be Jimmy Hendrix, which, Gen Z, who's a guitarist, purple haze, 577 00:27:52.140 --> 00:27:53.140 you can look it up. 578 00:27:53.140 --> 00:27:58.380 Anyways, the point is, is that people have this huge delay before they begin. 579 00:27:58.380 --> 00:28:03.340 And what makes things hard isn't complexity, it's consistency. 580 00:28:03.340 --> 00:28:07.580 And so as boring as it is, you just have to keep doing it before you get anything back. 581 00:28:07.580 --> 00:28:12.220 So one of my favorite quotes from myself is the world belongs to those who can keep 582 00:28:12.220 --> 00:28:14.620 doing without seeing the result of their doing. 583 00:28:14.620 --> 00:28:20.660 I've been told that I'm decent at presenting and talking on stage in front of people. 584 00:28:20.660 --> 00:28:27.160 And what a lot of people don't see is that for years, I spoke of the microphone in front 585 00:28:27.160 --> 00:28:31.100 of a group of people, and I did it like multiple times a day. 586 00:28:31.100 --> 00:28:34.180 And I did that in the form of a fitness session. 587 00:28:34.180 --> 00:28:38.340 And so I had to literally stand on a box and shout around and tell people what they 588 00:28:38.340 --> 00:28:41.980 had to do, and I had to do that for years. 589 00:28:41.980 --> 00:28:48.260 And I remember when I had to get on stage for the first time, and I had in high school 590 00:28:48.260 --> 00:28:50.900 in very nervous to public speak. 591 00:28:50.900 --> 00:28:54.620 And as I was about to get up on stage, I was like, why am I not nervous about this? 592 00:28:54.620 --> 00:28:55.620 Like this is weird. 593 00:28:55.620 --> 00:28:58.260 I was like, I should be nervous, like why am I not nervous? 594 00:28:58.260 --> 00:29:03.700 And I was like, I've done this so many times, like so many times. 595 00:29:03.700 --> 00:29:08.820 And I'm not talking about, you know, civil war history and Abraham Lincoln. 596 00:29:08.820 --> 00:29:11.700 I'm talking about stuff I know. 597 00:29:11.700 --> 00:29:18.140 And so you out work yourself out through repetition, not affirmations. 598 00:29:18.140 --> 00:29:19.820 You don't do it through belief. 599 00:29:19.820 --> 00:29:25.780 You do it through stimuli habituation, all right, which is just fancy words for saying 600 00:29:25.780 --> 00:29:29.500 you expose yourself to the bad things so many times they get used to and it's no longer 601 00:29:29.500 --> 00:29:30.500 a bad thing anymore. 602 00:29:30.500 --> 00:29:32.100 It's just life. 603 00:29:32.100 --> 00:29:35.340 And so like if you want to get over a fear, the way they do it is habituation. 604 00:29:35.340 --> 00:29:38.460 So if I wanted to get over, you know, being afraid of spiders, I'm not afraid of spiders, 605 00:29:38.460 --> 00:29:40.100 but some people are afraid of spiders, right? 606 00:29:40.100 --> 00:29:44.780 If you want to get over that fear, you literally lock yourself in a room with a bunch of spiders. 607 00:29:44.780 --> 00:29:48.140 And all you do is you just have panic attack after panic attack and you pass out and you 608 00:29:48.140 --> 00:29:51.700 wake up again, the spiders are there, you pass out, you keep doing eventually, eventually 609 00:29:51.700 --> 00:29:53.420 your nervous system adjusts. 610 00:29:53.420 --> 00:29:59.500 And five hours later, eight hours later, you walk out of the room, unafraid, because 611 00:29:59.500 --> 00:30:00.900 you have habituated. 612 00:30:00.900 --> 00:30:06.180 And so the point of practice for all of these things is to habituate as fast as you can. 613 00:30:06.180 --> 00:30:07.820 And so we're trying to microwave that period of time. 614 00:30:07.820 --> 00:30:11.420 And the thing is, let's say it takes this many reps, you can have this many reps, take 615 00:30:11.420 --> 00:30:15.220 you a year, you can have it, take you a month, depending on how dedicated you are to it. 616 00:30:15.220 --> 00:30:16.220 All right. 