0:00 Here are brutally honest truths that
0:01 will give you an unfair advantage. I'm
0:03 Alex Shamoszi and the founder of
0:04 acquisitions.com. It's a portfolio of
0:06 companies that generate hundreds of
0:07 millions of dollars in revenue per year
0:08 in aggregate. And a lot of my success in
0:10 business has come from finding and
0:12 exploiting unfair advantages. So
0:14 hopefully this video helps you do the
0:16 same. So let's start with number one.
0:18 Pain is the price of
0:20 progress. The fastest growth periods are
0:23 often the most miserable. If you want to
0:26 progress, get used to pain. If you think
0:28 about what actually occurs when you
0:30 grow, you stretch past your point of
0:32 comfort. So even if you're growing a
0:33 muscle, like you stretch it, you break
0:35 it down, it's painful. If you have
0:37 growing pains, like as a kid, it's like
0:39 you grew too fast and your joints are in
0:40 a lot of pain. If you're a company and
0:43 you expand, this is technically supposed
0:45 to be good stuff, but it doesn't make it
0:46 any less painful. Elite athletes don't
0:49 get stronger during easy workouts. If we
0:52 want progress, we must accept the price
0:55 of pain that's attached to it. You
0:57 cannot both want progress and live an
0:59 easy life. These two things conflict.
1:01 Number two, happy but not satisfied. So,
1:05 let me explain this. So, you're allowed
1:08 to be happy before you hit your goal,
1:10 just not satisfied. And so, there's a
1:12 very big difference between being
1:14 content with your life, content with
1:15 your work, and complacent, meaning
1:17 you're not going to take any more
1:18 action. There's this great Haitian
1:19 proverb, which is behind mountains are
1:22 more mountains. It's kind of like after
1:24 every peak, you can just see more peaks
1:25 ahead of you. The work works on you more
1:28 than you work on it. For me, I remember
1:30 I had a year that I basically went into
1:31 retirement trying to figure out what I
1:33 wanted to do. And the thesis that I came
1:35 out with was that hard work is the goal.
1:38 And so, the fact that there's something
1:39 that happens as a result of hard work is
1:41 really just a secondary effect. It's a
1:43 consequence, but the goal is the work
1:45 itself. I, you know, I had a friend this
1:47 morning who messaged me. They're like,
1:48 "Why do you still work?" And I was like,
1:49 "Because it's the thing that I enjoy
1:51 doing most." And when I looked back on
1:53 my life, when I didn't work, I was bored
1:56 and felt depressed. And when I do work,
1:58 I am stressed, but I do have moments
2:00 that I really enjoy as well. I took this
2:02 as a kind of a foundational truth for
2:04 me, not for everyone, that there is
2:06 misery on both sides. So, I might as
2:07 well be productive and useful. And the
2:09 only way to be productive and useful is
2:11 to be happy about the process, but not
2:14 satisfied so you can continue to provide
2:16 value to the world. Now, number three,
2:19 ignore critics. Now, this is probably
2:21 easy to say, hard to do. So, let me let
2:25 me break this down a little bit more.
2:26 So, friendly reminder that most people
2:29 are fat, poor pansies. Don't listen to
2:31 them when they try to deter you from
2:33 doing whatever it takes to succeed. So,
2:35 the average person will always try to
2:37 keep you average. It makes sense that if
2:40 you want to be extraordinary, you will
2:42 do things that an ordinary person would
2:43 see as extra, right? And so a lot of
2:47 people, and this is this is the really
2:48 hard part that I had to come to terms
2:49 with, is that a lot of people want to
2:51 see you fail because it justifies the
2:53 risk that they chose not to take. We
2:54 always have to think about listening to
2:55 the people who are closest to our goals,
2:57 not closest to us. And if you want a
2:59 more violent version of this, your
3:01 critics are going to eventually die and
3:05 their opinion isn't going to matter
3:07 then, which means it probably also
3:08 doesn't matter now. So, might as well do
3:11 what you wanted to do originally. Number
3:13 four, selective
3:17 productivity. Productivity comes from
3:19 all the things that you choose not to
3:21 do. I'm going to define two more terms
3:23 for you because I think it's important.
3:24 I see commitment as the elimination of
3:26 alternatives. So, if I get married, then
3:29 I eliminate all alternatives to the
3:30 person that I'm married to. Right? That
3:32 is commitment, right? Which is very
3:34 similar to focus. Focus, if you think of
3:36 the hypothetical extreme of focus, is
3:38 that somebody does literally nothing but
3:40 one thing. So they don't eat, they don't
3:41 sleep. They would eventually die, but
3:43 they would be 100% focused during the
3:44 time that they were alive, right?
3:46 Obviously, we have to put a couple
3:47 things in. You have to eat food, you
3:48 have to sleep, right? But the most
3:50 focused person does the fewest things
3:52 outside of the thing they're focused on.
3:54 Focus is about the number of things that
3:57 you say no to. Having this framework is,
4:01 in my opinion, more powerful for
4:02 productivity than just about anything
4:04 else. Right? People are always trying to
4:05 figure out like productivity hacks, but
4:07 they want to add things to their lives
4:08 to become more productive, which is
4:10 completely counter to what focus even
4:12 means. It's getting rid of everything
4:14 that's not the thing is how you focus.
