← The Game with Alex Hormozi
The Game with Alex Hormozi
If you want 2026 to be the best year of your life, listen to this podcast | Ep. 986
07:30:47
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I've put together the most valuable lessons that have helped me achieve more out of my life. Hopefully they're useful for you too. Enjoy. This is brutally honest advice for poor people. I've been there. I had to pay rent every night. I would think if I didn't wake up tomorrow, I would be okay with it. And I don't want that for anybody. I get it. I was just going through all these old files yesterday and I saw a goal that I'd written which was to make $10,000 a month income. And so it was 13 years ago. And so like I viscerally remember what that was like. And I know I never, I was in so much pain during that, during that time that I get it. And so like the reason we make this stuff is because I've been there and I don't want that for anybody. You know, Like I missed my 20s, like I just, I didn't have them as people traditionally say it, you know, like, it's weird because in today's like Internet culture, like I started my first brick and mortar business, like store front. I was 23. Like I didn't know shit about fuck. Like I knew nothing. And like I didn't know you could hire employees. Like it wasn't a thought. Like I didn't know anything. And so like I cleaned, I did the billing, I did the sales, I taught the sessions. Like I fixed the equipment. Like I did everything because I didn't know you could. And I also, I didn't know and I didn't have the money frankly to afford anything else. And so I get it. Like I get, I get, I get it. But to get out of that, you have to take steps. And the first step is saying that it's my fault. The second step is that you have to use what you have. And so in the beginning I would, you know, I was reading the self help books and all this stuff and none of them really hit for me because a lot of it was like power of positive thinking and like affirmations and like all this stuff. And the reason I make the content I do now, which has now almost become like a shtick countering that, is because it didn't work for me. And I'm trying, like I'm not trying to speak to everybody. If that works for you, then like awesome. Like awesome. People mistake me saying this is what worked for me with this is what I think everyone should do. And it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm saying if what you have been doing hasn't been working. Then consider this, which is that, like, I remember because I just read this yesterday, the intro in the book. I say, I wish I could tell you that the reason I was able to make it out of the gym was because I was like, really passionate about changing people's lives. And I loved fitness and I loved my clients faces when they would light up and they'd step on the scale and they'd lose weight, they'd be able to fit in their high school clothes again, it was none of that. It was just the sheer anger that I had. But the idea of being wrong and having the people back home be right about everything, and I just couldn't. I couldn't. I mean, I still can barely tolerate it. And so, I mean, I took in some ways, and this isn't a. I don't know if woe is me is the right term, but like, I had an otherwise very successful career. Like I was in a white collar job. And sometimes it's hard. Like, I mean, hey, I don't know, I haven't been the other situation. But taking a step down and humbling yourself to minimum wage after you've been in a white collar situation, not easy. And I remember I had clients who walk in and be like, oh, did you go to college? And they were saying that patronizingly. And mind you, everyone here, at least this channel knows that I don't give a shit. But they were saying it to basically when I was gonna write something down, like, am I literate? And in those moments, again, it was like, I could be right or be rich. Like I could try and humiliate them back because of the pain of what they just said made me feel. They probably didn't even intend that. Or I can be like, yeah, yeah, I went to school. I'm very grateful for it. You know, like, so what are your goals? And I can just move right past it. And so you develop that skin because I had to. Because I had to fucking pay rent. And so, I mean, I tell stories about having a kid drawing marker on the wall while I'm trying to close his mom and he's writing in permanent marker. And I'm trying not to lose my shit over the fact that I'm have to repaint the wall because she doesn't know how to parent a child. But I needed to close the car to pay for the paint. And so it's like I can scold the kid and lose the sale, or I can close the sale and keep my cool and then eventually clean the wall. And so like, you only get that stuff by doing it. And so if you're in a place right now where you don't have a lot, you only have one thing, which is time. And so you have lower leverage. I'm not going to lie to you and say that you, like, there's this one play, this one secret. No, it's just, it's sheer brute force. Like you have to will yourself out of it. Like there's, you have to do. It's a huge amount of soul driving energy that you have to do outside of what you normally do. So it's like you have to live one person's normal life. You have to do your normal work, your normal job, you have to eat, you have to sleep, you have to clean, you have to do whatever else. And then the workday starts. So that is how you eat today, but you're trying to get ahead and you have to eat tomorrow. And so you have to eat the glass so that you can take the pain today and you're trying to take as much of the pain from tomorrow as you can today so you can get ahead. And even the concept of getting ahead, I think about this visually, which is like, if you have this timeline of life that you can pull towards you and it's glass in the beginning and then it's slightly less, less coarse and then less coarse and then it gets, and then it gets neutral and then it starts to get a little bit sweeter and a little bit sweeter, a little bit sweeter. But you have to get through that glass period where you pull it towards you. And I do have this theory that like on a long enough time horizon, if we could live a thousand years, everyone would eventually be successful. But people wait too long and they die too early. And I say die too early on along on a long timeline. And so I want, I have to live today and tomorrow and the next day so I can live three days at a time so I can get to my second and third life's benefits now. And so that was what, like, I remember the only times that I took off when I was, when I was at the gym. And one of the biggest things that I was grateful for with the gyms is that I moved across the country and so I knew no one. I was in Huntington Beach, I was from Baltimore, like, no one. And what would happen. So one of the gifts of that was that once the week was over, my Saturday sessions were done at like noon and my phone didn't ring. In some ways, very sad because no One wanted to see Alex. You know what I mean? No one was inviting me out, but I was like, fuck, I gotta make this work. And so I'd sit there and I'd be like, how do I sell memberships? How do I market? How do I everything? You know? But that was how I got ahead. And so I tell the stories of, like. I remember when I stopped watching the Ravens, and I was from Baltimore, so that was, like, a tie to home. And so, yeah, it's fresh for me because I just read the story yesterday, but it was, like. It was tough. I'll catch my breath. So all that to say, the sacrifices that I encourage people to take are not sacrifices I did not make. And I don't say that there's no ways to get there. I'm just saying that this is the way I got there. And if this path works for you, then maybe it works better than what you're doing right now, which is. I had a lot of pain, and so I. I tried to use it. I just used what I had. I just. You know, I was just angry. I didn't. I didn't want to fail. And so I just kept going. And so there was no. Like, there just wasn't another option. And so I think that's, like. That's what I would encourage people to think about, was like, they're just. I just didn't. I didn't allow another option because the other option was just worse than dying. Because, I mean, I've told this story before, and things get hyperbolized, exaggerated, romanticized, whatever. But when I had my big consulting job, I was making good money and I had the approval of my peers and all this stuff, and I just didn't want to wake up the next day, every day. And it wasn't like I was trying to kill myself. It wasn't that. But every night I would think if I didn't wake up tomorrow, I would be okay with it. And so when I knew that that was what I was going back to if I didn't make this work, I just had. I had no plan B. I mean, I had. Plan B is that I would drive Uber and strip. I joke about that, but that was very much my plan B. If I didn't make it work. But. And I get grilled on social media for saying this because of, like, fucking race wars. But, like, there have been slaves for thousands of years. There were slaves in Egyptian times. There were Jews who were slaves. There were Persian slaves. There were white slaves. There were back slaves. Humans have enslaved One another, period. And I like to think of things in extremes because it allows me to think about what's possible. And so the idea that someone else at some other time in history has worked seven days a week, every hour that they're awake, with the threat not of their own death, but of their children's death, because that's what I would do if I were trying to control somebody. I would take their kids and say, I'll kill them if you don't work. And guess what? They'll probably work. That that capacity exists. And so I would think to myself, like, I would try and put myself in that frame so that I wouldn't get into the woe is me cycle and think all these things I could blame for why I'm here right now. Why isn't this working as fast? Like, how is it that these guys are making more money than me? Like, why don't these people give me the respect I deserve, blah, blah, blah, blah, and just say, like, what can I do now? And then, just every hour of every day, well, what can I do now? And so it was, I have to learn how to market, I have to learn how to sell. I have to go to these groups that where other gym owners are, and I got to learn their stuff. I got to go to these seminars. I got to save up so I can learn some stuff. And that's what I did. And so that's how I got out of it. That visual of life as this, like, bloody game of tug of war where, like, most people, their hands just get too cut to keep holding onto the rope is like, it's stuck in my head. Yeah, that's really powerful. It was tough. So the first hundred grand is the hardest. And I know that that sounds like an unfathomable amount of money. It took me five years. Like, I get it. So, like, you just have to save it one dollar at a time. Like, that's like, that's what it is. Now, obviously, I talk about other things. Like, there are smarter ways to make money for sure. Like, if you can sell expensive stuff, you can just move the decimals. Like, I mean, like, the thing is, it is factually true. It is spiritually false. And I don't even believe in spirituality in general. But, like, it is. It is tough to sell a $10 million building and make a million dollar commission or a $500,000 commission when you are broke as fuck. It is very. Like, it is like, you would have to become a different person, which is why most people's first sale Is not that, but is it technically possible? Yes. A lot of people watch YouTube and the Internet for complex money making skills and they haven't even mastered showing up on time. And so it's like they want to go straight to calculus, but they don't know how to do simple addition. But the thing is that like, simple addition is foundational to that. And none of the other stuff will matter unless you can do the basics. But the basics doesn't make them less important. Usually they're the foundation of building, which makes them arguably more important. They just are simpler to understand, but not simpler to do. And I think that's the big disconnect a lot of people have is that they think they because they understand something conceptually, that they feel like they have already mastered the skill, which are two very different things. And so one of the most common traits that people who are poor have is that it's always tomorrow. And so they never talk about anything in terms of today. And so it's about starting tomorrow, the diet tomorrow, the diet on Monday next year, my New Year's resolution, it's always pushing off. So rather than delaying gratification, they delay pain. And so rather than try and taking pain now for pleasure later, they take pleasure now and pain later. And so they flip the equation. And so they're surprised when today is later from yesterday, that they're in pain. Because if last week you were like, I'm starting my diet this week, then it is now this week. And you've delayed the pain to today. And that means that the body you have right now is the result of the delayed pain that you are now forcing yourself to endure. And so they're somehow surprised when the bill comes due that they pushed off from the past. And so the first lesson of getting out of poverty is two words. It's my fault. It's. I have to own that. And I think my fault you can kind of extrapolate to right now. Not like you basically have to own everything that passed to this moment. So all the pain that I've gone through, all of the Mondays that I've missed, all of the diets that I've skipped, all of the savings I haven't made, all of those are not my dad's fault, my mom's fault, my circumstances fault, the country I was born in's fault, the zip code, any of those things, fault, it's just mine. And the thing is, is that people have this belief that because they have a strong argument for why it's something or someone else's fault that that somehow helps them and it just doesn't because whatever you cast blame to is where you also cast power to. And so if I say I can't succeed because my mom didn't love me, guess who controls me? My mom. And so if you also like replace my mom with, with a race, a gender, a political party, whatever the thing, like, I can't succeed because of Trump's laws, I can't succeed because of the radical left, because of wokeism, because of whatever. You actually give that thing more power in your life than you give yourself. And so it's completely. The thing is, is that, and this is what's so deceiving about it is it's very self fulfilling, is that you get more evidence and then you get more confirmation. You get more evidence, you get more confirmation and the more your life sucks, the more you're confirmed that, that you were right. But like, do you want to be right about the fact that your life sucks or would you rather like. I think it's an old Zig Ziglar saying. He said you can either be right or you can be rich. And I mean, it's simple. But this is what he was getting at, is that you can say, you know what, you are right, your dad kicked the shit out of you your whole life and you don't have any confidence because he told you a piece of shit every day you're right. But in order to be rich, you need to let that go. Because every day you say that I'm not successful because of this, it means because this now owns you. And for me personally, that realization that the thing that I hated most in the world, the things that I blamed for why my life wasn't the way it was, I was their bitch. And just realizing that made me angry. But through that anger, I was able to say, well, fuck them. Like, I will succeed despite the fact that my dad said this, or my mom said this, or Barack Obama said this or Trump said this, or the woke left says what? Despite that, despite the fact that the chips are stacked against me, I will still win. Why does saying my fault and taking that accountability begin to set someone down the path of making more money? And so if we think about success in terms of layers, like foundations, right? The base level, like when you're digging the building where you put the hole and you pour the concrete in, the base of the entire thing is who is in power, who is source. Because if it's anything but you in that base layer, all of the other things on top of them will topple down. It's a foundation of sand. Otherwise, you can't build on top of blaming other people. There's nothing that stands on it. You see, like, I want to learn sales, but I can't learn sales because I didn't get hugged enough as a kid. And so I don't like people. And so as long as you keep holding onto that, you have sand as your foundation. But if you want to learn how to sell, or you want to learn how to market, or you want to learn how to do whatever, until you say, well, it's my fault that I don't know it. And because of that, it's within my power to change it. So it's not sales books, it's not reading offers. It's not even your books. At the very beginning, you have to accept that, which is the first two words. My fault, my responsibility, all me, I am source. And then once you can accept that one thing, and what's crazy is that that one foundation is where 90% of people literally aren't. They're not there. They can't do it. The reason my girlfriend left me is because of this, not me. The reason I lost my job is because my employer was a dick. My boss sucked, whatever the economy, but it never serves you. Give me one instance, one example. This is to anyone who's listening to this one example of when you blame something else and it made you better one, you can't find it because it's fundamentally not true. And so you cannot bother desire to get better and also maintain blame. You have to pick. When did this really hit home for you? Was it when you lost money? No. When I was 19 years old, I had to write an essay about depression in an intro to psych class. And I used to. I don't talk about my mother very much, but I used to harp a lot. I was an equal opportunity angry person. I was angry at everybody. In other words, I blamed everyone. And so I blamed her for X, Y and Z. And I remember having to write this essay on depression. And you had to do it from someone else's perspective. And so you had to say, how would they. How would the environment and their upbringing, things like that, contribute to the outcomes in their life? And so by writing the essay, true or not, to be clear about my mother's upbringing and how hard she had as an immigrant coming here, getting beat up as a kid, getting made up for not being able to speak the language, all that kind of stuff, and this was in the fucking 50s. It's when, like, it was more accepted to beat up foreigners rather than let them in anyways. So she had a tough time, and so it made sense. And when I framed it like that, I was like, you know, maybe she's actually a massive success, given where she started. And so then I thought to myself, now mind you, I still wasn't over it. But it was in this process that the first thing that happened is when I went back home for fall break or winter break. I remember she said something to me which would normally just like be the beginning of some big fight. You know, you get into these routines, like, I'll say this thing that we both hate, and then we'll just get in a nice fight about it. And she said, the trigger. And I was just like, I understand you, I'm sorry you went through the stuff you went through. And she just, like, looked completely shocked and then just like started bawling. And so I was like, we're cool. Like, you don't anger me anymore. And I think for the most part since then, like, that's been more or less the dynamic that shifted. But leading into that was also the idea that all the relationships that I'd had that I blamed for not working because of the dynamic that I had with my mother, I was like, I am giving her this power over my love life. Ugh, that's gross. And so I was like, well, I'd rather just say it's on me to change and not have my mom or parents at all involved in my relationships. And so that was me taking, it's her fault that I can't make these things work. I have commitment issues. I don't want to get close to people I've been hurt before, blah, blah, blah. To like, okay, well, let's take it to the next extreme. Great. You're right. You'll never be close to anyone. You'll never have a relationship that I'll last. You're right. Now what I remember I was at a conference and I had this lady stand up in the crowd, and I had just done a thing on, like, I don't remember what it was called offers. And she stood up and said, let me give you six reasons why this isn't going to work for my business. And so she went down her list and I was like, uh huh, huh, huh. So I got to the end of the whole thing and she said, and that's why this isn't going to work for my business. And I was like, you're right. You'll never be able to make this work for your business. And she looked at me like angry. And she lashed back, she's like, yes, I will. I'll be able to make this work for my business. For this reason. This reason. And so the thing is that if the victim frame is just taken to the natural extreme, you realize that you're right. You win the game and by being right the entire team, you lose everything. And so it's one of these frames that I love. Dr. Kashi says this, he says you're 99% right but 100% wrong. And what that means is like for example, if I. Every time I bring a girl home and I want my parents approval, I bring her home and they say, this isn't the one, this isn't the one, she's not good enough, whatever it is. Every time it's easy for them to say that because every single person you date except for the one you marry, they are right on. And so they're 99% of the time they're right. And they're confirmed by saying that that person that you bring home is not good enough. Because every time, eventually you break up, oh, it's not gonna last. This isn't the one. It keeps going right. But if you keep doing that all the way to the natural extreme, you're 100% wrong. Because you will be wrong eventually. It's the same thing as like, I wanna start this business. It's not gonna work and it's not going to work. The second one will work, the fifth one won't work, the seventh one won't work. And they're right, but they're just wrong on the long enough time horizon because one of them will fucking work. And one of the girls or one of the guys that you bring home will be the one that you are going to be with. But it's so much safer for them to be right and right and right. And they get deceived by their short term rightness that they miss the long term wrong. And we do this to ourself too. When, when you're in the victim frame. I don't even like using the victim frame. But when you're in the powerless frame, you give the power away and you get to be right over. That's why it didn't work. This didn't work. This relationship won't work, this job won't work. It's not going to work this time either because you get to be right over and over again. It makes you feel good in the short term, but in the long term, you guarantee the loss. I think there's also, like, social reinforcement. We love to complain about the weather. It's literally the same thing as never investing. Like, if you want to invest your money, right, and you, like, you have all this big pile of savings if you ever invest, there's always the possibility that it goes down in the short term. It's just the nature of markets in general. But if you never invest, you guarantee that you will never get rich over the long haul. And so every day you could make this risk. You take a small risk, but you guarantee a macro win. So you take a small risk today, potential for a loss today, for the guarantee over the long haul that it grows and it makes you money. But the flip side is you don't take the small risk of loss today. You take the comfort today for the guarantee that you get the long loss. And so, so many people flip their life to that same thing is that they have. They flip the pleasure for today and they just forget the second half of this, which is pain for tomorrow. And that today is also yesterday's tomorrow. And we're living through the pain that you cast like you own this. And until you're like, this is my fault that I'm in pain today because of decisions that I put off pain for tomorrow. Were is tomorrow. When you're broke, every dollar means so much to you. But. And you want to see the dollars in your bank account go up. But I never made that my goal. I made the amount of money I made every month my goal because I saw that as my like, potential energy versus stored energy. Not to get, I mean, whatever physics people, you get what I'm saying. And so I was willing to take that stored energy and reinvest it to take $5,000 a month in income to make it $6,000 a month. Because I knew that over a year I was going to make 12. And so if it cost me two to make the 12 in income, I would make that trade every time. And so whenever I'd save up a small, like, nut. Now, obviously, I've always been pretty good about spending money. Like, I haven't had that habit. So again, foundations, like, first, it's your fault. Second, spend less than you make. Third, take all of the excess and spend it on making more. Because if you're making minimum wage, I'm going to say what you probably already know. You're not going to get ahead. Like, you're not going to save your way there. You're not. Like, everyone loves to tell the story of that one girl at McDonald's. But, you know, they don't tell the other hundred million people who've worked at McDonald's over the world who didn't make it. And, like, the outcome they're talking about is, like, she made a million dollars over 40 years of working McDonald's. Like, you can shoot for more. And so, like, take the money you make. Live on nothing. And the hard part is just swallowing the pride for the fact that in the short term, everyone's going to be right when they say that you're amounting to nothing. And that's the tough part. That's the glass that you have to. You have to swallow, that you have to pull towards you. And there's just no other way. Like, you have to learn the skills. Now, I mean, to be fair, YouTube didn't exist when I was doing this, and, like, Instagram was like a new platform. So, like, all this stuff, like, the stuff we have today is crazy. Like, the stack, these videos in this podcast, like, all the stuff didn't exist. Like, I remember when podcasting came out, like, I was already a business owner. Like, none of this stuff existed. But at the time, I just took all the money I had. And I want to make this point again, is that people think that the money is about buying courses and stuff like that. And you can, like, there's nothing wrong with that. I've learned a ton from a lot of the stuff that I've bought, to be really honest with you. But I think that I've always had an amazing return on education because I always did it. And I think, like, I always wanted to be the best student in every class, and I was good at school, and I just took business as a different. Another type of school. But part of the expenses that come into, like, what you take that money for is experiments that fail. And so one of the things that happens when you're broke is that you bet on stuff and then it doesn't work, and people feel like they're back at zero. But you're not back at zero. You're at where you were plus one experience, plus two experiences, plus three experiences, plus four experiences. But when you have plus 18 experiences, all of a sudden, boop, you level up. One, you get experience points. There's a reason in video games