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"Why Is Getting Ahead So Hard?" | 1 Hour of Alex Hormozi — Transcript

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0:00A lot of selfwork can be summarized into
0:03thoughts aren't true. Feelings don't
0:05require actions. Things aren't good or
0:08bad. They just are. Our greatest enemy
0:10is ignorance. To change your life,
0:12change your surroundings. Our actions,
0:14not our pasts, define who we are.
0:19I think that's pretty much probably 95%
0:22of selfwork.
0:24>> I stand by my statement. [laughter]
0:27>> Thoughts aren't true. Feelings don't
0:28require action. Things aren't good or
0:30bad. They just are. Our greatest enemy
0:32is ignorance. To change your life,
0:34change your surroundings. Our actions,
0:35not our pasts, define who we are.
0:37>> Man, I could unpack all of those.
0:43So, let's start with ignorance.
0:45So
0:47I am not a moralist but if I were a
0:51moralist then I would say that
0:54ignorance is the only evil and therefore
0:57knowledge is the only good and so most
1:01atrocities if we define them that way
1:04that humans inflict on one another comes
1:07from ignorance. We don't know something
1:09about the other person or the other
1:10party. And if we had absolute context on
1:15why someone does what they do, if we
1:17lived their life, then we would have
1:19absolute knowledge on it and then we
1:20would be them. And so then we probably
1:22wouldn't try to hurt them because we
1:24would be them. And so
1:28I see the pursuit of knowledge and its
1:30correlary how I like it, the pursuit of
1:32learning, changing our behavior to be my
1:35ultimate purpose in life. Because if I
1:37think about myself as going through life
1:39then I want to learn as much as I can
1:42which is changing my behavior ideally
1:44suited to the direction that I want to
1:45go in. As for the if you want to change
1:48your life change your surroundings.
1:57If we want to behave a certain way then
2:00we want to increase the likelihood that
2:04a behavior occurs. And so BF Skinner
2:06said this, and I just love this. It's
2:07like my most savage quote of his. He
2:09says,
2:10"People say,
2:13"You can lead a horse to water, but you
2:14can't make it drink." False. He said,
2:18"If I dehydrate the horse, I salt its
2:20mouth, I put it in the heat, and I put
2:22its face one inch away from water, I
2:25canvably guarantee that it will drink."
2:28And I think about that visual all the
2:32time when I think about myself as the
2:34horse. And I think to myself, what is
2:37the behavior that I want drinking water?
2:39And what is the salt in my mouth? And
2:41what is the dehydration, the motivation
2:44for this behavior that I can create? And
2:46so I am not a believer in free will. I
2:50believe that we respond to the
2:52conditions that we've had and then we
2:54learn behaviors as a result of those
2:56things. And so, for example, I could get
2:58everyone in here, the entire crew to get
3:00naked. Guarantee you I could do it. All
3:02I would do is I just crank up the
3:03temperature and I'd wait and eventually
3:05everyone would get naked. It would
3:06happen. And so everyone has this idea
3:08that they have this free will.
3:11But that's what would happen eventually.
3:13And so
3:15if that's true, then we have
3:18significantly less control and at the
3:20same time more control over our behavior
3:22if we can stack the deck in our favor.
3:25And so part of the reason going to bed
3:27at 9:00 p.m. is so powerful is because
3:28we're changing the conditions so that we
3:30can change our behavior. If all of your
3:32friends are poor, Harvard did that long
3:34study and said that the the number one
3:36correlate was your reference group,
3:37which is who you compare yourself to.
3:38Also note, not who you spend the most
3:40time with, it's who you compare yourself
3:41to. And so if you want to change your
3:43life, change who you compare yourself
3:44to, number one. But part of who you
3:48compare yourself to is who you spend
3:49your time with or who at least you
3:50consume the most of. So if you're doing
3:52this, then maybe that's a good thing or
3:53maybe it's a terrible thing because
3:54you're comparing the wrong people.
3:56Either way, if you want to get fit, if
4:00you get around fitter people, you will
4:02be deprived of fitness because you'll be
4:04the least in shape person. And then all
4:06of a sudden, you'll be more motivated.
4:07If you are poor, but you're the richest
4:10of your friends or the same level of
4:12wealth as your friends, then get around
4:13people who make more money. And then, of
4:15course, people say, "But I can't get
4:17around people who make more money."
4:20Okay?
4:22No one else has ever done it. No one who
4:24has had it worse than you has ever
4:25figured out how to do it. You're right.
4:28Right. Of course, you're not right. So,
4:30shut the [ __ ] up.
4:32>> Thoughts aren't true.
4:34>> Oh, I mean, how many things do we think
4:37every day that are just false? One, they
4:40can be factually false, but also from
4:42the um reactionary perspective. I'll
4:46give you an example. So
4:52someone miscommunicates and wrongs me in
4:55some way. I get angry and think I should
4:57wrong them back. Now that's my first
5:00thought. If I then say what does that
5:04behavior increase the likelihood of
5:06occurring as a result? What do I want to
5:08have happen as a result of my behavior?
5:11Well, I want them to apologize or I want
5:14them to just not do that again. Well,
5:17then me reacting back to them increases
5:20the likelihood that they will retaliate.
5:23And so in doing what my first thought
5:26was, I increase the likelihood of the
5:28negative occurrence that I'm trying to
5:29avoid. And so thinking through what
5:33happens after that thing in
5:36interpersonal dynamics and also from a
5:38business decisions perspective has
5:40helped me so much. Like I've had I'll
5:43give you an example of one that happened
5:44not that long ago. Somebody reached out
5:46to me, relatively big account, and says,
5:48"Hey, um, can you read my book? It would
5:51mean the world to me if you left me an
5:52endorsement." Um, and I said,
5:58"Out of respect for you, I won't just
6:00ghost this message or or give you a
6:03half-hearted answer and then just hope
6:04that you forget that I said yes. I'm not
6:07going to endorse your book, but you're
6:10welcome to send it to me. I will
6:11probably just flip through it because I
6:13have a lot of other books that I need to
6:14read that are more closely related to my
6:16goal. But I appreciate the flattery
6:19that's implied in you asking me to do
6:21that.
6:23Before I wrote that message, I was like,
6:25"Okay, what do I want to have happen
6:28after I send this message?" Now, if I
6:30say the if I just ghost him, then I will
6:34probably have a null outcome. And he'll
6:36probably have a slight negative because
6:37he'll remember, but but he'll be like,
6:38"Okay, fine. And that was his way of
6:40saying no. But if I say if I compliment
6:43him, thank him for the compliment with
6:45me and also tell the truth, I'll
6:47probably get somebody who in the future
6:49will know that my yes means something
6:50when I when I choose to do it. And so
6:53it's thinking like two steps ahead of
6:55what happens after I say this thing back
6:57and is how do I increase the likelihood
6:59of that second move, not the first move.
7:01And it sounds silly to say because
7:03people are like, "Oh, of course." But
7:04like I don't think most people do that.
7:06And it has helped me so much. And even
7:10like with interpersonal damage with with
7:12my marriage with Ila, if I want
7:16to
7:20to talk to me a certain way, then if I
7:24punish her when she doesn't talk to me
7:26that way, what she'll really do is
7:28she'll avoid talking to me in general.
7:29[laughter]
7:30And so it's like I have to find a time
7:32when she does that thing so that I can
7:34immediately reward her so that I can
7:35increase the likelihood that it occurs.
7:37And so I I think about this all the time
7:39with most of the dynamics that we have.
7:41And so um anyways, I'll just stop on
7:43that tangent. But
7:44>> I think uh this is something especially
7:47over the last year that I've
7:49as a rehabilitating
7:51people pleaser, big people pleaser. Uh
7:56being able to make your needs known,
7:58being able to make demands uh is a real
8:02skill and it's a it's so strange given
8:05that pursuing your needs is maybe one of
8:08the most fundamental human things that
8:10there is. But I kind of realized that
8:14especially people that you respect in a
8:16sort of social dynamics way, people
8:18don't want to hear what they want to
8:19hear. They want to hear what you
8:22actually think about a thing. So so many
8:25times someone will ask your opinion.
8:26What do you think of the Oppenheimer
8:28movie? What you think they want to hear
8:30is whatever they think, which is, oh,
8:32wasn't it great? Did you watch Inac?
8:34Yeah, I did. Did you get Sour Patch
8:35Kids? Yeah, I did. Uh, but what they
8:37actually want to hear, if you were to
8:38say, do you know what it is, man? Like,
8:39I don't know. It was just a little sort
8:41of drawn out for me and all of the
8:43visual effects felt a little bit more. I
8:44haven't seen it. I don't [ __ ] know.
8:46But
8:48what you think people want to hear is
8:52not what they actually want to hear.
8:54They want to hear what you think. And
8:55that requires you to tell the truth. And
8:57oddly enough, that means that telling
8:59someone what they don't want to hear
9:01ends up with a bigger net positive for
9:03you than actually giving them the thing
9:05that they wanted. for the business
9:07owners or for the advertisers in the
9:08room or the people who make content. By
9:11the way, this is the ultimate hack is
9:13just tell the truth because when you do
9:16that, you will by definition make very
9:18unique content because everyone else is
9:20so afraid of thinking or saying what
9:22they actually think. And so you can
9:25stand out without trying to stand out.
9:27The problem is that the vast majority of
9:28people who quote make content or try to
9:30quote add value just regurgitate what
9:32they think adds value rather than just
9:35saying what they really think.
9:36>> Also the benefit of experience because
9:38it's the only way that you can stress
9:39test whether or not this thing that
9:41you're trying to talk about is an actual
9:42thing. And you also get an extra
9:46perspective on that too when you know
9:47that this is what most other people say
9:49about a thing and I have tried it and
9:52this is my perspective on not only the
9:54thing but why other people think that
9:56this thing is a thing given that I know
9:57that it doesn't work
10:01don't require action very similar
10:05I think this one is super powerful for
10:09well really at all phases but especially
10:11the beginner so if you're a beginner You
10:14have to separate
10:16you feeling something and you acting on
10:18that feeling. Because you may feel
10:19hopeless many, many times, but you need
10:22to continue to do the activities that
10:24are aligned with your goal. You may feel
10:26hungry, but you need to not eat the
10:28cookie to stay aligned with your goal.
10:30You may feel angry, but know that
10:32retaliating at your coworker has no
10:34likely positive outcome. You may hate
10:37your boss, but undermining them in front
10:39of the team may make you feel good in
10:40the moment, but again destroy your
10:42long-term career prospects. And so I
10:44think creating a gap. And so I was
10:47talking to one of our CEOs who was
10:48having a little bit of stress issue. And
10:50I said, I want you to think that you're
10:51a Yeti can. I want you to think you're
10:53one of these cans that has a vacuum
10:55between both walls. I was like, you got
10:56your feelings on one side. You've got
10:58your internal temperature and you've got
10:59your external temperature. And I was
11:01like, I just want you to do this. Just
11:03create space. and space within the
11:06context of behavior is time which is
11:10when I feel something and I have the
11:12desire to act on it you can at that
11:15moment you have the lowest action
11:17threshold which means that you're the
11:18highest likelihood of behaving or or
11:20doing something is when you have this
11:21feeling and so I want to make as logical
11:25of decisions as I possibly can hopefully
11:27we're all aligned on the fact that
11:28logical decisions in general work out
11:30better than illogical decisions and so
11:32if we make logical decisions on a
11:34regular basis then we'll have longerterm
11:35outcomes. If we want to increase the
11:37likelihood that our decisions in general
11:38are logical, then we want to create
11:40space between when we feel and when we
11:43do. And
11:45encapsulated in one sentence, it's
11:49just because you feel something doesn't
11:51mean you need to act on it. And if you
11:53have an idea that you want to act on
11:54because of a feeling, if it still feels
11:56good in the morning, then do it. But
11:59I've never
12:01regretted taking time before acting when
12:05I was angry. But I sure as hell have
12:07regretted almost everything that I've
12:09done immediately the moment I felt
12:11angry.
