You Only Lose When You Quit — Transcript

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1. 0:00Here's something that's taken me way too
2. 0:01long to learn. Staying focused is like
3. 0:03beating addiction. It's not a one-time
4. 0:05victory. You have to fight it all day,
5. 0:08every day. Then, wake up and do it again
6. 0:10tomorrow. Because the thing that's going
7. 0:12to distract you is going to change every
8. 0:14day. The thing that's going to trigger
9. 0:15your addiction to distraction is going
10. 0:17to keep morphing and changing its form
11. 0:21so that it can steal or rob you of your
12. 0:24future. And so, you have to be adaptable
13. 0:26in knowing that you have to fight it
14. 0:27every day. And so, it's not good enough
15. 0:29to just say I was focused for this week.
16. 0:31You've got to wake up on the eighth day
17. 0:33and the ninth day and do it again. And
18. 0:34so, you remember that guy who got rich
19. 0:37drop shipping and day trading and buying
20. 0:39crypto and wholesaling all at the same
21. 0:41time?
22. 0:43Yeah, me neither.
23. 0:44Focus. To win in business, you need to
24. 0:47be able to say no without remorse and
25. 0:50hear no without a loss of enthusiasm.
26. 0:53Which means that you have to keep
27. 0:56feeling rejection, keep failing, and
28. 0:59keep going while
29. 1:02being willing to reject basically
30. 1:04everyone else. And that seems so counter
31. 1:06because you're right there and you're
32. 1:07like, "Man, I don't want to reject this
33. 1:08person because I know what it feels like
34. 1:09to be rejected." You need to be able to
35. 1:11maintain this discrepancy so that you
36. 1:13can create the space to do the work that
37. 1:15needs doing. So, there have been a
38. 1:17couple of lessons that I have learned
39. 1:21over and over again in my career. I've
40. 1:22had to relearn. So, it's a lot like a
41. 1:24like a fine wine. It's like it it gets
42. 1:27better with age and there's more nuance
43. 1:29to the flavor. So, I think focus is not
44. 1:32a are you focused or not, it's how
45. 1:33focused are you. And you can measure
46. 1:35someone's focus by again the quality and
47. 1:37quantity of things that they say no to.
48. 1:38Which means that as you get better,
49. 1:41more opportunities will emerge. Which is
50. 1:43interesting because people who start out
51. 1:45can't see opportunity anywhere. And it's
52. 1:47because they have so few skills. And so,
53. 1:49there's very few opportunities for them.
54. 1:51When you have a lot of skills, there are
55. 1:52so many opportunities that are in front
56. 1:54of you that you feel like you're missing
57. 1:56out. But, the real opportunity is
58. 1:59actually in solving the problems in
59. 2:01front of you. I was able to, in my
60. 2:03opinion, become another order of
61. 2:06magnitude greater in terms of
62. 2:08entrepreneurship, which I would just
63. 2:09measure measure by wealth, once I was
64. 2:11able to learn to say no and accept that
65. 2:16I would not be able to pursue the many
66. 2:18things that I know I could crush.
67. 2:21Because once you realize how much actual
68. 2:23work it takes to make something good,
69. 2:25you realize how few things you're
70. 2:27actually going to be able to do in your
71. 2:28entire life. And so, this is why picking
72. 2:32becomes so important. Right now, the
73. 2:34things that you're going to have to say
74. 2:35no to are really the distractions and a
75. 2:37kind of, in some ways, easy. Say no to
76. 2:40fantasy football, say no to drinking
77. 2:41beers with the boys, going out to the
78. 2:42club, whatever. But, in a year from now,
79. 2:45once you have more skills, there will be
80. 2:46more opportunities. You're going to have
81. 2:47multiple $10,000 monthly income
82. 2:49opportunities that you're going to have
83. 2:50to say no to to stick with the one that
84. 2:52you have. And then, once that thing
85. 2:53becomes a $100,000 monthly thing that
86. 2:55you're doing, you're going to have to
87. 2:56start saying no to multiple $100,000
88. 2:58monthly opportunities. And here's the
89. 3:00thing with opportunities that come up.
