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Everything I Learned Growing From 0 to 2M+ Followers in 3 Years — Transcript

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0:00Three years ago today, I quit my job to
0:02go full-time as an entrepreneur. And I
0:04really only had one goal. I wanted to
0:05become insanely good at making content
0:08and eventually build a super valuable
0:10personal brand. Now, my highest
0:12conviction bet back then was that
0:13personal brands would become the single
0:15greatest business moat you could
0:17possibly build. And so far, that's
0:19turned out to be right. Now, over those
0:21last a thousand days, those three years,
0:23I've grown to over two million
0:24followers, generated billions of views
0:26on my content, built two top personal
0:28brands for myself across two different
0:31categories, tech and marketing, and I've
0:33grown three different businesses from
0:35zero to millions in revenue. Now, I say
0:37all this because in order to get those
0:39results that fast, I had to approach the
0:41content and personal brand building game
0:43a little bit different than everyone
0:45else I studied when I started. So, in
0:47this video, I'm going to do something a
0:48little bit different. I want to share
0:49the eight most valuable lessons that
0:51were critical to that rapid growth and
0:54success. And like always, a lot of these
0:55are non-obvious and the opposite of what
0:57you might think. All right, lesson
0:59number one that was critical to my
1:00success thus far is called bottleneck
1:02theory. This is a principle that comes
1:03from Elon. Hormosi talks a lot about
1:05this as well, and this is something I've
1:06been ruthlessly implementing myself
1:09since day one. If I could boil down my
1:11entire approach to content and business
1:13into one single principle, it would be
1:15this. Whenever you're working on
1:16something, you want to break the
1:18workflow down into individual component
1:20parts and then prioritize the majority
1:23of your time on the one that's the
1:24highest leverage or the biggest
1:26bottleneck. Because the truth is, and
1:28this was very hard for me to accept at
1:29the beginning, there are only a couple
1:31things that actually move the needle
1:33towards the results you want. 95% of
1:35what you think matters is actually a
1:37distraction and a much lower leverage
1:39activity. And so what I realized is that
1:41the whole game of business and content
1:44is just time allocation towards your
1:46biggest bottlenecks. Now you may have
1:48heard this from Elon or Hormosi before,
1:49but let me just explain what this means
1:51in practice with a few examples. Let's
1:53say my goal was to grow 100,000
1:55followers as fast as I could. Well, the
1:57number one input to make that happen
1:58would be posting videos. Now, in the
2:00workflow of making a video, if you break
2:02it into component parts, you have these
2:04pieces. the [music] topic, the angle,
2:06the format, the hook, the substance, the
2:09CTA, the story structure, the visual
2:12layout, the visuals, and the audio.
2:14Those are the blocks or what I call Lego
2:16bricks that stack together to make a
2:18video. Now, most beginners would think,
2:20okay, cool. Those are the blocks. I just
2:21need to work on those in order as fast
2:23as possible and post as many times as I
2:25can and I'll get to 100K. And so most
2:27people would kind of linearly allocate
2:29their time across that flow, spending
2:31the most time on whatever pieces took
2:33them the longest to do. So things like
2:35the idea, the angle, the hook, the
2:36format, that would be done really quick.