12:13Things aren't good or bad. They just
12:14are.
12:16>> Oh, this is the essence of Mosy. Um I'm
12:20not the only one. Um,
12:23so
12:28I think what makes life more difficult
12:31for people is the judgment they have on
12:34themselves about what they believe
12:36they're supposed to do or supposed to
12:38have achieved or that this condition or
12:41this thing that happened is good or bad
12:43or it should have been good or it should
12:44have been better. And
12:47the story of the boy with the horse in
12:49the village. I'll tell it in 30 seconds
12:52which is
12:54uh dad gets kid a horse and everybody in
12:58the village says that's amazing. The old
12:59man says we'll see. And then the kid is
13:02riding the horse and he breaks his leg
13:03and everyone in the town says, "Oh,
13:05that's so horrible." And the old man
13:06says, "We'll see." And then the army
13:08comes to town to take all of the young
13:10men to war and the kid can't go because
13:13his leg is broken. And everyone says,
13:14"That's amazing." And the old man says,
13:16"We'll see." And the thing is is that as
13:18we continue to play out the timeline of
13:20life, we can't know if anything is good
13:21or bad until the day we die. And the day
13:23we die, it won't matter because we'll be
13:24dead. And so it means that at the end of
13:26the day, all the things that occur
13:28simply occur.
13:30And for me, reminding myself of that,
13:33that I think this is bad or I think this
13:36is good, it limits the peaks and it also
13:38limits the valleys. And saying this just
13:41is. And I think it's in my opinion
13:44absolute acceptance of the world without
13:46casting judgment on it. And it's
13:48difficult to do because we all want to
13:50make judgments and we have to make
13:51judgments in order to live. We have to
13:52approximate this is a good decision, bad
13:54decision. This is a decision that will
13:55increase likelihood that what I want to
13:56have happen will happen. But most of the
13:59good bads that we have that are coming
14:00up are not for our own benefit, are not
14:03aligned with our goals. They're aligned
14:05with one person that told us something
14:06when we were 7 years old and then we
14:07incorporated that and we say, "Oh, this
14:08is bad." because someone else when we
14:10were a kid like you hit your head and
14:12then you look at the adult and the adult
14:13says that's bad and you say oh it's bad
14:14I'm going to cry now right and so there
14:17are so many thousands and millions of
14:18those tiny judgments that are passed on
14:20to us that do not serve us and so
14:24for me it has been more beneficial to
14:26whitewash everything and then actively
14:28rebuild what I believe to be good or bad
14:31based on those things but with a
14:32baseline reality that none of it is
14:35>> it is kind of narcissistic or soypist
14:39to believe that you know whether a thing
14:41is good or bad
14:41>> means you know the future
14:44>> you know what the outcome of this is
14:46going to be right there's this story
14:48that uh
14:51I couldn't believe it was about
14:52September 11th so I didn't realize this
14:54but the night before September 11th
14:58actually had quite bad weather I think
15:01and it meant that people getting home
15:03from baseball games got home way later
15:06and then you'll remember the morning of
15:07September 11th And it's beautiful blue
15:10clear skies. So had that storm been only
15:1312 hours later, the whole world would
15:15have been different. But it wasn't.
15:16There's this story of a guy who
15:20was going for a meeting
15:22and I think it was his birthday. The
15:25lady that he worked with had got him one
15:27of these uh illustration ties. You sort
15:30of gaudy hideous thing with drawings all
15:32over it. And he was wearing a shirt that
15:36clashed with it. and she gifted him this
15:39as they had coffee on the morning of
15:41September 11th early downtown Manhattan.
15:44And she says, "Look, your shirt's
15:46wrinkled and it really doesn't go with
15:48this tie. Wear the tie. It'll make you
15:49feel confident. It's a nice present for
15:51you." So, he goes back to the hotel. She
15:52goes to the North Tower. She dies. He's
15:55alive.
15:58How on earth are you supposed to say
16:01giving that tie was good or bad? you you
16:05have no idea what's going to happen
16:07downstream from the things that are cut.
16:09>> So I know this guy who has a podcast and
16:12years ago he like snapped his Achilles
16:14and could barely walk. And so the crazy
16:18thing is is that many people in that
16:20time would have been like this is the
16:21worst thing that could have possibly
16:22happened. But because he had snapped his
16:26Achilles he was like well I have to make
16:27the best of this. I have to do
16:28something. I might as well stick with
16:30that podcast that I said I was going to
16:31start. And then years later, he became a
16:33top 50 podcast in the world. And I think
16:38an amazing frame is you can make
16:41anything that feels circumstantially
16:43negative in the moment if you ask the
16:45question, what would make this thing the
16:47best thing ever? And so I would argue,
16:50maybe you would agree that you snapping
16:53your Achilles was probably the best
16:55thing that ever happened to you because
16:58it got you here. And
17:02right now you probably have your version
17:05of the snapped Achilles that's going on
17:06in your life. But there's also the
17:09version of the top 50 in the world
17:11podcast that is waiting. Many people say
17:14they want to be in the top 1% or.1% or
17:16even 01%. But saying that has zero
17:20bearing on whether it happens.
17:22Achievement comes from actions, not
17:24aspirations. So let's get real. To be
17:26the top 1% you need to enter a room of a
17:29100 people and leave number one. To be
17:32the top 0.1% you need to enter a room of
17:35a thousand people like a local high
17:37school and leave number one. To be the
17:40top 01%
17:42you need to enter an arena of 10,000
17:44people and leave number one. Think about
17:46it. A stadium. And in a battle to the
17:49death in that stadium, you have to come
17:51out on top. You beat everyone. Not
17:54almost everyone, everyone.
17:57And so if you have the goal to be in the
17:59top 01%.
18:02Do you think that you can live a normal
18:03life? Do you think that you can keep the
18:06same friends? Do you think that you can
18:08keep the same hobbies? Do you think you
18:10can stay up late and sleep in on
18:11weekends? Do you think that you don't
18:13have to sacrifice what average people
18:15care about? Do you think that they will
18:17support you when you start to pass them?
18:19Do you think anyone will think this is
18:21healthy, balanced, or logical?
18:24No. And they're right. But it doesn't
18:27matter. When you want to be the 01%,
18:30there's no greater waste of time than
18:32explaining yourself to people who
18:33actively don't support you. It's normal
18:35for people to not understand why you do
18:38what you do. I say this because you
18:40cannot make yourself exceptional and
18:42live a normal life. To make yourself
18:44exceptional, you must live an
18:46exceptional life. And an exceptional
18:48life does not always mean better. It
18:51just means that it's so different that
18:53most people will reject it and you. And
18:56when that happens, you must reject them
18:59as well. Oil and water do not mix. That
19:02is what it really means to be
19:03exceptional. You must become the
19:06exception.
19:07And so this is uh how we how we um how
19:11we welcome the new guy. Actually,
19:12there's another page. So I I'll finish
19:14it up. So I routinely get asked the
19:17secret to success. And it just comes
19:19down to this. Number one, get better.
19:22Number two, never stop. If you do only
19:25those two things, you will win on a long
19:27enough time horizon. The problem is
19:28people convince themselves they no
19:30longer want something once they see the
19:31experience of how hard it really is. So,
19:34I want to set this expectation for you
19:36as you head off to practice scripts,
19:37mark your calendar, and set your alarms.
19:39The work begins when your motivation
19:41ends. Just win. And so, um, that's from
19:45our that's from our internal handbook
19:46that we have at ACQ, uh, for our sales
19:48guys. And it's one of the ways that we
19:50we welcome guys on. And I and I and I I
19:53want to read that to you because I want
19:54to frame what I'm talking about today.
19:56It seems like a very simple thing just
19:57saying just do more. But like it's
20:00almost become an art form and something
20:01that I have like a deep passion about,
20:03which is very odd to say, but more
20:06actually has the highest risk adjusted
20:08return move that you can possibly make
20:10within the business. keep my notes a
20:12little lower because I it cuts off the
20:13top. Um, and so it has the highest risk
20:17adjusted return. Give me two seconds,
20:18guys. I'm going to adjust this because
20:20this is driving me [ __ ] nuts. Hold
20:21on.
20:23So, let's move this up. Can I do that?
20:25All right.
20:27I prepared some notes for you guys to
20:29keep it nice and, you know, violent.
20:32Okay. So
20:35the reason more has the highest risk
20:36adjusted return for a business or for
20:39you is that what it's so hard to to get
20:41something to work, right? Many of you
20:43guys have tried anything. You have a new
20:44marketing channel, a new sales script, a
20:46new offer. You try a bunch of things and
20:48then finally something works, the
20:50likelihood that you changing that thing
20:52and that next thing working is actually
20:54statistically very low. Think about how
20:56many different things you had to try
20:57before something actually worked. And so
20:59the idea is, okay, I have these limited
21:01resources. I can allocate them to take a
21:04risk and roll the dice or I have this
21:07thing that I know works and I need to
21:09jam more into that machine which is why
21:11it's the risk at the highest risk
21:12adjusted return move. Now one of the
21:14other misconceptions that I think is
21:16that there's a huge prepoundonderance of
21:18people who talk about optimization
21:19getting as much as you can for as little
21:21as you can and I don't think there's
21:22anything wrong with that. The difference
21:24is that there are optimizers and there
21:26are maximizers. Maximizers try to ask
21:28the question, "How do I get as much as I
21:31possibly can?" Optimizers ask, "How
21:33much? How do I get as much as I can out
21:35of as little as I can?" But when you're
21:38looking at returns, maximizers win. So,
21:41what's the difference between first
21:43place, you know, gold in the Olympics
21:45and second in the in the Olympics,
21:46silver, right? A tenth of a second in a
21:48race. But what is the realistic
21:51difference, the real world or pragmatic
21:53difference between see being the best in
21:55the world and second best? Everything.
21:58And so when you're talking to an
21:59Olympian, you're talking to somebody who
22:00be wants to be the top 1% 01% 01%.
22:06Diminishing returns are still returns.
22:09It's you need to do more because you're
22:11trying to win, not be cute about saying
22:14that you had great return. And I I say
22:16this as somebody who was a converted
22:18optimizer. So, in the earlier part of my
22:20life, I really prided myself on doing
22:23school with as little work as possible.