4:16 Now, part of that also means
4:17 environmentally, right? So, if you like
4:20 have a window that you look outside of
4:21 and you've got people who walk past your
4:22 office and people can knock on the door
4:24 and you've got Slack notifications, of
4:25 course, you're not focused because all
4:26 of those things are not the work. So,
4:28 I'm going to give you an analogy here.
4:30 So, imagine there's a wall that you have
4:32 to get over. All right? In order to you
4:33 have to get a critical mass to get above
4:35 this wall, right? And so you start
4:38 putting up, you know, these
4:40 ladders against the wall to try and
4:42 climb over the wall. All right, this
4:44 should make some sense. But as you try
4:46 to build up the the little rungs of the
4:48 ladder, so you put four rungs up. Well,
4:51 you're not going to get the critical
4:52 mass required to get over the hump to
4:54 actually get the success you want. But
4:56 the idea, the fallacy is that, oh, I'll
4:58 just do all three or four of these
5:00 things and I'll see which one works.
5:02 When the reality is that any of them
5:04 work, but none of them will work unless
5:06 you work on one. And so, we have to take
5:08 these four rungs that we're able to
5:09 build and say, you know what, we're not
5:11 going to do that. We're going to put
5:12 that rung here because I'm going to take
5:13 that time that I'm putting for my second
5:15 opportunity, put it here. I'm gonna take
5:16 this rugg and put it right here. And
5:19 then I'm gonna take this rug and what do
5:20 you know? I can get over this hump on
5:23 top and I can get to the other side of
5:25 the wall, which of course is where all
5:26 the money and all the happiness and all
5:28 the, you know, the girls uh with, you
5:30 know, beautiful, beautiful hair. Look at
5:32 this beautiful hair, right? This
5:33 beautiful hair. Now she's looks like a
5:35 bug. Anyways,
5:36 uh there you
5:38 [Music]
5:39 go. What's crazy is that this literally
5:41 happens at all levels of business. Like
5:43 people who are starting out trying to
5:44 start five things, people who are at
5:46 like their second or fifth year. I
5:47 talked to a guy last night who has a
5:49 really good business, really good
5:50 margin, 50% margins, has great revenue
5:52 retention. He was in cyber uh security.
5:54 People stay with him, people pay. He has
5:56 no problem getting customers. He has no
5:57 problem delivering on them. I was like,
5:58 "What's the problem?" He's like, "Me?"
5:59 He said, "I just I get bored." He's
6:01 like, "I just want to start more
6:02 things." And I'm like, "Yeah, you got to
6:03 stop that." Like, it's like the thing is
6:06 is think about how much more successful
6:08 you'd be. So, zoom all the way out.
6:10 Think of somebody who gets better every
6:12 single year and works on the same
6:15 project for 20 years. You'd be like, "My
6:17 god, that guy's probably really
6:19 good." And what's interesting about this
6:21 is that it doesn't matter what project
6:23 the person works on. You do 20 years of
6:25 reps and you do nothing else, you're
6:26 going to be good. And so if you know
6:29 that that's a that's a fact, that's a
6:31 certainty that you're going to be good
6:32 with 20 years of practice, then the
6:34 objective is to just get 20 years of
6:36 practice in one thing and stick with it.
6:38 So, like your plans aren't working
6:41 because the plans are wrong. The plans
6:42 aren't working because you're not
6:43 working on the plan. The hard part about
6:46 the plan is not creating the plan or
6:48 even following the plan. It's sticking
6:50 with the plan. That's the hard part. All
6:52 right. Number five,
6:55 fear versus regret. So, change is scary,
6:58 but so is regret. And so, the life you
7:01 live depends on the one you fear most.
7:03 The more successful version of yourself
7:05 also has fear. is that that your fear of
7:08 regret is greater than your fear of
7:11 rejection. Think about that for a
7:12 second. I'm going to say it one more
7:13 time. Your fear of regret must supersede
7:17 must be bigger must be greater than your
7:20 fear of rejection. And so I remember
7:22 when I when I when I quit my management
7:23 consulting job, which took me six
7:24 months, so I'm not saying this from a
7:25 pedestal. It took me six months of I
7:28 decided I wanted to quit. It took me six
7:30 months before I actually quit. By the
7:31 way, you can measure how powerful
7:32 someone is by the distance between when
7:34 they make a decision and when it happens
7:36 in reality. So, if you want to feel
7:38 impotent, then take as long as you
7:40 possibly can between when you make a
7:41 decision and when you act on that
7:42 decision. Now, for me, it was 6 months.
7:44 And all I did was I called my friends up
7:46 every night. I was like, "I'm going to
7:47 quit my job. I'm going to start a
7:48 business." And I, you know, we talk
7:49 every night, literally every night. And
7:50 I would be pacing in my condo like, "I'm
7:52 going to do it. I'm gonna do it." And I
7:53 wouldn't do it. I was too afraid. I was
7:55 too much of a scaredy-cat. But the thing
7:57 that got me over the hump was this.
7:59 Number one, I knew that when I looked
8:01 back on my life, if I never took the
8:05 jump, I would have been ashamed of
8:06 myself and I would have felt like I was
8:08 a pansy and I was like, I can't die a
8:10 pansy. I have to be able to make a jump.