90. 3:02They only show you the upside and not
91. 3:03the downside. You have to know where the
92. 3:05skeletons are buried. You have to know
93. 3:07where the bodies are. If you don't know,
94. 3:10and I've gone through this this this
95. 3:11visual because I think about it every
96. 3:13single time I have to walk through not
97. 3:16doing something. You are here.
98. 3:19You see this new opportunity here.
99. 3:21Then you understand the downsides here.
100. 3:24Then you live the downsides. Then you
101. 3:26experience the upside. Then you achieve
102. 3:28your goal. And so, this is the starting
103. 3:31point. This is called uninformed
104. 3:33optimism. This is now informed
105. 3:35pessimism. This is the valley of
106. 3:37despair. And this is where most people
107. 3:39quit. But, what they do is they don't
108. 3:42even quit because they don't want to say
109. 3:43they quit. What they do is they start
110. 3:45another one of these things and they
111. 3:46say, "Oh, this is now my uninformed
112. 3:48optimism." And then, up, now I
113. 3:51understand this more. But, the thing is
114. 3:53is that they never actually get through
115. 3:54to this upside and so they just keep
116. 3:56jumping from thing to thing to thing
117. 3:59over and over again. And so the reason
118. 4:01it takes so long is because you're in a
119. 4:03rush. Big things don't happen on small
120. 4:05timelines because you have to start from
121. 4:07zero over and over again. And if you
122. 4:09actually stick with it, it's actually
123. 4:11the shortest way to get to where you
124. 4:12want to go. It just takes longer than
125. 4:14you think. Must be easy for you to say
126. 4:16is probably something that you might
127. 4:17think while watching this or listening
128. 4:19to this.
129. 4:20And
130. 4:21I like to tell the story because in July
131. 4:24of 2017 is when I started my podcast.
132. 4:28And it was 90 days after I lost
133. 4:29everything the last time.
134. 4:31And from that point until now, it's
135. 4:35taken that period of time to get to over
136. 4:38a million downloads a month. And for the
137. 4:39first three years, and I was making
138. 4:42multiple podcasts, so we're talking
139. 4:43three, 400 episodes, for the first few
140. 4:45years, I never really cracked 3,000
141. 4:48downloads a month. And so I could say,
142. 4:50man, why is this taking so long? But the
143. 4:52real real is that it took me that long
144. 4:55to get good. It also, being extra real,
145. 4:58took me that long to have proof on the
146. 5:00outside that what I was saying was true
147. 5:02on the inside. And right now, no one who
148. 5:04listens to my podcast cares that it took
149. 5:06me seven years to get here.
150. 5:08They just care that it's good today.
151. 5:10And so people quit here when things get
152. 5:12hard because the thought of something
153. 5:14being hard forever is unbearable. They
154. 5:16think that this line is just going to
155. 5:19keep going this way forever, but it's
156. 5:21not because once you fully understand
157. 5:23all the bodies, where the skeletons are
158. 5:25hidden, then you can actually start
159. 5:28solving them one by one.
160. 5:29The thing is is that that distraction
161. 5:32only is distracting because you don't
162. 5:34know what sucks about it. You might
163. 5:36think you know what sucks about it, but
164. 5:37you don't know what sucks about it. And
165. 5:39so the big difference is you have
166. 5:41something called declarative versus
167. 5:43procedural knowledge. And so there's two
168. 5:46types of learning and this is actually
169. 5:47formal. This is uh this is from
170. 5:48academia. So you have declarative
171. 5:50knowledge, which is knowing about
172. 5:52something.
173. 5:54So if you go memorize a fact, or you you
174. 5:56you learn how private equity works,
175. 5:58right? This is knowing about. The other
176. 6:01type of knowledge
177. 6:02is procedural,
178. 6:04which is knowing
179. 6:06how to.
180. 6:08And so a lot of people mistake
181. 6:10declarative knowledge for procedural.