22:26I was like, you you nerds, I was like,
22:28you guys needed to study. I can walk in
22:30and hit a 91 with no studying. And I'll
22:33tell you the story that really really
22:35changed my life. So, there's a guy named
22:37Kempnot. Um, and he was like, and
22:40hopefully Kemp, you know, maybe you'll
22:42see this. Um, he like I I I gave I gave
22:45Kemp a hard time. I did when I was in
22:47high school. And um and he was a kid who
22:51didn't catch on to stuff as fast. And
22:53you know what? Keep successful guy now.
22:54He's done great. And but this thing
22:57happened. So all of high school I I kind
22:59of gave this guy a hard time. And when
23:02we went to go apply to colleges, uh I
23:04wanted to go to Duke. So Duke's a top
23:06five school in the US. Um and I didn't
23:09get into Duke. I ended up going to
23:11Vanderbilt, which is also obviously a
23:12great school, but I wanted to go to
23:13Duke. And guess who got into Duke? Kemp.
23:17not. And so what was really interesting
23:19is that this whole time like Kemp would
23:21go to study hall, he'd be like,
23:22"Teacher, you forgot to assign his
23:24homework." Like he was that guy, right?
23:26And I I honestly just really disliked
23:29him. Uh but mostly because it probably
23:31just reminded me of my own inadequacies
23:33of like I was just unwilling to do the
23:35amount of work that he was. And I and I
23:36I shamed him for doing the amount of
23:38work that he did. I was like, "You have
23:40to work so hard just to try and just try
23:42and come close to me, right?" But in the
23:45end, uh, he got into the better college.
23:48And so it was this really humbling
23:50lesson for me that it was like none of
23:53the colleges cared that I worked less
23:56than him. They just cared about who had
23:58the best applications and who had the
24:00best grades. And it was this really like
24:03very eye-opening experience. And so when
24:05I went to college, I had a different
24:06frame that I was like, well, I'm not
24:08going to lose. I want to go here and I
24:10want to maximize. I want to study all
24:12the hours of the day that I'm that I'm
24:14not in class, at the gym, or at the
24:16cafeteria. I'm in the library. And you
24:18can ask anyone that ever went to school
24:19with if you ever meet them. Like, that's
24:21where I was. I was in the library 12
24:22hours a day because I was like, well, if
24:24I just study more than everyone, I'll
24:26get good grades. And that worked out
24:28pretty good, right? And so,
24:31that's just kind of a just a little bit
24:32of framing around why I have such a such
24:34a strong um uh affinity for more. Now
24:39I'll give you a second kind of a little
24:40bit more heady reason. So I talked about
24:41how more is the highest riskadjusted
24:43return. I talked about how diminishing
24:45returns are still returns. They're still
24:47at the end of the still output, right?
24:49The next piece though is that co change
24:53has a fixed cost. All right, and a
24:56variable reward. All right, so let me
24:58explain what that means. So if we have
25:00this thing that's working, right? And
25:02I'll let me see if I can draw this for
25:03you guys because I think this would be
25:05this is a good visual. Okay. So,
25:08one moment. These You guys digging this?
25:13You guys enjoying this? All right.
25:16So, I want you guys to imagine for a
25:18second.
25:20There we go. So, I want you to imagine
25:22that this line right here. Oo, nice and
25:24wet. How I like it. My markers. Calm
25:26down, guys. Okay. So, I've got this
25:29line. This represents your revenue or
25:31whatever your current level of activity
25:33or output is. Okay. This is output.
25:35whatever your thing is. Okay? Now, what
25:39happens is most entrepreneurs, they say,
25:41"You know what? I'm going to change
25:42something." All right? And guess what
25:43happen? Because they think they're going
25:44to change something and things are going
25:45to get better, right? You tweak
25:46something. You mess around. You change
25:47your page, change your script, change
25:48your onboarding process, whatever.
25:50Right? So then what happens? Well, if
25:53there's people involved, typically
25:54output will go down. You have to retrain
25:55the team. They have to practice. You
25:57know, this variable affected two other
25:59variables you didn't know about. And so
26:01you get and this is completely based on
26:03my observation you typically get about a
26:0520% decrement or decrease in
26:08performance. Okay. And so what this has
26:12created for me is my minimum rule of
26:1520%. Which is that if something is going
26:20to give me a guaranteed 20% decrease in
26:22output by me changing it. Now this is
26:25initial. What ends up happening after
26:26that is it might not work and then you
26:29stay here or it might be worse and this
26:30goes here or it might get better and it
26:32comes back up eventually, right? And
26:34then maybe you have a 5% higher output
26:36here and now this is now your new
26:38baseline and it's a little bit higher
26:39than it was before. Now here's the
26:42thing. If you have a 20% guaranteed
26:45decrease and you have the potential for
26:47a 5% increase, do you take that bet?
26:50No. But I see entrepreneurs every day,
26:53myself included for many years, taking
26:55that bet over and over again because I
26:57was like, I just have to get it better.
26:58I just have to get it better. But it was
27:00a fallacy. It's not true. Sometime like
27:03your business will never be perfect and
27:04you have to accept that fact. It will
27:06not be perfect. You will always see
27:07things that you could and the thing is
27:09is you don't even know if it's going to
27:10get better. You just aren't sure if it's
27:12quote good enough and so you just want
27:13to change it. You want to mess with it,
27:15right? But the magic is the compounding
27:17returns you get when you do the same
27:20thing over and over again. you get this
27:21this depth of understanding, this depth
27:23of skill that happens with repetition,
27:25right? If if if if necessity is the
27:28mother of invention, repetition is the
27:30father of skill. All right? And so, so
27:34coming back to our 20% here, right? This
27:37is this is cute, right? But let's look
27:38at what entrepreneurs will normally do.
27:40Maybe they'll start seeing some increase
27:41here, but what do they do next? They
27:43say, you know what, I've got this other
27:45idea I have. And so then they get
27:46another 20% decrease. And so they're
27:49constantly living significantly below
27:51their output means or your revenue or
27:53whatever your thing is, below what your
27:54potential is because you're constantly
27:57changing stuff. And I want to be real
27:59with you for a second. If you're a small
28:00business owner, you've got, you know,
28:02maybe 10, maybe 20 employees or if
28:05you're anything less than that, then
28:06like hear me right now. The amount of
28:09resources that you have to implement
28:11change are so limited. I like they're so
28:14limited. I pick like one big thing a
28:17year that I do like one. And what
28:21happens is when you realize how limited
28:24your resources are in order to deploy
28:26successfully a new change or a new
28:28experiment, what happens is it forces
28:31prioritization. It forces you to focus
28:33on what things if I only had one thing
28:35that I could do this year, what one
28:37thing would I be like, this is the bet
28:39I'm going to take. Well, it certainly
28:41wouldn't be a 5% thing, right? Well,
28:43maybe if you write handwritten cards,
28:44we'll get a 5% increase in referrals.
28:46Maybe, right? But given those resources,
28:48what else could you do? Right? And so,
28:51when you look at the whole thing, the
28:52whole spectrum, and this is how I want
28:54to I want to frame strategy for you
28:56around this. So, most people think about
28:59business strategy
29:05like they think about making dinner. So,
29:07they go to their kitchen, they open up
29:08the fridge, they look what's inside,
29:10say, "What what what am I going to whip
29:11up?" Right? That's how they think about
29:12business strategy. But the question that
29:15we should be asking isn't what am I
29:16going to whip up from what's inside the
29:18fridge. We should ask the question what
29:20the [ __ ] do I want to eat
29:22and then go get the ingredients and go
29:24make it happen. And so when you when you
29:26have when you're saying I'm only going
29:28to take one bet or two bets this year
29:30that going to be material, then it
29:32forces you to be like it's got to be
29:34worth it. Because here's the part that
29:35no one else knows is assume let's this
29:37is still the same output, right? You've
29:39got your output. What happens is that if
29:40you change nothing, believe it or not,
29:42people get better at their jobs, that
29:45people just keep getting better. They
29:47get more skilled. And so, you'll
29:49typically have one, two, 3% increases
29:51that happen kind of month over month
29:52from you just not changing anything,
29:55from just leaving it alone. And so, this
29:57has taken me so much time because I'm a
29:59natural I'm a yes hinge, right? I'm
30:01like, let's do it. Let's shake it up.
30:02Let's change things. Like, because the
30:04thing is is I have this need from my
30:08business. I I like earlier days the
30:10business satisfied multiple needs and I
30:13didn't satisfy the business's needs.
30:15Meaning I had cravings for novelty. I
30:18wanted to do new things. I would get
30:20bored of doing the same thing over
30:21again. And so because of that boredom, I
30:23would say, "Let's shake it up." But why?
30:26Because the times I've made the most
30:27money in my life have not been when I've
30:29been changing the most. It's actually
30:30when the business has been really boring
30:31and we're just blocking and tackling and
30:33doing it over and over again. And so
30:35this is something that some people never
30:36learn. Honestly, a lot of entrepreneurs
30:38never learn this. And the hard question,
30:42the hard problem to solve is not the new
30:44idea that you want to try. It's how can
30:47I do more once I've already exhausted my
30:50existing way of doing more. I before we
30:53hopped on the chat was frozen because we
30:56have this like screen thing that I can
30:58see the chat, right? Um and there was
31:01like six chats from the last time that
31:03were like frozen on the screen. And one
31:05of the guys said, um, I've got $1,000
31:09and 800 old contacts. What would you do
31:13if you were me starting a real estate
31:15business?
31:16And I
31:18read that and I've basically been
31:20thinking about it this entire time while
31:22I've been making those two other videos.
31:24And so I wanted to talk to it because it
31:25kind of moved me a little bit.
31:29What I want to like what I want to
31:32explain is it's it's so [ __ ] hard.
31:38And
31:40when I say it, I'm saying like when you
31:43start out in business, it's unbelievably
31:46hard.
31:48And the reason that business owners at
31:50the highest levels get compensated the
31:52way they do is because they were able to
31:56make it through that period. They earn
31:59the right to earn above average. They
32:03earn the right to earn more in a day
32:05than people earn in their lifetimes.
32:09And I think there's a sort of spiritual
32:12strengthening and that's probably words
32:13you wouldn't normally say. So maybe I'll
32:15use my behavior frame, which is that you
32:17have to learn how to behave in hard
32:20circumstances so that you can continue
32:23to make it through the hardships that
32:25will inevitably come as you grow. And
32:30growth comes from a deficiency between
32:33your current and desired or your current
32:36and required. You need to be here and
32:39you're here. And that stretch hurts
32:42because you're inadequate. You have to
32:44look at yourself in the mirror and be
32:45like, I'm not good enough. And they call
32:47them growing pains for a reason. And so
32:50if you're like, man, I wish I could grow
32:51really fast. You're actually wishing for
32:53a tremendous amount of pain for an
32:55extended period of time. And then when
32:57people don't have that, they hit their
32:59first pain. They're somehow surprised
33:01that it hurts. And the thing of the pain
33:03of business is it's not just like this
33:05this visceral physical pain. Of course,
33:07you have those from time to time, but a
33:09lot of the pain of being in business is
33:10not knowing the [ __ ] you're doing and
33:12feeling like an idiot. Being like, "Why
33:14am I not good enough? Why do these other
33:16people why are they doing so much better
33:18than me?" Like, what what conclusions
33:20can I drive derive from that? There's
33:22only one of two paths. Either I have
33:24something outside of my my control that
33:26I can cast my blame to, or I have to
33:28take the punch to my ego and say, "I'm
33:29just not that good. That guy is better
33:31cuz he's unethical." Okay, sure. if
33:34that's what makes you feel better. And
33:36now what?