2:38But then the script writing or the
2:40editing, that's where most of their time
2:41would go cuz those are longer tasks. The
2:43problem is that is the suboptimal way to
2:46prioritize your time if you're trying to
2:48make better content faster. Because it
2:50turns out the only components that
2:52really have high leverage that can
2:53create a h 100 times the views with just
2:55a little bit more effort are the topic
2:57and the angle which make up the idea. If
2:59you have a winning idea in content, you
3:01can pretty much use any format, any
3:03script structure, any editing style, and
3:05for the most part it'll be a banger. But
3:07if you have a losing idea, even if you
3:09execute perfectly on the hook, the
3:11format, the storytelling structure, and
3:13the edit, it's likely not going to do
3:14that well. That's how you know ideas are
3:17the highest point of leverage in the
3:19content workflow. So for content, it
3:20turns out the optimal way to allocate
3:22your time is to spend most of your time
3:25working on the idea and making the topic
3:27and angle that much better and then
3:29evenly distribute the rest of your time
3:31on everything else. That is how you grow
3:33way faster to 100k. Now you might be
3:35listening and think this is a little
3:36nerdy. Like why am I even paying
3:38attention [music] to this? But this way
3:39of thinking, breaking down workflows
3:41into component parts and then ruthlessly
3:43prioritizing your time towards the
3:45highest leveraged stuff, that is the
3:47single greatest productivity hack in
3:49business, in content, in anything you
3:51work on. This single principle is
3:52literally why Elon is worth a trillion
3:54dollars. It's why Horoszi has grown so
3:57fast over the last 10 years. Now, here's
3:59the issue that most people don't talk
4:00about. Often times, identifying which
4:03piece is the highest leverage is hard to
4:05do. And even if you do identify it, it's
4:07usually not the most fun thing to work
4:09on. And so most people, even if they
4:10know what they should be doing, they
4:12don't do it because it's just not that
4:13fun. But the people you watch that can
4:14force themselves to work on the highest
4:16leverage thing, even if they're not
4:18enjoying it the most, those are the ones
4:20that win the fastest. Now, just hit the
4:21nail on the head. This is how I would
4:22approach building a personal brand using
4:25the bottleneck framework that I just
4:27walked through. If you define a personal
4:28brand, it's just expertise or
4:30association at scale shared via content.
4:33So you have to ask yourself what is the
4:34bigger bottleneck? Actually developing
4:36the expertise or making the content. The
4:39biggest bottleneck, the higher leverage
4:40of the two is building the expertise
4:42because you can't have a personal brand
4:44without expertise in something. You
4:46could make the content but it will fall
4:47flat if you don't have the expertise. So
4:48if I were building a personal brand from
4:50scratch before I spend even a minute on
4:52content, I would first develop my
4:54expertise in something that I can build
4:56the personal brand around. Now, if
4:58you're watching this and you're an
4:59accountant and you've been for 15 years
5:00and you have legitimate expertise,
5:02accounting sauce, but you know nothing
5:04about content. Awesome. The expertise
5:06bottleneck has been solved and you can
5:07go to the next thing. Okay, so now what
5:09would be the bottleneck in the content?
5:11Well, like I said before, you would
5:12explode content out into that workflow
5:14and you'd realize the highest leverage
5:15thing to focus on are ideas. And you
5:18say, okay, let's zoom into ideas. What
5:19is the workflow to come up with better
5:21ideas? What does that mean? Well, great
5:23ideas are based on a lot of things. The
5:25most important one is contrast which
5:27comes from a contrarian insight. Okay.
5:29So zooming in how do we come up with
5:30contrarian insights. Okay. Well to do
5:32that the workflow is first we identify
5:34the common beliefs that a core viewer
5:36has and then we write down all the
5:38reasons why we don't think those beliefs
5:40are true and what we think is true
5:42instead. And then bam you have a
5:43contrarian insight. Now you take that
5:45insight ideas are solved and then boom
5:47you move on to formats and hooks and so
5:49on. So that means the formula or order
5:51of operations for how you should work on
5:53building a personal brand starts with
5:54expertise. Then once you have that
5:56expertise, you build contrarian
5:58insights. Then once you have those
5:59contrarian insights, the idea or angle
6:01is solved. Then you move on to formats.
6:03Then attention grabbing hooks and so on.
6:05Now I'll admit as I talk about this, I
6:07know that this way of thinking, it's
6:09kind of like more engineering,
6:11emotionless, processoriented, is not
6:13natural for most people. But learning
6:15how to think in this way and apply this
6:17to any problem you're working on,
6:19business, content, or otherwise, is the
6:21single greatest productivity lift you
6:23could have because it means you're not
6:25wasting your time on things that don't
6:26matter. Now, if you want to learn how to
6:28approach content and personal branding
6:29using this way of thinking, I've spent a
6:31long time cottifying this system. So,
6:33like prioritizing which thing matters
6:35and then building a system for how you
6:37figure out how to solve it. If you want,
6:38I've got a link below where you can work
6:40with me. It's the best way to kind of
6:41apply this framework. All right, lesson
6:43number two that's been huge for my
6:44success over the last few years is
6:46called avoiding the smart kid problem.