called experience points, so you didn't trade it for nothing. You got an experience point, and with enough experience points, you get to the next level. And so I think if you just even thought about it like that, it's not a loss, but an Experience point, it could bridge the gap between your current income level and the income level that you want to get to. And then guess what, there's more experience point that you have to get there. And those experience points also cost more money. Because when you take a bet in the beginning and when I say it costs money, it's like if you run an ad and it doesn't work, it costs money. If you want to set up a shopify store or an e commerce store and you spend 30, 40, 50 bucks a month, whatever, it costs money. And it does, you know, like all of these things cost money to start. Now mind you, it costs a lot less than it did in the 20s when you had to mortgage your house and guarantee that you'd win or you'd lose everything forever. So like the bar has never been lower than it is now, but there still is a bar and you have to get over it. And I still think that the vast majority of the shit that people trying to get over has nothing to do with the difficulty of business, but the first step, the foundation, which is, it is my fault that I am here and in it being my fault, I, I am the one who can get me out of. Sounds like in that stage three, when you start experimenting and investing in that, and let's say the kid who has a failed drop shipping experiment or starts a school group and they want to win the school games but they don't, their measuring stick for whether or not they're doing well shouldn't be how much money they're making or should they be thinking about money at that point? So the wealthiest people I know only think about skills. They think about what can I learn and then what can this skill get me? And so they will always take any money they can to buy more skills. And in the beginning you have to buy all the skills yourself. Once you have enough skills that you can generate an excess of income, you can start buying other people's lives. And what I mean by that is like everything comes down to buying time. And so at Some point you're 10 years into your career and you have a handful of skills, but you can buy someone else's 10 years of skills by just paying them to do something too. So you don't have to learn all those things. And so you do need to get good at stuff. And then eventually you generalize to being good at people. And that's pretty much always the path for everyone. Maybe the framing is like a lot of people who are wanting to make more money just don't Know what the avenues are? Yeah. So a lot of people who want to make money don't understand how money is made. And so it's made by getting it from someone else, and they have to give it to you voluntarily or it's theft. And so assuming you don't want to steal, then you have to give something to someone else first. And then by doing that, they give you money in exchange. Which is why I love capitalism. It's voluntary exchange between two parties, and both parties say thank you at the end because both parties think they're better off from the trade. And so the idea is what you want to be able to do is find something valuable to trade. And so you can either trade stuff, you can find a place where you can get stuff and then bring it to other people where it's convenient for them, so they pay you more than you did when you had to go find it at some back alley. Because, you know, suburban mom doesn't want to go into back alley to get X, Y and Z, but you'll give it to her. Man, it sounds like I'm explaining drugs, but, well, there's a reason they make money. But anyways, point is, is that you can sell stuff at a margin, and a part of that margin is going to be the convenience that you deliver them. And either you're selling stuff that someone else manufactures, you create your own stuff. Now, if you're starting out, you're probably gonna sell someone else's stuff. And I do think, and I mean I'm saying this right now, I do love the concept that the first thing you sell is not the last thing you're going to sell. And so learning to sell in and of itself, the best way to learn to sell is sell something. And that's why referral programs, ambassador programs, affiliate programs for different types of businesses. Almost every business I've ever owned has an affiliate program. It's great to enroll in those. I'm not even gonna say any of the names of the companies that we have, because I want you. Like, it's not about that. I want you to. If you can just. Because then you only have to figure out one skill. Like, if I just sell someone, if I just promote, I get paid. Cool. And I can just do that over and over again. Now, over time, you're like, man, I want to make more of the nut. Cool. Then you just eat up more of the responsibility. So you can either sell stuff or you can sell skills, you can sell outcomes. And so that's where you develop a certain expertise. So, like, in the beginning for me, and like, the first time this ever, like, the first money I ever made from a stranger was that I had a lady at the gym. It's a real story. I was in really good shape, I like to think so. And she said, will you meet me and do a nutrition consultation for me? And she didn't even say that. She said, will you help me with my food? I think is what she said. And I said, sure. And so we met at a pizza place. Ironically. No, this was after college. So this is after I graduated from college when I was still consultant. So we met at a pizza place. And I was like, okay, well, what are you currently eating? And she was like, this. And I was like, well, what do you want to do? She was like, I'm trying to lose weight. And I was like, well, this is something I eat for breakfast. It's less calories than your thing. It's pretty good. And try this, and try this and try this. And it took like an hour. And then I had like a notepad and I gave her the notes or whatever, and she took out her purse and she wrote $200 on a check. And she handed it to me. She was like, thanks so much. And I was like, looked at. I was just, like, looking at the check, looking at her, looking at the check, looking at her. And I was like, okay, don't act surprised. And I was like, oh, thanks. And then she left. And I was like, holy shit. I was like, I just got paid for. But, like, realistically, I'd been, at this point, I was competing, so I'm winning. Like, I had a state record at that point. Like, I was in shape, you know what I mean? And I think she knew I was a state record holder because the gym that I was at was powerlifting gym. But I had done some stuff. I had gotten some level of authority on some tiny thing, and people were like, oh, can you help me with that too? And to be really honest with you, my entire life, and I'm saying, like, there's many paths, but, like, my life has been, learn something, get good at it, have evidence that you were good at the thing, and then people ask you for help on that thing. And so in the beginning, people asked me how to get in shape, and then I started a business around getting people in shape. And then people who had businesses around getting people in shape asked me how I was getting my businesses that were getting people in shape to work. And then people who had businesses that were national scale that helped people in A specific niche or industry started asking me how I was helping people in a specific niche or industry. And then people who had really big businesses just started asking me, how did you get a really big business? And so, like, my entire life been simply doing as hard as I fucking could to get good at something and then do it enough times. And to be really, like, very clear with you, every time I did it, it was not to move on to the next step. It was to just get good at the thing. And then by getting good at the thing, people asked me about it. And so it wasn't like I lost 10 pounds and then tried to start selling weight loss advice. I had multiple state records, and I, like, I looked good. You know what I mean? Like, I was in very good shape. And then people started asking me about it, and then I didn't have one gym and start telling people, hey, here's how you run a gym. I had six gyms by the time I was 26. And then people were like, okay, you're 26 and you have six gyms, and you did all of cash flow, like you're doing something right. And then people started asking me about the stuff. And then when I had the licensing business doing 4 million a month, people who had other bigger businesses are doing a million a month or 500,000amonth. How do you get to 4 million a month? And I was like, well, this is what I did. And so I've just tried to figure it out. And the path has always been revealed as I took more steps. And so I think a big fallacy in the early on days is trying to think that you're gonna figure out the entire path before you even take the first step. It's just not true. Real quick, I have the most amazing offer for you, which is all three of my books for free, just cover the shipping. I think it was like, five or six bucks in shipping per book. You get the actual hardback shipped to you. And the reason for that is because some of you guys may know we had 3.6 million copies that were donated from entrepreneurs. And I'm doing my part to give the books away, but I'm also giving the other two books to anyone who want them who choose to redeem it. All right? Last time I made this offer, it sold out in, like, 10 days, so I had to buy a lot more books. So if you see this, you know, go check it out. Go grab them. These are obviously while supplies last, because this lives in the video forever. And if you get there and it's not there, then, you know, don't get upset. All right, back to the video. I was going to ask, how important is it for someone to have that moment with the check where they just make their first. I mean, in some ways, I think it's everything. In other ways, it's nothing like one of the cool, shameless plug for school. The 30.44% of people who finish their first month of school make their first dollar online. And that's like, so, like. Like, that's why we do it. You know what I mean? Like, I know how hard that first dollar is. Like, there's so much to get the first dollar across the roof because the second dollar comes so much faster after that. I mean, that's why. That's why I invest in the company. That's why I'm so adamant about it. But anyways, the point is that, yes, I think having the first dollar get across is very important, but if you can reframe it from that experience points perspective, that there's probably three levels before that, you have to, like, level one is that you have to understand that it's my fault. Level two is that you have to use what you have, not what you wish you had to get to where you want to go. And where you want to go isn't 100 steps forward. It's just the next step. And so, like, I don't think that anger drives me as much as it used to, but it was everything that I had when I started. And so if I had listened to the positivity mantra when I started, I never would have gotten going because nothing made me feel happy. And so they were like, follow your passion. And I was like, my passion is to not be poor and to not be here in Baltimore. That's my passion, is not be here. And so that's what drove me. And so I think that it just needs to be restated that, like, is that the goal? Sure. But is that necessary to start? No, it's not. And so I can tell you that even when I was angry and getting through that, making more money did make my life better. Like, I had more ability to deal with inconveniences, hassles, health issues from family members that I had to foot the bill for. Like, all these things, like, money can provide value. And so I'll say this thing that a mentor told me, he said, money does not buy happiness, but it can help you avoid pain. And so, like, I think there's nothing wrong with getting. With making money. Obviously, I like doing it. But I just hate the people who espouse that you have to feel a certain way to win, or that winning when you're angry or sad or in pain or ashamed is somehow wrong. And so I just like, you have to meet success where you're at. And the first step you have to take out of anger, and the next step you have to take out of sadness, and the next one you have to take out of shame and use that to propel yourself forward. All that matters is you take the step. And one of the things that I always like is for a very long time I didn't consider myself a good person. I mean, I still probably don't, but in terms of like, I always identified with the villain and the oppressor in most scenarios, which is bad. But anyways. But there's a point to this, is that I never thought that I deserved the good life. I never thought, I didn't think I deserved the happy ending, I'll put it that way. And so the thing that got me through that was the idea and this felt like, honestly, like gaming the system. So, like from the evil side was that I could still get the good guys ending if I just did the thing that they do to get the ending. So I didn't have to do it with pure intentions, I didn't have to do as a great guy, but if I just still did the things, I could still get the getting. And I think for me that realization has been why my ruthless focus on like, well, what did you do? And to everyone who listens to my stuff, like, it's like, great, throw the emotions out, throw the spiritual energy vibrations out. What do you do? Patience is just figuring out what to do in the meantime. Like, courage is acting as though you weren't afraid. Like, what do you do? And then eliminating everything else and then just doing that and then doing whatever mental tricks you have to do, which is like, there were slaves who work seven days a week, so can I. And then alternatively catastrophizing the alternative path, which is that if I do not do anything, this is what will happen eventually. That pain in the future will be my pain today. And then actively thinking about what that pain would be like and then seeing if that can make you more uncomfortable than the comfort that you're in. And I think Tony Robbins says this. He says change happens when the pain of staying the same. Sorry, when the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same. And so if you're comfortable in staying the same, the point is to make Yourself more in pain to get yourself to move. And so I think there's a skill in being able to future pace and think through what pain you're going to go through. Like if you're like, man, okay, I have gained five pounds a year and it has been four years, so I'm 20 pounds up. Well, if four years from now I'm another 20 pounds heavier. And imagining the snide comments at the holiday party or the if you're a girl, the guy who says, man, she'd be really cute if she lost 40 pounds. Or like, even like, I'm going, girls perspective here. A guy who says something that's like, I would be with her, but she's just, she's just too fat. She's just not cute enough. And you're like, wow, that's so politically incorrect. Deal with it. It's fucking life. But the thing is, your thoughts don't need to be politically correct. They're your thoughts, they're no one else's thoughts. And so whatever you have to do to get yourself there. For me, the idea that a girl that I would want to be with would be like, I just don't think he's ambitious enough. I don't think he's successful enough. Those ideas killed me. And so I never wanted to be denied entry to somewhere because I didn't have these things. Now, do I believe that people should be denied entry? No. But I also realize that's the way the world is. And so I think you can balance both beliefs. Like, I'd love things to be different, but I accept the fact that they're not. Does this feel like a good argument for getting rid of other broke friends? Because I bet other broke friends reduce the pain of staying the same. A friend who supports you is someone who deliberately decreases the possibility of failure. And so if you look at your friends and you ask yourself, does this person increase or decrease the possibility of failure with my goal? It's very easy to answer that question. It's yes or no. It's increase or decrease. There's no in between. Do they increase or they decrease my possibility that I get to my goal? If the answer is decrease and get rid of them. Because imagine that you have a hundred percent chance of hitting your goal and you have three friends that have a 30% decrease. Like you might now have a, have a fucking, you know, whatever. A third times three is whatever 27% chance of hitting your goal now because you have three terrible friends. Like negative experience. Yeah, yeah. It's like getting in video games, it's like you've got somebody who's casting like a slow spell on you, and you're like moving so slow and you're like, weak. And all your hits have, like half power. A lot of people need to shed friendships, but the thing is, it's more that they call them friends, but they're not really friends. They're just there. And they're there because they've always been there, but not because they should be there, but because they're going to help you get to where you want to go. They just. They're just there. They exist. They're not going anywhere. They don't have goals, and they're at a different part in their journey. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you're going to start the path of drinking glass and starting to double time, you got to live your life and you got to live tomorrow's life and the next day's life and start dragging that towards you. They're going to. They're going to be upset about it. And so one of the sayings I recently have that I like a lot, which is there are no social obligations, only social consequences. And the people who want to deliver those consequences often do it by talking to you less and by avoiding you more. They try to spend less time with you and talk to you less to punish you for the fact that you missed the party, you missed the going out, you didn't show up to their wedding, you didn't show up to their dogs christening or whatever. But the crazy thing is, is that if you felt obligated to go, then it means you didn't want to go. And that means that if you didn't want to go, and the punishment of not going is that you don't have to go more in the future because they avoid you or they don't invite you anymore, then to me, that's a win win. You save time today and you save time tomorrow. And I don't understand why people are not willing to deal with that. Like just looking at what happens rather than whatever emotional noise they make with their face at you, like moving past that gray, you expelled air at me. Understood. Got it. But the outcome is you will no longer invite me, which is what I want. Great. I feel like we won here. And so thinking second and third order outcomes from what happens when I, quote, break up with this friend, or what happens when I offend this friend, a lot of times it's you closer to your goal. And I've always been, okay, with that. And, like, if someone, like, the moment I have seen somebody as decreasing the likelihood that I hit my goal, I am happy to tell them that, like, I think you are not good for me. I don't think you helped me hit what I want to hit. And they'd be like, well, then they'll try and downgrade your goals and say you shouldn't believe this way, and then they'll cast their beliefs on you. And for me, it's like, that's amazing that you believe that. I don't believe that. And I don't really want to believe what you believe because then I would have your life, and I certainly don't want that. And so, like, again, I make these tweets about this, but it's like, if you don't like their life, don't listen to what they say. Like, don't take their advice if you don't like what you see. And so if everyone around you has a life you don't want, then don't listen to any of their advice. Again, hopefully you're listening to this and you're watching. If there's some element of my life or whatever that you find awesome, cool, then maybe some element of what I can share is helpful for you. But you have to put blinders on, because there is a period of time where you. And I mean, I've said this, but you're not going to be successful enough for the next tier of friends. But you're too different from the friends that you used to have. And so that middle path is very lonely. But the good thing about loneliness is you've got time. And right now, time is what you need because you got to learn stuff. You got to get the skills. So you can start trading that for more and more money, and then you can take the money and trade that for more money. But in the beginning, you just have time, and that's what you have to spend. And so if you are broke or you are poor and wish to no longer be broke and poor, the first is owning the fact that everything that has to do with your life is your fault. And a lot of people will reject that. And you're right. Stay poor. You're totally right. You'll never be successful. You're totally right. I believe you. The next step is being willing to use what you have rather than what you think you should have or what you wish you had. The circumstances, the connections, the money, whatever the passion, the purpose, the meaning behind the work, you can wish for all that stuff, but you don't have it. So you have to use what you have, which could be anger, could be shame, could be pain, whatever. And then as soon as you start taking action, everyone around you will collapse and try to pull you down. And so the only way to protect yourself against that is to increase your own approval of self and decrease how much their opinion of you matters. Which means that you have to be proud of you for taking the step and actively look at their lives and think, do I want what they have? If the answer is no, then do not listen to what they say. And then when you do that, you keep walking, you keep taking steps, no matter how painful it is and you never stop. And if you do that, you will get there. That's it. Cool. In your 20s, you don't need to find yourself, you need to build yourself. Here are 18 tactical lessons I learned about achieving early success. I made my first million at 26 across 100 million in net worth at age 31 and this is my roadmap for things that I learned along the way. I'd like to normalize a six day a week, 12 hour per day work week for men between 16 and 28. And despite all the self worth voodoo that social media and society will tell you, you are valued based on your utility and when you're young you have none, but you have a lot of energy and so trade that energy for experience points and become useful. The first rule of entrepreneurship according to Alex, is use what you've got. And the reason I like that is because many people always don't start things because they don't have the capital, they don't have the connections, they don't have the whatever insert insecurity or projection of blame and power they want to put on. But the first rule is you use what you have. And so it's about resourcefulness, not resources. And so if you have energy, you use the resource you have. You use what you've got to trade to develop experience, develop proof that you can get good at a skill. And you only get good at a skill by not being good at a skill and repeating it and then failing at each time and then making incremental improvements which take many, many repetitions until you actually get good. And this may be a little controversial, but I'm not here to be nice to you. I'm trying to be kind, which might mean that hurts a little bit. So let's make this practical. If you have less than $100,000 in savings and you would like to have $100,000 or more in Savings. These are the things that I would recommend doing. And that means that you have to check out your ego. Your ego is gone for this. You don't care what other people think because they're not going to be there in 10 years, all right? Because you have a whole new group of friends that are way fucking better and cooler. So one, stop eating out discount groceries only. That's if you're super poor. If, here's my caveat. If you know how to make money, you already have a base level of skills, then eating Chipotle and whatever, whatever you can doordash it in so that you can keep working. The moment I realized I could make $500 every 30 minutes by selling, I was like, oh, I'm never buying, I'm never cooking food or grocery shopping ever again. Anything that was less than $500 an hour was now immediately outsourced. But this advice is for people who are super broke. Okay? So if you don't have the skillset yet at all and you're struggling to just get things going, then you need to be completely on the defensive so that you can have enough money so that you can start taking bets. Because the only way that you're going to get ahead is that you have to make bets. You got to make bets on education, you got to make bets on opportunities, you got to make bets on inventory, you got to make bets on software. You want to start a shopify store, you want to start a school community, you want to start something, it's still going to cost some money, right? You might have to buy a camera, you have to buy some software that helps you edit videos. Like there's some expenses, alright? And so having a big stockpile allows you to be patient. The more money you have, the longer out you can think because you don't have to worry about tomorrow. You know that next month and the month after and the month after taking care of. Because even if you made no money, you've got enough. That's how you can start thinking long term. People are like, think long term, think long term. But like, unless if you have payroll and you've got, or you've got rent or you've got groceries to pay, you can't think long term because you're in survival mode. And so I'm trying to get survival to be as low as humanly possible for you so that you could get into thrive mode. But it's all relative. If you make 40 grand a month and spend 40 grand a month, you're gonna be in the same Survival mode. But if you make 40 grand a month and spend four, you're gonna have every month you make 10 months worth of income. And so in two months, you've got 20 months saved up. You're good. And then you can get super aggressive with that other 36 and start really betting to double down. All right, so here's the very broken five, six things that you can do to immediately spend way less. One, stop eating out discount groceries only. Two, stop buying new clothes. Go to Goodwill only. Three, only attend free friend events. All right, so think of what I just said. Think about all the events that friends will tell you to come to. Weddings, bachelor parties, birthdays, just nights out because it's thirsty Thursday, whatever. Only attend free friend events. And if they don't support your goals, they are not your friends. Think about that. If I said, hey, I've got this goal, and I said, hey, there's this human being and he wants to get you to not have that goal, would you describe him as a friend or an enemy? Think about it. Some of you, some of the people in your life that you call friends are actually your enemies. You just don't know it. Now, four, take the rest of the time that you have to A, apply to jobs that make more than your current job. B, pick up side hustle, work. C, learn skills that you can trade for a higher hourly rate than you currently do. When I say trade, I mean you make more per hour than when your current, current skills pay you. Alright? And then five, find the hardest worker in the room when you enter that new job or that new place. And then double their level of