33:38And so the things that make it hard is
33:40that one, you have to accept that you're
33:42not good. And you have to do it over and
33:44over and over again, right? When you
33:45think you're good again, you pro like
33:47the world proves to you that you're not
33:48as good as you think you are. And and
33:51this happens at all levels of business.
33:53And you get like the same thing as when
33:55you have those plateaus. It's been a
33:56year, it's been two years, it's been
33:58three years, right? And you've been
33:59stuck in this in this gear. Like it
34:02means that you haven't changed. you've
34:04behaved the same and so you're getting
34:05the same outputs and the change is
34:07painful and sometimes the the painful
34:10change means that you actually have to
34:12take two steps back and your ego not
34:14only has to get hurt but hurt even more
34:16because you have to realize that you
34:17built your thing wrong. You hired the
34:19wrong leader, you have the wrong team
34:21culture within a department. What do you
34:23do? Well, you either leave it there and
34:24stay stay perpetually under your
34:27potential because you weren't willing to
34:29confront the difficulty of the
34:30inconveniences that are going to come to
34:32you as a result of making the changes
34:34that you know you need to make but
34:35aren't making.
34:37And so I I bring this up because like
34:41everyone humans like we're so
34:43interesting in that we believe that
34:45we're the first people to ever love the
34:46way you've loved to feel the pain that
34:48you felt to feel ignorant. to feel
34:51unwanted, to feel not enough,
34:54like we feel like we're the only people
34:55who experience this. Like our our pain
34:57is more than other people's. Our love is
34:59deeper than other people's.
35:02But when we do that, we rob ourselves of
35:04the ability to learn from others that
35:05came before us. The other people who
35:08already learned what this is like,
35:10who've described the pain. And listen,
35:11even if you even if you try to take as
35:14much advice as you possibly can, you're
35:15still going to get burned. It's still
35:17going to hurt. And in the earlier days,
35:20like I have yet to see somebody who who
35:22who takes again and I'm talking about
35:24I'm talking about homo sapiens. I'm not
35:26talking about Elon Musk. All right? I'm
35:28not talking about Mark Zuckerberg, you
35:30know? I'm not talking about Bezos. I'm
35:32talking about homo sapiens. I'm talking
35:34about flesh and blood people who are
35:35made of of the of of normal folks. All
35:37right?
35:41I have yet to see someone
35:45really start figuring out what's going
35:47on in less than five years. And I'm
35:49saying five years of being in the game.
35:51Not five years of I have an idea. I'm
35:53really passionate about this. I've been
35:55reading stuff on the side. I work on the
35:56weekends. I'm saying I'm allin for five
35:59years.
36:01And you just start. You just begin to
36:04get a grasp of what it takes to to be
36:08good at business. And the difficulty is
36:10that it's so hard to teach business in
36:13school because it changes so much. The
36:15principles remain the same, but the game
36:18changes, right? And I'll say I'll say
36:21one of my one of my favorite quotes from
36:22the wire. Um, Cuddy, who is a uh, you
36:26know, who was muscle for one of the
36:27gangs, comes out after like doing a
36:29murder hit taking a murder charge. Um,
36:32anyway, gets out gets out, you know, 15
36:3415 years later, whatever. Um, and he
36:37goes back and he's right back on the
36:38street and he went back to the gang and
36:40he's like, "Man," he's talking to the
36:43other, you know, the other guy who's
36:44muscle before they're about to go, you
36:46know, shoot some guys or whatever. And
36:47he says, he's like, "Man," he's like,
36:49"The game changed." And Slim Charles
36:52says back to him right as they're like
36:54putting their gloves on about to like
36:55[ __ ] their gun. He's like, "No, man."
36:57He's like, "The game the same, just more
37:00fierce."
37:02And so it's like the level of game
37:05always continues to rise because the
37:07players get better. Business is an
37:08infinite game. And I think that we judge
37:11ourselves because we somehow believe
37:12that we're behind other people. It's one
37:14of the most painful things that we can
37:16do is that we just obviously you compare
37:17yourself and then after making the
37:19comparison there's nothing wrong with
37:21comparing yourself to other people.
37:22That's how you figure out discrepancies.
37:24But then you label then you say and I
37:26suck as a result and I'm worthless and
37:29I'm not never going to be good enough.
37:30Right? But it's the first part is
37:32valuable. That guy's better at ads than
37:34me. What is he doing that I'm not doing?
37:35I should learn that, right? Not that
37:37guy's better than me at ads and
37:39therefore I suck as a human being and
37:40will never win. So what label do we
37:43ascribe to that discrepancy?
37:45And so if we see if we make that
37:47comparison, right, then we can learn the
37:49steps to get better. Fine. But if we
37:52zoom all the way out and really think
37:53about this because this is a little bit
37:54trippy.
37:57The game of business
38:00has been going on since the dawn of
38:03time. There were merchants in ancient
38:05Egypt 5,000 years ago that were in the
38:07game of business.
38:09And the game of business will never end.
38:12It's an infinite game. Who was the
38:14number one merchant in Egypt 5,000 years
38:16ago? No idea. Who was the number one
38:19merchant 4,000, 2,000, 1,000 years ago,
38:23200 years ago? No one knows. And so we
38:27have this idea that we're somehow going
38:28to become number one. But I'm like at
38:30what? At net worth. And then eventually
38:34your kids become trust fund kids and
38:37then that gets divided up 10 more ways
38:39because no one's got game like you. And
38:41eventually you just you've got, you
38:43know, eight family members on the Forbes
38:45list, okay? And none of them are the
38:47ones that actually made it and none of
38:49them know how to multiply because they
38:50aren't in the game. They never learned
38:51the skills of the game.
38:53Like if you see the game as constant and
38:55only thing that changes the players.
38:59So my mom used to say this thing which
39:01was um and this I doubt this is her
39:03quote but um
39:06the news is always the same
39:10only the names change.
39:13So think about that. So you look at the
39:15headlines, right? It's like bankers get
39:18greedy.
39:21Sounds Does that sound like it sound
39:22like new news? No, they just changed the
39:24names. You know, jealous husband kills
39:27wife themsself.
39:31Same same news. It's not even news. It's
39:35just humans being human. And so business
39:38news is also the same way. Hot new
39:41technology comes out, grows really fast,
39:45find out actually not good, crashes
39:48quickly, investors lose millions. This
39:52stuff is the same. It's the same. Like
39:56boy learns how to sell, boy learns how
39:58to advertise, boy learns how to make
40:00product, boy eventually makes lots of
40:02money, boy eventually gets old, tries
40:05to, you know, give back to a certain
40:07degree, becomes a philanthropist, old in
40:10his age, uh, retreats a little bit, the
40:13next kin comes in line, not as good as
40:15that person, maintains, third generation
40:18destroys.
40:20It's just humans doing human [ __ ]
40:22right? And so I say this because a lot
40:25of the hardship of business is is
40:27comparing yourself and labeling that
40:28comparison and saying that I'm not
40:30better or worse than these people, but
40:32all the players on the board are going
40:33to get swapped in 100 years. All the
40:35players, the whole board gets wiped. The
40:39game still goes on, but the players
40:41change.
40:43And so I think like if you can, and it's
40:46not easy. I want to be clear. It's not
40:47easy. Humans, you know, we're we're
40:48we're status driven beings. Um, and
40:51that's kind of built into how we how we
40:53uh how we procreate. Um, but to the
40:55degree that you can, if you can, if you
40:58can actually give yourself a pat on the
41:01back, as long as you do one thing, which
41:03is that you stay in the game,
41:06you keep playing, you keep rolling the
41:08dice.
41:11You have my offers book. Can you Is that
41:14Is that open? Is there an open on that
41:15somewhere? Let's see if I can grab it.
41:18Hold on. Oh, my leg. I did legs this
41:20morning. Hold on.
41:24I'll read this to you guys because I
41:25think you guys Some of you guys may have
41:28heard this. Some of you guys may not
41:29have.
41:31So, I'm going to read this to you
41:32because I think it's cool.
41:37Oh, you know what? I think it's I think
41:38it's the lead's book. I should know. I'm
41:40the one who wrote the book, right?
41:44By the way, if you haven't read these
41:45books, you should totally check them
41:46out.
41:49>> [sighs]
41:49>> Where is it? Anyone? Do you know which
41:52one has the dice the dice one in it? Is
41:54that the offers book?
41:58I think it's the offers book. The many
42:00sided dice.
42:05Where's the many sided dice?
42:09Where's the many sided dice? Do you guys
42:11know which book it is? It's the offers
42:13book.
42:18Where is it? I want to read this. It's
42:21gonna it's gonna like it's gonna it's
42:22gonna be perfect. It's perfect thing
42:23that I want to keep saying here.
42:26>> What is it?
42:28>> It's leads.
42:30I should know this, right? I wrote the
42:32damn book. Here it is. Wow. I literally
42:34turned to it. Hold. All right. Cameras
42:36can confirm that. I literally turned to
42:38it. Wow. Dude, it was me. Dude, the
42:41spirit's moving. The spirit's moving.
42:43All right. So, someone besides me wanted
42:46you guys to hear this.
42:48So,
42:50this is the story of the many sided die.
42:52So, I wrote this. I didn't hear this.
42:53This was just like a concept I wanted to
42:55uh to share. [snorts] So, imagine you
42:58and a friend play a dice rolling game.
43:01You're each given one die. One of the
43:04die has 20 sides. The other has 200. On
43:07each die, only one side is green and the
43:10rest are red. The point of the game is
43:13simple. Roll green as many times as you
43:16can.
43:18The rule, sorry, the point of the game
43:19is simple. The rules of the game are as
43:21follows. You can't see how many sides
43:23you have. You can only see if you roll
43:25red or green. If you roll green, one of
43:28your sides turns, your red sides turns
43:30green, and you get to roll again. If you
43:33roll red, nothing happens, and you get
43:35to roll again. The game ends when you
43:37stop rolling. And if you stop rolling,
43:40you lose. So, what do you do?
43:43you roll.
43:44When you roll red, you pick up the dye
43:47and roll again. When others roll green,
43:50you pick up your dye and roll again.
43:52When you roll green, you pick up the dye
43:54and roll again. You keep telling
43:56yourself one thing. The more I roll, the
43:59more greens I get. At first, you roll
44:02green once in a while. But as more red
44:05sides turn green, the green happens
44:07more. With enough rolls, hitting green
44:09becomes the rule rather than the
44:11exception.
44:13So, what does your friend do? He rolls a
44:16few times and hits red each time. He
44:18sees you roll a green and complains that
44:20you must have a die with fewer sides. He
44:22reasons, "It's the only way you could
44:24have rolled green before him. And
44:26although you did, you also rolled many
44:28more times. So, which is it?" In either
44:32case, he rolls a few more times in
44:34frustration and hits a green. But then
44:36he complains about how long it took. He
44:38spent more time watching you and
44:39complaining than actually playing.