8:12 Number two, I played out plan B, which
8:14 is, okay, let's say I actually
8:16 completely fail. What happens? I was
8:18 like, well, I'm not really going to be
8:20 homeless. I know enough people that I
8:22 can get food, right? And I was like,
8:23 okay, so I would probably just couch
8:25 surf. I'd have a little bit of shame,
8:26 but at the end of the day, what would I
8:28 really do? Well, I could always apply to
8:29 get the job that I had back, or I could
8:31 just go to another place with an
8:33 experience or a story that would set me
8:35 up for something cooler later. And so,
8:37 all of a sudden, I was like, wait, so my
8:38 plan B is that I just have a cool
8:40 experience that I can talk about at a
8:42 job interview or to go to business
8:43 school. Okay, that's that doesn't
8:45 actually sound that bad. And so, there's
8:46 this huge amorphous fear, but I've just
8:49 noticed in my life that fear only exists
8:51 in the vague. It doesn't exist in the
8:53 specific. If you're afraid of something,
8:55 try and break it into pieces and spell
8:57 it out. play out the next two or three
8:58 steps because all of a sudden if you're
9:00 in the developed western world, the
9:03 downside risk is not really real. Like
9:06 the only real downside risk is the
9:08 opinions of other people who will say
9:10 that you failed who you don't care about
9:11 anyways. But like you think you're going
9:14 to die, but you're not. You're just
9:16 going to learn some stuff and you'll be
9:18 like, "Oh, maybe next time I'm not going
9:19 to make that mistake." And that's it.
9:20 And I say this and it's easy for me to
9:22 say, but it took me six months to figure
9:23 this out. But I do remember my final
9:25 straw was the realization that I had at
9:27 the time no girlfriend, no kids, and I
9:31 had no real, you know, financial
9:32 responsibilities besides like eating and
9:34 having a place to live. I said, if I
9:37 can't make the decision now because it
9:39 feels too risky, I will never be able to
9:42 make the decision because if other
9:43 people rely on me, now some of you are
9:45 in a position where people do rely on
9:46 you and you're like, "Well, Alex, you
9:48 know, I've got people who rely on me."
9:50 Yeah, I would say that it makes it
9:52 harder and what now? Harder and so what?
9:56 But for me, that was the thing that got
9:58 me over the hump. Was like, if I don't
10:00 do it now, I'm never going to do it. I'm
10:01 never going to have fewer
10:03 responsibilities. And to to play this
10:05 out a little bit more, if you have
10:07 people who depend on you, their
10:08 dependencies on you might increase. And
10:09 so, if you can't do it now, you still
10:12 might as well do it, right? Because it's
10:13 only going to go one way. Number six,
10:17 persistence creates timing.
10:21 So you can time everything perfectly if
10:24 your intention is to never stop. I'm
10:26 going to say this one more time. You can
10:29 time everything perfectly if your
10:31 intention is to never stop. So think
10:32 about this visually. So let's imagine
10:34 that this line right here is is the is
10:37 your lifeline. It's life as time passes.
10:39 Right? Now let's say that you have some
10:42 special thing that's going to happen
10:43 here and some special opportunity that
10:45 happens here and some special
10:46 opportunity that happens here. What most
10:48 people try and do is they don't want to
10:50 take they don't want to work at all and
10:52 then they're like, "Oh, I'm just going
10:53 to work here and then I'm going to work
10:54 here and then I'm going to work here."
10:57 But the likelihood that you're there in
10:58 these three moments is very low if
11:00 you're trying to time it. But if you
11:02 work the whole time, then the timing
11:05 will always be perfect because you will
11:06 be ready. And so perfect timing is a
11:08 complete myth. But perfect preparation
11:10 isn't. And that on a long enough time
11:12 horizon, your opportunity will come.
11:14 People think that they need perfect
11:15 conditions to start when in reality
11:16 starting is the perfect condition. It
11:18 creates the perfect condition for
11:20 opportunity to be capitalized on. And I
11:22 can tell you this from firsthand
11:24 experience with me, like the more you
11:25 do, the more you see you can do. And so
11:29 opportunities multiply with skill. And
11:32 so the better you get at doing stuff,
11:34 the more things you know you would be
11:36 able to do and win at. And so the goal
11:39 is to gain as many skills as possible so
11:41 that you have access to the maximum
11:43 number of potential opportunities. A lot
11:45 of people were thinking that oh I'm
11:46 going to wait for the right moment. But
11:48 when you have unlimited skills like Elon
11:50 can go do whatever he wants. He could
11:52 build a city in the middle of the ocean.
11:54 And so he could do that. He has the
11:56 skills because the world of
11:58 opportunities open to him. He also spent
12:00 all of his younger years just developing
12:01 all these different skills and becoming
12:03 a polymath across all these different
12:04 things. Independence political stuff.
12:06 Put it away. The point is the guy's
12:07 good. All right. And so the goal is to
12:09 get good and then you will never have a
12:11 shortage of opportunities. Number seven,
12:15 envy versus effort. All right. Let me
12:18 break this down. If people worked for
12:21 their goals as hard as they envy others
12:23 for achieving them, they would already
12:25 have achieved them themselves. So think
12:28 about the amount of mental effort that
12:29 goes into the hate that people spew out,
12:31 the envy for wanting other people's
12:33 stuff. I'll give you a couple hard
12:34 truths about this. Number one, no one is
12:37 doing as well as you think they are. So
12:39 by comparison, you're actually better
12:40 off than you think. Number two, you
12:42 don't win by beating people. You win by
12:45 growing into your potential and then
12:46 allowing them to shrink into irrelevance
12:49 by consequence. Three, and guess what?