6:48Have you ever heard how people always
6:49say like, "Oh, the best entrepreneurs
6:51are D and F students and how the A
6:53students work for the B people and the B
6:55people work for the C executives and the
6:57C's work for the D owners." Have you
6:58ever heard that? To be honest, I always
7:00thought that was nonsense. It is way
7:02more helpful to be smart than dumb in
7:04almost every scenario when it comes to
7:06business content or anything. What I
7:07will say though is that smarter people
7:09have a much harder time getting out of
7:11their own way. I call this the smart kid
7:13problem. Smarter people tend to believe
7:15in their own head that they're good at
7:16thinking. And so they like to spend way
7:18more time thinking than actually doing.
7:20And this is why a students typically
7:22make bad entrepreneurs. That doesn't
7:23mean it's better to be dumb than smart.
7:24It means if you have the gift of being
7:26smart, you have to put in guard rails to
7:28prevent yourself from overthinking. Now,
7:30here's how I recommend you do this. If
7:32you're listening to this and it's
7:33resonating, this is what you should do.
7:34Most people, all the gurus advise you to
7:36spend a lot of time thinking about
7:38decisions before you make them. And in
7:40my view, that only applies when you've
7:42already made a lot of money and the
7:44absolute dollar value magnitude of those
7:46decisions is in the six or seven
7:48figures. If you're a beginner, that's
7:50not you. And so, the actual magnitude of
7:52your decisions is much smaller than you
7:53think. So, you should use a shot clock
7:55for all your decision-m. Anytime you
7:57make a decision, you only have 5 minutes
7:59to deliberate that in your head. At the
8:01end of those 5 minutes, you make a
8:03decision and you start acting. The worst
8:04thing that could happen if you make the
8:06wrong choice is that you retrace a
8:07couple steps and you go down the other
8:08path. But that is way better than not
8:11acting at all. Now, the thing is, if
8:12you're not that books smart, typically
8:14you lack the capacity to overthink. And
8:17so, whatever pops in your head, you
8:18usually start working on. And that's not
8:20an insult. Because of this, you get way
8:21more done. It's actually a superpower
8:23when it comes to business. So, if you're
8:24books smart or intelligent, whatever
8:26that means, you have to put in
8:27protections around your own
8:29overthinking. For me personally, I do
8:31not spend more than 15 minutes on any
8:32one decision. [music] And I do this,
8:34like I said, because most decisions are
8:35actually not that important, and I'm
8:37just wasting time delaying the action
8:39that needs to happen. Now, here's the
8:40other part of the smart kid problem.
8:42Smart kids were trained and rewarded for
8:44learning how to follow the rules. That's
8:45what teachers build the entire structure
8:47of school around. It's all rule
8:49following. Those rules were designed to
8:51keep you from breaking them. But the
8:52problem is in the business and
8:54entrepreneurship world, there are no
8:55rules. There are laws that you cannot
8:57break, but there are no rules. So, if
8:58you're a smart kid, you have to
8:59jailbreak your mind and unwind the
9:02decades of rewarding behavior around
9:05following rules. And you have to realize
9:06there's so many more ways to play the
9:08game. This is really hard for people
9:10that are super smart. It's easier for
9:11people that never followed the rules in
9:12the first place. This is why it's the
9:14smart kid problem. All right, lesson
9:15number three is about core business
9:17fundamentals. If you're building a
9:18personal brand in the hopes of one day
9:20monetizing and ideally building a viable
9:22business where you funnel that traffic
9:24into dollars for yourself, this will be
9:26helpful for you. An aspect of personal
9:29branding that most people ignore is what
9:30I call business design. And this doesn't
9:32come natural to people that didn't go to
9:34business school or haven't thought about
9:35business. Luckily, I did, so I had this
9:37kind of background. This is really
9:39critical you think about this. Business
9:40design is the answer to these three
9:42questions. Number one, what is the
9:44average price and margin profile of your
9:47products and services? Number two, what
9:49is the business model of the offer or
9:51product or service that you sell? And
9:53number three, what is the market that
9:54you're selling into? like who is the
9:56buyer demographically and what is the
9:58industry are you B toC B2B what industry
10:00are you selling into for margin price
10:02and business model you could either be
10:04low ticket which means low price or high
10:06ticket which means higher priced you
10:08could be low margin which means you keep
10:10not that many dollars or high margin you
10:13keep a lot of the dollars you could be
10:15one-time meaning they pay you once and
10:16never again unless you resell them or
10:18you could be recurring which is a
10:19subscriptionbased product you could be
10:21high fulfillment complexity a lot of
10:23work is required to get them the product
10:24or service they paid for or low
10:26fulfillment complexity. And there are
10:28variety of trade-offs like this, but
10:29those four are the most important. Life
10:31gets much easier when you build a
10:33business that is high ticket, high
10:35margin, recurring, and low fulfillment
10:37complexity. That is like the magical
10:40four horsemen characteristics of the
10:42best businesses. Now, there are only a
10:43few types of business models that fit
10:45these conditions. I would strongly
10:47encourage you if you're building a
10:48personal brand and trying to plug in an
10:50offer at the back end, you build one of
10:52these business models or else your life
10:54will be much harder. Agency services,
10:56for example, can be high ticket. You
10:58could sell 510K. Could be high margin,
11:0050, 60, 70% margin. Could be recurring,
11:045K every month. But typically agency
11:06services are higher fulfillment
11:07complexity. It requires multiple people
11:09and handoffs to deliver that service.