44:41Meanwhile, you've hit your green streak.
44:44It's so much easier for you. He tells
44:45himself, "You get greens every time.
44:48This game is rigged, so what's the
44:49point?" And he quits. So, who got the
44:52die with the 20 sides? Who got the die
44:55with the 200 sides? If you get the game,
44:58then you see that once you roll enough
45:00times, the die you're given doesn't
45:02matter. The die with fewer sides might
45:05roll green sooner. The die with more
45:07sides might roll green later, but a die
45:10with a green side always has a chance of
45:13rolling green if you roll it. Every die
45:17hits its green streak when rolled enough
45:19times. All of us get a many-sided die.
45:23And looking at the other players, you
45:24have no idea if it's their hundth roll
45:27or their 100th,000th.
45:29You don't know how good other players
45:31are when you start. You can only see how
45:34well they do now. But if you understand
45:37the game, you also know it doesn't
45:39matter. A few begin playing early,
45:43others begin much later. The rest sit on
45:45the sidelines complaining about how
45:47lucky the players are. I guess so. But
45:50they're luckier because they play. And
45:53when they hit red, which they do, they
45:55didn't quit. They rolled again. Learning
45:58how to advertise is a lot like the game
46:00of the benny of die.
46:02You don't know if it's going to work
46:05until you try. And
46:09no matter how many players there are or
46:11the number of sides in the die you're
46:12given, you start to see the only two
46:15guarantees that the games will give.
46:17Number one, the more times you roll, the
46:19better you get. And number two, if you
46:21quit, you lose. So I I I read that story
46:25because that's obviously a story of an
46:27infinite game. You and your buddy get
46:30given two die. One of you has a
46:3220-sided, the other has a 200s sided
46:33die. You don't know who has which.
46:36They're all, you know, you don't know
46:37how many have reds, how many have
46:39greens, and there's one green on each.
46:42You roll it, and if uh if you hit the
46:44red, uh nothing happens. If you hit
46:47green, you get one of your many sides
46:48that turns green, and you get to roll
46:50again. And the only statistical
46:52probability there is that if you keep
46:54rolling enough times, all of the sides
46:55will turn green on both die eventually.
46:57but you just don't know how many sides
46:59the die that you're given has on it that
47:01are red, which means you just don't know
47:04how many shots you're going to have to
47:05take in order to win. And that's why
47:08having high frustration tolerance,
47:10having high fortitude,
47:13having low or high resiliency and high
47:16adaptability, those skills of mental
47:19toughness are what allow you to stay in
47:21the game of business. It's what allows
47:23you to keep rolling the dice even when
47:25you get smacked at 20 times in a row. as
47:27reds because maybe you have a 2000s
47:29aided die. But if you know that the one
47:32fact of this game is that if you keep
47:33rolling, you keep playing. And if you
47:36keep playing, it means you're in the
47:37game. And if you're in the game, it
47:38means you've won. Because in infinite
47:40games, there are no winners and losers.
47:42There is only players and quitters.
47:47And so I think that it took me a very
47:49long time to learn that. And so when you
47:51are starting out, you are just early.
47:53You were just you have more reds left to
47:56roll. You just got to get them out of
47:58the way. You got to get the failures
47:59out. It's the only way you figure out
48:01how to play.
48:03You just don't want to lose so bad that
48:06you die. But as long as you don't die,
48:08you can keep playing.
48:10And I feel like that actually is a
48:12pretty hopeful message despite my
48:14relatively aggressive demeanor. Let's
48:16say you sell, you know, $10,000 a month
48:20service of some sort, right? you do some
48:22highle video stuff and you have like
48:25seven corporate clients, right? And they
48:28all pay you $10,000 a month. So, you're
48:30making 70,000 a month. If all of a
48:32sudden two projects end and you go to
48:3450,000 a month by percentage, you just
48:37had a massive, you know what I mean, dip
48:39and like if you were running quote 20%
48:42margins, you would be under $7,000 a
48:45month. So, like 20 is 40 14 off 70,
48:48right? And so like you would be losing
48:50$7,000 a month working full-time, right?
48:53And that's also what people don't
48:55appreciate like about business owners
48:56later is they're like, "How are they
48:57making so much money?" It's like because
48:59there was a period of years where they
49:01would work 80 hours a week and then lose
49:03money. And so like that's one thing I
49:05remember actually I had a it's actually
49:08it's kind of a there's a there's a two
49:10two twopronged moral of the story. So
49:13early days when I had the gym um or the
49:16gyms, my uh trainers at one of the
49:19locations kind of came together and had
49:21like an intervention with me and they
49:23were like uh we all want raises and so
49:29mind you the gym at that time wasn't
49:31making a ton of money and uh it was
49:34really cuz I just wasn't there. They
49:36were like, "We're running this thing,
49:38not him." And that was also because I
49:40rewarded no one for anything. And so I
49:43didn't know how to lead. I didn't know
49:44how to manage all that kind of stuff.
49:45And so anyways, they like all confront
49:47me together. And I could tell that they
49:48had like practiced this talk and like
49:50all this [ __ ] Um but I
49:55I was not to be trifled with in this
49:57particular moment. And so um I was like,
50:02"You guys know how this works, right?" I
50:05was like, "Let me let me explain what
50:06happened." I was like, "So
50:08last month, I was like, you guys all
50:11worked, right?" And they're like,
50:12"Yeah." And I was like, "And you guys
50:13got paychecks, correct?" I was like, "So
50:16there was a year
50:19where I did that." I was like, "But
50:22rather than get a paycheck, I didn't get
50:26one." And then my just personal bank
50:28account went down.
50:30I was like, "You guys see the
50:31difference?"
50:32I was like, "What that is is risk that
50:35you guys never took." And I was like,
50:37"So, I'm being compensated for risk that
50:39you did not take."
50:41Now, I did not say that in a very nice
50:43way, but fundamentally that I was like,
50:46"Your bank account, if you show up to
50:48work, cannot go down.
50:51It literally only goes up. You get paid
50:53no matter what. You come here, you get
50:55paid as long as I am a legal business
50:57owner who pays bills, right?" I was
51:00like, "You have no chance." I was like,
51:01there are periods where I work really
51:03hard and then I don't get paid and I'm
51:05thrilled because my bank account didn't
51:06go down. The TLDDR of that was that they
51:10decided that it it made sense to that
51:13the business wasn't in a position to
51:15give raises um at that point.
51:19>> That checks out.
51:20>> Yeah. And you know what, as a business
51:22owner, that's tough. You know what I
51:23mean? Like most business owners want to
51:26pay people more. Especially, you know
51:28what, the amount of times I talk to
51:29small business owners, myself included,
51:31that are like, man, I just want to be
51:33able to pay my team more because like
51:34they also appreciate that their team
51:36shows up and helps them create their
51:37vision and all these things. It's like
51:39they wish they could, but there's also
51:41the big thing is the is the big V word
51:43is volatility. Let's say there's a year
51:45of income in a business, especially
51:46small business, and let's say does uh
51:48that million dollars in profit for
51:50example, million dollars in profit. If
51:53you look at the financials because we
51:54look at them all day of different
51:55companies, the amount of months where it
51:57just it's negative, not even positive is
52:01I mean four months a year the the bank
52:03count goes down. And so even though at
52:05the end of the year the employees might
52:07look at the financials and say like hey
52:09we made you know 20% margins on 5
52:12million so we made a million dollars in
52:13profit on five. This is what it feels
52:16like as the entrepreneur.
52:18$5 million a year uh in topline revenue
52:21means you're doing 400ish a month.
52:23$400,000 a month is
52:27you're making a hundred
52:29of that of of that or well not even 80,
52:33right? Of that of that 400 in revenue is
52:36is your profit. So think about how easy
52:40it is to just go from 400 to like 3 320
52:45one month. It's like no profit. Boom.
52:47just like that and then you're like,
52:49"Oh, this month we did, you know, $340."
52:52It's like that's $20,000 on $340,000
52:57of revenue. Meaning, and this is this is
52:59where this was a huge realization for me
53:02early on cuz I started making more money
53:04and I was like, I'm making more money,
53:05but I don't feel better. And it was
53:09because let's say I make uh you know
53:13$80,000
53:14three months in a row for my
53:17million-doll run rate. Okay. Well, the
53:19thing is is that next month I still have
53:23$320,000
53:25of cost before I make my first dollar of
53:29profit. And so even though I made 80
53:318080 my savings if no money comes in
53:36this month I still can't keep the lights
53:38on. And so like this is where the margin
53:41piece like people who aren't in the game
53:44don't get is that you really it it takes
53:47a very long time to feel secure
53:49financially as an entrepreneur. Usually,
53:51you don't feel that way unless either
53:52you've been in business for a really
53:53long time or you have some very large
53:55exit at some point because you can look
53:57back at your bank account and say,
53:58"Okay, all of the costs that are coming
54:00in this month, I can pay out of my bank
54:01account for the next 6 months." Most
54:04people cannot do that because if you
54:05have a 10 or 20% margin, well, a 10%
54:08margin means nine months of cost of
54:12profit of costs come in every month.
54:16And so, like you make your 10% and
54:18people are like, "Man, he's making
54:19money." It's like, but the entrepreneur
54:20is just like, if I don't make enough
54:22this month, I lose nine months. Like, it
54:25lets me zero dollars come in next month.
54:27I still have 90% of those cost
54:29liabilities of payroll and rent and
54:31inventory and the other [ __ ] that
54:35is just coming out of my bank account.
54:37And so, they don't feel secure. And
54:38also, that's again when the boys are
54:39like, we all need a raise. It's like,
54:41well, if I move that watermark that the
54:43the amount that I can skim off the top
54:45in the occurrence of a bad month, it's
54:48like, okay, would everybody here like to
54:50have a 10% pay raise, but in 3 months
54:53when the bank account goes under, the
54:54whole business is done?
54:57Well, no. Right? And so, more better,
55:00new. Now, this isn't going to be a new
55:01concept for anyone who's listening to my
55:02stuff, but I will have a slightly
55:04different take on this. New is
55:06incredibly risky. And so this is the
55:08best analogy that I've I I visualized
55:10this year that I'm probably going to
55:11take with me for the rest of my life,
55:13which is I want you to imagine here we
55:15go. Actually, look at this. If I have
55:17these these candies, all right, and I
55:20throw them all over the place. If I keep
55:22doing this, how likely is it that all of
55:25them are going to end up in the exact
55:27position, separated by color and stacked
55:29together? Very unlikely. I would have to
55:32hit refresh and keep doing that many
55:34many times until eventually all of these
55:38are lined up, stacked up on on each
55:40other super nicely in a way that's
55:42organized. Right? This would take a lot
55:44like could it happen? Of course it
55:46could. It is statistically possible. Is
55:48it likely? No. And so when you think
55:51about this, this is six pieces of candy,
55:53right? There are variables within your
55:55business that create the business that
55:56works, right? And so when you have your
55:59business and it is stacked, it is
56:01working, it is generating revenue, the
56:03likelihood that you changing one of
56:05these variables makes the building or
56:08makes the stack or the business better
56:10goes down. And the taller the stack is,
56:15the more evolved your business is, the
56:17more bricks in that building have been
56:19properly placed. And so the higher the
56:22likelihood the next move is the wrong
56:24move if it's something different. So
56:27I'll give you a marketing version of
56:28this. If you have something called a
56:30control and you have a variant when you
56:31run a split test, AB split test. If you
56:34have a control that you've run 36 split
56:36tests on and it has won 36 of those, it
56:39is the number one control, the
56:41likelihood that you changing that
56:43resulting in an improvement is low. And
56:46so if you think about your business as
56:48it currently stands is there's many
56:49different ways to align these variables.