input. So if they knock on 100 doors, you knock on 200. They make 100 dials, you make 200 dials, right? When I had Jacob, my young neighbor, I gave him this exact advice. And he was expected to on his team, do $100 a day. He did between 300 and 400. And so guess what? He got better, faster. And then once you follow all of those steps, this is what you need to do next. Wait 36 months. And this is what I mean by patient with your outputs, impatient with your inputs. And the crazy thing is that you can change your life in one decision. I can get drunk, drive in a car and change my life forever. I can happen like that, but it can happen just like that the other way. It's just that the outcome's delayed. That's the only difference. You can change your life today, in this moment by making these decisions. And your life path will have veered you will have changed direction, your tree of life will move. It's just that it takes time for that new direction to bear fruit. Whereas you can poison the fruit in a second, you can kill a tree real fast, you just can't grow one real fast. But it doesn't mean that if a seed's planted and you're watering it, it's not growing. It just takes a second to get above the surface. I think you can solve a lot of male problems by getting in shape and making money. You'll still have problems, they'll just be smaller and you'll have more resources to handle them. So let's talk about the making money part first. Fundamentally, in order to make money, you have to provide value to someone, either an employer or customers. But either way you have utility, which you exchange for money. And so by making that a goal, then it means that you're going to increase your own usefulness. And so somebody who is more useful all of a sudden develops other ancillary skills around that utility that they can use in other parts of their lives. If you're good at sales, guess what you can do when you're talking to girls? You can use the same conversational skill set if you are trying to negotiate a purchase for a car or a house or whatever. Like those skills generalize, they transfer across domains. And so a lot of people think it's like, well, when would I ever be a salesperson or when would I ever be an outbound? It doesn't matter. It's not about that thing. The thing is real life skills actually do generalize. This isn't elementary school or middle school. When you're learning calculus or algebra or whatever and thinking, what am I going to use this in real life? One, it is real life right now. Two, these skills do get used across domains. Of all of my friends who are sent to millionaires and billionaires, to a person, they started in what I would consider a high volume sales environment. So that's either door knocking, cold calling, or some sort of in person business where they had many, many, many conversations with strangers on a daily basis. And I think there's, and I'm talking not like a month or six months, I'm talking like three, five years where no one knew their name. They were just some faceless representative that stood there at the door, saw people, sold memberships, sold insurance, sold solar, sold whatever. And the thing is, is like skill development happens through volume and feedback loops. So it's the number of repetitions you have times the amount of improvement between repetitions, brute forcing the amount of volume definitely will help if you can give yourself feedback. I've seen people say, hey, I've actually made 100 pieces of content. Now. This is like 1% of people, because most people do nothing. But of the 1% of people who say, okay, I posted every day for a year, the thing is, they didn't do the most important part, which is you don't just make a video and post it. And just every day, like, hey, make a video, post it. Make a video, post it. You have to look at what you did and what you could do better. Fundamentally, that is the cornerstone of feedback. And so you look at the top 10 videos you made over the last month, and you say, okay, how do I do more of that and how do I do less of the bottom 10%? And you just pick one thing that you did well there, and you try and do it in every video going forward. And that develops a checklist of things to do so that you develop a skill. And so, speaking from my own experience, the first sales conversation I ever had, first off, I had zero sales training. No one was like, hey, this is the script. This is how you go over. They're like, hey, here's a new lady. Go sign her up. And so I was like, okay. And I didn't even know this was a sale. I didn't know that. I didn't know the term sales. I just. He said, go sign her up. And I said, okay. And so I walked over, and she was like, hey, you know, I want to know more about the gym. And I said, what do you want to know? And she was like, well, I mean, like, how much is it? And I was like, oh, it's whatever, 150 bucks a month. And she was like, okay. And I was like, you want to sign up? And she said, I left my credit card at home. And I was like, okay. And she was like, I'll be back with the credit card. And I was like, cool. And so I walked out, and it was like two minutes, right? And I walked out, and the owner, Sam, was there with a few of other. Other gym owners. He had brought a few gym owners in. So it was like three or four gym owners there. And he was like, damn. He was like, that was fast. And I was like, yeah. He's like, you closed her? And I was like, yeah. And he was like, with a credit card? And I was like, oh, no, she's gonna go get it, and she'll be back. And they just looked at each other and Then looked back at me and then just started laughing at me uncontrollably, like, couldn't breathe at how dumb what I had just said was. And the thing is, I had no experience. And I tell that story because so many people assume that, like, I walked out of the womb closing deals, you know what I mean? Like, hey, nurse, what are you doing later? You know what I mean? But it wasn't like that, right? Like, I didn't know. I didn't even know the term. And so over time, I just started developing, like, okay, well, what do you do? And I watched other people sell. Like, okay. They start with asking them why someone's there, ask them about their goals, ask them things that they've done in the past that didn't work. I said, like, okay, that seems to work. Okay. And then when they ask them to buy, then if they don't want to say yes, they ask them more questions rather than just saying okay. So I started to develop at least an understanding of the framework of how sales occurred, but it still wasn't good, right? And so then I went through, like, that rocky cut scene period, where. This is where I'm very grateful for this, is that Facebook ads is, when I started running them in 2013, were super cheap. And so it actually gave me so many repetitions because not only was I taking 15 to 20 consults a day in person, I was also working leads. And so I'm talking to strangers over the phone to set the appointments. And so all I got was just names on a list. And I would call them, set the appointment like, who's this again? You know, all of that. And then. And by the way, if you are local, you just say the name, pause with a question mark at the beginning. You're like, john. And then they'll be like, yeah. You're like, this is Alex. I'd pause and they'd be like. They're like, who the fuck is Alex? I'd be like, from Facebook. You signed up for our Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, our thing. Yeah. I'm just calling to make sure that you're not a crazy person from the Internet, and neither am I. I was like, we're actually on the corner of X and Y. I was like, right next to the 7 11. They're like, yeah. I'm like, okay, cool. I just wanted to see what time you want to come. Come by. I was like, we have the sweetest facility in the world. Not really, but it's at least pretty decent for this area. But we have five out of five coolness. And they were just laughing. They'd be like, I can make it at six. And I'm like, six works. I was like, do you want a picture of me or just of the address? And they're like, just the address. I'm like, all right, sounds good. I'll text it to you and I'll see you later today, right? So that, like, notice the, like, half giggles between each word. Like, it's showing that you're a positive tone person, high energy. And someone's like, man, this guy seems cool or this gal seems cool, right? And so they're more likely to show up. They're more likely. Now if I maintain that tone, if they give me an objection, I can pivot really easily. If I'm like, neutral or like, hi, I saw that you signed up on the Internet for our thing. Would you like to come in? They're like, well, tell me more about it. Like, well, it's just you have no. You have no room for messing up. And so I always tried to have more rapport and bring a lot of energy. And the thing is, like, if you've seen any of my content, I'm not naturally, like a high energy person. I will continue to work, which is different than being like up here. And so I developed a lot of things to try and keep myself energized. And so I had a small trampoline that I would bounce on before and between every sales appointment. It sounds ridiculous, but if you. I'm telling you, it's like 100 bucks. If you buy one of those little trampolines and you bounce either between sales calls or between people. Like, I'd have people coming in as I was still bouncing, and I'd be like, I know this is ridiculous. I was like, but try and be in a bad mood on a trampoline. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. I challenge you too. You can be in a bad mood if you try jumping around. Like, you feel like such a child. It's ridiculous. But what would happen is, like, I would also get a little bit exercise, my blood would keep moving. But it's also just like mentally literally bouncing gave me a lot of energy for these appointments. And so I say this because I developed all of these things over time. And so if you're starting out, you're not going to be good. That's why you're new. You have no experience. But there's a difference between. There's a story that, shoot, I Can't remember where it is. But there was a foreign kid who had never seen a banana before. And so the adult gave the kid a banana. And so the banana. So the kid took the banana and then bit right into it with the skin and everything. And another child was like, you're such an idiot. And then the adult yelled at that child and said, no, he just doesn't know any better. And there's a very big difference between being dumb and being inexperienced right now. You just don't have reps. And so you're gonna make a lot of mistakes, like biting into the banana, like for just walking, letting someone walk away, assuming it's a close. And they say that they're just gonna come back and call you with their credit card. Right. By the way, that never happens, very rarely, but instead you wanna just peel that banana, you wanna bite into the banana, bite into the orange, all of those mistakes as quickly as possible and not judge yourself for making the mistake and see the mistake as part of the process of being like, that didn't work. That didn't work. And if I develop enough of these doesn't works, then you just kind of walk the minefield and you get to where you're trying to go and people are like, wow, you're so good at this. And you're like, oh, no, no. I actually just know all the things not to say in a sale, and then they end up buying. I just avoid all that. And then they buy. And to be clear, I think I have a similar piece of advice, but for very different reasons, of telling young men in general, or men to work harder. And it's not because I think it's some sort of beating your chest, I'm an alpha, whatever thing. It's just that for me, the point of my life is to become the best version of me. And in order to do that, I need to learn, because there's a huge discrepancy between where I am and where I want to go. And the discrepancy is going to get filled with skills, which means that I need to do repetitions to acquire failures that I can learn from, to get better from. And if I can do more of that in a shorter period of time, I will learn more skills. And by definition, I will shrink the distance between myself and my ideal self. And so that is pretty much the only thought process I have around this. And I also believe that you need to be patient with outputs and impatient with inputs. So let me unpack that patience in general, figuring out what to do in the meantime. So when someone says, hey, be patient, what they just mean is figure out something else to do in the meantime. And so if I'm telling you to be patient with outputs, it means that you basically just have to figure out something else to do in the meantime while you wait for outputs to occur. Because you can't output, you can't. Money doesn't appear, you have to do something and then money happens, right? But the doing something part is the thing that you can control. The money happening is the part that you don't control that comes afterwards. It's at outcome, right? And so when I say patient with outputs, that's the first part. The second part is impatient with inputs. And so if being patient is figuring out what to do in the meantime, impatience is doing the thing in the meantime, right? And so it's the opposite of that. It's the thing you do in the meantime. And so if you want to be impatient with the input, the input is the thing that's the action you do. And so by delineating that, if you hear yourself thinking, man, why hasn't this happened yet? You're talking about outputs. And that means great, if I think that thought, I need to do more of this input, right? And so use your input, your action, your doingness, the thing you use your hands for as your coping mechanism for your impatience with outputs. I want to say that one more time. Whenever you have that feeling that things should be happening faster, use action as your coping mechanism. I used to write this down a lot and say it, which was, action alleviates anxiety. And so when I would have this anxiety about the future of like, why haven't I made it yet? Why are these other people doing better than me? Like, is this not going to work? What if I'm on the wrong path? Action alleviates anxiety. The only thing I could control is that I would work, is that I would get better. And the key point there was that it wasn't just working for work's sake, it was working with the intention to improve. And so you want to do repetitions because by doing things more times, you get better at them, typically just by accident. But if you're deliberate about the point of doing this. When I started working at a gym, going from a white collar job, it wasn't because I wanted to become a trainer for the rest of my life, it was because I wanted to learn the skills. And then I knew that once I learned those skills, if I owned a gym, then I would know how to do the training part as well, and that would be good for me. And so then when I was a gym owner and when I started and started working in a gym, I wanted to own a big chain of gyms. That was my whole goal to start with. I wasn't getting into this for one. Like, I never had the goal of only owning just one gym. And so even when I started that gym, the whole point. And I worked all the time because I thought of all the things that I didn't know how to do yet. And so it wasn't about, great, I've made it. I own a gym. It was like, I'm so deprived of where I want to be. I have to fill this gap as fast as I possibly can. And so that's why I spent so much time on this and got feedback from as many human beings as I possibly could who were ahead of me. So I want to say this clearly. Once I started my gym, one, I paid for a mastermind for gym owners before owning a gym. And I did that because I figured, well, why would I start a gym until I learn all the stuff that you guys did wrong? I was like, I'll just learn from all Yalls mistakes. It sounds like a great deal for me. It almost felt unfair. I was like, yeah, okay. He said, don't start at one of those locations. He said, have good storefront. He said, make sure that you have good parking. I was like, ooh, these are all good things. They're like, don't go too big. I was like, okay, that's good. And they're like, make sure your rent's under this per foot. I was like, all right, make sure I got that. And so I took all these notes in that I would have just made huge mistakes on the up front. Now, once I did start my gym, what a lot of people don't know is that every weekend, I would either be on phone calls or I'd be driving out to other gym owners. And I would. And thankfully, because I was so young when I started my business, they were just like. They felt bad for me, and so they would just sit there, and I'd be like, hey, why do you do that? Hey, why do you do that? Hey, why do you do that? And it was like, you know, they'd be like, God, you're such a pain in the ass. But I just wanted to learn, right? But I was always, like, willing to help them with anything they had. You know what I mean? I was like, let me show you the stuff that's working well for me. And I would always just share it. And the thing is, I would go there and they would say they did something and I'd be like, huh, that's weird. That's different than the other guy. And I like that way better. It didn't mean I'd take everything as fact, but I got a lot of ideas from that and then I would use them and if they didn't work, I would just toss them out. And if they did, I kept it. And that's how I quickly iterated the gym model to become much better than a lot of people's models, despite me being younger, because I was able to leverage everyone else's experience as fast as I could and jam it into my own. And so I think like the people who move faster than life learn faster. And the only way you learn is by changing your behavior with the same conditions. Which means that if a person walks in, I say, this is my six point script. A person who's identical walks in right afterwards. If I've learned something, that script changes means same condition, new behavior. And so if you keep doing the exact same thing every single day, then you may not be learning. And it's a key point. It's good to work hard, but it's good to work hard and smart, which means that the work you do gets better because you tweak things. And so if you're not documenting the process that you have, and I'm not saying you're making content about it, but literally looking back at game footage, looking at the calls you did, looking at the content you did, I do this today. People ask me like, what are the masterminds you're into? What are the courses you learn from? I have now broken apart the learning process that I have that works best for me because I see the biggest gains and improvement haven't come from advice. For me, for the most part, they came from looking at data which was, let me look at the last 2000 ads I made. Let me look at the top 50, let me look at what these ones have in common, let me look at what they don't look like compared to the bottom 50. Okay, these ones have these characteristics, these don't. I'll do more of this and less of that. And then I do another hundred ads and I look at the top 10 again, I say, what do these ones have that these ones don't? And I do that for sales calls, I did that for content, I do that for meetings, I do that for businesses in general when you start zooming out. And so that process of do a lot of volume, then look at the outcomes that were good. Look at the activities that led to those outcomes that are positive. Do more of those activities. Look at the bottom percentages, look at the things that led to not having that happen, and do less of those. And if you're younger, and this is specific for everyone who's listening to this video, if you're probably sub 30, sub 28 maybe, right? If you're in your 20s or less, you can probably get away with this, which is that people ahead of you are more willing, believe it or not, to feel like they have status. So you can give them status by saying, be a mentor. And the thing is, a lot of young guys have a lot of ego, right? Because you're trying to prove yourself, trying to be a man, whatever. The thing is that if you humble yourself, it's not like there's some fucking massive scoreboard where it's like, who humbled themselves to whom across the whole U.S. it doesn't. It doesn't exist. It's just within one dynamic, right? And so if you go and say, hey, I don't know anything, I'm happy to learn if you do that, then a lot of people are like, oh, well, he humbled himself. Well, yeah, I'm happy to teach you. And the thing is, they'll give you advice that's worth thousands of dollars, years of your life for free if you just say, you're better than I am at this. But the thing is that the end of the day, none of it matters. But scoreboard would be the thing that matters in business, right? And so the only thing that precedes the scoreboard is your learning. I've spent ego points, I've spent dollars, I've spent time, I've spent social capital. I spent every resource that I had to get more learning faster. Because fundamentally, the only thing, and I think this is probably one of the biggest gifts my father gave me is believing that I am the asset I am investing in. And the cool thing is that you are the permanent hold, right? You can't sell you like you're you until you die. And so this is the one asset you've got because you compound skills, compound when you get really good at sales and really good at finance. Guess what? You can raise a billion dollars because you know how the finance world works and you know how the sales world works, right? If you know how to code and market, then guess what? You can build software and sell it to gazillions of people because you have the product and the acquisition like skills stack disproportionately. If you only know one, you might not be able to make a tenth as much as if you know two. Now obviously those are big bucketed terms that have many, many, many skills underneath of them. But fundamentally, when you think about it that way, you become a weapon real quick. I have a gift for you. This is the hundred million dollar scaling roadmap. It's something that my team and I put 200 plus hours into building and breaking the stages of scaling into 10 steps, alright? And so what we did is we broke down everything that got us, basically got us stuck and what we did to break free and at each level of the business. And if you'd like to know what product marketing, sales, customer service, it, recruiting, human resources and finance look like at the stage that you're currently at, this is a free gift. So all you have to do is go to acquisition.com roadmap, you can plug in your business information and if you want our help, you want my help to help you break through whatever level of scaling you're at, this is not a promise. I'm just saying I'd love to help. On the thank you page, you can book a call. Every month we have a workshop out here at my headquarters. You actually talk to my real team that does, does our marketing, does our emails, does our ads, does our copy, does our sales, does our finance, does our recruiting. The real people are doing this at a very high level. And what's really cool about that is that they can typically find and spot what the constraints are in a business like that. And so it's one of the most valuable things that I could possibly do. Obviously space is limited based on our actual headquarters, but if that's interesting on the thank you page, you can book a call. No pressure. This is a gift. Either way, it's absolutely free. So let's tackle the second part. I said you can solve a lot of male problems by getting in shape and making money. And so let's talk about the getting in shape side. So you can avoid tons of problems in life by doing one thing, going to bed on time. And so instead of setting alarms to wake up, set alarms to go to sleep on time. It's hard to wake up late when you go to bed at 9, right? And so the thing is that that one simple behavior actually can eliminate a lot of the things that derail men, especially young men. And so Charlie Munger talks about this a lot, which is like all I'd want to do is Find out where I'm going to die and never go there. The whole point is he thought so much more about avoiding stupidity than trying to be intelligent. It's kind of like the stupidities are very easy to identify. The intelligence is hard, but if you avoid all stupidity, you just become intelligent by default. And so if you define intelligence the way I do, which is rate of learning, so how quickly you pick things up, that is intelligence. If you can avoid all of these things that make you look like an idiot, then you become more intelligent. And so let's talk about this from the getting in shape perspective. Show me a situation where you have two groups of men. One group of men that is really out of shape and fat, and another group of men that's really in shape that are going to outperform one another. And this is generalized. You have to take random sampling of the population. A bunch of in shape guys, a bunch of overweight guys, who's going to do better at any task. Over and over again, if we pick 10 tasks that are completely different, the in shape guys are going to do better than the out of shape guys, period. They're going to have more energy, they're going to be more focused. If it's anything interrelations based like those guys are going to close higher percentages. If you're better looking, you will close more. If you're better looking, you get paid more. If you're better looking, you get more promoted. If you're better looking, you do better in content. Period. Fight me. And so the thing is like if you have this one thing that affects every way that, that people see you, and the only thing you have to do is control what you put into your mouth, then don't you think it's worth developing that most basic skill of discipline at this point in your life? Cause the thing is that you want to get in shape young because if you're not in shape, guess whose fault that is? So get in shape now. Thing is, it costs time, not money. And right now you've got time and not money. And time only becomes more expensive as you age. So buy it now while time costs you the least and you have the fewest responsibilities, it'll help you no matter what life path you choose. The thing that no one recognizes is that drinking costs you two days. The day you drink and the day you recover and sometimes the weeks afterwards for the stupid thing you did while you were drunk that everyone else saw. It reminds me of this quote from Muhammad Ali and I asked my team to pull it up Because I think it's so good. Also because he was the greatest of all time and just a cool dude. What's the central part of your training? Is it running? Is it sparring or. Central part is dodging the nightclubs and the parties and the girls. You want the truth? And being in the bed by yourself, nine o' clock at night. If you can get by that, you'll make it. Now I'll tell you the truth. You talk all that running and hitting the bags and jogging and vitamin emote, dodging ladies is the main thing, especially when you're pretty like me. And I'll speak to myself personally. When I had my intense periods of work, I would take off for a long, long time. So the longest then I took off was two years while I was scaling gym launch from, you know, the 20 months. We went from zero to four and a half million a month. 