617 00:30:16.220 --> 00:30:19.460 Number 15, have no shame. 618 00:30:19.460 --> 00:30:20.460 All right. 619 00:30:20.460 --> 00:30:25.860 Now I have told this before, but my plan B was that I would drive Uber and strip. 620 00:30:25.860 --> 00:30:29.780 Now I think part of that was because I wanted to, you know, thumb my, whatever the shakes 621 00:30:29.780 --> 00:30:33.660 experience saying I bite my thumb at you, to bite my thumb at my, my very respectable 622 00:30:33.660 --> 00:30:36.500 parents and say like, I would take off my clothes from money. 623 00:30:36.500 --> 00:30:38.340 Now, of course, they would be horrified by that. 624 00:30:38.340 --> 00:30:41.820 But I think part of the reason I was okay with it was I was like, I'm going to, I'm 625 00:30:41.820 --> 00:30:43.740 going to do it my way, right? 626 00:30:43.740 --> 00:30:48.980 And so I want to be crystal clear here, if you have no money and you want to make money, 627 00:30:48.980 --> 00:30:51.380 you should have no shame. 628 00:30:51.380 --> 00:30:57.460 Knock call email text DM ask, life changing doors do not open themselves. 629 00:30:57.460 --> 00:31:01.420 And sometimes I feel like shame was invented by people who have to prevent people who have 630 00:31:01.420 --> 00:31:03.100 not from taking action. 631 00:31:03.100 --> 00:31:05.140 Because all of this is just an illusion. 632 00:31:05.140 --> 00:31:07.580 What are you ashamed of trying? 633 00:31:07.580 --> 00:31:08.780 Like let's play it out. 634 00:31:08.780 --> 00:31:12.580 Remember I said fear only happens in the abstract, not in the specific. 635 00:31:12.580 --> 00:31:17.700 So if you reach out to a stranger, no matter what happens, you always come out better than 636 00:31:17.700 --> 00:31:24.220 before because you either have a sale or you have an experience, oh, it makes you better. 637 00:31:24.220 --> 00:31:29.940 And so the crazy thing about trying is that it has an asymmetric risk reward return. 638 00:31:29.940 --> 00:31:31.940 So worst case is you get a no and you learn from it. 639 00:31:31.940 --> 00:31:33.100 You get better. 640 00:31:33.100 --> 00:31:36.100 Life gives you unlimited shots while you're alive. 641 00:31:36.100 --> 00:31:39.340 And so if you have nothing like you, you're just basically caching in lottery tickets and 642 00:31:39.340 --> 00:31:41.980 saying, oh my God, I lost what you're paying with this time. 643 00:31:41.980 --> 00:31:44.780 Fine, pay more time, get more tickets, keep scratching. 644 00:31:44.780 --> 00:31:47.220 So do you know the difference between shame and guilt? 645 00:31:47.220 --> 00:31:49.780 Guilt is when you break your own rules. 646 00:31:49.780 --> 00:31:52.500 Shame is when you break other people's rules. 647 00:31:52.500 --> 00:32:01.100 So if you are gay and you're in a religious community, you would probably feel shame. 648 00:32:01.100 --> 00:32:06.260 If you also share that religious community's rules set, you would also feel guilt. 649 00:32:06.260 --> 00:32:12.420 If let's say you were in a very liberal progressive environment, you might feel neither shame nor 650 00:32:12.420 --> 00:32:13.420 guilt. 651 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:17.860 And so the question is, whose rules are you following? 652 00:32:17.860 --> 00:32:24.020 And so if you have this feeling, this fear of being ashamed, then the question is, 653 00:32:24.020 --> 00:32:27.420 who's the one who wrote the rules that you are choosing to follow? 654 00:32:27.420 --> 00:32:31.300 And I can promise you, it's not the people who are successful because they're the one 655 00:32:31.300 --> 00:32:35.020 that's shouting on the rooftops, telling you that it's totally different once you get 656 00:32:35.020 --> 00:32:36.020 in the pool. 657 00:32:36.020 --> 00:32:37.020 It's very different. 