56:51Almost all of them are not profitable
56:52businesses. You happen to have one that
56:55actually works. And so if you have that
56:57then the highest risk adjusted move that
57:00you can make is that you do more of the
57:02thing that already works. I will keep
57:03doing more bricks in this order because
57:05that has worked before. Right? You might
57:07try and do better which is a tiny
57:10variation off of what you're currently
57:12doing. But something truly new rarely
57:15works. And so and it also usually takes
57:18the most resources. And so for us, if
57:22we're going to do something new, I give
57:24myself one new thing a year. One. So
57:27what was the one new thing this year? It
57:29was the book launch. That was this year.
57:30Next year, you'll find out what it is,
57:32right? But I get one. And it's because I
57:34know what the tremendous drain of
57:36resources is. One big thing, one new
57:40thing. And so I would say that the
57:42bigger the companies that we have, the
57:43more resources we have, the fewer new
57:45things we're doing. Because when you
57:46when nothing works, you want to hit
57:48refresh as many times as you can. You
57:50want to do lots of new [ __ ] cuz
57:52nothing's working. But as soon as
57:53something works, then you start to have
57:56direction. You want to have less and
57:58less deviation from that, unless you
57:59really believe there's an existential
58:01risk that would require you to change
58:02everything, which is significantly less
58:04likely than you really think it is. In
58:05fact, I would say many business owners
58:07will destroy their businesses in reality
58:10for problems that they have manufactured
58:12artificially. Problems that have not
58:14even yet occurred because they are
58:15afraid of them happening when in reality
58:17when that problem happens, it's not
58:19going to happen overnight. And you're
58:20going to have some some some heads up
58:23probably. And for those of you who are
58:25old enough to have businesses during co
58:27so if you had business at least for at
58:28least for five years, right, or six
58:30years, you know that you'll survive.
58:33you'll adapt just like you always have.
58:35And so do not try and change the
58:37business to solve problems that do not
58:39exist because there is more than enough
58:40problems that absolutely do exist today
58:42that you should be solving. And so going
58:44back to more and this has been something
58:46that's been just I feel like I've got
58:47another layer of paint on the more
58:48better new is that often times the
58:51highest return question is why can't I
58:54do more of the thing that's working?
58:55Now, there's usually a much deeper,
58:57harder problem that you have to solve
58:59once you do the easy moores, but there's
59:01always a way to do more than you
59:03currently are. And it's just that once
59:05you realize that the level of difficulty
59:06of what it takes to do the next more is
59:09harder than doing something better or
59:11new. So, instead of you bucking up and
59:13and and saying, "I'm going to focus on
59:15this very hard problem," you then
59:17distract yourself with reasonable
59:19problems that no one will blame you for
59:20solving. Because the biggest risk to the
59:22business is not like a stupid decision
59:24because those are unlikely to actually
59:26occur. The real risk to your business is
59:28the second, third, and fourth most
59:30profitable things that you could do
59:32rather than the most viable thing that
59:34you can do. This was a very important
59:35lesson for me this year. And so when you
59:38get clear on what the harder question is
59:40that you need to ask of why can't I do
59:43more and now it's getting hard for me to
59:45do it. Then we have to remove every
59:47distraction that you have that makes you
59:49think about anything besides solving
59:51that problem. That's it. And sometimes
59:55the answer to that hard problem isn't a
59:57one week, a 4- week or 4 month solution.
1:00:02Sometimes you realize that your culture
1:00:03is [ __ ] and you have to fix the
1:00:05culture and that's going to take you 18
1:00:07months. And when you're 6 months into
1:00:09it, things will feel worse than they did
1:00:11when you started. But it doesn't make it
1:00:13any less of the correct decision for the
1:00:16business. It just means that your
1:00:17reinforcing event or the reward for the
1:00:19work that you're going to have is far in
1:00:21the future. And it doesn't mean that 6
1:00:23months in you should now change course
1:00:25because it hasn't started working yet
1:00:27because you knew when you started and
1:00:29you realized that this was the true
1:00:30constraint of the business that this was
1:00:32going to be a long and painful road
1:00:33ahead of you. And so you do not want to
1:00:35then solve try and come up with a new
1:00:37solution when the first solution never
1:00:39had time to bear fruit because sometimes
1:00:41the most productive thing you can do in
1:00:43the business is give time time. Let the
1:00:45solution actually work. This has been a
1:00:47very hard lesson for me many times as an
1:00:50entrepreneur and I just want to pass it
1:00:51to you because many of you guys have
1:00:52many half-built bridges. You you had a
1:00:54way to get across but you knew it would
1:00:56take four months but one month in you
1:00:58were still suffering. You thought well
1:00:59maybe I'll do this but it's like you
1:01:00never let the first bridge get finished.
1:01:02And so in a real way for me, I realized
1:01:04that I needed to build a brand. I've had
1:01:06I'll give you two examples of this. So
1:01:07one early days of Gym Launch, Leila and
1:01:09I realized that we had an entire tier of
1:01:12directors that were not competent
1:01:16enough. And so over the next 12 months,
1:01:19we had to turn 11 out of 11 directors.
1:01:21Very painful. And when you turn
1:01:22directors, what do you think you also
1:01:23have to do? Sometimes you have to turn
1:01:24the teams underneath because they had a
1:01:26low bar. And so they brought in a lot of
1:01:28low bar people. There was obviously some
1:01:29good people they brought into, but like
1:01:31very very painful process. Kind of
1:01:33killed morale for that whole year. But
1:01:36we knew that we weren't going to be able
1:01:37to grow the business because the level
1:01:39of skill of that team was not sufficient
1:01:41and we our bar was too low and
1:01:44unfortunately we can't fire ourselves
1:01:46and so we had to do the next natural
1:01:47thing. That was very painful. 6 months
1:01:50into that culture is worse and we
1:01:52haven't turned the whole leadership
1:01:53team. Was it the wrong course of action?
1:01:54No. Should we change course? No. But it
1:01:57means that you have to learn to suffer
1:01:58because sometimes the correct growth is
1:02:00the most painful path because the
1:02:01highest leverage move often is the
1:02:03hardest problem that you're not choosing
1:02:04to allocate attention towards solving.
1:02:06In a more recent one, I was at 30 to 40
1:02:08million a year for 3 years for gym
1:02:11launch. And the big aha that I had was
1:02:13that I needed to build a brand and that
1:02:16took years. And so when I went into it,
1:02:18I was like this I will have to keep
1:02:20doing this for many years before I'm
1:02:21going to bear any fruit from this. And
1:02:23my income when I made that call went
1:02:25down for the first two years by a lot.
1:02:28And so I think you have to be willing to
1:02:30stomach that period of time or you will
1:02:32never be able to do the real solutions
1:02:34that are really going to move the needle
1:02:35because most business owners will do the
1:02:37second, third, fourth thing, the
1:02:38incremental improvements rather than the
1:02:40order of magnitude changes that
1:02:41typically take order of magnitudes in
1:02:43terms of time and effort. So number 11,
1:02:46it's okay to just make money. So hear me
1:02:49out. There's something that I like to
1:02:50call the third marshmallow fallacy. And
1:02:52so it goes like this. So many of you
1:02:53guys have probably heard about the
1:02:54research study of like, okay, we they
1:02:56videotaped kids and they said, we'll put
1:02:57one marshmallow in front of you and then
1:03:00if you wait, you know, whatever, 10
1:03:01minutes, we'll give you a second
1:03:02marshmallow. And the kids that wait, you
1:03:03know, 10 minutes, they're more
1:03:04successful in life because it's, you
1:03:06know, proxy for your ability to delay
1:03:07gratification. Okay. What's interesting
1:03:09about that is that people then assume
1:03:11that delaying gratification is always
1:03:13the best course of action. And this is
1:03:15why this is a very interesting lesson.
1:03:16If you delay gratification indefinitely,
1:03:20then you will work your entire life for
1:03:22nothing because you have delayed
1:03:23gratification and then you will die.
1:03:25Said differently, if you were the ant
1:03:27that always saves up your money for the
1:03:30winter and you keep saving and keep
1:03:31saving, keep saving and then you die,
1:03:33you have a big stack of crumbs that you
1:03:35will never have done anything with. And
1:03:37so the question is no longer like once
1:03:40you have learned to delay gratification.
1:03:41So this will be me talking a little bit
1:03:42more to the winners in the room. Once
1:03:44you have learned to delay gratification,
1:03:46you then have to learn the even harder
1:03:47task of the appropriate time to accept
1:03:50gratification. Real. So this is
1:03:53incredibly difficult especially for
1:03:54winners because in the earlier part of
1:03:56your career you be you get reinforced
1:03:58you get rewarded for delaying
1:04:00gratification. And often times it is
1:04:02there is a dose relationship as in the
1:04:04longer you delay the bigger the outcome.
1:04:06So you just continue to learn to delay
1:04:08more and more and more. But there is a
1:04:10time where it comes to reap because you
1:04:12cannot sew forever. And so I was having
1:04:14a conversation with a friend of mine who
1:04:16was like, "Hey, I don't want to do this
1:04:17thing because it's not going to add
1:04:19enterprise value." But the amount of
1:04:21money that we were talking about for
1:04:22this particular deal was like hundreds
1:04:24of millions of dollars. And I wasn't
1:04:28even that confident that the the other
1:04:29thing was going to happen and it would
1:04:31be like 10 years in the future from now.
1:04:32And so we need to allow some risk
1:04:36adjustment for outcomes to make their
1:04:40way into the decision. If you can get
1:04:42paid today versus getting paid in 5
1:04:45years, there is a value to that money
1:04:48because you have five more years of
1:04:50being able to use those resources to
1:04:51acquire more resources. And so I would
1:04:54say that something that has shifted in
1:04:56me particularly was that it's okay to
1:04:59make money. Like you can also just make
1:05:01money for the sake of making money. And
1:05:02I think that's fine. And I'll say this
1:05:04differently, which is like in a business
1:05:06perspective, let's say that you have a
1:05:09service based business or you have a
1:05:11software business, whatever. And you
1:05:13don't want to sell your own time
1:05:15one-on-one. Totally okay. And you you
1:05:18don't want to do it because you do not
1:05:19want to get any revenue that doesn't
1:05:21have a high multiple. Okay, that's fine.