11:11It's an ARB on the hours of the
11:13fulfillment. Now with AI, you might be
11:15able to drop the fulfillment complexity
11:17down and make this an amazing business.
11:18And that's why agencies are very
11:20interesting service-based agencies in
11:21this AI era. Now, B2B software,
11:23especially sold to businesses, not like
11:25consumer bottoms up software, was the
11:26holy grail. High ticket, high margin,
11:29recurring, and almost zero fulfillment
11:31complexity. They buy, they get the
11:32software immediately, requires almost
11:34nothing besides sales. Of course, AI is
11:36commoditizing that away, so it's not the
11:37golden darling that it was preai, but
11:39it's still amazing. info coaching or
11:41memberships that can be super high
11:43ticket, high margin, recurring and low
11:45fulfillment complexity as well. Again,
11:47AI is starting to commoditize info away,
11:49but because of the personality modes
11:51that come from content and personal
11:52brands, there's still a viable path
11:54there. Now, on the opposite side,
11:55selling something like a soda that is
11:58low ticket, people buy it for $2. It is
12:00low margin, very competitive, 10 20%
12:03profit margins max. It is one time. You
12:05don't sell recurring subscriptions to
12:06soda typically. And it's pretty high
12:08fulfillment complexity. Obviously, once
12:10it's in the store, they just take it and
12:12buy it. But to get it in the store, the
12:13can has to be made and shipped and
12:15fulfilled, etc. It's pretty high
12:16fulfillment complexity. Now, are there
12:18huge soda companies? Of course, there
12:20are. But are you going to build a soda
12:22company from scratch on your own with no
12:23unfair advantage? Probably not. The
12:25truth is most of the personal brand
12:27driven businesses that you see are
12:29either dead or zombie companies that
12:32were built under bad business conditions
12:34where the personal brand traffic just
12:36couldn't outrun the low ticket, low
12:39margin, high fulfillment complexity
12:41problems. Now, the other side of
12:42business design is what market you pick
12:44and who you sell into. You can win in
12:46almost any market with almost any offer,
12:48but I recommend picking B2B and a rich
12:51customer, somebody who can spend a lot
12:53of money. This goes back to the high
12:54price point. Horoszi says this all the
12:56time and I agree based on what I've
12:57seen. It's so much easier to sell to a
12:59wealthy customer, high ticket, high
13:01margin than a broke customer, low
13:02ticket, low margin. Now, these things
13:04sound pretty obvious when I lay them out
13:05this way. Like if you had to pick the
13:07trade, you're like, "Yeah, I'll take the
13:08high price versus the low." But a lot of
13:09people don't think about this before
13:11they build an audience that they
13:14eventually want to sell something into.