12:52 Your biggest threat is not your
12:54 competition. It's a mediocre version of
12:57 you that never realized what you could
12:59 become. And as pathy as that may sound,
13:02 it's also true, right? A lot of people
13:04 think it's like, oh, you know, that
13:06 guy's doing really well. It's like his
13:07 doing well changes nothing about your
13:10 reality. Something really ironic that I
13:12 noticed is that the people who get
13:14 copied the most by their competition are
13:16 the people who ignore the competition
13:18 who are copying them. Fundamentally, you
13:21 start by focusing on the customer. And
13:23 if you always put the customer first,
13:25 everyone will copy you because you're
13:26 actually doing the thing that will work,
13:27 which is focusing on the customer. And
13:29 there's a lot of weird things in life
13:30 like that where like it's the opposite
13:32 is what you what you you'd think like oh
13:34 I'm going to look at what everyone else
13:34 is. It's like no just do what matters
13:36 most and then people who don't know how
13:38 to think will just copy you. Real threat
13:40 is that no one copies you at all because
13:42 you're doing nothing. If you take all
13:44 this effort that you look that you put
13:45 into comparing yourself to other people
13:47 that you look to kind of like tearing
13:49 them down sometimes even in your mind
13:50 let's be real. Maybe you don't say it to
13:51 other people, but in your mind you're
13:52 like
13:53 me that whatever that is, whatever that
13:56 feeling is that just do that towards you
13:59 not being good enough. What happens is
14:01 that when you do that, all of that
14:02 effort, all that energy goes into
14:04 improving yourself rather than tearing
14:06 down somebody else. And only one of
14:07 those things will help you. Number
14:09 eight, hard conversations create
14:11 opportunities. Hard truth, everything
14:13 you want is on the other side of a few
14:15 hard conversations that you have been
14:17 putting off. People either grow into
14:18 their potential or they keep living the
14:20 same six months of their life over and
14:22 over again. And the difference is how
14:24 many hard conversations you're willing
14:25 to have and how fast you have them once
14:27 you realize you need to. If you sherk
14:29 away from this, and I get it. I'm
14:30 somebody who like it for a very long
14:32 time had a hard time having hard
14:33 conversations, right? Like I literally
14:35 traveled across the country before I
14:36 told my dad that I left. All right? Like
14:38 I get it. So if you think having
14:41 uncomfortable conversations is hard,
14:42 just wait until you see the result of
14:44 not having them. It will be harder.
14:47 Basically, the the struggle is that you
14:48 have short-term pain versus long-term
14:50 pain. And long-term pain, I call regret.
14:53 Comfort is short gain. Regret is long
14:57 pain. Fear is short pain. Fulfillment is
15:02 long gain. You want to trade short pains
15:05 for long gains, not short gains for long
15:08 pains. It's not the safe bet. It's a
15:11 guaranteed loss just later. All right.
15:14 So, I'm I'm going to spell this out.
15:16 This is short
15:19 pain. This is long
15:23 pain. This is
15:26 short
15:28 gain. This is
15:30 long
15:33 gain. You want to trade short pain for
15:37 long
15:39 gain. That's the goal. It's the best
15:41 trade. Number nine, endure. There's a
15:45 reason that when I gave instructions to
15:47 some of the new business owners who were
15:48 going to start, you know, putting a
15:50 community on school, one of the sole
15:52 instructions I gave them was learn to
15:54 endure. And so, the fastest way to
15:56 become the person you want to be is to
15:58 put yourself in a situation where you
15:59 have no choice but to become them. You'd
16:00 be amazed at what you can endure when
16:02 you have no choice. For me, when I
16:04 signed my lease for my gym, I had $5,000
16:08 in my bank account. The rent was $5,000.
16:11 I had never really made money before.
16:14 And so I was like, "Oh, wow. How does
16:16 this work? If I made 100% of the money
16:18 that I had made in my job, I would have
16:20 been able to pay rent and have no food
16:22 or anything else." But one of my
16:24 favorite flavor texts on Magic cards is
16:26 necessity is the mother of invention,
16:28 right? It's the constraints that create
16:31 the innovation that is required to get
16:33 you out of the constraint, to get you
16:35 out of the hard time. And so when I
16:37 think back on like human history,
16:38 sometimes we think that things that were
16:40 going through our heart, but they're
16:41 certainly much easier than the things
16:42 that other humans have endured. And how
16:44 did they endure them? Well, when the
16:46 only choice they had was die or endure,
16:48 you tend to endure. Number 10, results.
16:50 Excuses. This is not going to be a big
16:52 surprise here. The thing with excuses
16:54 that's interesting is that they may be
16:57 valid. And I think that's the part that
16:58 people struggle with is that they're
17:00 like, "Yeah, obviously results matter
17:03 more excuses, but insert special
17:05 snowflake." The thing is is that like
17:07 you might be right. And I just like this
17:10 quote from Ila. She says, "It's not your
17:12 fault, but it is still your problem. You
17:15 still have to do something about it." Or
17:16 you can just wait and say, "You know
17:18 what? I'm going to continue to not live
17:20 the life that I want until I die." And
17:23 everyone will be like, "Oh yeah, he had
17:25 an excuse. That's
17:29 why." Right? Is that what like is that
17:32 what you really want? is that people
17:33 were like, "Yeah, he had an
17:36 excuse." Like that's it. Like, like it's
17:39 a weird thing to want a permission slip
17:43 for mediocrity, which is fundamentally
17:45 what excuses are. You just want
17:47 permission from everyone else to still
17:48 get respect without the outcome because
17:53 of your extenduating circumstances. And
17:56 the thing is is there's a ton of allure,
17:57 but the only person who actually
17:59 believes that is you. People might not
18:00 along. The people who love you might
18:02 say, "Yeah, you know what? You are
18:03 special. You are a special snowflake.