182. 6:12And so they mistakenly think that if
183. 6:15they watch 10 videos on doing a private
184. 6:17equity deal, that it means they
185. 6:18understand how to do a private equity
186. 6:20deal. Or they watch 10 videos on cold
187. 6:22outbound, and they think it means they
188. 6:23understand how to do cold outbound. Or
189. 6:2510 videos on sales, and so forth. But
190. 6:28you're never really going to learn how
191. 6:29to do it until you do it.
192. 6:32And so you're going to learn more from
193. 6:33your first 100 cold calls, your 100 cold
194. 6:36knock on doors, than you will from 100
195. 6:39books or videos that you watch. But I
196. 6:41have good news. Nothing hard lasts
197. 6:44forever.
198. 6:45There's only three things that can
199. 6:46happen. You either quit, it gets easier,
200. 6:50or you get better.
201. 6:52So no matter what, it always ends. You
202. 6:54only lose when you quit before you see
203. 6:56it all the way through. And I think
204. 6:58that's incredibly encouraging. So no
205. 7:00matter how hard whatever it is that
206. 7:02you're doing is, which by the way just
207. 7:03means that your expectation doesn't
208. 7:05match reality. But no matter how hard it
209. 7:07is, you either quit, it gets easier
210. 7:10because something changes externally, or
211. 7:12you get harder, something changes
212. 7:14internally. But no matter what, it will
213. 7:17end. Think about it like you're you're
214. 7:19mining for gold, right? You're you're
215. 7:20chiseling away underground, and you've
216. 7:22got this pile of gold. You don't know
217. 7:23how far away it is, but it's
218. 7:24underground, and you're digging towards
219. 7:25it. This difficulty of swinging the the
220. 7:28the pickaxe can end when one, you walk
221. 7:30out of the mine and say,
222. 7:31there's you know what, marketing doesn't
223. 7:33work. Sure.
224. 7:35The second is that all of a sudden you
225. 7:36hit a soft patch, and then you're like,
226. 7:38oh my god, I'm digging so much faster
227. 7:40now. This is great. And then you get to
228. 7:41the gold.
229. 7:43Or
230. 7:44you just start swinging the axe harder
231. 7:46because you get more muscle, you get
232. 7:47more efficient with your movements, and
233. 7:49you just keep chiseling away even if it
234. 7:51goes from dirt to rock. You just keep
235. 7:53chiseling away at a slower pace, but you
236. 7:55eventually break through and get there.
237. 7:57But in all three of those scenarios,
238. 8:00hard doesn't last forever. Real quick,
239. 8:02if you are business owner and you are
240. 8:03not growing as fast as you like, I'd
241. 8:05like to give you a free gift. So, my
242. 8:07team and I put together the $100 million
243. 8:09scale road map, which is basically 200
244. 8:11hours of us looking over all the
245. 8:12portfolio companies we've had and what
246. 8:14stages of growth they went through, and
247. 8:16more importantly, where they got stuck
248. 8:18and how they got past it. And so, we
249. 8:20broke it into these 10 stages, and we
250. 8:21made this little kind of quiz thing
251. 8:23where if you put in your business
252. 8:24information, it'll tell you where you're
253. 8:25at, and the most important part for you,
254. 8:27what to do for each of functions of the
255. 8:29business across product, marketing,
256. 8:30sales, customer success, recruiting, IT,
257. 8:32human resources, and finance. And so, no
258. 8:34matter what you're struggling with,
259. 8:36someone else has already struggled with
260. 8:37it and solved it. And so, I'd like to
261. 8:39give you this thing absolutely free. You
262. 8:41can go to acquisition.com/roadmap,
263. 8:42plug in your business information, and
264. 8:44if you want us to actually help you
265. 8:46deconstruct the business and you're
266. 8:48trying to scale, we'd love to help you
267. 8:49out. On the thank you page, you just
268. 8:50book a call with my team, and we will
269. 8:53look at the business, see if we can
270. 8:55help, and if we can, we'll invite you
271. 8:56out to Vegas, and we'll do this in
272. 8:57person live.