4.4, to be technical. I didn't drink that whole period. And once things settled out, I was like, all right, I'm willing to drink again. And right now acquisition.com is scaling like crazy. And so Layla and I both said, let's just stop drinking for the foreseeable and same thing now. So that was when I was in my 20s. This is now when I'm in my 30s. And I'll probably continue this until I feel like I'm at a place where things feel chill again and then like, maybe I'll partake again. But the thing is, if you are hungry, argue me the opposite, which is me drinking more will make it more likely for me to hit my goals. I think you'd have a tough time making that argument. And so right now, everything's compounding is amplified, right? The stuff you do now amplifies throughout your career and your life. And so I would want to stack as many advantages as I can to my favorite, which is like, I'm going to go to sleep on time. I'm going to not drink, right? I'm going to get in shape, right? I'm going to do as many repetitions as I can. I'm gonna humble myself with people who are more experienced than I am. Even if I think I'm smarter than them, they still know more. And there's a big difference. And this is what I think is really tough for younger guys is that your brain at 25 to 25 ish, 25 to 30 is like peak processing power. But I'm way fucking smarter now than I was then because I've still learned more. And that's the Thing is that you may be smarter than someone in sheer processing power, but they still might know more than you. And so you can't live their life. And especially if somebody is further ahead, then it still means that they have knowledge that you don't. And so humbling yourself to somebody, even if you think you are smarter, will teach you more. Because, again, argue the opposite. I will learn nothing from no one. How does that help you? It helps your ego feel good. But at some point, your ego's gonna have to rectify its good feeling with reality, which is that you're broke as shit and no one cares. And so I would rather humble myself rather than have the world humble me. This is a Bible quote that I just really like a lot. It's Matthew 23:12. He said, those who are humble will be exalted, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled. I actually told that to one of our team the other day because I felt like his ego was getting a little bit bigger than it probably should have been. And I said, listen, man, I was like, if you want to get humbled, keep doing what you're doing. I was like, but if you want people to talk you up, I was like, humble yourself. Let your work work for you, and then everyone else will exalt you. And so I think most men want to be respected. They don't have respect, and so they compensate by exalting themselves because it makes them feel better in the short term, but you look like an idiot in the long term. And think about it like this. Like, for some reason, I don't know why we're wired this way, but we say nice things about ourselves and we feel good, but everyone else feels bad, right? If everyone else says nice things about you, it doesn't make them feel bad to say it, but it makes you feel good. Think about those people in your life who always, like, talk themselves up. It's like, what do you see? You're like, this guy's so insecure. It's obvious. And you look that way, you don't feel that way, but you look that way. And some of the things that you develop as you get older is the separation between how I look and how I feel, which is like, oh, even though this feels good, I look dumb doing this. Your feelings can lie to you in terms of how well this behavior is serving you with your goals in the long term. And while we're talking about your friends exalting you and your friends saying you're cool, how much do their opinions of you really matter, because now this is going to take a completely different direction than you expected, which is you being humble is a description that other people would give to you, but it relies on you caring a lot of what they think, which is a double edged sword. And the younger you are, actually, at all points, it hurts you. It's kind of like the stock market. One person, two person, one day or two days in the stock market, it's just about sentiment. But how big the stock goes over a decade is about how good the intrinsic stock is. And so if a few people say you're an asshole, no big deal. If everyone says you're an asshole, probably a problem, right? And so it's understanding the nuance between that. But your friend group has a disproportionate sway over your behavior. And so your reference group is one of the number one correlations with how big your life gets, or rather the goals you achieve. Now, they've done the studies in terms of finance because it's easy to quantify. But your reference group, the five people you compare yourself to, not necessarily spend the most time with, but compare yourself to, are the ones that determine your future. And so sometimes you have to like your goals more than you like your friends. And every person who wants to do something in their life or has done something with their lives is going through the exact same chapter that you're going through right now. And it's the lonely chapter. It's the chapter where you don't fit in with your old friends, but you don't have the achievements yet to fit in with a new group of friends. And you're doing all the stuff, right, the free tutorials, you're watching these videos and you're reading everything you can get your hands on. And you're trying to set up whatever your podcast is or your content thing, right? And you're going through it and you're thinking yourself like, is this even worth it? Because you're not seeing any signs of success. But the sign of success is the hate that you get along the way. It is the leading indicator. And what you can't do is bend the knee to their hate and try and fit back in and conform. Because it's comfortable and it's warm. It's like the scene in the Matrix when Trinity opens the door, the very beginning in the first Matrix when Neo's about to take the red pill and he wants to get out of the car, and Trinity says, you've been down that road, Neo. You know that road and you know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be. And then he closes the door, and he gets back in, and he goes. They go to go take the red pill. So right now, this moment that you're going through is Trinity opening the door and saying, you could go back. You could go party. You could go to the nightclubs. You could say that this was just a hobby. You could downplay what you're doing. Like, I'm just trying it out. Oh, yeah. I'm not really that into it. It's just like. Just something I found. Right? But then as you're saying, you feel like a fake because you're lying to yourself. You're lying to them about what your real intentions are. And in that moment when you're trying to think about having that conversation, you'll remember exactly why you left, why it is that road, and you know exactly where it ends, and that's not where you want to be. And the thing is, is that your goals will stick with you longer than these relationships. Your goals will serve you more than. Than these relationships. And this is the stuff that no one will tell you. I can tell you personally. I don't talk to. I talk to one friend that I have from middle school and high school, all right? I talk to one person, two people from college. And it's not like we talk all the time. I talk to him every six months or so. And so I say this because although these relationships feel like they're incredibly important in your life right now, they will disappear. The majority of these friendships are based on convenience. You're only friends with them because they lived in your dorm, they lived in your neighborhood. They went into English class with you. But as soon as your conditions change, you change where you're at. Many of them will fade away because you'll develop new skills. You'll develop new context. You'll meet new people who are upskilled from that. And then you'll compare them to compare to these people, and you'll be like, man, these are better friends. These are people who are more aligned with my goals. They're trying to grow. When I want to work all day Saturday, they're like, cool, I'll work with you. Rather than being like, dude, we're going on a pontoon boat. Like, where are you going to be? And you have to accept that as the price. And the thing is, it's like, it's only if you want that. Like, if you. If you want to live a life that is the same as everyone else's. Then you can do what everyone else does. The only issue is when you want to do what everyone else does but get what none of them have. If you want to be exceptional by definition, you will be the exception. You will not be normal. You will be unlike the others. And so it makes sense that you would be in the out group. And it hurts as a human being because you want to be in the in group. It's part of our DNA. Shame is a real thing. And we don't want to feel that because in the natural world, if you're outside of the group, you have a much lower likelihood of living and procreating. So it's strong in our DNA to be in group. But the thing is, is that you're actually not in group or out of group. You're transitioning, you're between groups. And so in that lonely chapter, that's where you can do a disproportionate amount of work because you have no distractions. So you listen to the podcast, you read the tweets, you watch the videos, you consume the content because you know, deep down, I can do more than this. And you begin to see the person that you could be and realize how far you need to go to get there. But despite how far away it seems, your goals the best version of you, you look back down the dead end road and you know that's not where you want to be. And so you keep going and realize that there's no turning back. Once you see the promised land, once you see what you could become, you can't go back. And if you're not sure who your real friends are, one ask, is it more likely or less likely that I hit my goals with this person in my life? Just think about it like, if this person is in my life, is it more likely than my goals? Then remove them. Because it's better to have friends who force you to grow than ones who accept you as you are. Because the biggest risk to your future isn't your future competition or your rivals. It's the distraction that you insist on keeping in your life rather than doing the things you know you should be doing but aren't. Think about it like this. Imagine a competitor that you'd never want to go against. Focused, persistent, always learning, always improving. Relentless. Says no to everything but but that which makes them stronger. You know what he looks like. You know how he acts. You know who he associates with. Great. That's future. You now become him. You have to kill your current self for your new self to have room to grow. And so it's this constant appraisal of your skills and activities and saying, which of these makes me stronger? Which of these makes it more likely for me to hit my goal? And I just want to give you that frame because that, like, that single frame of is this person being in my life, make it more likely or less likely that I hit my goal, is this activity or this behavior that I do make it more or less likely that I hit my goal. And I consistently just ask that question over and over and over again. And that is because, for me, I do love my goals more than I love my friend, because my goals will be with me long after they are. And so if you think about your relationship with your goals and you put it on the same pedestal or higher than your relationship with your friends, you're going to lose one of the relationships. And the question is, which one is the one that's going to serve you more in the long term? That's a decision for you. But for me, I can tell you personally, achieving my goals has served me more than any one person has. And because achieving your goals is a generalized thing, it can open all doors to new relationships. And so you do have to burn sometimes what you have in order to have what you want. If you want to impress poor people, outspend them. If you want to impress rich people, outwork them. And I can tell you this, being in the position that I'm at, because I have tons of young men who work for me, and, I mean, they hear all the content that I make, and they know that. And so if you lease a Ferrari for $5,000 a month or whatever, I know you're not rich. And every rich person isn't impressed by that, because we know what it costs. You only impress poor people. And if you do it really early in your career, every rich person's like, man, you should be reinvesting that to get way fucking bigger. Now, if you're, like, an aficionado and you want to have lots of cars, and that's like, again, that's different. It depends on the reason you're doing it. It's like, you shouldn't be cooking your own food unless you love cooking. But if you don't love cooking, then you should outsource that shit as fast as possible so that you can get your time back. It's understanding the context of this, which, of course, this will be taken out of context, but hopefully you watching or listening to this can at least get it. Layla and I both collectively started buying Nicer things. So living in nicer places, having nicer cars. I bought my home, which was a nice house in Austin. I think it cost me 1.7 million. I bought it in cash and I bought it off one month paycheck. And so I want to put that in context to like, was it a ball in house? Totally. It was sick. I was super happy to be there. But where I lived before that cost me 1200 bucks a month. And so you're like, wait, 1.7, right? We spend money, but by percentage, the amount of money we spend is inconsequential. If you want to buy the toys and you want to buy that stuff, I'd say sure. Understand one, whatever you spend, you're taking away from the future. Now there is always a point you have to balance between consumption and investment. If you never spend anything, you live your entire life and you end up with a big pile of money and you didn't enjoy any moment of that. I don't think that's the way to do it. But I do think there's a ratio there and I think that ratio depends on you as an individual. I tend to always over index on investment because I want to become a really great version of me. And I think that's going to cost money and it's going to cost time. And I like to be ready for those opportunities because the opportunities get bigger and have more zeros next to them. And there's no masterminds you get to at a certain level, you just do a deal with someone and for me to pony up for the deal might be like, hey, you gotta write a check for 10 million. I'm like, all right, I gotta have that ready for just like on the sidelines waiting for opportunities, right? And so the idea is being on the defensive so that you can be on the offensive. It's living far below your lifestyle so that you can more heavily invest in the growth of the business. And so your lifestyle is your competitor's opportunity. There's you and other version of you, there's Bizarro you, right? And Bizarro you wants to live this great lifestyle and has the Ferrari and the nicer place and whatever. But when an opportunity comes along, Bizarro doesn't have any savings because he's trying to show face, right? But the thing is everyone's trying to show face for hates him anyways because it looks like he's bragging. But also they know how much he makes relatively. And they're like, God, he's got to be spending his Whole paycheck, he looks irresponsible. There's zero advantage to being accurately judged. If you are strong, you want to appear weak, you want to have more money than people expect you to have. And so for me, when we did buy the Bentley, which I bought because I got. I'll be honest, I got pressured into it. They're like, dude, come on, you make all this money, like, buy something nice for yourself. And I was like, I guess people buy nice cars. So I bought a car, I bought a Bentley, and I returned it six months later, and I lost 20 grand on it. And I was like, this is just a complete waste of everything. Like, I just don't care at all about this. Because you only need three things to win. You can write this down. The balls to start, the brains to learn, and the heart to never quit. And the good news is you already have all three. You're just not using them. Because fundamentally, if you found somebody and they started and they continue to get better and they never stopped, they would win. Just think about it from fundamental basics. Like, if I said, okay, think of a person who only did one thing, and all they dedicated their entire life to is doing that one thing and getting better and better at that thing, and they did it for 50 years, do you think that person would not be incredibly successful? Of course they would be. Then why aren't you doing it? The problem is it's never been easier to start a business. It's also never been easier to do nothing at all. And this is what I mean by your distractions. Are the things that are getting in your way preventing you from doing the things you already know you should be doing but aren't right. Now, if I were to say, hey, go get in shape, what do you need to do? What you want to say is, I'm going to go do some research to find the best program and find the best diet. But if I just said, no, no, no, you can't look, make a guess, what would you say? Probably like, well, I need to probably, like, go to the gym, probably do some weights, probably do some cardio, move a little bit. Or to say, do you want to stay at the same weight? Do you want to stay at the same cardio pace, or do you want to move those up over time? You probably say, I want to move those up over time. Like, okay. And then food wise, like, do you want to probably eat more protein and eat less shit? Probably be like, yeah, like, well, why don't we just start there? Most of the things you need to do. You already know what to do, and you delay doing them by under the guise of having a better plan. But the reality is that your plan is always going to change as soon as you get new information. And so the point is to start, period, and learn. And it's giving yourself permission to have the humility to start a role that you know is not going to be your end game, because you just see it as one tile on the painting that's going to become the version of you that you want. It's like, I got to start at this corner. I'm going to paint this corner up because I know that this cornerstone of experience in door to door or cold calling or media buying whatever, is going to be something that I can build my whole career off of. There are maybe trillions of dollars, but at least hundreds of billions of dollars that are being made and dedicated every day to getting you to do nothing. It's not a fair fight. I want to be clear. It's not a fair fight and they're winning. And so I love this from Andy Friselli. He said, personal excellence is the ultimate rebellion. And so I think, like, you want to be a fucking rebel, Be excellent and do it for you. Like you want to stick it to the man. Now just be great. Fundamentally, the point of entertainment is to get someone to pay attention to it. That's all entertainment does, is pay attention to me, right? And so that means that you're not paying attention to the thing that matters more to you in the long term. And so every dollar, every minute of attention you pay to entertainment, whether that's porn, alcohol, going out to clubs, all of social media in general, motivation porn, if you will, all of that is you not doing what you need to do to get to where you want to go. You just have to be able to do things without seeing an immediate reward. Like, if there's one meta skill that overshadows all of this, it's your ability to delay gratification, is to delay a moment of reward. That's it. That's all you have to do. And in the beginning, you just have to be able to do it long enough that you get one reward. And that reward is typically outsized in its strength, and then that will reinforce you sticking with it. Because the people who do work really, really hard, it's not like they're made of different flesh and blood than you. It just means that they had a short period at some point where they said, I'm gonna shut everything else off and I'm gonna Go all in on this. And then when they do get that first feedback loop, like, holy shit, I made my first sale. Holy shit, I got my first lead from ads. Holy shit, I got my first, you know, 100 followers, whatever, it doesn't matter. Like you have some feedback loop for whatever it is that you're trying to go after that then encourages you to do more. And they're like, oh, this could work. And then as soon as that turns on, you can get obsessed with it. If I had you sign a contract right now to be guaranteed that you'd be a millionaire in 10 years, but you couldn't make any real money between now and then, would you sign it? Every person I've asked says yes. And so maybe if you are listening to this and you're nodding your head like, okay, from 30, I'm a millionaire. Yeah, it sounds like a great deal, by the way. That's like 0, 0, whatever 1%. Like no one is. But if that's you, a lot of stuff takes much longer. And the problem is that when you're 20, you've only been an adult for like 33 seconds. And so the thing is that three seconds feels a very long time. But I have this belief that older people are more patient not because they're actually more patient, it's just because your perception of time speeds up. I can be more patient than a five year old because for me, one year is not 20% of my life. So my perception of time shrinks. I might have the same patience as a five year old. It's just that more time passes. And so if you are younger, then you have to just understand that your perception of time will speed up. And so you will be able to exhibit patience. You'll keep being able to do something else in the meantime because the meantime will pass faster. And so you have to over index on it when you're starting. I mean, I've got guys on my team who are like, hey, what's my next career move? And they're like 30 days into their job and I'm like, give it a second. Like, you still suck. Like you went from suck to proficient. Like you're not great yet. Calm down. The real world's very different from school, which you've already, if you're watching my stuff, you already kind of have an idea about that. But I want to give you the more of the behavioral definition around it is that with school you have very clear directions and a clear outcome with a clear timeline. And you get a grade immediately. So that's kind of like the reward or feedback loop, right? And sometimes it's pop quiz, same day, next day you get the feedback loop, or even you finish the quiz, you go outside and then you're like, hey, would you answer for six? And you're like, ah, five, I got it wrong, or whatever, right? But the thing is that the world is completely opposite of that. And so the thing is that beginners are paralyzed to make a decision because they assume the real world works like school and only has one right answer. But reality is that there are many right answers with only one wrong answer, which is doing nothing. And that's the answer that most people pick. So I was talking to Neil Patel, who's a friend of mine, and he just made this big tweet about this, but he and I had a conversation about it earlier. He has two friends, one who's a public CEO, founded a company, took it public. He's got another friend who found a company, took it public, took it back private, and then now only does private deals. The guy who does public and made all of his money public is like, you gotta go public. And the other guy who took his company public and it was a big mess and then took it private again, is actually richer than the guy who made his company public. Both those guys are billionaires and both gave advice and they had differing advice. And so I don't see it as one is right or wrong. It's that there are many right paths. But. But only one thing will prevent you from achieving all of it, which is the only thing I'm trying to conquer in this video is getting you to not do the one wrong path, which is fear. Fear of not making it work, Fear of other people's disapproval who don't matter anyways, that you aren't cool anymore or because you don't show up to social events or because you don't blow money on stuff that doesn't matter anymore or you're not wearing the brands that they think are cool. Is all of that worth you for the rest of your life having the crushing feeling of mediocrity, knowing you could do more? And I say, and I can describe this because I've lived it, it's why I say it. I'm not saying that that stuff's not going to happen. It absolutely will happen. And it might even be worse than you imagine, but you will not die. And if you use the frame, does me losing all of these relationships and having more time increase the likelihood that I get to my goal or decrease the likelihood That I get to my goal. All of a sudden, when you use the goal frame of the best version of you, all of a sudden it starts to make things a lot clearer. It's like, no, me going to this bachelorette party does not increase the likelihood that I hit my goals. And I'm not saying that you have to make that sacrifice every time, but the thing is, you're making a sacrifice either way. You're either sacrificing your goals or you're sacrificing that relationship. And so some of you guys are like, oh, Alex, that sounds unbalanced. I'm going to get a couple comments from the fucking online therapists of like, I think emotional well being and mental health is super important. Well, first off, the pendulum swinging back. No one gives a shit about the soft stuff anymore, thank fucking God. But at some point, everyone who wants to achieve great things realizes that balance is a myth. And once they realize that, they become someone who achieves great things. At some point, every person who wants to achieve great things realizes that balance is a myth. And once they realize that, they become someone who achieves great things. And so there's this whole misnomer, this whole idea, think about what mediocrity is. It's about being in the middle. It's the medium. It's being right in the middle, right balance. But anybody who is imbalanced is another way of saying more focused on the one thing will be better at that thing than you. And the question is just whether or not that thing that they choose to be better at will give them more leverage over all that other stuff later. And so if you work very hard and you create something that's very valuable for society, I promise you, you will be able to find a hotter wife. I promise you, you will have the money that you want. I promise you, you can buy the time that you want to have. You will have all of that at your disposal. But if you choose the balanced life, there's nothing wrong with that. I just see that there is balance over a lifetime rather than balance at every moment of life. And so you might have seasons like I took basically a year off during the last year of gym launch. I just didn't really do a lot. So I had more time than anybody and money, right. But I had seasons before that where I didn't take any time off. And so I think if you expand your time horizon for what balance really means, so this is a softer way of explaining it, then I think that that will, you know, make you sleep well at Night. But real talk, I work all the time because I like to do it. And I think that once you get a fast feedback loop with the work that you like that also propels your goals, then you're not going to do anything else. And that's. It's not like I or some of the people that. All right, it's not like the people that you look up to have some sort of herculean