18:05 Your mama might still love you." But
18:06 like, you're not going to earn anyone's
18:08 respect. And I think you certainly won't
18:10 earn the respect of the person that
18:12 matters most, which is you, cuz you'll
18:14 always know that you could have done
18:16 more, that you could have done better.
18:17 That's the one that keeps me up. I have
18:20 a saying that I tell myself a lot when
18:21 I'm doing something that I don't want to
18:23 do, and it's I will do what is required.
18:26 It's not about doing your best. It's
18:27 about doing what's required because
18:29 what's required might be better than
18:30 your best is right now. But the good
18:31 news is that your best can get better.
18:33 So number 11, and this is this one's
18:35 real. All right. The hard way is the
18:38 easy way. You're like, how does that
18:41 work? The hard way is the easy way
18:43 because the easy
18:46 way never gets you there. So think about
18:48 it. People always are looking for the
18:50 shortcut, but you have to accept a very
18:52 simple truth, which is that the shortcut
18:54 never actually takes you to the place
18:56 that you're trying to go. And it's
18:57 because it's rarely one big thing. And I
19:00 would postulate, fancy word, right? That
19:04 there are a lot of shortcuts that exist
19:06 in life. Wait for it. Wait for it. And
19:08 everyone already uses those. And so
19:09 whenever an actual shortcut gets found,
19:12 all humans immediately do it and it no
19:14 longer becomes a shortcut. It's just a
19:16 thing that everyone does and it's not
19:17 really a thing anymore. Like we learned
19:19 how to tie knots. That was a big
19:20 breakthrough. And then everyone ties
19:22 their shoes and they're like, "Oh my
19:23 god, let me show you the shortcut to
19:24 this." It's like, "Oh, you tie." Like,
19:25 "Oh my god, everyone does it." and it's
19:26 like not a thing anymore, right? And so
19:28 all the things that you want to have
19:30 that most people don't have don't have
19:32 shortcuts. But thing is is so many
19:33 people waste so much time. They
19:34 literally waste longer than it would
19:36 have taken the hard way or the only way
19:39 to get there in search of the easy way
19:42 that doesn't exist. And so the reality
19:44 of this is that it's usually a hundred
19:46 small things that make days, weeks, and
19:49 months hard. It's the neverending
19:51 onslaught of And then you remember
19:54 after going through that onslaught of
19:55 that you signed up for this. But
19:57 then again, you figured that it would be
19:59 hard. And then you're reminded that this
20:01 is what hard feels like. And so you keep
20:04 going because it's the only choice you
20:05 have. I want to remind you that a lot of
20:08 times what we imagine hard to be is
20:10 different than how we experience hard
20:13 because the nature of hard changes too.
20:15 And it's more of a limitation in how we
20:17 describe hardship than it is and I
20:20 actually think there's a big problem
20:21 with this. So, just kind of like Eskimos
20:23 have like seven different words for
20:24 snow. I feel like I should have like 25
20:27 different words for hard, right? Like
20:29 the amount of things that you go
20:30 through. There's like lifestyle hard
20:32 like, okay, so there's sacrifice hard of
20:34 like you're giving up things that you
20:36 enjoy. There's also like effort hard of
20:38 like starting to do things that you hate
20:39 doing that you're not good at. There's
20:41 risk hard of the the fact that you could
20:43 lose something that you currently have,
20:44 right? That you have the chance of
20:46 losing what you currently have. You have
20:47 the uncertainty heart of the fact that
20:49 you might be doing all of the sacrifice
20:51 for nothing. There's lots of different
20:53 flavors of heart and each one of them
20:55 presents at different times and for some
20:56 reason when it gets a new kind of heart,
20:58 it's a new seventh type of snowflake
21:01 heart, then you're like, "Oh, this is
21:02 different." But it's not. It's just that
21:04 the thing that you grow comfortable
21:06 with, then you conquer and then you're
21:09 exposed to a new level. And so, I love
21:11 this quote from Paul Graham. He said,
21:13 "If you want to make a million dollars,
21:15 you have to endure a million dollars
21:17 worth of pain." Fundamentally, in my
21:19 opinion, the people who who who end up
21:20 building building, not inheriting,
21:22 building tremendous wealth, just have
21:25 massive concentrations of pain. So,
21:27 don't go looking for the easy way
21:28 because it will never get you there.
21:30 Number 12, don't, this is a big one,
21:33 don't give away your power. Now, this
21:36 sounds very like, you know, girl power
21:37 or a little uh little like rahrh, but I
21:40 will I will break this down in a little
21:41 bit less raw way. So, what offends you
21:45 controls you. Whatever you point your
21:48 finger of blame towards is what also you
21:50 point your power towards. Meaning, we
21:53 talked about excuses earlier. I can't do
21:55 it because insert X. Insert X is the
21:58 thing that has power over your life. And
22:00 I remember when I realized this was that
22:01 I had this belief that I would never be
22:04 able to be in a long-term committed
22:05 relationship because my mother had hurt
22:08 me as a child. I didn't get enough hugs.