1:05:24Well, let me tell you the story. So,
1:05:25when I started my first gym, I had one
1:05:28personal training client who paid me in
1:05:30cash every month. He paid me about
1:05:32$4,000 a month in cash for personal
1:05:34training. I did it was like 90 minutes a
1:05:35day, 5 days a week. So, it was a lot of
1:05:36personal training. But that guy giving
1:05:39me that cash every single month, even
1:05:41though it was not scalable, it was not
1:05:42something that I could sell someday.
1:05:44That money paid for me to eat, right?
1:05:47And it allowed me to delay gratification
1:05:49on the rest of the business. But
1:05:51somebody who would be a purist of like,
1:05:52well, you shouldn't you should eat even
1:05:54more [ __ ] you should, you know, you
1:05:55should suffer even more during that
1:05:57period of time would have said you
1:05:58shouldn't have taken that distraction.
1:05:59You should have just worked even more in
1:06:00the business. But I just I don't I don't
1:06:02think that's true. And so I I say this
1:06:05only to the winners. If you're somebody
1:06:06who's never learned to grat delay
1:06:08gratification, you've never learned to
1:06:09save up for the winner, you can't you
1:06:10still overspend your income, ignore this
1:06:12entirely. But for those of you who are
1:06:14the savers, who do always live
1:06:16underneath of your means, who are
1:06:17willing to delay thing one year, 5
1:06:19years, 10 years, you have to then also
1:06:21be able to make the decision when do I
1:06:24ask, when do I reap? And I'll give you
1:06:27one more example and then I'll move to
1:06:28the next point, which is this is super
1:06:30common in content creators, and I think
1:06:32this is why I ended up writing this.
1:06:34I've seen a number of creators, I
1:06:36remember I had a conversation with a guy
1:06:37who who said, "Hey, I have this Twitter
1:06:40following that I've built over the last
1:06:42however many years." And I said, "Okay."
1:06:43And he said, "I would like to better
1:06:45monetize my following." And I said, "All
1:06:47right. Well, how many times do you like
1:06:49do you do you like what CTAs do you
1:06:51have? Do you you know what do you what
1:06:53do you tell them to do?" And he's like,
1:06:54"Oh, nothing. I never want to sacrifice
1:06:56the goodwill I have with my audience."
1:06:58And I was like, "Okay, why did you build
1:07:00this brand to begin with?" He said,
1:07:01"Well, I wanted to make money." And I
1:07:03said, "Okay, how do you expect to make
1:07:05money if you never ask for it?" Because
1:07:07he had been taught, I have to delay. I
1:07:09have to delay. And to be fair, of course
1:07:11you have to delay. But at some point you
1:07:14have to make the decision now is the
1:07:16time. And to be clear, it doesn't mean
1:07:17that like now he has to ask every single
1:07:19day. It just means we have to begin the
1:07:21process of reaping. And so for you
1:07:23forever seers, and I put myself in that
1:07:25bucket of always wanting to under under
1:07:27spend and and always delay to the
1:07:29future, there is a line that you need to
1:07:31be able to draw for yourself for today's
1:07:32the day. I will begin reaping now. And I
1:07:35think that is it is a it is a entirely
1:07:37personal question because it's also
1:07:39fundamentally answering the question how
1:07:40much do I invest versus how much do I
1:07:42consume. I think the answer to that
1:07:43question is entirely individual but I
1:07:45think most of us can agree that invest
1:07:48forever consume nothing is probably not
1:07:50the way and consume everything invest
1:07:52nothing is also probably not the way and
1:07:54so it's somewhere in the middle where
1:07:56you will have to pick what's right for
1:07:57you but it is in the middle somewhere
1:07:59which means you will have to consume at
1:08:01some point you will have to reap and you
1:08:03need to know that it is okay you might
1:08:05also die and so you know you're going to
1:08:07lose sleep you'll doubt whether it'll
1:08:09work you'll stress to make ends meet you
1:08:12won't finish your to-do list. You'll
1:08:13wonder whether you made the right call
1:08:15and have no way to know for years. This
1:08:18is what hard feels like, and that's
1:08:20okay. Everything worth doing is hard.
1:08:23And the more worth doing it is, the
1:08:25harder it is. The greater the payoff,
1:08:28the greater the hardship. If it's hard,
1:08:31good. It means no one else will do it.
1:08:34More for you.
1:08:37I think a lot of entrepreneurship and
1:08:39even personal growth is training
1:08:40yourself on how you respond to hard
1:08:45because in the early days hard was ooh
1:08:48stop this isn't good I should I should
1:08:50this is a warning sign this is a red
1:08:52flag I should slow down or I should stop
1:08:53you know I should pivot but the more I
1:08:56think about it as a competitive
1:08:58landscape as I'm clear on what this path
1:09:01is supposed to look like and these rocks
1:09:03and these dragons are things that I'm
1:09:04going to have to slay along the
1:09:06to get the princess or get the treasure.
1:09:09I get happier about the harder it is
1:09:12because I know that no one else will
1:09:13follow.
1:09:13>> It's a selection effect. And I think if
1:09:16you can if you can shift from this is
1:09:18hard to no one else will be able to do
1:09:21this, then it it's it flips from being
1:09:23this thing that you're like, "Oh, poor
1:09:24me." to, "Oh, poor everyone else who's
1:09:26going to have to [ __ ] try."
1:09:27>> And I think that is so much more
1:09:28motivating as a frame for the exact same
1:09:30circumstance.
1:09:32>> Yeah, that's awesome.
1:09:34I was thinking
1:09:36a lot about the lonely chapter that we
1:09:38talked about the last time. That was the
1:09:39best most powerful idea I think that we
1:09:41came up with. And
1:09:45if you see
1:09:47there basically being no shortcuts
1:09:49toward getting the thing that you want,
1:09:52there are ways to be more and less
1:09:53efficient and there are ways to do
1:09:55things with more and less of a positive
1:09:57disposition which can actually make the
1:09:58journey feel an awful lot easier. But
1:10:01ultimately, if you assume that largely
1:10:03everyone needs to go through the same
1:10:04challenges that you're going through,
1:10:07every single difficult thing that you do
1:10:09is kind of like a massive wall that you
1:10:11need to get over. And you go, "Wow,
1:10:14[ __ ] I'm so glad that I've got over
1:10:16that wall." And think about how many
1:10:18people are going to be selected out.
1:10:20It's like the Hunger Games, you know?
1:10:22Think about how many other people are
1:10:23going to fall that wall there.
1:10:27>> People only root for people who don't
1:10:29need it.
1:10:32like the amount of times when I was on
1:10:34my lonely path where I was too different
1:10:38from the friends that I had but not
1:10:40successful enough to be friends with the
1:10:41people that I wanted to be friends with.
1:10:47That's when that's when you want people
1:10:49to root for you. That's when you want
1:10:51people to support you. Once you've
1:10:53already won, people are like, "He's
1:10:55amazing. He's so good." But like that's
1:10:58the time when you need it the least. And
1:11:00so
1:11:02you always have to be the person who
1:11:04roots for you before everybody else
1:11:05does.
1:11:07And it's usually a single clap in the
1:11:10auditorium for a very long period of
1:11:13time. It is a slow clap that's just you
1:11:16rooting for you. Um
1:11:19and that visual I think is one that you
1:11:21can kind of take because it is
1:11:26people struggle to do things alone
1:11:29and the path of the exceptional person
1:11:32is one of an exception which means that
1:11:34you are not with other people and rather
1:11:38than fighting that or bemoning it
1:11:41see it as an indicator that you're on
1:11:44the right path because if everyone else
1:11:46were cheering you on then it means
1:11:47you're not in the right place because it
1:11:49means you're just like everyone else and
1:11:50that's not where you want to be.
1:11:53>> It's an interesting paradox that
1:11:58the energy it requires to start doing
1:12:00something is way more than the energy
1:12:02required to continue doing the thing and
1:12:05that the beginning of doing anything
1:12:07results in the lowest amount of reward
1:12:09both internal and external than when
1:12:12you've been doing it for ages. So, I
1:12:14think about this a lot with the show
1:12:15that there was this stat that Spotify
1:12:18told us 85% of the listeners of this
1:12:21show found us in 2023,
1:12:24>> right?
1:12:25>> And I thought at the end of 2022,
1:12:27remembering at that point I'd been on
1:12:28Rogan, we were at like 650K. We've got,
1:12:30you know, we've been doing 550 600
1:12:34episodes deep. Like, I I'm I've got it.
1:12:36I've done the thing. Like, this is this
1:12:37is me doing if this isn't [ __ ] doing
1:12:39the thing. I've moved to Austin, Texas.
1:12:40I've got an 01 visa. I've got like the
1:12:42all the rest of the stuff. Jordan
1:12:43Peterson's been on twice. You've been
1:12:44on.
1:12:47And yet the
1:12:50what?
1:12:52Everything up until that point is
1:12:56>> two months of growth.
1:12:58>> Yeah. I mean, we made we made more money
1:13:00for just from a revenue perspective. We
1:13:02made more money and more subs in one
1:13:04month December of last year than we did
1:13:06in the entire first three and a half
1:13:07years of the show. So, it's this odd
1:13:10paradox. And one of the things
1:13:13that you need to ensure I've had this
1:13:15idea about protect your passion at all
1:13:16costs because if you if you begin to
1:13:19hate the thing that you do, you
1:13:20negatively change your trajectory. And
1:13:22that means that at the time when you can
1:13:24benefit the most by every single unit of
1:13:27work, which is the later that you go,
1:13:29presuming that you continue to hit that
1:13:30upward trajectory. If you've completely
1:13:33killed any passion or desire to do the
1:13:35work in the early stages because you've
1:13:39>> you've not protected it appropriately.
1:13:40That can be by focusing on the wrong
1:13:43things, by not rewarding yourself, by
1:13:44not building it with people that care
1:13:45about you, by, you know, just not not
1:13:48celebrating when you hit milestones. all
1:13:49of the things that actually help to keep
1:13:50you going.
1:13:51>> Being a character,
1:13:53>> by the time that you get to the stage
1:13:55where each unit of effort allows you to
1:13:57gain a thousand or a million of each of
1:13:59the things that it would have done at
1:14:01the very beginning, you've inverted the
1:14:04uh like the passion equation takes way
1:14:07more energy to start a thing than to
1:14:09continue doing a thing. And yet in the
1:14:12beginning, the rewards are way lower
1:14:13than they are at the end. But if you
1:14:15don't protect your passion, your
1:14:16motivation is at its lowest when you are
1:14:18at your highest amount of efficiency in
1:14:20terms of returning your time put in.
1:14:22>> I think a hopeful message that anyone
1:14:25can think about who's about who's in
1:14:27that hard period or in that start period
1:14:28is that
1:14:31it won't get harder. Like this is the
1:14:35hardest part. And so if you can just
1:14:37make it through this, everything else is
1:14:40downhill. It's not that the things that
1:14:41you're the dragons you're going to slay
1:14:42aren't going to get bigger. they are,
1:14:44but you become so much more equipped to
1:14:46slay them back. And you have so many
1:14:48more allies. You have people in the
1:14:49stands cheering for you. You have the
1:14:51audience. You have all of these other
1:14:52things that are behind you. But in the
1:14:54beginning, it's just you with a stick
1:14:56against a bear. And arguably that fight
1:14:59is a harder fight to win than beating a
1:15:02dragon when you have a nuclear bomb and
1:15:04six nations behind you. And so it's not
1:15:06even like the the size of the hardship.