13:15They pick a category that is not
13:17conducive to selling a business model
13:19that fits those conditions. Now, one of
13:20the other principles around business
13:22design is called the one by one by one
13:24rule. And I'm not the one who made this
13:25up. I actually forget where I heard it,
13:26but this is like a great pathy way to
13:28describe the way you should approach the
13:30funnel from traffic, funnel, and offers
13:33to have alignment. Now, this is one that
13:35I should have followed. I learned it too
13:37late. I'm paying for dearly. You'll
13:38notice in my ecosystem, I've got tech
13:40stuff. And then I've got marketing
13:41stuff. I make tech shorts. I had some
13:43tech longs. I interviewed Zuck. That's
13:45kind of my tech world. But now I also
13:46have marketing stuff. I've got marketing
13:48shorts. I've got marketing longs. I have
13:49marketing academy. I have marketing
13:50software. I've more vertically
13:52integrated on the marketing side, but
13:53I'm running two different things, two
13:54islands that are not bridged together.
13:56This is not what you want to do. One by
13:58one by one means one traffic source for
14:01one ideal customer avatar with one
14:03offer. And the reason why you don't want
14:05to do 222 is because 1* 1* 1 is one. 2 *
14:082 * 2 is 8. It's not two times the
14:11complexity. It's eight times the
14:12complexity with all of the different
14:14things that you're running. So, you
14:15really want to be as crystal clear as
14:17possible down one single through line.
14:19content, audience, product fit is
14:22ideally what you're going for. One
14:23content source, one [music] product, one
14:26audience avatar. Now, over time, you can
14:28add other content sources. You can add
14:29short form and long form, but you really
14:31want to build the ecosystem, the
14:33infrastructure around that core
14:34scaffolding on one by one by one. Of
14:36course, this is something I learned
14:37sooner. I'm split across multiple
14:38fields. I'm fighting battles on multiple
14:40fronts. That's not what you want to be
14:41doing. All right, lesson number four is
14:42more of a mindset mentality thing, and
14:44it is become the gold standard. This
14:46applies to content and personal
14:47branding, but it also applies to just
14:48like how you approach the business game
14:50as a whole. If you want to win fast and
14:52you're entering a crowded niche late,
14:54like there's other people with
14:55advantages, all you have to do to beat
14:56them is just become the gold standard in
14:59that space. And obviously, that's way
15:00easier said than done, but this is how
15:02you close ground on people fast. For
15:04example, I entered the social media
15:06growth space on YouTube like 18 months
15:08ago. This channel 18 months ago was a
15:10zero. There were probably a couple dozen
15:12people playing in social media growth
15:13before me that have been doing it for
15:15years. Many of them are probably
15:16watching this now. Now, 18 months later,
15:18I am the one with the most authority in
15:20this space. And if you don't think I'm
15:21the one, I'm definitely one of them. I
15:22don't say this to brag at all. I'm just
15:24saying this mindset of being the gold
15:26standard really works to close gap when
15:28you're entering a crowded category late.
15:30Now, I'm doing the exact same thing on
15:32my short form channel right now. If you
15:34go to Callaway Marketing on Instagram,
15:35I've gone from 0 to 50,000 followers in
15:37less than 90 days. That's a very crowded
15:39space with extremely big hitters because
15:41it's social media growth on social
15:42media. But I expect to own a good
15:44portion of the distribution of that
15:46niche by the end of 2027. Now, the way I
15:48close these gaps when I enter a crowded
15:51category super late, even though they
15:53have compounding advantage and I don't,
15:54is that I become the gold standard in
15:57the category. I obsess over becoming the
15:59best. And that means I want better
16:01ideas, better titles, better thumbnails,
16:03better edits, better substance in my
16:05stories, better articulation in my
16:07stories, better flow, better premium
16:10animations on the screen. I want better
16:11everything. I call it everything gold.
16:13That's my mindset. Number one for every
16:15category. I of course start with the
16:17highest lever ones. I don't focus on
16:18becoming the best on the lowest
16:20leverage. I start high leverage with
16:22ideas, titles, thumbnails in YouTube's
16:23case or ideas and short form case and
16:25then I work my way down. But I work my
16:27way down to become best at every single
16:29function as I can. Now to do this,
16:31especially when you don't have the
16:32skills, you want to hire the best
16:34possible people you can. If you don't
16:35have money, you pay with time. So you'll
16:37learn the skills. I didn't have money at
16:39the beginning. I had to become as good
16:41as I could in the tech short form space
16:43and I painstakingly obsessed over every
16:45single piece that I could. Eventually I
16:47got cash flow. I hired an A tier team
16:49and so then I attack in that way. This
16:51is something people don't tell you in
16:52the content world. Learning from experts
16:55in every facet or the people that are
16:57the best at content that you know is the
16:59biggest cheat code that you could
17:01unlock. That is how you get time
17:03compression and you close the gap.