658 00:32:37.020 --> 00:32:41.300 It's coming like the lights of the world turn on and like, you're living in this mirage 659 00:32:41.300 --> 00:32:46.460 when you're not succeeding where there's all this uncertainty, there's all this ambiguity, 660 00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:50.540 there's this fog of the unknown in front of you. 661 00:32:50.540 --> 00:32:54.140 But as soon as you start taking action, things become very crystal clear. 662 00:32:54.140 --> 00:32:57.780 I think there's this, I'm sure some stoic analogy that said this, but basically like, 663 00:32:57.780 --> 00:33:01.860 if you've ever walked through very dense fog, you can only see a couple spots in front 664 00:33:01.860 --> 00:33:04.140 of you, a couple steps in front of you. 665 00:33:04.140 --> 00:33:08.780 And so the only thing that you can do in fog is just start walking. 666 00:33:08.780 --> 00:33:12.820 And as you walk, more steps become available to you. 667 00:33:12.820 --> 00:33:16.820 And so there's this misconception that you're going to be able to see the entire path ahead 668 00:33:16.820 --> 00:33:20.100 of you, but it has two fundamental fallacies in front of it. 669 00:33:20.100 --> 00:33:25.260 Number one is that you have the right vision to be able to see that far with your current 670 00:33:25.260 --> 00:33:30.660 skill set and resources, which you don't, because imagine today, all of your conditions 671 00:33:30.660 --> 00:33:31.660 change. 672 00:33:31.660 --> 00:33:34.180 You had more skills, which is hard to imagine because you can't imagine what it's like 673 00:33:34.180 --> 00:33:37.860 to have the skill, but maybe let's say you have resources that you didn't have before. 674 00:33:37.860 --> 00:33:40.260 Well, that would probably change the way you'd play the game. 675 00:33:40.260 --> 00:33:45.540 So trying to play out and try and play 17 steps in advance when the game itself is going 676 00:33:45.540 --> 00:33:48.660 to change, and you as a player are going to change. 677 00:33:48.660 --> 00:33:55.980 And so the only thing that you can boil all of this down to is to take the steps that 678 00:33:55.980 --> 00:33:58.740 you can see in front of you, one at a time. 679 00:33:58.740 --> 00:34:03.860 And think, and I write this down of like, what are the things that are stopping me? 680 00:34:03.860 --> 00:34:06.940 And more specifically, who's voice do I hear? 681 00:34:06.940 --> 00:34:09.340 Who's voice or judgment am I afraid of? 682 00:34:09.340 --> 00:34:13.620 Because usually it's people, it's society is what we say, but it's usually like two 683 00:34:13.620 --> 00:34:14.620 people. 684 00:34:14.620 --> 00:34:17.060 And I remember when I had this big decision that I had to make. 685 00:34:17.060 --> 00:34:21.620 So when I was trying to, when I was considering selling Gimlunch, I thought that $46 million was 686 00:34:21.620 --> 00:34:24.860 not a lot of money for the business. 687 00:34:24.860 --> 00:34:26.860 Now some of you may hear this and be like, oh my god, that's amazing. 688 00:34:26.860 --> 00:34:32.460 But believe it or not, before we, before COVID happened, Gimlunch was about at 150 million. 689 00:34:32.460 --> 00:34:37.220 And so for me, going from 150 to 50 or, you know, 46, it felt small, right? 690 00:34:37.220 --> 00:34:39.140 It felt like a really small number. 691 00:34:39.140 --> 00:34:43.780 And I remember there was a particular person, we'll call it a friend of me if you will, 692 00:34:43.780 --> 00:34:48.980 that I thought would think that they were better than me if I sold for this small number. 