1:15:09It's just also the resources and how few
1:15:11of them you have and how so much of the
1:15:13beginning is literally burning the one
1:15:15thing you have which is time because you
1:15:17have no leverage. You don't have the
1:15:18money to pay other people to help you.
1:15:20You don't have the resources to go like
1:15:22get someone to to you. No one can learn
1:15:24it for you. It's like there's a lot of
1:15:26the things that that we care about a lot
1:15:28like no one can work out for you.
1:15:30Doesn't matter how much money you have,
1:15:31no one can learn skills for you. And so
1:15:33in the early days like it feels so
1:15:36painful cuz you're like you look around
1:15:37to see who can help you and then you're
1:15:38like [ __ ] it's me again. And I think
1:15:42getting comfortable with the idea that
1:15:43each of these things kind of like Slum
1:15:45Dog Millionaire if you've seen that
1:15:46movie where he I'll give you the TLDDR.
1:15:49He goes through his entire life of
1:15:50randomness and he gets on a who wants to
1:15:52be a millionaire version in India and
1:15:54has 12 questions to make a million
1:15:56dollars and from only 12 random
1:15:59experiences in his life that seemed
1:16:00meaningless at the time was he able to
1:16:02answer all of the questions and then
1:16:03ultimately win. The skills that you
1:16:06develop along the way like Steve Jobs
1:16:08learning calligraphy that then became
1:16:09Apple fonts that you know transformed
1:16:11how we type.
1:16:13those early days, that little trench
1:16:15winning in the weeds
1:16:17often times gives you these huge
1:16:19advantages later on because you have
1:16:21more context than anyone else. And so
1:16:22rather than lament them and hate the
1:16:25fact that you're going through it,
1:16:27remembering that these will be arrows
1:16:29that you put in the quiver that you're
1:16:30going to be using to slay the future
1:16:32bigger dragons. And so
1:16:37expecting it to be easy is what makes it
1:16:39much harder than it ever is.
1:16:43I've always loved earning my stripes
1:16:46with the things that I've done, whether
1:16:47it was with nightlife or running the
1:16:49podcast or doing whatever. And I think
1:16:53there's like a degree of nobility to it,
1:16:55but functionally that's kind of that's
1:16:57just like it's a nothing like what's the
1:16:59where's the what is the nobility? But I
1:17:01think the reason that you can feel noble
1:17:03about it and the reason that it gives
1:17:05you a positive reward is you know that
1:17:09you understand every single inch of the
1:17:12things and that if you want to hold a
1:17:15conversation we went out for dinner with
1:17:17our new CFO and and accounts people on
1:17:21Saturday and they said you ask a lot of
1:17:23questions. Most people don't ask very
1:17:25many questions and I also don't care at
1:17:29all about accounts really like I'm not
1:17:32doing this for money but they said you
1:17:35ask a lot of questions. I said well I
1:17:37don't ever really want to walk into a
1:17:38room and not be able to hold my own at
1:17:40least just competently
1:17:43if it's to do with something that I care
1:17:44about. The same thing goes for this.
1:17:46Like I unders I started to learn about
1:17:48focal lengths and frame rates and
1:17:50negative fill reverse contrast lighting.
1:17:53And then sure enough, two years after we
1:17:55started doing it, a bunch of different I
1:17:57sent you the Instagram thing, like this
1:17:58really awesome film Instagram that I've
1:18:01been following for ages picked us up for
1:18:02what we were doing and gave us props
1:18:06independent of the talkie thing, which
1:18:08is fundamentally what we're here for.
1:18:10And we created this entire new industry
1:18:12of like cinematic podcasting which was
1:18:14recognized by as far as I'm aware like
1:18:17the best
1:18:19cinematic. It's called film light at
1:18:21film. People can go and see it on
1:18:22Instagram like the best decoder and
1:18:26analyzer of cinematography. And two
1:18:29years ago when we started I remember
1:18:30thinking [ __ ] like I love the way that
1:18:32they've broken down what happens in Ad
1:18:33Astra. Oh my god the whole thing was
1:18:34shot on 35 mil. Each different scene's
1:18:36got two pairings of colors and stuff
1:18:38like that. And then but the reason that
1:18:41we were able to get there at least in
1:18:42some part is I can have a conversation
1:18:44with people. So each of the things that
1:18:46you do when you not only win in the
1:18:48weeds but live in the weeds then allows
1:18:51you downstream from that to see the
1:18:52things that other people aren't seeing.
1:18:55There's a quote that I love from Dr.
1:18:57Cash. I'll probably butcher it but
1:19:00experts
1:19:02have more ways to win than beginners do.
1:19:06And so if an expert goes into any
1:19:09setting that they're expert in, they
1:19:11have so many faster feedback loops that
1:19:13reward them in the moment before the
1:19:15ultimate outcome. So if you're a master
1:19:17video editor, there's so many things
1:19:18that you can do that while editing, you
1:19:20make one change and then it looks right,
1:19:22you have a positive feedback loop. And
1:19:24so I think when you're on the start
1:19:26path, you can't look at the outcome as
1:19:29the only positive because you will never
1:19:30make it. And so the positive frame that
1:19:33I've always used is sure you can have
1:19:35the external ones of like I like
1:19:36thinking about my first videos had like
1:19:3813 views and I'm like well if I had an
1:19:40audience of 13 people I used to spend
1:19:42years pitching you know weight loss
1:19:43stuff to rims of 13 and that was fine.
1:19:45And so thinking about that way was
1:19:47helpful but the the most helpful frame
1:19:50was thinking about who I was becoming as
1:19:54the asset that I was building. So in
1:19:56real time whenever I finished a long
1:19:58day's work, I was becoming more like the
1:20:01type of person who could work for 5
1:20:03years without reward. And that would be
1:20:05part of the story I would someday tell.
1:20:07And so some of the biggest reinforcers
1:20:09I've had in my life has been future
1:20:12casting the story that I would tell
1:20:13about the shitty period that I was in.
1:20:15Like I remember when I was sleeping on
1:20:16the floor at my gym cuz I didn't have
1:20:17enough money for two rents and I was
1:20:19like I will [ __ ] tell this story. And
1:20:21when I lost everything for the first
1:20:23time, I like I have the screenshot of
1:20:25the bank account. Like when I show it,
1:20:27people are like, "Oh, look, there's that
1:20:28thing." But they forget that there was a
1:20:29person who screenshotted it to be like,
1:20:31"This won't [ __ ] happen again." And I
1:20:35think having a larger narrative of where
1:20:38you're ultimately going, one gives you
1:20:39the vision of where you're like the like
1:20:42knows where he's going, but it allows
1:20:46the dragons that you have to slay along
1:20:48the way, the hard things that you have
1:20:49to overcome to feed into the larger
1:20:52narrative of who of the story that
1:20:54you'll someday tell. And so like no one
1:20:55ever tells stories about the hero who
1:20:58made it all happen immediately and had
1:21:00no hardships. No one cares, right? Like,
1:21:02okay, you were born to a billionaire. Is
1:21:04there a story there? Not really. But
1:21:06everyone loves the story because we can
1:21:08see ourselves in the character and how
1:21:10much we hope to be like them. And it's
1:21:13the being like them, not the having what
1:21:15they have that we usually like. And so
1:21:18reframing ourselves as the hero of that
1:21:20narrative in my harder times was what
1:21:24really got me through that and thinking
1:21:28I will tell this story someday. Have you
1:21:29heard Rogan talk about the be the hero
1:21:31of your own story thing?
1:21:33>> Oh, dude, this is old now. I think this
1:21:35is maybe maybe even 10 years old. Maybe
1:21:3610 years old.
1:21:37>> Um, and he's in one of his old he's in
1:21:40the LA podcast studio and he says,
1:21:44"Imagine that you're in a movie and
1:21:46imagine the movie begins now and you're
1:21:50the hero of the movie."
1:21:51>> Yeah.
1:21:51>> What would that guy do?
1:21:53>> Yeah.
1:21:54>> What would that guy do right now?
1:21:56>> Yeah. because you are
1:22:00>> I just got into business. Um, so
1:22:03actually I just made the investment in
1:22:04school. Um, and I was talking to Sam,
1:22:07the founder, and I said, "What?
1:22:10>> Sim?
1:22:11>> Sam?
1:22:11>> Sim?
1:22:12>> What's Sim?
1:22:13>> Sim. That's the way he says he's
1:22:14>> Oh, yeah. Um, and I was and I was
1:22:17talking to him and I said, I want to
1:22:19give you the single easiest razor to
1:22:21predict my behavior." And I said,
1:22:23'Whatever will be the most epic story is
1:22:26the thing that I will most likely do.
1:22:29And so often times the most epic story
1:22:31is not the shortest outcome to victory.
1:22:34It's the long saga that results in this
1:22:37big thing later eventually. And I was
1:22:40like, if you ever want to know, if
1:22:41you're like, I'm not sure what he's
1:22:42going to do in this situation, just
1:22:44wonder what the most epic story to tell
1:22:47would be, and that's usually what I will
1:22:48do. And
1:22:51I don't know if that's self arandizing,
1:22:53but that's that's genuinely my razor for
1:22:57even making the like the big decisions
1:22:59about, okay, I'm going to sell gym
1:23:00launch. I'm going to I'm going to marry
1:23:02Leila. I'm going to slum it and live at
1:23:05the gym. I'm going to fly around and do
1:23:07turnarounds. I'm going to start this
1:23:09whole idea of a media company that just
1:23:11gives exclusively. Like, how do like how
1:23:14do I put all these together? It's like,
1:23:15well, what would be the most epic story?
1:23:17And I thought of this idea of just like
1:23:18when I think about who that story I want
1:23:20to tell is is this billionaire that
1:23:23documented the entire thing the whole
1:23:25way and just gave because I always
1:23:28thought I was like I wish that Elon Musk
1:23:30and and Warren Buffett and all these
1:23:32guys would have like and Jeff Bezos like
1:23:33would have just like I would love to
1:23:35have seen 1997 Amazon content and a lot
1:23:40of the content in terms of like it it's
1:23:42getting five views. It's like it's okay
1:23:44because when we make it, they're going
1:23:46to come back and watch this. So, I don't
1:23:47need them to watch it today. I want them
1:23:49to know that it's here when I do. And I
1:23:52think that got me out of this the loop
1:23:55of it. I have to win right now. And then
1:23:57every one of them is just dropping uh a
1:24:00kernel or a breadcrumb for future me to
1:24:02refer back to. If you like this video
1:24:03and you're a business owner who wants to
1:24:04break through your current revenue
1:24:05ceiling, I distilled every lesson from
1:24:07scaling 10 businesses past 10 million
1:24:09and three businesses past 100 million
1:24:11into a completely free scaling road map
1:24:13that I've used to go from 0 to 1, 0 to
1:24:1510, and 0 to 100 plus. And so you can
1:24:17click here and you can check it out.
1:24:18Again, absolutely free. And since you're
1:24:20a business owner, appreciate you. And uh
1:24:22enjoy.

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