22:09 Who gives a Whatever. But I
22:12 realized that by using that excuse and
22:15 by saying it's her fault I'm broken.
22:18 It's her fault I can't trust people.
22:20 It's her fault I can't love anybody.
22:22 Right? By by saying that over and over
22:24 again, all I did was I said, "My mother
22:27 controls how my love life will go." Oo,
22:32 heavy real well. I don't want her to
22:35 have control over how I choose to love
22:37 or not love or how how content I get in
22:40 a relationship or anything like that.
22:42 So, I actively had to say, "Maybe all
22:44 these things happened, maybe they
22:45 didn't. Also, who cares? Me. I care. I'm
22:49 the one who's affected by this." And
22:50 what's crazy about this, it's kind of a
22:51 weird thing with like parents is that
22:54 you think by hurting yourself, you get
22:57 back at them for hurting you. And you do
22:59 hurt them when you hurt yourself, but
23:01 you hurt you more at some point. And
23:04 this is like this is like super
23:06 real. Let's say that you were parented
23:09 tough, whatever that means for you. You
23:11 had lots of bad things happen, okay? And
23:13 it was probably because you were a child
23:14 trying to deal with the world without
23:15 the skills of dealing with the world as
23:16 an adult. But you had these things
23:19 happen, right? And on some level, you
23:22 might believe that you becoming
23:24 successful, you making it work,
23:26 validates the way that you were
23:29 parented. And so you have this conflict
23:31 where you're like, well, I don't want
23:32 them to think that they did a good job
23:34 by me being
23:36 successful. And so then you want to keep
23:38 not being successful to prove to them
23:40 and to hurt them for hurting
23:45 you. and you stay there as long as you
23:48 want them to control
23:50 you. And so the day that you choose to
23:53 control yourself is the day that you
23:55 choose to divorce your results from the
23:59 very viable reasons that you have to not
24:03 win. You are right. And so what? Number
24:07 13, rejection versus regret. At some
24:11 point, everyone needs to choose whether
24:13 they'd rather risk rejection now or
24:15 guarantee regret later. And so, losers
24:17 fear rejection, winners fear regret. And
24:20 most attempts fail of anything. Failure
24:23 is literally a prerequisite for success.
24:25 And one of the one of my favorite quotes
24:27 of mine is greatness rejects all
24:32 first-time applicants. And so, it's kind
24:33 of like that person that just is like,
24:35 "Oh, I can't get a job." And you're
24:37 like, "Well, what have you done?"
24:38 They're like, "Well, I applied
24:38 somewhere." And you're like, "What do
24:40 you mean?" They're like, "I applied
24:41 somewhere." And you're like, "And?" And
24:43 and they're like, "Yeah." And I and I
24:45 didn't I didn't get the job. They didn't
24:46 even call me. You're like, "You went to
24:48 one place." And you're like, and they're
24:50 like, "Yeah." This is going to be a
24:51 really good analogy for somebody who's
24:53 listening to this only for people who
24:54 don't have a business yet. A lot of
24:56 starting a business is the number of
24:58 reachouts that you had to do in order to
25:00 get the path, the job, the career that
25:02 you want right now. So, think about the
25:05 amount of interviews. Think about the
25:07 amount of outreach. Think about the
25:08 amount of job ads. Think about the
25:09 amount of resumes that you sent out.
25:11 Think about all of that. And all of that
25:14 work got you what I would consider one
25:15 sale. You got one person to say yes to
25:17 you and they would give you money for
25:18 work. All right. Now, obviously within
25:20 the context of an employee relationship,
25:21 but fundamentally actually works the
25:22 same way. All you do in a business is
25:25 the same thing. If you can handle that
25:27 level of rejection, then you can handle
25:29 the same level of rejection in a
25:31 business. It's not actually that
25:32 different. The question is whether you
25:33 can handle that level of regret years
25:35 later for not doing it. And I'll say
25:37 this, one of the things that I've
25:38 noticed between champions and everyone
25:39 else is that people everyone else is so
25:42 excited when they win. They're so
25:44 excited, you know, by the idea of them
25:46 getting first place. But there's a
25:47 reason that they never get first place.
25:49 It's because they're excited about it.
25:51 The people who always and very
25:52 consistently hit first place and win the
25:54 championships are relieved because they
25:56 tend to hate losing more than they love
25:59 winning. and they expected to win
26:01 because of the level of preparation they
26:02 had compared to everyone
26:04 else. Which brings me very magically to
26:07 number 14. Consistency beats talent. So
26:10 listen to this. You can beat most people
26:13 at anything if you just stick with it
26:15 for a year. You can become competent at
26:17 just about any skill in 20 hours. It's
26:19 just that people will wait 10 years to
26:21 get the first 20 hours logged, right?
26:23 Like if you want to learn how to play
26:24 the first few notes of a guitar, you can
26:26 learn in about 20 hours. Now, are you
26:28 going to be Jimmyi Hendris, which
26:30 Jenzie, he was a guitarist, Purple Haze,
26:32 you can look it up. Anyways, the point
26:34 is is that people have this huge delay
26:36 before they begin. And what make things
26:39 hard isn't complexity, it's consistency.