work ethic or discipline that you don't. They like things that happened to also bring them status. And that means that they went through a small period where they started doing that thing when they weren't good at it, and it didn't bring them status, but they were able to make it through that bridge until eventually did start working and did bring them status, and then they just kept going. So you just need enough gusto to start and just get through that period to just get through your friends saying you suck for a little bit and everything you start will not be fun because you'll suck. But getting good is fun. Getting better is fun. And so I get excited a lot of times when I see how bad I am at something that's new because I have enough generalized reinforcement for learning how to get better at things that you learn the skill of getting better. Like, that's a meta skill. You learn how to learn. And so just see it as an opportunity to learn how to do anything better. So if you have a first thing, then that's the first thing that you get better at. And then you'll learn the skill of getting better, and you can apply it all over the place. So if you're a business owner and you'd like to scale, I'd like to invite you out to my headquarters for one of our scaling workshops where we help identify and solve your number one constraint so you can start. Start the year with lots of momentum. And so if that sounds at all interesting, click the link below. Book a call with my team, and if you're a fit, we'd love to see you out here. Some of you guys are listening to this and you're like, okay, you know, this is great. I'm feeling awesome. The thing is, is that people, maybe it's you are waiting for this perfect moment, but it doesn't come right. It happens the moment you decide that you're fed up with waiting and decide to take action. And it only becomes the perfect moment when you look back on it, because today it just looks like now. I had a conversation with a young man yesterday who said, listen, I Have demons. And I was like, bro, you don't have fucking demons. I was like, shut up. And he was like, the thing is. And I was so visceral with my reaction because I used to say that kind of stuff because I thought it made me hard, I thought it made me complex, I thought it made mysterious. But you don't have demons. You're not self sabotaging. You don't have mom or dad issues. What you have is a lack of skills in how to behave in a certain condition. So when you say you have demons, what it really means if I say, okay, what do you mean by that? Define that. Define having demons. Right. What? I don't. Most people say that they don't mean they actually think they have spiritual demons inside of them. I'm not even going to touch that. What they really mean is that under these conditions I behave a way that is not ideal. And so what that means is you have a skill deficiency. No shit. You're inexperienced. Of course you have a skill deficiency. You don't have demons, you don't know how to be consistent. You don't have. I just can't stay with anybody for a long time. No, it either means you have really high standards, which is fine, and you haven't met that person yet, or you just don't know how to behave consistently. It's like when I have a sales guy who's like, hey, you know, I'm 30 days into this role and I'm getting kind of bored taking sales calls. I'm like, oh, your ability to not be able to continue after something gets boring and learn to love the incremental improvements, the hundred or thousand repetitions, is the skill discrepancy that you need to overcome. The best salespeople, bad salespeople, trying to have a couple good days, good salespeople get on hot streaks. Great salespeople never get cold. And so that takes discipline to understand how to consistently get yourself hot, how to consistently treat every sale the same way you do when you're on fire. Because there is no being on fire. It means you simply behave differently. It's not like you have magic. You pause differently, you take longer spaces, you ask the question, your tonality shifts. And those are skills, because you can learn them. And so this whole thing of like this is this, young man, I'm traumatized. First off, you don't even know a fucking definition of trauma, all right? Trauma is a permanent change in behavior from an aversive stimulus, meaning something bad happens and forever it changes how you act. Now let's. If we understand that as the definition of trauma. Is trauma bad? Well, if I touch a stove and then I never touch a stove again when it's hot, is that trauma bad? It permanently changed my behavior from an aversive stimulus. Is that trauma bad? Well, it prevented me from burning the house down, from permanently damaging my hand in the future. No, I would say it was good. And so this whole appraisal of your past being tough or. You don't understand, bro. No, and no one cares either. They don't understand, nor do they care. And so all anyone is going to care about is how you act, how you behave, what you do based on a series of conditions. And so you just need to expose yourself to the conditions so that you can get the repetition, so that you can learn how to overcome it. The thing that determines whether it's good or bad is whether it creates a behavior that's conducive to your goals. And so that means that fundamentally you can have a stimulus like touching the stove that creates a behavior that is conducive to the goal. And that way trauma was good. So, by the way, parents, when you punish a child, the hope is that you traumatize them is that you permanently change their behavior from an aversive stimulus. It's just that people don't define words and they just shout them all over the place. They say it's stored in your body, it's energy. It's like no one even knows what the fuck that means. Show me on someone's body where it's stored. Do me an X ray. Show me where there's no. Come on. Like you're saying you're storing your emotional trauma from your father and your liver. Like I can just say words and make things up and get people to nod if I say them with conviction. It doesn't make. It's true. And so you may have been fooled, because sometimes it's more convenient to say you can cast your power onto this thing that happened that was outside of your control as the reason why you can't be successful. Because it's easier to say that than to say that I chose not to do anything about it anyways. And again, listen, you can do whatever you want. You can just keep wallowing in that. You can keep saying that that's the reason. And wherever you point is where your power is, right? But the only time that you have more power is if you say it's on you, period. Because all of those things may have happened and they may have all Been terrible. And what are you gonna do about it? Right? Because the only, like, no one cares. Like, the world doesn't care. You care, which is fine, but like, no one else does. And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can start doing something about it. And so also think about this. It's the equal opposite. If trauma can create good things, then also means that good things can create bad behaviors. And so if you win the lottery and then you have all these behaviors that happen afterwards that are negative, then was it good for you? Like we talk about these rich and privileged kids because it creates behaviors that actually make it less likely they achieve things later. And so just think about what occurred and what behaviors you take as a result and separate good or bad from it. And just think, does it make it more likely that I hit my goals? It makes life a lot easier. And then it stops you from speaking in voodoo and speaking and appealing to mysticism and magic. Like there's this force around demons. It's like, dude, no. Like, you had a girl who cheated on you. Okay, now what does that change about your behavior? I have trust issues? No, it just means that under these conditions, you are slower to give someone access to your bank account or slower to move in with someone, comma, who cares. And is that a bad thing? And so I'll walk you through a three step framework that has been unbelievably valuable to me. And this is from Dr. Cashy. Logic, evidence, utility. Logic is. What does that mean? So you have demons. Okay, what does that mean? Define it in terms of behavior. What does that mean? Okay, got it. Now how do you know that? Evidence. So you say I have demons. We unpack that. And it means that for you, you self sabotage. Which again, define that. Okay, it means that I show up late to meetings after I get into a job, after two months of being on time. Okay, so after two months of being on time, you start being late to stuff that we translated from I have demonstration to I self sabotage to that is the behavior that occurs. Got it. Now I would say, how do you know that? Now a lot of times people are like, well, it's happened. But when you actually look at it, you're like, it happened three times over in my last job. Okay, is it really a problem as you define it or it happened in those three occurrences. Okay, got it. So now you know. Now most times people are like, I don't have any data. And you're like, okay, so then this is basically made up. And when I say made up, I'm not saying it's like, you are a liar. I'm just saying that humans work in narratives. And a lot of times we add narratives, stories, to things that don't actually mean anything. But it's convenient and it's fun and we like talking about it, but it doesn't mean it's true. And so then you move to the third one, which is. And so what? Utility? Who cares? Why does this matter? And so then you say, okay, well, this matters because it decreases the likelihood that I will be able to retain future employment. Fine. Then what do we do about it? And so you can walk through things that you have struggled with in the past with simply saying, let me define this in terms of behavior. What evidence do I have that this is actually true now that I've defined it based on these things? And who cares? I have demons in the kitchen. All right, just as a completely ridiculous example, okay, well, in my past, I've had bad things happen, bro. Like what? Like what occurred? I touched the stove and it burns me. Okay, great. Now we have some evidence wise. How many times did it happen One time? Okay. And it never happened again in the future. Okay, what did that result in? I don't go into kitchens anymore. Okay, now this is good or bad. When you say, who cares? It's in relation to what my goals. Does you not going into the kitchen prevent you from achieving your goals? Well, if you want to be a chef, yes. If you want to be an entrepreneur, no. If you want to be a kitchen entrepreneur, probably right. And so the question is just, who cares? Why does it matter? And so, so much of our time and effort goes into explaining things to people that don't matter at all that you could literally just move on from and just literally forget about. You could get over that quote trauma by changing the behavior that it changed aversively. So in this context or in this condition, I behave this way, and it's not conducive to my goals. Great. That's good that you've identified it. Cool. So what do we need to do so that when you're in the condition, how can we increase the likelihood that you do act the way that you want to? And then you start stacking the deck to start shifting the pendulum in your favor, and you start attacking each of these little problems from skills that you have, whether it's behavior with people or it's skills at work or with a relationship. And you just do it one by one by one. And if you do it over a very long period, period of time, you get better. I promise you. And I'm saying this as somebody who I struggled with my demons. You don't understand, bro. Like, I have stuff like, okay, but it doesn't help you. And it also doesn't make you look harder. It just makes you less capable. Losers talk about what happened to them. Winners talk about what they made happen. Despite it, hardship is. Is a reality for losers. To winners, hardship is just your origin story. And like, I promise you, if you can use this frame, like I was texting Layla the other day, like, the bigger the monster, the more epic the hero. It's the story that you're going to someday tell when you're 85. You're not going to want more boring stories, right? The idea is that if you're going through hardship now, that's the story that you're going to tell. And if you believe yourself to be the hero that you want to someday become, then the harder it is, you're like, bring it. This is my story. This is the spider man getting bitten. This is him getting beat up by the bullies. This is the origin story. No one cares about a hero who never had it hard. I bought a lottery ticket years and years and years ago when I was in college, because it was like a billion or something like that back then. That was when a billion dollars meant something. But I was in college, and my girlfriend at the time, I was talking to her, and the drawing was that night. We bought them for fun. We bought one tick. I wasn't expecting to win, but it was just basically, I was buying it for the conversation. And I thought about it as, like, the drawing got closer. And I realized I had this big pang of anxiety because I was like, what if I win? And I had this moment of terror because I realized that if I won that I would never be able to achieve anything that anyone thought was my own. And that thought terrified me. And thankfully, I didn't win the billion dollars, and I got to make the life that I have. And so I think that. I think Epictetus says this, but it's something to the degree of what a shame it would be for someone to never encounter hardship, because they would never be able to see who they are. And so I think that if you have gone through hardship or you are going through hardship, this is the opportunity to prove to yourself, not anyone else, that you are who you say you are, and you are made of what you say you are made of. And you can choose to allow that hardship to make you harder, to make you more resilient to make you more persistent, to make you more relentless, to make you more driven towards whatever you want to do or whoever you want to be. Or you can allow it to be an ankle weight. You can allow it to be your trauma, right? That is your demon that you're fighting every day. But the thing is, everyone has demons. Everyone has hard shit. And I want to tell you this frame that'll hopefully change someone's perspective, which is that your hard stuff may have been harder than other people's hard stuff. But if I take a human being who has never encountered anything and then I poke them with a needle, that will be a 10 out of 10 hardship for them. And so I believe personally that humans experience pain the same way. It's why when a man feels disrespected, it hurts just as much as someone else going through another crazy hardship. And you know what? Even if that guy's white, a 10 out of 10 pain still feels like a 10 out of 10 pain. Now, could that pain be less on the absolute scale of worst scenario? Yeah, it could be. But also, who cares? And so my point here is that every single human being on earth has gone through their version of 10 out of 10 pain, which normalizes pain across the spectrum, which then leaves you with the only natural thing you have left, which is, what do I do now? And if you wanted to design the perfect version of you, the savage competitor, the gladiator at the end of the life that has the scars and the scraggly beard, but has been through shit, has done things, and has realized their potential, what would you do to maximize the likelihood that you become that savage hero? Would you give them the padded lifestyle? Would you give them the immediate win? Would you give them the easy life? Probably not. You would probably put you through what you're going through right now to become that person. And so why would you resent the chapter you're in? Because it's a requirement for becoming who you say you want to be. Let's say you've gotten over your little demon thing. And when I say gotten over, you, just stop giving it power by saying it now is the reason that you can't be successful. Awesome. So what do you do now? Right? So you got to start figuring things out. And that figured out muscle is probably the most powerful muscle you can build. It's just saying, oh, I don't know how to do this. I will figure it out. Why? Because I figured out things in the past and I can do it again. And if that person can do it. And they're no smarter than I am. They have two hands and a brain. I can do it, too. So the next time that you say you can't figure something out, just set a timer for 20 hours and actually try for 20 hours before you quit. What you'll often realize is it's not hard. You just haven't even tried yet. If you can shrink the time between saying you want to learn something and beginning to try the thing and extend the time before you say, hey, this is hard, then you will be able to accomplish way more than you think. You can learn most things in 20 hours. The problem is that most people delay the first 20 hours by years. And if you really measured yourself by the amount of action you take, not your desire, not your deservingness, or even your effort, you might actually be embarrassed. Because what you're looking at is reality. It's about what you do, not what you say you're going to do and what you want the outcome from what you're doing. How much you think you deserve the thing that's going to happen after you do it or how hard you try. Because one, no one cares. Two, reality doesn't care either. Because the only thing that matters that you can control is input. And you would be absolutely astonished at what you can accomplish when you give yourself no choice. Every third time I do a Q and A, I get asked the question, what keeps you going? When things were tough, like, what did you think about? And I could come up with something that was really compelling, but the honest truth is I just never considered quitting. It was just not on my choice of options at the table. Because for me, the idea of going back to Baltimore as a failure was so much worse than anything else that I could encounter that it just wasn't even a consideration. And so the only natural option I had was to persist, was to endure, was to continue. And so I think if you use that frame, as there have been people who have gone through significantly worse than what I'm going through right now. And for those of you who claim the demon card of, like, I've been through shit, then prove it. Was it worse than this? Great. Then you can prove that it was so hard by being hard now. Across time frames in history, across countries, across cultures, across age groups, across race, gender, everyone respects the man who works. Because as men, we are always judged by what we can do. And if you are doing things, then people know that you are contributing. That is how you prove utility. Work ethic is the currency of respect. If you want to earn respect. You earn it through work. And sometimes that's working on yourself. That's sometimes working on a skill, working on a product. But it is all through work, through effort. I will tell you something that shifted my life, which is that entrepreneurship is not a game of best man wins. It's a game of last man standing. And there's a lot of games that are like this. And fundamentally that's an infinite game frame versus a finite game frame frame. And I will read you the quote that Layla had framed and put in my office. Ask the girl. Shoot the shot. Launch the business. Run the ad. Quit the job. Take the risk. Because when you're 85 years old and on your deathbed, you're not going to wish you had fewer crazy stories. The fastest way to become confident is to build evidence. Build yourself a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Here's exactly how to do that. This is brutally honest advice to my younger, less confident self. Having an epic story is about asking the girl. It's about shooting the shot. It's about launching the business, about running the ad, about knocking on the door, quitting the job, taking the risk. When you're 85 years old and on your deathbed, you're not going to wish you had fewer crazy stories. You're going to wish you had taken more shots. Don't build confidence, Build evidence. Confidence comes as a result of evidence, not the other way around. Confidence without evidence is a delusion. It's you beating your chest, looking at yourself in the mirror, trying to pretend you're something you're not. Do it so you get the confidence, but don't think you need confidence to do it. The whole idea of fake it until you make it should switch to walk it before you talk it right. Prove it to yourself so you don't need to prove it to other people, and let your path do your talking for you until you win. Effort always goes unnoticed. Get used to it. If you aren't willing to suck, you're never going to get good. Losers stay losers because they aren't willing to lose. Confidence is also domain specific, so you can be really good at public presentations and really bad at talking to girls. It takes a lot for a skill to transfer between domains, and so if you want to get good at the thing, don't try and do something to the left of it. Just do the thing. The first sales consult I ever took, I didn't close. And I say that because everyone just imagines that Mosi just Came in just slinging credit cards and stacking bodies, right? It didn't work that way. I came in, it was five minute conversation. The girl was like, I need to go get my cons card from home. And I said, oh yeah, okay, go do that. And she walked away. And I went to my boss, he's like, how'd it go? I said, oh, I closed her. And he was like, oh, that's awesome. He's like, you got the credit card. I said, oh no, she's going to come back with the card. And he literally stopped what he was doing with six other guys around him. And they all non stop laugh for a minute straight, like they couldn't breathe because they thought how stupid what I had just said was. But I had no idea. And so that was my first ever experience in sales. I'm known for sales now. And I wouldn't even say I'm confident in sales. It's just more like this is what works and has worked for me. Take it or leave it. And so people perceive that as confidence, but it's simply just based on experience. And confidence comes from experience. What it really is is a prediction. What you think is going to happen will happen. And so even in statistics, what is your confidence metric? This is 0.7, 0.8. It's literally just what the percentage likelihood that what you think is going to happen is going to happen. And so how do you increase the likelihood that what you think is going to happen is going to happen? Have it have happened already? I could have either spent 30 minutes every day looking at myself in the mirror and telling myself I was going to be a great sales guy, or I could have reviewed the fucking script. Which one do you think would make me a better salesperson? Reviewing the script, you can take all the time that you're trying to spend psyching yourself up and you'll feel significantly more confident not having done that and simply knowing what you're going to say, which you get from practice. The world belongs to those who can keep doing without seeing the result of their doing. And the longer you can wait to see the result of your doing while still continuing to do is the extent to which you can win big in life. For example, to be a top 1% podcaster, you have to upload 21 podcasts. 21 top 1%. 90% of people don't get past 1. 9% don't get past 20. And then 1. 