17:04you're paying to close the skill
17:07deficiency because the truth is it feels
17:09like when you're a beginner looking at
17:10the expert or looking at the people in
17:12the top of the category, it feels like
17:14that distance is small, but that's only
17:16because you're looking up and you can't
17:18have perspective at how big the gap
17:20really is. The gap is much bigger than
17:22you think. And you don't realize that
17:23until you work with an expert. [music]
17:25So, if you want to accelerate the
17:27closing of the distance, the fastest way
17:28is just to pay an expert to extract
17:30everything they know and then apply that
17:32to yourself. Now, what I do is that
17:34every time I hire someone, I put them
17:36through a system that I've built around
17:38short form and long form to compress any
17:40skill deficiency they have left. I try
17:42to hire experts, but if they're still
17:44not the number one in the category, I
17:45try to compress that as much as
17:46possible. That is the cheat code for
17:48kind of building a team that can close
17:50the gap on anyone. Again, if you want
17:51those systems for content, you can work
17:53with me below. I've got them for short
17:54form and YouTube dialed completely. You
17:56can just have them. All right, lesson
17:57number five is called less info, less
17:59role models. This one's very simple.
18:01Most people think they need to increase
18:02the amount of information they're
18:04consuming because they're missing some
18:06secret hack or tip. And if they just
18:09increase the surface area of the
18:10information they listen to, they can
18:11find out what it is. The truth is there
18:13is no hack. There is no secret tip other
18:15than identifying the point of highest
18:17leverage and then smashing that button
18:19until the button stops working. So
18:21instead of increasing the amount of
18:23people you listen to, I actually
18:24recommend the opposite. You want to
18:25reduce your info diet circle as small as
18:28possible. less podcasts, less YouTube
18:31channels, less scrolling Twitter, less,
18:32less, less. Because the thing is, A,
18:34very few people actually know what
18:36they're doing. A lot of people are
18:37commenting on they've never
18:38actually done. So that's just polluting
18:40your brain with bad [music] information.
18:42And B, as I'll get to in a minute, this
18:44clogs up your creative pipes.
18:46Personally, I like to limit the amount
18:47of people I listen to per category to
18:49like two or three max. So that means for
18:52business, anything business related, I
18:54only listen to two people. For content
18:56advice, I only listen to two people. For
18:58marketing or paid ads, I only listen to
19:00two people. For branding, I only listen
19:02to two people. My job when I was a
19:04beginner is to prune all of my info diet
19:07down to just the high signal people that
19:09have actually gotten the outcomes that I
19:11want. And that's critical. If you want
19:13to grow fast and you want to build
19:14businesses that do millions in profit a
19:16year, I'm someone who's done that. You
19:18shouldn't listen to someone who hasn't
19:19done that in the domain that you're
19:21studying them for. See, the main problem
19:23with over consuming information is that
19:25your production or productivity is a
19:27one-way valve. You can either take in
19:29information or generate out information.
19:32But you can't do both at the same time.
19:33All those podcasts you're listening to,
19:35the YouTube videos you're watching, the
19:37tweets you're consuming, it's clogging
19:39up your ability to push stuff out and
19:42get stuff done. So, what I recommend,
19:44take your information diet, cut it by
19:4690%, prune all the people that are
19:48wannabes that haven't actually done the
19:49thing you want to do. reduce that circle
19:51down and free up more capacity so you
19:53can push production out. Now, my goal
19:55with this channel was to become one of
19:57those two people, ideally the top, but
19:59I'm sure there's always more for
20:00content. You're like, "This guy is one
20:02of my, if not the content guy. I go to
20:04him for content. I don't go to him for
20:06other stuff. That's what I'm trying to
20:08become." And that's why I spend so much
20:10time in these videos reducing the fluff
20:12and really making the tactical takeaways
20:14as crystal clear as possible so you can
20:16actually apply them and get the result
20:17you want. That's my approach. That's
20:19been my approach. which is why I've
20:20grown so fast. So, whatever your niche
20:21is, you kind of want to bring that
20:23mindset and approach to it as well. All
20:25right, lesson number six is called find
20:27the boogeyman. If you're struggling with
20:29motivation in the early stages and
20:30you've identified what the highest
20:32leverage thing is, but you still can't
20:33really bring yourself to do it, I
20:35recommend finding the boogeyman. And the
20:36boogeyman is a villain. Find a villain.