26:43 And so, as boring as it is, you just
26:45 have to keep doing it before you get
26:46 anything back. So, one of my favorite
26:48 quotes from myself is, "The world
26:51 belongs to those who can keep doing
26:52 without seeing the result of their
26:54 doing." You have to delay how quick you
26:57 get a reward, how fast you need a cookie
27:00 in order to keep going. I've been told
27:01 that I'm decent at presenting and
27:04 talking on stage in front of people. And
27:07 what a lot of people don't see is that
27:10 for years I spoke with a microphone in
27:13 front of a group of people and I did it
27:15 like multiple times a day. And I did
27:17 that in the form of a fitness session.
27:20 And so I had to literally stand on a box
27:23 and shout around and tell people what
27:24 they had to do. And I had to do that for
27:27 years. And I remember when I had to get
27:30 on stage for the first time. And I had
27:33 in high school been very nervous to
27:35 public speak. And as I was about to get
27:38 up on stage, I was like, why am I not
27:40 nervous about this? Like this is weird.
27:41 Like I should I was like, I should be
27:43 nervous. Like why am I not nervous? And
27:44 I was like, I've I've done this so many
27:47 times. Like so many times. And I'm not
27:50 talking about, you know, Civil War
27:52 history and Abraham Lincoln. I'm talking
27:55 about stuff I know. Outwork your
27:58 self-doubt through repetition, not
28:02 affirmations. You don't do it through
28:04 belief. You do it through stimuli
28:07 habituation, which is just fancy words
28:09 for saying you expose yourself to the
28:11 bad things so many times they get used
28:13 to and it's no longer a bad thing
28:14 anymore. It's just life. If you want to
28:16 get over a fear, the way they do it is
28:18 habituation. So, if I wanted to get
28:19 over, you know, being afraid of spiders,
28:21 I'm not afraid of spiders, but some
28:22 people are afraid of spiders, right? If
28:23 you want to get over that fear, you
28:25 literally lock yourself in a room with a
28:27 bunch of spiders, and all you do is you
28:29 just have panic attack after panic
28:30 attack, and you pass out, and you wake
28:32 up again, the little there, you pass
28:33 out, you keep doing eventually,
28:34 eventually your nervous system adjusts,
28:36 and five hours later, eight hours later,
28:39 you walk out of the room unafraid
28:42 because you have habituated. And so the
28:45 point of practice for all of these
28:46 things is to habituate as fast as you
28:49 can. And so we're trying to microwave
28:50 that period of time. And the thing is,
28:52 let's say it takes let's say it takes
28:53 this many reps. You can have this many
28:55 reps take you a year or you can have it
28:57 take you a month depending on how
28:58 dedicated you are to it. Number 15, have
29:02 no shame. All right. Now, I have told
29:05 this before, but my plan B was that I
29:09 would drive Uber and strip. Now, I think
29:10 part of that was because I wanted to,
29:12 you know, thumb my whatever the the
29:13 Shakespearean saying, I bite my thumb at
29:15 you, uh, to bite my thumb at my my very
29:17 respectable parents, uh, and say like, I
29:19 would take off my clothes for money.
29:20 Now, of course, they would be horrified
29:22 by that, but I think part of the reason
29:23 I was okay with it was I was like, I'm
29:25 going to I'm going to do it my way. I
29:27 want to be crystal clear here. If you
29:29 have no money and you want to make
29:30 money, you should have no shame. Knock,
29:34 call, email, text, DM, ask.
29:36 Life-changing doors do not open
29:38 themselves. And sometimes I feel like
29:40 shame was invented by people who have to
29:42 prevent people who have not from taking
29:45 action. Because all of this is just an
29:47 illusion. What are you ashamed of?
29:50 Trying. Like let's play it out. Remember
29:53 I said fear only happens in the
29:54 abstract, not in the specific. So if you
29:57 reach out to a stranger, no matter what
30:00 happens, you always come out better than
30:02 before because you either have a sale or
30:04 you have an
30:05 experience. Both make you better. And so
30:08 the crazy thing about trying is that it
30:11 has an asymmetric riskreward return. So
30:13 worst case is you get a no and you learn
30:15 from it. You get better. Life gives you
30:16 unlimited shots while you're alive. And
30:19 so if you have nothing like you you're
30:20 just basically cashing in lottery
30:22 tickets and saying, "Oh my god, I lost.
30:23 But what you're paying with is time."
30:25 Fine. Pay more time. Get more tickets.
30:26 Keep scratching. So do you know the
30:28 difference between shame and
30:29 guilt? Guilt is when you break your own
30:33 rules. Shame is when you break other
30:36 people's rules.
30:38 So if you are gay and you're in a
30:43 religious community, you would probably
30:45 feel shame. If you also share that
30:48 religious community's rule set, you
30:50 would also feel guilt. If, let's say,
30:53 you were in a very liberal progressive
30:55 environment, you might feel neither
30:57 shame nor guilt. And so the question is,
31:00 whose rules are you following? If you
31:03 have this feeling, this fear of being
31:06 ashamed, then the question is, who's the
31:09 one who wrote the rules that you're
31:10 choosing to
31:12 follow? And I can promise you it's not
31:14 the people who are successful because
31:16 they're the ones shouting on the
31:17 rooftops telling you that it's totally
31:19 different once you get in the pool. It's
31:22 very different. It's kind of like you
31:23 have the lights of the world turn on and
31:24 like you're living in this mirage when
31:27 you're not succeeding where there's all
31:29 this all this uncertainty. There's all
31:32 this ambiguity. There's this fog of the
31:35 unknown in front of you. But as soon as
31:37 you start taking action, things become
31:39 very crystal clear. I think there's
31:40 there's I'm sure some stoic analogy that
31:42 said this, but basically like if you've
31:44 ever walked through very dense fog, you
31:46 can only see a couple steps in front of
31:47 you. The only thing that you can do in
31:49 fog is just start walking. And as you
31:52 walk, more steps become available to
31:55 you. And so there's this misconception
31:58 that you're going to be able to see the
31:59 entire path ahead of you. But it has two
32:01 fundamental fallacies in front of it.