1% of podcasters of all of them make it to 21 plus. So when people say try Harder. It usually just means don't give up. The price for excellence has never been so low. People give up so easily now that it's just so easy to win by just being willing to post 20 times. You're in the top 1%. Like I'm at the top 1%. We're not even talking 10. Top half, top 1%. People are so afraid of being humiliated, they get the long term humiliation of never amounting to anything. No one's going to watch your first 20 episodes anyways. And even if they do, it doesn't matter because that's not what you're building towards. Like you posting those 20 isn't what you judge yourself on. You should judging yourself on the difference between your first one and your 20th one. Are you better? Probably. And the difference between your twentieth one and your hundredth one. Because the win is you. You are the asset you're building, not the downloads that you get on your first shot. Mozy immediately had a podcast with millions of downloads every single month. No, I spent four and a half years making two podcasts a week straight. Didn't miss. And guess how many podcast downloads I was getting per month at the end of that? 2 to 3,000 downloads a month. Not a lot. I used to think to myself, okay, well each one of these podcasts gets like 200 downloads. Well, 200 downloads is like an auditorium of people. And so would I feel okay giving a speech to 200 people? Yeah, and even before that when there was getting like 10 or 15 downloads per episode, if I had a little lunch and learn that I would, I used to have to do to like get leads for a business, I'd be fine talking to a group of 10 or 15 people. Because the reality is that those people are doing me more of a favor than I'm doing them. They're literally giving me their ears so that I can practice my voice and how to talk and how to present. And it was only at year four and a half to five when things started taking off. And you know, the two things that changed are. One is I did call it. I changed it from Gym Secrets to just the Game, which was a business thing, so it made it more applicable to more people. And the second thing, and here's the real one, is that I sold a company for $46 million. And so people are like, oh, what does this guy have to say? And the big thing that everyone misses is people try and dissect my content. The message is 10% of how people consume it, 90% is the context around the message. So Elon Musk can tweet on the toilet and be like, I'm on the throne, taking a shit, and it'll get a million likes. Why? Because it's Elon Musk. He's the richest man in the world and owns three of the biggest companies that are most innovative of all time. I don't kid myself and think that, like, my content is so much better than other people. There's plenty of people have better content than me that don't get the same views. And the reason is because they don't have the context, they don't have the proof. And solve for the proof, and then the content will, will take care of itself. Because one, you will know what you're talking about because you have proof that you know what you're talking about. And people will believe you. Which is why you should solve for evidence above everything else. Like, evidence gives you the confidence. If someone says, alex, I don't think you know shit about business, I'd be like, okay, it doesn't really affect me. I do know we crossed $100 million in net worth at age 32. I know that. But if someone said that to you and you haven't accomplished anything, you don't have anything to stand back on and it hurts you. But I have proof. So it's like you just deflect it towards the proof and keep living your life. The secret to longevity is, especially in the content game, but really in any game that you're trying to at least help other people with is that if you've done the thing you can be certain rather than confident, be certain based on what you've done, not with based on what you say other people should do. There used to be too big to fail, and I think there's an alternative which is too good to fail. If you make your stuff so fucking good that only one person who gets exposed to to it, sends it to somebody else, then you have nothing to worry about and you will eventually get discovered. It's a time game. And in the meanwhile, you just keep getting better, which is the point, because the other day you're going to die, everyone's going to forget about you anyways. And so you might as well just work on the one asset that you get to keep for the rest of your life, which is you. And rather than measuring yourself based on how many views he gets versus how many views you get, measure yourself by how much work he puts into one of his shorts versus what you put into into one of your shorts. And Then you might think the output is more reasonable. And if there's a top sales guy in your organization who's making more money than you, compare not what his commission check is to yours every month, compare how many calls he's making, how many times you practice the script, how many calls he's made before you, how many sales he's closed before you, what time of day he shows up at work, what time of day he leaves, whether he works weekends or not, whether he's willing to hop on the phone in a family context so they can still close the the deal. If you're doing all the inputs, the mat the outputs will always match on a long enough time horizon. And if you are new to the game, then my recommendation is not only to match inputs, but to double or triple the inputs that someone ahead of you is doing. And the reason you do that is because if you just match your inputs, then you're always going to be behind them because they're already ahead of you, because they're better than you. And so if you both do the same amount of work, they're going to keep getting better, and so are you. So you have to do twice the work. You got to be like Kobe, right? Where everyone else is doing one practice a day, you do two practices a day, and in the beginning they'll be better than you, and then you'll match them. But because you're doing twice the work, eventually you'll get better, and then that's how you win. And one of the biggest misnomers in whatever endeavor you're trying to track is people track the wrong metrics. They track the lagging metrics rather than the leading metrics. Lagging metrics are what happened. Those are the outputs. And if you want to track those, fine. But the real things to track are what you're doing to create the outputs. So I don't want to necessarily even track sales. I want to track how many calls I'm making. If I'm trying to get in shape, I'm not necessarily going to track the weight I'm doing. I'm going to track how many calories I'm eating. And so the more ways you measure, the more ways you can win. And so the idea, the ultimate win at life is where you can shift things that are out of your control, that you deem winning to things that are under your control, which you can deem winning. Because if you're measuring on whether you lost the fat or not, sometimes people take longer. Some people don't. That's Something that you actually can't control. What you can control are the inputs. And so if you say based on this, if I do this one thing every day for a long enough period of time, I'll eventually get there. The real winners cut out the I'll eventually get there and say, if I do this every day, I have won. The thing that I try and focus on now is the delta between how hard I tried and how hard I can possibly try. And if I know that the gap between those two is zero, then I have won. And I've decided to spend a inordinate amount of effort trying to make that. My definition of winning is that there's nothing left in the tank. If you get into a harder career path or one that takes more reps to get good at, more reps to get into, then every day you can win based on saying, like everyone else does, 100, I do 250 and I have nothing left to give, I won. And that should satisfy you. And if you're. If you're obsessive on the external thing, that takes too long and you will give up too soon. One of the things that took me too long to learn was the difference in the finite and infinite frame. And so finite frame is where you have known players, agreed upon rules, and a way to win or lose at the end, and then the game is over. An infinite frame, you have known and unknown players, no agreed upon rules. And the point of the game is to keep the game going. And all the greatest games that I've ever participated in, marriage, health, business, you don't win at marriage, the point is to stay married. You don't win at health, the point is to stay in shape. You don't win a business, the point is to stay in business. And so by default, if you don't give up, you win. And so that's the big frame shift, which is why leaving everything on the field is the way you have to define winning. If you want to win in the long term, and anything worth doing takes great time, if you stick with it and you make that the win, you'll notice that the external win will just happen on its own. And if you really commit to that perspective, it won't even mean much to you. Because if you make that everything, it's the same thing with the guys who win the golds and then kill themselves or win the championship and then go to these massive depressions. It's because they're playing the wrong game. When Kobe was asked shortly before he died, like, do you think that you're somebody who's afraid of losing, or do you think you're somebody who loves winning? He basically denied both frames. He said, I'm paraphrasing. I just love playing to the best of my ability. And that's what he measures himself off of. The fact that the world chooses to measure him on the fact that he's won so many games. That's the world's problem, not ours. It's saying, I'm game master, not a player, and I choose to play by these rules. And as long as I am playing, I win by default. And it's because I'm not accepting the world's rules for winning. I make my own. An easier analogy here is, and this is a Naval Ravikant quote, he said that what looks like work to other people should feel like play for you. If you look at an artist and he's painting, you're like, hey, how soon are you going to finish that painting? The point for the artist is to paint. He'll finish that piece and he'll start the next one. But the process of painting is the thing that they enjoy. And so the idea is that if you can commit and the broader you can generalize what you're committing to, the easier it will be to stick with it. So you might be like, I love making calls, but I hate entering things in the cross CRM. Well, both of those are required for the role of sales. And so I prefer to chunk up a level and say, I prefer to do hard work because of what that work does to me. Then whether I'm putting shit into the CRM or editing a document or having a hard conversation, all of those things are difficult. And I see those as all contributing to the person I ultimately want to be until eventually I die and it won't matter anyways. And so the only asset that you really get to keep with you is your character. And that's the only thing you. You keep building. And so if you make the character the W at the end of the day, did or I did I not contribute to the character of the person that I want to become? If that's the W every day, you can never lose. If you have your menu option of things that you can do in life, just remove quitting as one of them and then try your next idea. And if you are in that rocky cutscene and you're two months in, three months in, remember that the rocky cutscene in the movie lasts a couple seconds. The rocky cutscene in real life might last a few years. And so whenever I get to a low point where I think, why do I even bother doing this? I just like to remind myself, this is where most people stop and this is why they don't win. And as hard as this is going to sound, the best thing that I ever did was not listen to other people's opinions about my life. They don't want the best version of you. They want the version of you who best serves them. And unfortunately, the closer people are to you, the more similarly they'll see themselves in you, and the more your success will make them feel bad about themselves. And I can promise you this from somebody who might be a little further. I have more people who root for me now that I've already won than people who rooted for me along the way. No one is doing as well as you think they're doing. So by comparison, everyone is better off than they think because the cumulative median visually is probably three times higher than what the average actual median is. And so if you're like, oh, I'm average or slightly below average compared to the perceived median of society, you're probably way above average, and that's okay. And being above or below average doesn't even matter anyways because you've got a lot of innings left, there's a lot of quarters left to play. And so, like, until the day you die, you still have hope, you still have a chance. You can still keep moving forward. Whenever someone gives you your their opinion about what you should with their your life, it's really them saying, this is my preference of how I want to live my life. And I say, great, live your life that way and I'll live my life this way, because me living my life has no effect on you. So live your life the way you want to live it. And I don't want your life either. They state, make those statements because they feel uncomfortable, and so they have to, like, release it. And so they say that to you to make themselves feel better. And that's their problem, not yours. I think I've learned a lot of frames around not caring about other people's opinions out of necessity because I was so crippled by the opinions of other people for what felt like such a long time that I always had to face my death in order to get myself to move. And so I talk about death a lot because it has actually been one of the few things that actually motivates me to change my behavior. And so when I had done all the things that I thought would impress other people, one, I realized that they didn't really care. And secondly, I realized that I deeply cared about how much I hated my life when I was like, is this what winning feels like? Because if this is what winning is, then I don't want to play by thinking I'd rather be dead than continue to play this game. I was forced to change the game I was playing, which is like, well, what is a game that I would like to win at? Well, I'd like to win a game that is by rules that I set out. And there are things that I can control. And then those people, because you break their mold of what they're supposed to be doing. And they might be miserable too, but they are not willing to take the risk that you're willing to take. Because they care about other people's opinions more than you do. Because they haven't gone through that little journey that you just went through. Fine, you do it your way, they do it their way. I mean, I went from prodigal son, my father, super proud of me. Graduating Vanderbilt in three years, president of the fraternity, vice president of powerlifting team, management consultant to minimum wage employee. Like, that's a pretty significant drop in status. I have these frames because people will say whatever they want. But for me, that relative drop in status was a lot. I went from about as high status as you can get in a as a 22 year old to about as low status as you can get. I mean, I remember having people be like, so did you go to college? And I was like, yeah, I went to college and I fucking murdered it. And I did everything. And because the implied question is, why are you here? And so that's what in the beginning hurt a ton. But then I just realized that they just didn't know and they were asking genuinely. And all of my judgment around that was just my own problem. How I'm perceiving this question is affecting my mood to such a great degree. What if I applied this to every question? All these people are asking me things and I'm either getting offended or getting complimented, but the statement doesn't change. So that sounds like a me problem. And so the more I started diving into things like that, the less bothered I became by everyone else's opinion. Because they also have no context, even if they did mean it as an insult. So what if they're saying, well, I'm better than you? I'd be like, yes, you are. A lot of even really successful people frame their success around trying to prove someone wrong, right? But when you try and create your entire existence in Opposition to someone, you actually give them complete control over your life. It means that because of the things that this person has said, I will choose to change all of my behavior, which basically means that the directives from that person have commanded you to do whatever you do. And if you like to be a free person and want to be somebody who acts of their own volition, then I choose to accept insults so that I can live my life rather than living in contrast to them. And giving my control to the person who insulted me. That would mean I put me changing your mind above my goals, which I don't do. My goals are more important to me than changing your mind. I'm super sensitive to I am statements labeling statements like this, like, I am a neat freak. I'm the type of person who. So whenever you're dating someone, you're getting to know someone. People like to blanket I am statement really early on to set the stage. Like, I'm the type. I'm the type of person who likes to show up early. I like to clean things. I'm a labeler, I'm a whatever. And then, and this is the insidious part, they then say because. And then they insert a reason that they made up or that sounded good in the past. And people nodded their heads and agreed with because my mom never loved me enough, because I didn't get enough hugs, because I gave a speech once and everyone laughed at me. Because you don't know. And the reality is you will never know. All we know is that you do a certain type of behavior. That's it. By giving these because statements, all this power, you actually put all the power into something that is unchangeable in the past. And so you have to keep dealing with it. Whereas if you just said, I do these things, period, now if I want to change what I do, then I should just reward myself in the present for doing something different. And that makes it a lot more malleable. And it makes your identity and what you do as a result or, or rather what you do and your identity as a result, something under your control. You don't wanna blame the things in the past that you can't change. You wanna blame things in the present that you can't. So if you said, I have trouble getting close to girls because my mom and I aren't close, one, you give your mother all the power in your love life. You give power to something that happened in the past that you can't change to things that are happening in the present that you can change. And so would it be more useful to say, in the past, I have struggled to get close to girls, period. Now, that could be for a number of reasons. Thing is that you don't know what reason it is. Because I could say, let's say, imagine all these things happen. You struggled with your mom. Let's say you had a bad breakup. At some point in your life, you're not in shape. I could say, I struggle getting close to girls. And I could use any of those three as my reasons. But which of those serve me? None of them. All we know is that you struggle to get close to girls. Girls. Okay, well, then just look at what it would take to get close to girls and then do that. Rather than having this other thing that's attached to the behavior that you can't do anything about. It just makes changing who you are and what you do a lot easier. Sometimes people are such douchebags, they will tell a young child, you will never have a successful relationship with a woman because you don't respect or love me. A mother. Or the reverse could be true of a father. They're a fucking douchebag for sex. That because they are labeling you with something that you can't change. But that's their problem. It also is no basis in fact. When people are like, look at how the son treats the mother. That's how he's going to treat his wife. Why the fuck would I treat my wife like I treat my mother? Dear God, that's just a statement that sounds good but has no basis in fact. You treat your wife like you treat your wife. You treat your mother like you treat your mother. There are different people. People want to have problems, problems because it gives them a reason to suck and it be okay. It gives them ego padding so they can protect themselves for the reason why they're not successful for the reason they haven't accomplished what they said they were going to accomplish. And so they lean on their potential comma and their trauma as the two reasons that people prop up. I've got lots of potential, but I have all this trauma, and neither of those matter. I've gone through three stages of, like, mental development in terms of how I see changing my behavior. In the beginning, I attributed my behavior to my past traumas. The second phase was that I chose to change the story. What if my mother was just trying to feel better and it wasn't my fault? So then I changed my behavior in that sense. The third phase, which is where I'm at now, maybe there'll be a Fourth phase. But the third phase was I behave this way, period. The because statement in the second half is completely irrelevant. One, because I don't know it. Two, because I can't change it. So I might as well just choose to do the thing that I want to do. Irrelevant of my past. The single strongest predictor of my behavior is what will make the more epic story. I've thought about that frame a lot and it's still continued to win out. And so when I'm forced to make a decision between two things, I prefer to choose the one that's the more epic story. Because either you have an epic story of failure or you have an epic story of success. But no 85 year olds are regretting their epic stories. They are regretting the stories they never told. Our minds are meaning making machines and they have to be because they create associations between things, things we know and things we don't know. That's how we learn. The problem is that our brains will make wrong associations and then they will plague us for the rest of our lives. But we can just redefine what the association means for ourselves to make our lives easier. Because whether you miss the game winning shot when there's a huge crowd, or you miss it when no one else is there, the only reason it hurts more is because you choose to let it hurt you more. Now there are things that you can do prior to the game winning shot that can increase the likelihood that you make it, which is that you practice way more in high stakes conditions over and over and over again. If you do that increases the likelihood, your confidence that you'll be able to make it. Why? Because you've made them before. And if you're like, well, I missed my first ever game winning shot, now what do I do? Well, you practice in every other condition that's as close to that as you can until eventually you make one. And then when you do make one, you'll have evidence that you've made one and you try and make one again. What you probably don't know is that Michael Jordan has missed more game winning shots than he has made. But he's remembered for the ones that he made. But how was he able to make them? By missing and being willing to shoot again on that basis of story story. The many excuses that we give ourselves in reverse can make a more epic story. And so rather than say like these are all the reasons that I can't succeed, I think reframing that as these are all the reasons that when I succeed it'll be Even, even better story, and it'll be more inspiring to other people, is a much more powerful frame. The more disadvantages you have when you start, the more epic story you have when you win. Donald Miller has one of the most powerful frames of heroes and villains I've ever heard of. Heroes and villains. Villains always have the same backstory. It's pain. They're always an orphan, right? Or the. The villain has some sort of disfigurement to show that they went through hard times. The difference is what the character chooses to do about it. Villains say the world hurt me, I'm gonna hurt it back. Heroes say the world hurt me. I'm not gonna let anyone else hurt this way. So heroes use pain. Villains are used by it. And so I think all of us have the choice to become our own heroes, our own villains in our own life, simply by how we choose to deal with the pain that we all inevitably experience. So pain is a constant. The choice about how we react to it is the thing that dictates the path of our lives. You know, there are certain rules of playing the game that have served me really well. One of them is, and that's okay. And I probably use that frame more than anything else, which is, I'm not close with XYZ relative, your parent, your mom, your sister, your brother, and that's okay. I spent a lot of my mental effort trying to untangle stories that I told in the past about things that were my fault or were a problem. And the easiest way that I found to solve problems is to decide they're not problems to begin with. I have a handful of pictures that I took for the first five years of sucking during business. And I use those pictures all the time, every day. And the zillions of pictures after I became successful, I barely use any of them. The time to document your life is when it sucks, not when it's great. Because those are the stories that you're going to tell. And those are gonna be the reminders that you use in the present day of things that you have been through and prove as to who you really are. Because my favorite line in the Matrix is in the second or third Matrix, when Morpheus is standing on the hill and he's looking out towards everyone. And he said, I stand here truthfully unafraid, not because of the path that lies before me, but because of the path that lies behind me. And so the struggle period that you may be in right now is the path behind your future self that you are building so that that man or that woman can stand on the pulpit and look at you straight, dead in the eyes in the mirror and say, I am confident. And I stand truthfully here unafraid. Not because of what I said my goal is going to be, but because what I've been through to get here. And so here's my advice to my younger self. Document your life more, otherwise you'll forget the details. And the details are what make it worth remembering. It's the times you're sleeping on the floor. It's the time the person walks out and you miss the seventh sale that day. It's the time when your bank accounts at its absolute lowest. It's when your car breaks down on the side of the road and you're like, what am I going to do now? I can barely afford this, right? Those are the moments, the ones that you want to ignore, the ones that you want to look away from, that are the ones that you need to capture. Because those are the moments that you will tell in the future of things you got through. Because no heroes are heroes without epic monsters. And the bigger the monster, the greater the hero. When I was poor, I didn't need motivation. I needed someone to give me tactical advice. If I could talk to my younger, poor self, this is what I would say. This is more brutally honest advice to my younger, poor self. This advice is only for somebody who wants to make more money, grow in their business, growing themselves. People obsessed with their morning routines make less money than people obsessed with making money. People work, sacrifice, and then they get rich. Then they fill their time with weird routines. Then they forget how they got rich in the first place. And then they tell other people the weird routines made them rich rather than what they actually did, which is whatever it took, not some three hour morning routine. There was a kid who DM me who said, hey, I've been working with this business coach and he has me doing morning routine. Could not make this up. After I do my grounded walking, I do my gratitude journal. I do my list for the day I do my ice plunge. It's like after I do that, it takes me about three hours in the morning to get all that done. He's like, I barely have any energy to like actually get work done. I just said, I'm gonna give you the biggest hack in the world. Cut the three hour morning routine, replace it with three hours of work, and I promise you'll get more done. And he messaged me back a week later. He was like, dude, it changed my whole life. I'm getting so Much done now. I was like, what a fucking concept. If you work more, more gets done. And I love just looking at this. It's like, what actions do I have to take to get what I want? Anything that is not. That is a distraction from it, period. If it takes you five minutes to feel 20% better and you can actually measure that your output goes up by 20%, then cool, that makes sense. So I'm not against doing things. I'm against doing things for the sake of doing them. And so one of the biggest issues with learning and education as humans do it is that we make correlations to things that are approximate, they're close to one another. Tall people play basketball, I should play basketball to get tall. We make these very mistaken correlations, but we should look at is what it took to get there, not what they're doing now. So the better advice is to look at what someone was doing on their way up in the grind mirror that more than what they're currently doing at the top of the mountain. So it would be like assuming Warren Buffett is rich because he drinks Coke. I drink probably five 12 ounce Cokes a day. All you have to do also on the corollary is are there other people who drink Coke who aren't rich? I've had probably 10 different podcasts seed the premise. Do you think that the fact that you had a hard childhood has created the success today? And I would say no. I would say the work that I did created the success. And all we have to do is look at all the other people who had bad childhoods who aren't successful. And I think there are way more of those than there are that are to prove that it actually has nothing to do with who's successful. There's also people who didn't have bad childhoods who are successful too. And so it's just that many people have bad childhoods, some of them become successful. And so that's why trying to figure out why something happened. I have spent less and less of my effort trying to do that and only look at what actions created a result, rather than looking at intention or anything else that's amorphous, that can't be measured. 