20:39Someone to run from. Something to run
20:41from. Something you're competing against
20:43that you want to beat. This could be
20:44another person. It could be a movement.
20:46It could be a motto. It could be a group
20:48of people. It could be your childhood.
20:51It could be some scenario. It could be a
20:53brand that you feel like poorly treats
20:54people. There are a lot of different
20:56types of boogeymen, but you need to find
20:57one. For me, my boogeyman in the early
20:59days was my corporate job. I worked at
21:01Deote. I hated it. I hated the way they
21:03treated me. I hated the way they
21:05approached work. I hated the way they
21:06treated other people. I couldn't stand
21:08it. My entire goal at the beginning was
21:09that I wanted to make my entire annual
21:11salary in one day just to prove it to
21:13them that the way they approached things
21:14was suboptimal. That is an example of a
21:17boogeyman. And this works super well
21:19when you're in the beginning of your
21:20journey. The truth is hate fuel burns
21:22way hotter than aspirational fuel in the
21:24early days. Now, once you reach escape
21:26velocity and you get momentum, hate fuel
21:28stops working. So, you have to switch to
21:29a cleaner fuel source. And that clean
21:31fuel source could be focusing on a
21:32mission, helping other people, this kind
21:34of like long-term vision, goalbased
21:36thing. But at the beginning, when there
21:37are a million things to do and you just
21:38can't get yourself off the mat to get
21:40them done, finding the boogeyman,
21:42creating that hate fuel source that
21:43you're running from can be very
21:45powerful. All right, lesson number seven
21:46is called belief first, expectations
21:48next. And this one is mostly about
21:50mindset, but I find this to be extremely
21:52helpful. This sounds a little bit
21:53woowoo, but what you believe to be true
21:55will come true. There's something about
21:57the way the mind works where if you can
21:58really visualize an outcome that you
22:00want, you can pull reality to it if you
22:03can apply work accordingly. Like for
22:05example, I've known I was going to be
22:07successful for a very long time. I just
22:09had to allow reality to catch up to meet
22:12the vision that I had in my head. And to
22:14be clear, reality doesn't just magically
22:16get there. You have to apply a ton
22:17of work. But having that belief is
22:20critical to making that reality come
22:22true. And so what that actually means
22:24tactically is that belief has to come
22:26before the work. And then the work has
22:28to come before the skills. And then the
22:30skills has to come before ability. And
22:32then ability has to come before results.
22:34And then results have to come before
22:36success. All those things, those
22:38dominoes, all have to happen in order
22:40for you to get from belief to success.
22:41That's why success lags belief. But I
22:43don't want you to mistake this as some
22:45like manifestation credo that's giving
22:47you the permission to not work. You have
22:49to apply obsessive amounts of work to
22:51make this compression reality
22:53compressing to your vision happen. The
22:56truth is I could never have accomplished
22:58what I've done so far in just the first
22:593 years on a 9 to5 40hour per week
23:02allocation. Just couldn't do it. There's
23:03just way too much work that needs to be
23:05done. I have legit worked 10 am to
23:07midnight, six days a week and most of
23:09the times on Saturday for the last three
23:11years to compress the distance between
23:14my belief and the reality I wanted. And
23:16that is just what it takes to get the
23:18ball rolling. Now, when you do this and
23:19you apply this much violent effort,
23:21people in society and even some of your
23:22friends will say, "Well, he's a
23:24workaholic." Or whatever they say
23:25because they're trying to justify how
23:26you got where you got so much faster
23:28than they did. Right? But the point is
23:30very simply, if you want atypical
23:32results, you have to apply atypical
23:34force in order to get those results. And
23:36you can either do this by being better
23:37at your 40 hours than everyone else or
23:40applying more than 40 hours. The people
23:42in the business and the content world
23:44are legit savages. So for you to think
23:46your 40 hours, you're going to
23:47outexecute them, especially at the
23:48beginning, that's very arrogant. You
23:50won't. Which means you need to apply
23:51more than 40 hours to catch up. Now, I
23:54will say, and this will be good to hear,
23:56this period of crazy work and skill
23:58compression doesn't have to last
24:00forever. Just like in fitness, it's way
24:02easier to maintain muscle than it is to
24:04build from scratch. In business, same
24:05thing. It's way easier to maintain
24:07momentum than to build it from scratch.