32:03 Number one is that you have the right
32:05 vision to be able to see that far with
32:08 your current skill set and resources,
32:10 which you don't. Because imagine today
32:12 all of your conditions changed. you had
32:14 more skills, which is hard to imagine
32:16 because you can't imagine what it's like
32:17 to have the skill, but maybe let's say
32:19 you have resources that you didn't have
32:20 before. Well, that would probably change
32:22 the way you play the game. So, trying to
32:24 play out and try and play 17 steps in
32:26 advance when the game itself is going to
32:29 change and you as a player are going to
32:31 change. The only thing that you can boil
32:34 all of this down to is to take the steps
32:38 that you can see in front of you one at
32:40 a time. And I would write this down of
32:42 like what are the things that are
32:45 stopping me? And more specifically,
32:47 whose voice do I hear? Whose voice or
32:50 judgment am I afraid of? Because usually
32:52 it's people. It's society is what we
32:54 say. But it's usually like two people.
32:57 And I remember when I had this big
32:59 decision that I had to make when I was
33:00 considering selling gym lunch. I thought
33:03 that $46 million was not a lot of money
33:05 for the business. Now, some of you may
33:06 hear this and be like, "Oh my god,
33:07 that's amazing." But believe it or not,
33:09 at before we before COVID happened, uh,
33:11 gym lunch was valid 150 million. And so
33:13 for me going from 150 to 50 or, you
33:16 know, 46, it felt small, right? It felt
33:18 like a really small number. And I
33:20 remember there was a particular person,
33:22 we'll call it a friend of me, if you
33:24 will, that I thought would think that
33:26 they were better than me if I sold for
33:29 this small number.
33:31 And when I was able to narrow it down to
33:33 just that one person's voice, I thought
33:36 to
33:36 myself, am I going to give that person
33:39 power over my entire life, which is
33:42 literally what it was. I was choosing
33:44 not to make a decision because of
33:45 someone else. That person has complete
33:47 power over me. And I was like, well,
33:50 that's a terrible reason not to do this.
33:52 And the crazier part is that even if
33:56 you're right and that person does say
33:59 that you
34:00 suck, so what? Most people don't want
34:04 you to win. And even if you do win, they
34:06 will try and do a reverse excuse, which
34:08 is called a justification for why you
34:10 should be excused of the respect that
34:12 you should earn for having won. He just
34:14 has good genetics. He has great parents.
34:17 He uh, you know, inherited his wealth.
34:20 He had connect good connections. She was
34:22 born in America. He speaks English. He's
34:23 a man. He's white. He's whatever you
34:30 want. But giving the person
34:32 justifications in no way helps you. You
34:34 might be right and so what? Like it's
34:36 it's so funny. It's like let's say you
34:38 have some advantage, whatever it is,
34:40 right? Whatever whatever advantage
34:41 you're born with, right? You might have
34:43 one. It's kind of the thing same thing
34:45 as the parent thing. It's like, well, I
34:47 don't want to be successful because I
34:48 don't want to prove that I had this
34:49 advantage. It's like, would you prefer
34:51 to prove everyone wrong by saying I had
34:54 this advantage and I also wasted it? I
34:57 remember I'll tell you a story and I
34:58 think it'll probably that'll that'll
34:59 round this off well. So, when I was
35:01 younger, I didn't want to be a doctor,
35:02 but that was pretty much the path that
35:03 was laid out in front of me. And so, my
35:05 father's a successful doctor and I I was
35:08 like, it's it's it's cheating, you know,
35:10 to to, you know, just assume your
35:13 practice and just like immediately have
35:14 a practice that makes a lot of money.
35:17 and he said, "Do you think Shaq, when he
35:21 was 7 feet tall, was like,"It wouldn't
35:22 be fair for me to play basketball. Other
35:24 people aren't as tall as me." And I
35:27 always remembered that. He's like, "You
35:28 play the cards you're dealt. These are
35:30 the cards you have. Play them." And I
35:32 remember thinking that as now,
35:34 obviously, I didn't decide to be a
35:35 doctor, but the reason that I didn't
35:37 want to do it was because I thought
35:39 other people would say that I would they
35:40 would disqualify away my success as not
35:43 earned by
35:45 me. when the reality is that they're all
35:47 going to disqualify your sex no matter
35:48 what because it makes them feel bad and
35:52 so them. But if you have some
35:54 cards, for the love of God, play them.
35:57 Hey, if any of these messages resonated
35:59 with you and you're like, "Man, I'm too,
36:00 you know, I'm a few months behind from
36:02 my goals." I made what I would consider
36:03 a counterintuitive video on goal
36:05 setting, which sounds so overused, but I
36:07 don't know, it's got like a couple
36:09 million views or whatever it is. So,
36:11 people seem to have liked it. Uh, and so
36:12 if you want that, you can check this
36:14 video out. Um, so far it's I think it's
36:15 the top video viewed this year.
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