693 00:34:48.980 --> 00:34:53.940 When I was able to narrow it down to just that one person's voice, I thought to myself, 694 00:34:53.940 --> 00:34:59.300 am I going to give that person power over my entire life, which is literally what it 695 00:34:59.300 --> 00:35:00.300 was? 696 00:35:00.300 --> 00:35:03.780 I was choosing not to make a decision because of someone else, that person has complete 697 00:35:03.780 --> 00:35:04.780 power over me. 698 00:35:04.780 --> 00:35:08.180 And I was like, well, that's a terrible reason not to do this. 699 00:35:08.180 --> 00:35:15.220 The crazier part is that even if you're right, and that person does say that you suck, 700 00:35:15.220 --> 00:35:17.060 so what? 701 00:35:17.060 --> 00:35:18.820 Most people don't want you to win. 702 00:35:18.820 --> 00:35:23.260 And even if you do win, they will try and do a reverse excuse, which is called a justification 703 00:35:23.260 --> 00:35:28.140 for why you should be excused of the respect that you should earn for having won. 704 00:35:28.140 --> 00:35:29.780 He just has good genetics. 705 00:35:29.780 --> 00:35:31.620 He has great parents. 706 00:35:31.620 --> 00:35:33.380 He inherited his wealth. 707 00:35:33.380 --> 00:35:34.860 He had good connections. 708 00:35:34.860 --> 00:35:35.860 He was born in America. 709 00:35:35.860 --> 00:35:36.860 He speaks English. 710 00:35:36.860 --> 00:35:37.860 He's a man. 711 00:35:37.860 --> 00:35:38.860 He's white. 712 00:35:38.860 --> 00:35:39.860 He's whatever you want. 713 00:35:39.860 --> 00:35:42.760 But giving the person justifications and knowing help you helps you. 714 00:35:42.760 --> 00:35:44.620 You might be right and so on. 715 00:35:44.620 --> 00:35:47.860 And not living your life because you might have some justifications that help you. 716 00:35:47.860 --> 00:35:48.860 Like it's so funny. 717 00:35:48.860 --> 00:35:52.340 It's like, let's say you have some advantage, whatever it is, whatever, whatever advantage 718 00:35:52.340 --> 00:35:53.340 you're born with, right? 719 00:35:53.340 --> 00:35:54.340 You might have one. 720 00:35:54.340 --> 00:35:55.820 It's kind of the same thing as the parent thing. 721 00:35:55.820 --> 00:35:58.780 It's like, well, I don't want to be successful because I don't want to prove that I had this 722 00:35:58.780 --> 00:35:59.780 advantage. 723 00:35:59.780 --> 00:36:04.180 It's like, would you prefer to prove everyone wrong by saying, I had this advantage and 724 00:36:04.180 --> 00:36:05.460 I also wasted it? 725 00:36:05.460 --> 00:36:09.020 I'll tell you a story and I think it'll probably, that'll, that'll run this off well. 726 00:36:09.020 --> 00:36:11.940 So when I was younger, I didn't want to be a doctor, but that was pretty much the path 727 00:36:11.940 --> 00:36:13.180 that was laid out in front of me. 728 00:36:13.180 --> 00:36:15.780 And so my father's successful doctor. 729 00:36:15.780 --> 00:36:20.420 And I was like, it's, it's, it's cheating, you know, to just assume your practice and 730 00:36:20.420 --> 00:36:23.580 just like immediately have a practice that makes a lot of money. 731 00:36:23.820 --> 00:36:28.420 And he said, do you think Shaq, when he was seven feet tall, was like, it wouldn't be fair 732 00:36:28.420 --> 00:36:29.580 for me to play basketball. 733 00:36:29.580 --> 00:36:30.980 Other people aren't as tall as me. 734 00:36:30.980 --> 00:36:31.980 And I always remember that. 735 00:36:31.980 --> 00:36:33.900 He's like, you play the cards, you're dope. 736 00:36:33.900 --> 00:36:35.540 These are the cards you have, play them. 737 00:36:35.540 --> 00:36:39.420 And I remember thinking that as, now, obviously, I didn't decide to be a doctor. 738 00:36:39.420 --> 00:36:42.900 But the reason that I didn't want to do it was because I thought other people would 739 00:36:42.900 --> 00:36:47.820 say that I would, they would disqualify way my success as not earned by me. 740 00:36:47.820 --> 00:36:51.940 When the reality is that they're all going to disqualify your sex no matter what. 741 00:36:51.940 --> 00:36:55.980 Because it makes them feel bad and so fuck them, right? 742 00:36:55.980 --> 00:36:58.780 But if you have some cards for the love of God, play them.