24:09So, I like to view this as a 5 to
24:11sevenyear sprint in the very beginning,
24:13absolute maniac approach. And then at
24:15that point, you can downshift and coast
24:16or you can double down. But these are
24:18the expectations you should set. belief
24:20first, then set proper expectations, and
24:22then violently attack. All right, last
24:24lesson number eight is anything but
24:26quitting. And this is pretty
24:27straightforward based on the name. The
24:29whole game, literally the whole game in
24:30content and personal branding is just
24:32not quitting. There are way more
24:34consumers of content than there are
24:36makers. You have a supply demand
24:38mismatch in your favor. You will for a
24:39long time. So, all you have to do is
24:41just stay in the game and outlast
24:43everyone else. Now, the only reason
24:45people quit is because of the impatience
24:47that comes from warped expectations.
24:50They think they should be at a certain
24:52point before they are. That dissonance
24:54eats at them, creates impatience, and
24:57the impatience is why they quit. That
24:58expectation you're setting, whatever
25:00you're imagining you should be when
25:02you're not, that is a mirage. The whole
25:03game, the mindset behind business
25:05content success, is just figuring out
25:07how to drop those expectations to zero
25:09so that you don't have the pressure on
25:11yourself and you don't get impatient.
25:13For example, when I started on day one,
25:15I told myself, and I really believed
25:16this. I was like, I'm giving you 10
25:18years before you have to make a single
25:19dollar before we'll ever think about
25:21re-evaluating entrepreneurship. Now, I
25:23knew I would succeed way sooner than
25:25that. I made a dollar on the first day,
25:27but that forced re-evaluation in my head
25:29allowed me to play so much more free
25:31because I really believed I was going
25:33for 10 years with $0. It is so important
25:35that you're able to do this in terms of
25:37setting expectations. All the people
25:38that you see on social media that are
25:40flexing, 99% of them do not actually
25:43have it like that. They don't own the
25:45cars. They don't have the cash flow. All
25:47of the things that are flexing, they do
25:48not have. And so, if your expectations
25:50outrun reality because you're seeing
25:52fake portrayals of what's not true,
25:55you're just doing yourself a disservice,
25:56and that will make you quit. Content and
25:57personal branding is just an endurance
25:59game over everything else. You just have
26:01to post, get better, and not stop
26:03posting. That is it. All right, guys.
26:05That is all I've got for this video. I
26:07know it was a little bit different on
26:08this one, a little less tactical. I
26:10tried to make it as tactical as I could,
26:11but some of this was like business
26:12lessons and mindset. I often don't go
26:14into this area because it feels a little
26:17more fluffy and I'm trying to give you
26:18actual tactics you can use. But if you
26:20didn't like this video, don't worry.
26:22Next week we'll be back with another
26:23tactical banger. If you did like this
26:25video and you kind of like seeing this
26:26more real, raw kind of off-thecuff style
26:29from me where I'm talking about business
26:31lessons and mindset, please let me know
26:32in the comments. And if a lot of people
26:34like this, I'll make more videos like
26:35this occasionally. As always guys, I'm
26:36just trying to put the non-obvious stuff
26:38that pops up in my head that I don't
26:39really see everywhere else. I'm trying
26:40to put that out there for you.
26:41Hopefully, it'll help someone who's like
26:43me at the beginning out there watching
26:44this. As always, if you're a creator or
26:46an entrepreneur or a business owner and
26:48you're trying to use content to grow,
26:49you can probably tell just by the way
26:50I'm talking. I do kind of know what I'm
26:52talking about. And so, I've got a lot of
26:53free stuff in the description below.
26:55Feel free to check that out. Grab that.
26:56I'm trying to give as much away as I
26:58possibly can. All right, we will see you
26:59guys on the next one. Peace.

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