30 isn't the new 20. It's an excuse to take 10 years longer to accomplish the same thing. You can die when you're done. Until then, keep going in your 20s, you're young, you can fuck around, it doesn't matter because life is long. Number one, that assumes that you're not going to die if you're in your 30s, you know, someone in your high school class who died. And it's not just the drug overdose people, it's the people who got shot, got in a car accident, had a weird brain cancer. I've had all of those things happen to people that I went to high school with. In one way, I think it's a little bit arrogant to assume that you're just going to live because it means you can waste your life. And I wholeheartedly stand against that. The second translation around that, that I think has hurt a lot of people is that they can do what I would consider dead end jobs. And that means jobs that don't have any direct correlation to your personal growth has nothing to do with pay. You can work for free and grow more than anyone else. This is not saying that you need to go into a season of earning in your 20s, but you do need to be setting yourself up for growth, in my opinion, if you want the big ultimate outcome. And so most people that at least consume my stuff, they want to be better, they want to grow, they want to get in better shape, they want to have better relationships, they want to have a better business, they want to be, you know, bigger in every way. They want to expand. If you spend the decade of your twenties not growing and not investing in your skills and your education, if you do that in your 30s, you're going to be further behind than somebody starts in their 20s, you're going to be a decade behind. You know, nowadays there's kids who are starting out the entrepreneurial journey when they're like 13. And so when they're 23, they're Mr. Beast, he's young, but he's actually pretty old in business terms because a lot of people start their business journey in their mid-40s. And so if they're 50 years old and started their business five years ago, Mr. Beast says twice the amount of time in the ring under the bar that they do for me. I want to start my time clock on paying down my ignorance debt as fast as seemingly possible. Because the debt is a constant for everyone. All of us are trying to pay down that debt as fast as we can. And taking a decade, arguably one of the most productive decades of your life, and not paying down that debt. You just sit in such a deficit compared to your peer group. Some people may watch this and be 30 or 40 or 50 and be like, well, shit, I took the wrong advice from the wrong guy. Guess what, you're going to die. It's not going to matter anyways. Big Deal. Whatever. The best time to do this was start when you were 10 and get born to an entrepreneurial parent who got you in their small business and invested in all of your education as a homeschooled student and taught you all the ways of the, of the Jedi. But you probably didn't have that. And so the second best time is to start now. Because let's play out the alternative. How much does it serve you to just say, I guess I have no chance. Okay, die. There's nothing left for me to do. I will relinquish the remainder of my living days and years because I choose to lose. And that's a choice. And if you want that, that's cool. The idea of quitting simply because you're older, because you didn't do something. Everybody doesn't do things that they know they should be doing now. And that's because you're always going to know more in the future than you do in the past. And so it's a faulty premise to say that I'm not going to take action today because I didn't know something in the past. Everyone doesn't know anything in the past, but all you can do is take action with what you know today. And by taking action, you have learned. And so you actually take one step to making your first payment on ignorance. Debt through actions, not words. I mean, I think a lot of people know the story of the 30 year old barista. If you love that, then do it. You know, I mean, like I have no judgment on what you do. If you don't love that and you wish you were doing something else, that's what I would say I have a problem with, which is why are you not doing it? And I think diving into that, which is usually some sort of fear, some sort of anxiety, some sort of label that they believed that isn't true from someone else and just trying to zone in on like, why am I not doing it? And taking two steps closer to it, not just like, because I don't know what I'm doing. Well, duh, okay, neither does anyone. What are you doing about that? Just defining it to what actions am I going to take as a result? Just makes life a lot easier. What does figured out mean? It means that I'm going to read two hours a night on a specific subject until I feel like I can make a decision within 30 days on what I'm going to do. Great. That is something I can do and I can measure whether I did it or not. You have seasons of earning and you have seasons of learning. I had this kid who reached out, he was 18 years old, said he was going to edit videos for us. When he came in he said I want $100,000 a year as an editor, as a starting job. His reasoning was that somebody else had offered him that amount of money. I want to make this statement because I think it's logical and also stupid. If you're optimizing for your earning potential in your 20s, you're missing the first fucking point. This individual had the potential to be on a team that has a massively globally recognized brand in terms of media and from there learn how to be way better than they currently are and then become a creative director at another company or at one of my portfolio companies. Like that is the career path. And instead was comparing that to something that he would make $100,000 a year and be the only person in the department and no one there knew anything about me media. And so he wasn't going to learn. He was going to earn. Whereas somebody who got into the big leagues and learned 10 times the skill set then 10 years later is either starting a multimillion dollar company or hitting up a multi million dollar division in a billion dollar company. And the potential is so much wider because 10 years from now someone says what's your experience? It's like well I worked at a real estate firm and I made their social media content. Who gives a shit? Whereas if you're like I worked for one of the biggest media companies out there, everyone will give you the job offer and that is when you can choose to earn over learn. But people make the trade too soon because they compare themselves to people on social media and think that the.0001% is the norm. Whenever you choose to earn rather than learn, you're right hooking life and saying I'm no longer going to develop and this is good enough. And so if $100,000 a year is actually good enough for your long term goals, then do it. But I would imagine that it probably isn't for what you really want to do long term. And I'm using six figures as a placeholder. It can be whatever number you want. When you make that decision that you're no longer going to learn, that's when you stop growing your potential to learn more. I say this because that's what I did. I had a white collar consulting job for defense contracting on a top secret clearance. I had everything that looked good on paper. Space, hybrid intelligence. I had a two to three year path. Clearly for Getting an MBA in an Ivy League school and then to decided. Decided to drop all of that and start working for $13 an hour at a gym after I graduated magna cum laude in three years from Vanderbilt. I know what I'm asking people to do, and I'm not asking them to do something that I wasn't willing to do. And I think that I might have even a more extreme version that most people are having to live with. Trying to say, like, well, I can't figure out what I want is a really paralyzing place to be that I think a lot of young people are in. It's like, I want to find my passion. But the big misnomer is actually language issue, which is that people say they want to find their passion, rather they want to build it or create it or learn it. And so, like, I can promise you that if you're good at something, you'll like doing it. And the only way that you get good at something is by doing things that you suck at and doing a lot of it. So let's say you make $50,000 a year. It costs you $950,000 a year not to know how to make a million dollars a year. So how much is that education worth? Answer the difference. The difference between $1 million dollars and $50,000, which is 950 grand. If you learn how to make a million dollars, the education is worth the difference. This is why education and information are the most valuable things that we can know. Elon has, like, lost everything and then gained it back. So many of the best entrepreneurs have stories where they lost it all and then gained it back. And so how is it that they can go to zero, back to a billion, where somebody starting at zero can't get there because they didn't lose the education, they didn't lose the learning earnings. They had a bad role. And sometimes in business, you do make bets on markets, and sometimes they don't shape up, but you didn't lose. And a lot of times you actually gain in experience so that the next bet pays off even bigger. Everyone gets this wrong. The most expensive thing you ever pay for isn't your car, it isn't your house, it isn't your insurance. It's the information that you don't know. But should. I mean, how many things can you think of right now that if you knew 10 years ago, would have materially changed your financial outcome, your relational outcome, your physical outcomes? Probably a lot. What is the value of that information? Borderline priceless. And so the idea that we wouldn't invest in paying down that debt of ignorance that we owe the universe is just because we don't know who we're paying the check to every month for the things that we don't know, that we don't value it appropriately. The cost of success is the years of feeling like an idiot for things that you should have known by now. All the decisions that I made up to this point led me to here. And I don't regret my life, so I don't regret not knowing. I mean, if I started over, I'd be wealthier than I am now. You know what I mean? I can't go back in time, but if I could go back in time to talk to my 20 year old self and it wouldn't change the outcome of my life now because I would never roll that dice, is I would say there's two things that you don't understand that will massively change your life. You don't understand brand and you don't understand product. Because I was obsessive in my 20 twenties on sales and marketing and what I would consider fast money. I had fast feedback loops. So I would, I'd get better at sales and then I'd immediately make more sales. I'd get better marketing, immediately make more money inside this very fast feedback loop that gave me the misinformation or the false belief that this was the right path. But I was actually just playing the wrong game because it's kind of like in the Matrix when Neo says to Morpheus, so you're saying when I'm fast enough, I'll be able to dodge bullets. And he said, no, I'm saying when you're ready, you won't have to. Me being obsessive about sales and marketing was me trying to get faster and faster in the Matrix and not being the one and seeing the code for what it is, which is that if you make a product that's good enough, people will do the marketing and sales for you. If your brand is strong enough, people will make the association that they want to buy your stuff, regardless of how good your copy and your headline and your landing pages and your conversion rate optimization and your media buying are. I kept getting really good at a game that if I knew how to master the big things that mattered, would make those skills almost irrelevant when $100 million offers came out. The book, I didn't make it for anything. I made it for me. And it was originally intended to be an internal document. And so I just wanted to make it exceptional and what happened once I released it is what shocked me the most, was that I posted once and I just said, hey, I wrote this book, hope you guys like it. And then we sold out in minutes. And I was like, that's weird. The next month more copies sold, and then the next month more copies sold, and then the next month more copies sold. And it's continued to sell more copies month after month after month for two years. And it's still number one in its category on Amazon. And that was with zero paid marketing, purely off of people telling people about the book. And so when I saw how much leverage that was, that that book sells thousands a day, not dollars, thousands of copies a day. I have never marketed anything well enough to sell a thousand customers a day. Now, mind you, I've always had more expensive stuff that I've sold, but like, I'd never seen that kind of transaction volume. And the only way to get that kind of transaction volume is to have a huge amount of leverage. The leverage that product unlocked for me or that understanding was that if you make it good enough. And I love this saying, which is there's too big to fail. And I love the other, which is too good to fail. My headline for $100 million offers makes no sense. No one knows what a hundred million dollar offer offers is. And it's just like a picture of $100 bill. It's a big purple book. Like it actually makes no sense. But the contents of the book were valuable enough that people were like, just, just read it and they said it so many times to so many people. And most people who, when I see the comments and I see the reviews, they say I had four different people in the same month tell me in different groups that I should read this book. So I decided to do it, even though it looked hokey and oh my God, this thing is unbelievable. And then they tell 20 people or 100 people people. That was when I realized how much leverage spending more time upfront on building a better product would unlock for me. What I used to do was spend two months building a good product and spent two years marketing that product with great marketing rather than spending two years on a great product. And then for the rest of my life not having to spend any dollars or effort on marketing so that it would sell again and again and again because of the quality of the product itself. And so that was the first lesson that my younger self needed to understand about business. And the level of detail that it takes to go from good to great is so much wider than people think it is. The Difference between an 8 and a 9 is 10 times the work. The difference between 9 and 9 and a half is 10 times the work. Difference between 9 and a half, 9.75 is another 10 times the work. It's so much more effort. And honestly, when I was younger, I couldn't even comprehend the amount of work that I can do now. And for me, that amount of work is the amount of unbroken, broken, focused time that I can stick with one task. I did not have that level of focus. I didn't have a strong enough. No muscle. I didn't know how to turn down other things that would distract me for long enough. If you can count in terms of hundreds, like I can promise you, if you put a thousand hours into something, it'll probably be pretty good. And most people spend like a hundred hours on something. Or I mean, that's. Most people spend even less time than that. You start a clock when you start working, you stop a clock when you stop working, you spend a thousand hours or 2000 hours on something. Something. There's a level of detail because of the number of exposures you'll get to it. The crispy details of the product or the service that can only come from looking at that thing when it's cold, looking at thing when it's hot, looking at it when you're angry, looking at it when you're sad, looking at it when you're inspired, looking at it when you're bored. You see it with different lenses. And then what happens is it just gives you so much more depth and context to whatever you're trying to build. That that's the difference between mediocre products and excellent products. And it just takes time. And real quick, I spent 200 hours this year just making this one project for you, which is the $100 million scaling roadmap and I broke up the stages of business into 10 stages. And you can identify where you're at by simply just putting in your business information. You go to acquisition.com roadmap and it'll spit out this custom report that tells you what the constraints are at that current level and what you need to do to graduate and get to the next level. This is our gift to you absolutely free on the thank you page. You can book a call with our team and we'd love to help you figure that out and ideally get past it. In an ocean of volume, which. There's more commoditized products and services today than ever before. There's outsized returns to being number One, it is an even bigger winner take all market now than it ever has been because of social media and the ease of letting other people know about stuff. If you are truly the best, everyone will know. And if everyone knows you are the best, you will have more demand than you could possibly deal with. People think that word of mouth is dead when there's literally never been an easier way to go viral in a literal sense from people telling other people about stuff. I said the second lesson was brand. And so I had to look at a company or brand as a learning tool, as what are people going to learn to associate my brand with the tangible and the intangible ideas. There are many people that I associated with when I was younger that I would never associate with today. Even though I would say, well, I don't act that way, I don't live my life the way they live their lives, people would still make that association. If I did nothing but talk with porn stars on my show, people would still make a very different association with me. And so I want to embody certain values that I want my brain to associate with. And anything that is not those things by default detracts from because it dilutes the association. Branding is like curating a garden where pretty much anything but the flower that you're trying to grow there is a weed, even if it's a daffodil, even if it's a sunflower, even if the flower itself is fine. Like I said, I have no issues with porn. I think it's a sunflower, whatever. But if I'm trying to grow roses, then anything that's not a rose doesn't belong. Being so vigilant about defending that garden of association and reputation gives you so much leverage. Because the reason Warren Buffett now can just do deals that no one else can do is because his handshake means more than the US Government's. If he says he will pay, we know he will pay. If he says he will be there to insure your entire city, we know he will. He can do a deal on a one page agreement for billions of dollars because people trust and they know that his reputation matters more than anything to him. And so trust is leverage for deals, it's leverage for sales. The first experience I had with having a strong brand was when we were probably a year, year and a half into Gym Launch. I launched what would become Allen, my software project. And when people heard I had launched a new thing, the clients that I had were sending screenshots of their credit cards to my customer. Support team saying, I don't know what it was, but if Alex made it, I'll buy it. And so all of the ideas and the obsessions around how I was going to market it and how I was going to position it, the thing that mattered most was what they had already received from me and how much I delivered on my first promise. And so when I realized that, I was like, all of this sales and marketing stuff gets you one sale. Delivering exceptional product and exceptional reputation around your products gets you every other sale after that. And you always be able to sell the next thing, provided you delivered on the first thing. And that's where there's this obsession with marketing, because there's always more people to sell to. It's a very, in my opinion, tiring life. You always have to go get new customers. If you make sales to get customers, rather than get customers to make sales, you make the customer the goal, and then you get to keep that relationship. And then next year, you still have that customer. If you've got a customer just to make a sale, you have to go get another customer to make another sale next year. But if you make a sale to create the relationship of the customer, then next year that customer will buy again and the new customer will buy. And the third year, you get the first two years and the third customer, and then that is how you create a compounding vehicle. And so both of those things, brand and product, are actually underlying one concept, now that I'm saying it out loud, which is I didn't understand compounding. I thought that it was normal to have to go out, bang doors, call phones, dm, run ads to get customers every single month. And that next month I'm gonna have to get another 20 just to keep the lights on, rather than having spent more time on my reputation and the quality of my product. Product. So that when I sold the first hundred, they would never leave again. And then they would send me the next hundred and I wouldn't have to do anything. And then I would be able to fend people off, and then I'd be able to raise my prices and be able to take people on my terms. But I didn't understand any of that. And part of that is because I wanted money so fast. And building a great product takes longer. Building a great reputation literally never stops until the day you die. Leaning into that lesson, you know, the first book I launched, and I think it did two or four thousand copies sold its first month, something like that. You know, the second book that launched two years later sold 250,000 copies in its first month, which for context, the average New York Times bestseller sells between 10 and 100,000 in its first 12 months. And we sold 250 in the first month. The only way that that can happen is if the people who bought the first book buy the second book. And everybody they tell also buys. And that book still continues to sell at twice the rate of my first book today. Here's how to spot friends that are worth cutting. They only talk about your past, not your future. So if you go and you hang out with your buddies and all they can really reminisce with you on is the things that you did together. But none of them are talking about what they're going to do or what you're going to do. For me, that's a telltale sign that they're living in the past. They're not even living in the present. Their best years are behind them. And for most of us, we want our best years to be ahead of us. And we want somebody who's also looking at the same goal as us, which is growth, which is moving forward, which is making progress. If you are a growth oriented individual and you feel like you're not sure about your environment or if it's conducive, the easiest Litman test is who talks about the future and who talks about the past. Keep the ones who only talk about the future caught the ones talking about the past. The best thing that I ever did was not listen to other people's opinions about my life. They don't want the best version of you. They want the version of you who best serves them. Them. Now, when I first said this, I got flack from a bunch of parents. They're like, I really want the best for my kids. I was like, that's not true. You want a version of your children who serves what you think will make you look the best. Family, I would say more often than not has a closer alignment with your long term goals than strangers do. And so it makes sense that family would have more aligned interests, but not completely aligned interests with you, because the only person who has a completely aligned interest with you is future you. Keeping that as the litmus test of whose opinion I'm going to listen to, although it's more difficult, has ultimately been very fruitful for me because if you're looking at even two parents, you can disprove that concept by saying, okay, well, both parents want different things from me. Of the things that both parents want, which of the things help each of the parents individually? Out. Because I can promise you that the thing that one parent wants doesn't hurt them and help the other parent if they disagree. It's usually something that's more aligned with their worldview, their beliefs, or what they will get status from in their community for you doing. And so all of the things I just described have nothing to do with you, so why consider it? I'll say this up front, I hate why questions because who knows why? But I would say that I, if, if I had to make a guess on why we care about other people's opinions. It's because we've learned to care about other people's opinions. And when we're children, we learn to orient ourselves to the world through other people telling us what is what. Literally when you're a kid, you point and then you say, what's that? And then they say this. And so you have to listen to other people on the way up. The problem is at some point you have to turn it off and say, you know, some of the people I was listening to had no idea what they were saying. But you don't know. They have no idea because you don't have a context to make a judgment. You have to learn to become human and then you have to learn to become yourself. And I think that at that turning point, you then have to analyze the beliefs that you been given and then keep the ones that you choose. Most parents are risk averse rather than risk taking for their children. So like, we are willing to take more risk for ourselves oftentimes than our parents are willing to take on our behalf. And I think that's normal. They want to like keep you alive. There's a lot of evolutionary drive behind that. And so they're playing not to lose, but if you want to play to win, then you have to take different bets. I think a lot of younger people get really confused because they spend a lot of time talking about ideas and very little talking about doing actions. And so if you just define the world by only things that occur in it and not things that occur in your mind, there's a lot less noise. And so it becomes easier to see the forest from the trees. Let's say I have an employee and I want to hop on a one on one and they said something in a meeting before and I say, I think the intention behind your statement was that you wanted me to do this and this is how I was feeling about your statement. And this is probably where you were feeling. Everything I just said is a complete waste of thought time because All I know is that they said this. And so just focus on the facts. And if you can do that, it actually makes living life a lot easier or navigating life a lot easier. At least it has for me, because those are the only objective truths. An easy frame for that is like, would it be admitted to a court as evidence? You saying you were offended is not evidence. John said this to Sally. These words, that's evidence. Indisputable. And so just look at the things that are beyond reproach. Look at the things that are indisputable. Look at the things that are facts that are observable. And the world gets a lot quieter. And you also realize that most people are full of and don't know what they're talking about. I mean, if someone was like, hey, Alex, why did you get into business? I could make up an answer. It just, how do we know it's true? Trying to figure out someone's intention is if someone asked me, why did you get into business? I can make up an answer. Anyone can make up an answer. Why do you like making money? Why do you like sales? Why do you like marketing? Why are you good at this? I can make up any answer. All I know is that these things have occurred. And so we can look at my actions and we can look at the results, the rest of it of which, which had what influence on what? Like, I can't relive my life and I can't run the experiment. And so trying to determine why. Like, was it because my mom didn't hug me? Was it because my dad hugged me too hard? Who knows? I can give anyone. And someone will nod and say, great. Because we've trained ourselves to say, to answer. When someone says, why do you do that? You give them words and they nod and say, oh, that's interesting. But, like, it doesn't mean it's true. And so I just try and skirt the. The whole conversation because there's no point. So when someone's like, well, I'm the type of person who I'm like, just stop. Then they start using this label to decide whether or why they can or can't do something. I wouldn't be successful. That because I'm a knee freak. Why? Because you take trash out of your car regularly? Why does that have anything to do with whether you could do this or not? I used to think and told people I was bad at math until I was 25. Post college, post consulting job, all of it. And then I decided that I was not going to be bad at math. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm not going to use a calculator. And so then I started getting better and better at doing math problem. And then lo and behold, when I took the gmat, I was like, okay, I have to study twice as hard for the math section. And I did just as well in the math section as I did on my verbal. But my whole life I had said I was bad at math, and so I didn't study as hard because I was bad at it. Everyone who's listening to this has something they say about themselves. They're like, I'm not organized. I'm an early bird, right? Like, we have these labels we give ourselves, but, like, why do we have these labels? Like, if you needed to wake up early, you wake up early. If you need to stay up late, you stay up late. The labels change our behavior more than we change the labels. I really abhor labels overall, because I feel like it limits my action. When I get on podcasts and I have talks and people try and label me, you'll probably actively see me break the label almost every time because I'm really aware of it and a lot of people aren't. And I don't think people do it on purpose in a bad way way. I just think that they will speak things over you, which is why I hate going home, because no one speaks over you more than your family and the people who knew you in high school. Alex has always had a short temper. You, you're a hothead. Literally, people from home describe me that way. I was like, I don't think I'm a hothead. They will say that. And then I feel like I have to really put up my mental, like, defenses to be like, this is not true. Here is the evidence that this is not true. What would a hot head do in these scenarios? That is not the way I behaved, therefore. Right? And I'd have to. I have to basically unwind that shit whenever I go there. And so that is why I've been an advocate of, like, if you want to change your behavior, change your environment, because they're not going to reinforce labels that you then also perpetuate in your own mind by the actions you take as a result. And the only reason they want to label is because it's shorthand for other people to understand, not because it's true. They just want to say, he had a bad childhood, and so they take your whole life and they just say bad. That's not true. There's more nuance to It I prefer to think of ideals and think of taking steps towards towards those ideals. And since ideals are not binary of like he is courageous or he is not courageous, but how courageous is he or how patient is he? Not impatient or patient, but how much then I know the values that I want to embody and then I just take steps towards those every day. With the actions I take, my success can be boiled down to elimination of distractions, getting started, getting better, and never stopping. Here's how to do that. There's four steps. Eliminate distractions, get started, get better, never stop. Number one, elimination of the things that are distracting you. When I was young, my father gave me this advice. Rich people buy time. Poor people buy stuff. Ambitious people buy skills. Lazy people buy distraction. I can give you the first and easiest 2025 prediction. Look at what you spend money on. Look at your calendar, and wherever you invest is what you will get more of. So many people are surprised when they look at their bank account next year and it's lower than they want it to be. They look at their accomplishments from that year and it's not the things they set out to do, but when you look at their calendar and their credit card expenses, it's very obvious why those things didn't happen. Because we vote with our dollars about the things that we care about. We vote about the type of person that we want to become. And as the first thing that you can do today for next year is actually comment below this video, and I rarely ask for this. The thing that you're actually going to do today, not what you're going to begin doing next year or what your resolution is going to be, but if it's important enough to do for future you, it's certainly important enough to do for current you. Because current you, by the way, is the only you that's ever going to enjoy life. I'll give you this story. So I remember when I was a few years back, I was walking with Laila and we went to Sephora, which is like a makeup store. So we walked inside. You know, I'm sitting, you know, standing there awkwardly because I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. There's this lady with the smock who like helps out. And she had these two girls who were young, they must have been maybe, well, about this, this old, I'm guessing between nine and 40, who knows? She's leaning over and she has these two paintbrushes in her hands and she says, okay, girls, now that you guys are Women, you need to start budgeting for this stuff because you're going to be spending money on this every single month to do your makeup. And so the girls grabbed them, they were super excited, and they went to go check out. And I saw that exchange as actually a really beautiful lesson. When it comes to identity, our priorities, we dictate by what we spend, not by what we say. These girls, because they wanted to step into this new identity, had to match it with new priorities. So they had money or they had saved up their shekels or whatever they do for chores or babysitting or whatever. By doing that, they had to start prioritizing some of that money towards their new identity, from girls to women. But the thing is, is that many people who want to start next year think, okay, well, I'm just going to see if this happens. But it doesn't work that way. You have to basically make the decision that this is the type of person that I want to become. And then these are the actions that that type of person would take. And then we align our calendars in our budgets in accordance with that, so the investments we make yield the results that we want. But the thing is, is that people want to say, hey, wouldn't it be great if I owned Apple? But they never buy the stock. If you want to be that version of you, you need to start buying stock in that today, both by paying in time and paying in money to vote with your dollars about what you truly care about. And the reason that I'm hitting this so hard is that it's never been easier than it is today to be successful. It's also never been easier to be distracted. So along the theme of investing in the things that matter most, the first thing we do is we eliminate all the stuff that sucks. I define commitment as the elimination of alternatives. If you get married, you eliminate all people of whatever sex you're married to that are not that person. Actually, you eliminate everyone who not that person independent of sex. Right? That is a commitment, right? If you enter into a partnership and you say, I'm not going to do any business besides this business as part of the terms, then you've eliminated all alternatives. And so if you want someone to commit, ask them to eliminate everything else. That's not the main thing. These are all the things, a laundry list of things that are probably not your main thing, that very likely are getting in the way. And these are the most common things that I see in my DMs, that I see in my comments from people who are not getting where they want to go as fast as they'd like to get there. First big category is bad friends. So if you want better friends, get used to seeing them less. Better friends are busy friends. So I remember when I started working more and some of the friends that I had were a little bit more ambitious. I started realizing that the people that I liked the most I actually didn't spend as much time with. And the people that were always available were the ones that I didn't want to become more like. Here's five questions you should consider when thinking about whether to keep a friend in your life or cut them. Question number one is, if someone told you that you're a lot like your friend, would you take that as a compliment? Second, are you truly fulfilled by the friendship or is it just someone to keep you from being lonely? Third, are you able to be unapologetically yourself, or do you feel the need to act differently to please that friend or to be around that friend? Fourth, do you like who this friend is right now, today, or do you like the idea of the friend and who they could be someday? And then finally, five, would you want your future or imagined child to be friends with someone like this person? And I think it's a really wonderful litmus test because it forces you to take a look outside of yourself in order to have perspective from a third party angle on the true quality of that person. But the reality is that rare people are by definition rare. It's normal to have fewer of them. And so if you only have a few friends or one good friend, then that's normal if you want rare and exceptional friends. If you have many friends, it's far more likely that the bar for your friendship is too low. And to give you a filter that I actually used for the most important friend in my life, Layla, I like to think, does this person have the same scale of goals that I have? So it doesn't mean that they have to have the same goals as you, but it has to be the same level of goals as you, because at least you're going in the same direction. So that's number one. Number two is, do they have the same level of dedication and commitment to those goals? Because I don't know about you, but I had plenty of friends who were like, I want to be an NFL player, I want to be a really rich tech entrepreneur. I want to be a touring musician, right? And they had these goals. But I'm like, dude, I see you just playing Fortnite four hours a day and you practice guitar once a week. Like, what? Do you really want that? Or do you just like saying it because it makes you feel good? And so I wanted people who walked the walk, and I wanted people who would keep up with my pace. And if you are someone who's ambitious, and this is me just talking specifically to you, because there's only a few people who are watching this who really are. And you'll know that if it's you, you have to get used to being alone. Because there are seasons where you'll basically transition from one group of friends into another. And it's not even a group of. You'll usually transition from a group of friends into no friends. And then you'll find one or two people who are at a new level. And then sometimes those people introduce you to some of their friends. And if you keep walking and you keep outpacing, then that group will then start retiring past you. And then maybe one person. Person stays with you, maybe no one does, and you'll have another lonely period. I'm saying this because I used to think that there was something wrong with me, when in reality, I just didn't understand what the nature of being exceptional meant. And so I'm saying this purely from a definitional perspective. To be exceptional means that you are the exception. It means that you are not normal. And so it's normal for normal people to find you abnormal if you do things that are not normal. Don't let people who have mediocre goals deter you from taking actions that make you great because it makes you different. Realizing that, I thought most people actually made no sense. They say they had these goals, but they took no action. And they called me work obsessed. And they would tell me I should take time off. And they're like, hey, you're not. You're not. You're not as cool anymore. You're not hanging out with the boys. Like, why aren't you participating spitting in the fantasy league? Why aren't you watching football on Sunday with us? And for me, I actually used to love watching football with my friends. It was actually one of my biggest things that I look forward to. But the thing is that, like, I needed that Sunday because I had to prep workouts. I had to prep the music list for the next day. I had to run billing. I had to do all this other work. And the thing is that I looked at that football game and I was like, my goals are more important to me than this. And so I think that a lot of people don't actually look at themselves in the mirror and say, like, one year from two today, will I remember this football game, or will I remember the fact that I'm not where I said I wanted to be? And to me, that was significantly more painful. Now, this is an uncomfortable fact for a lot of people. Your ability to delay gratification is actually a function of intelligence. And so your ability to learn at a longer and longer delay is something that comes, I mean, we're talking from primates all the way up. And so basically, if you want to teach a monkey how to do something, you have to say, hey, do this thing, and then immediately give them a reward. And the longer that period goes on, the less trainable they are. The sign of intelligence is that you can actually expand the reinforcement window and they can still abstract it back to the original action. If you want to practice intelligence, then being able to actively delay your need for a result or reward from the work you do will make you a more intelligent person, because your rate of learning will actually increase, despite the fact that your reward rate will decrease in the short term. And so to give you full transparency on what 2025 might look like, if you accomplish your goals at the end, you might have a different friend group or no friends at all for a season, because you don't become like the people you admire. You become like the people you want to impress. Harvard made this wonderful study years ago about the best predictor of someone's long term material success was what they called their reference group. Now, this has been misquoted in places by the five people you spend the most time with, but it's actually the five people you compare yourself to. And that's a very big difference. Now I want to take it a step further because I think to myself, what are the things that affect our behavior? And so it's really about the people that you want to impress, not necessarily even who you compare yourself to, because it's the people whose voices you hear when you're about to make a big life decision. And so when you make a big life decision, you don't listen to the people closest to you. You should listen to the people closest to your goals. And some of them may not be in your neighborhood or your city or your state or your high school or your college. They might just be people you follow on the Internet. And you have to abstract, what would that person think about this decision? Not my mom, not my homie, not my uncle, or that person at church. And so I think this is a great transition of thinking through instead of necessarily Even having mentors, having heroes and transposing what you think their decision making calculus would be onto your life. And so what's interesting is that I will have conversations with entrepreneurs and they'll say, hey, here's my current condition. This is my desired state, this is what I perceive my obstacle to be. And I say, okay, well what do you think? And they're like, well, I think you're going to say I should do X, Y and Z. And I'm like, you're right, why aren't you? They're like, well, and the thing is, is that basically what they answer with after that, well, is in essence other people's opinion who aren't at the place they want to be. Here's the uncomfortable truth, which is that winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners. And you never receive hate from above, always below, because winners have their eyes on the goal, not on other people. And so you have to decide whether you want to be a loser or a winner. And I'm just being real with you. What this looks like in reality, and maybe for you in 2025, will be like this. First you look like an idiot to everyone else while you try to figure it out, then everyone else looks like an idiot, forever doubting you seasons. And so everyone takes a different amount of years to stop giving a fuck about what everyone else thinks. And if you're going to get there eventually, you might as well start today and enjoy the benefits longer. So if I'm 85 years old, I think about what that man cares about and that man cares about very, very little. All you have to do is talk to an elderly person or a grandparent and be like, what do you think about this? A lot of people are like, ah, who cares? Like it doesn't matter. Life is literally too short. They literally don't have time for it. And so I think to myself, if that's the ultimate version of me, if I'm going to get there eventually, and that's what the wisest people think after having the most life experience, then why would I not try to cheat code that into today and then not have to go looking back from 85 and think, man, I wish I knew then what I know now. Look forward to 85 year old self and say, I am going to choose to learn the lesson I know I'm going to learn and act as if I knew it today. Because the difference between them and you is that what they consider work, you consider life. And so you have to accept that you have a fundamental different understanding of how life works. And I believe that is a more accurate view of reality. The reason that the rich can get richer is because they see the world differently than the poor. And so it makes sense that if your poor friends don't see what you see, that they see through the lens of poverty and all. My goal in life is to be able to see reality more accurately. And so in the beginning, you have to develop this armor, this thick skin around people saying those little snide comments of like, you work too hard, you're too obsessed, you have a toxic work capacity, and why are you working weekends, why are you working late nights? You're not like, this is not worth it, they're not paying you enough for the work that you do, all of these different things. Because eventually that armor on the outside actually just becomes one with you, and you don't even hear it anymore. Because I can promise you that those people who are in my life decades ago, they're just not even. I don't hear those claims anymore for two reasons. One, because my reality changed so drastically that they couldn't say anything. And secondarily, they're just not in my world anymore. I was only able to get here because what they deemed acceptable, I deemed intolerable. How far you go in life, I truly believe this is based and predicated only on one thing, which is your actual standard. And so I believe that the person who runs any company or runs any division should be the person who has the highest standards. And if there's ever a day that someone has a higher standard for acquisition.com than me, they should run this instead of me, because they would be the one who's best serving the company. And so the person who should have the highest standard for you is you. And so it makes sense that they have a lower bar. But why would I listen to their bar on my life? I think that that standard is the one thing that rich kids get from rich parents more than anything else is because they have an expectation of life. They don't accept opportunities that are below that standard. And so they actually get their huge leg up on the pick on the vehicles that they choose to pursue. And so one of the tougher parts, if you're not from an area where people make a lot of money or not from, you don't know anybody who's a super successful entrepreneur, is that you basically have to borrow someone else's measuring stick and you have to say, is this the standard that Elon would pursue? Is this the standard Bezos would pursue? Is this the standard jobs would pursue. If it isn't, then why are you doing it? If you want to be like them, then act like them. If you want to be like your friends, then you can act like your friends. But don't be surprised that you have what they have or lack what they lack. If we're thinking about elimination, we're eliminating bad friends and tangentially their opinions about you that are affecting your behavior. So the next thing are what things are playing interference on your time and your attention. Alright, so I would say opinions of other people are affecting your behavior and your decisions. I think that your environment affects your efficiency of behavior. So think about how much more you get per hour of output if you can't sit still. Ignore notifications and focus on one task for eight hours straight. Never expect to build anything great. And as uncomfortable as that is, it's also the truth. Like I don't know a single incredibly successful entrepreneur that can't sit down and have hyper focused periods of time, sometimes weekends, weeks at a time where they don't talk to anyone and they just hammer away. And it's whether they're coding for software or they're making some insane marketing campaign and all the email follow ups and all the text follow ups and the affiliate promotions and incentives, or someone who's creating a product that they're designing and they're in the shop and they keep tweaking at it, or they're somebody who's hyper scaling a company and saying, I'm going to sit in 20 interviews a day for, for seven days straight so I can hire 20 people this week because I need to get going. If you can't sit still and ignore notifications and focus for a day, nothing great will get accomplished. Because it's not about what you want, it's about what's required. And whether that's your best or not is irrelevant. It's just there's a price tag and you got to be willing to pay for it or you don't get the thing. And a lot of times it's not what you want. And I spend a lot of time trying to dispel the concept of like follow your passion because I think it leads more people astray than it helps. Because it's very easy for someone who's successful, who's already delegated tons of things to only then focus on their area of genius and then say, here for my seat, do what I do. But there's a very big difference between doing what someone does and doing what they did to get There. And I think this is what's lost in a lot of the content that I see in the entrepreneurial space. And to be clear, whenever I'm trying to get to the next level, I often have to take on things that I don't know how to do, and I have to learn how to do that, which means I have to suck for a period of time, and sucking sucks. But the thing is, you have to be able to embrace that period of time and say, like, this is the cost of greatness. And so I'll give you something very tactical. So I have timers in a lot of my offices, and my team has adopted this too, which is I like to time block, which is essentially saying, how long do I think this is going to take? And you can do this on a week scale. You can do it on a daily level. It depends on the level of project you're tackling. But for me, even on the most micro level, I say, okay, how long should this take? I'll then crank this thing. Boop. I think this should take 20 minutes. And then I hit start, and I let the timer go. And if, for whatever reason, something distracts me, I pause it so that I know that I didn't actually work that period of time. And so what happens is it will give you a very real look at how long you're actually working versus how long you think you're working. And you tell other people working, and you Instagram how long you're working. And as I've become more efficient at work, meaning my output per unit of time has gone up, I've realized that there's just been a significant decrease in the distractions that I allow to interrupt me again, if you want to stay focused. Staying focused is not like zeroing in and saying, I'm going to do it. Just like I'm going to. I'm going to just zoom in on this thing. It's more that focus occurs when you remove everything else. What's left is focus. And so Jerry Seinfeld has this famous process that he talks about with writing, and I think writers are also wonderful people for talking to, for deep work, because it's the nature of the work they do. One of the things that he did and he has done for years for his standup, so he can script it out, is that he locks himself in a room that has no windows and has nothing but a yellow notepad and a pen, and he tells himself that he has to go in that room and he doesn't have to write, but he can't do anything else. And so what ends up happening is that writing occurs as a default. And so focus kind of works the same way. You eliminate everything else to create focus. You don't try and push harder while also having these disruptions. So there's three easy ways that I make my phone less distracting. The first is I switch it to grayscale. And so grayscale decreases consumption across all people by 30% ish. And that's research back, which is pretty cool. The second thing is turning off all notifications across all apps on your phone, because you never want your app to be dictating when it's convenient for the app to disrupt you. Like, how ridiculous is that? But we let apps have that permission. Most phones and people want to push notifications to you. I want to pull them when it's convenient for me. The third thing is other people. And so I have a mode on my phone where no one can get through. And when I do that, then I can reach out to them when it's convenient for me. Because if it's actually an emergency, call 911. And if it's not a true emergency, then it can wait. And my team wanted to remind me that I don't email. I heard in, I think it was like 2016 that Bill Clinton didn't use email. And I was like, if he's the president, he doesn't use email. I cannot use email. And so my team doesn't contact me via email. And so if you can eliminate entire channels, that's also an easier way to concentrate fewer flows of communication. And here's the thing. It's always harder, takes longer, and costs more than you think it will. That is a reflection of. Of poor expectations, not that reality is bad. And so it makes sense that it would be harder, take longer, and cost more, because if it didn't, then everyone would have it and everyone had it, then it wouldn't be worthwhile. And so literally, the difficulty of the task that you embark on is proportional to the reward that you ultimately get, because you are the asset that you build more than the achievement. And so if it's hard, that's amazing because it will make you that much harder once you conquer it. And it will also make it harder for anybody else who wants to follow in your footsteps. And so the higher up the mountain you climb, the thinner the air gets and the rarer the climber or explorer must be in order to get there. And so I don't know about you, but I would so much rather climb a mountain that so few people have been able to climb so that I can see a view that other people haven't seen. And so speaking of expectations, let me talk about the worst expectation of all, which is entitlement, which is the expectation of life or other people to give you something without earning it. And I think that this is a virus in today's culture right now. And so there's the famous quote, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, Good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. It makes sense that right now we have a lot of weak men, because it's been pretty good times. The good news about that is that it's so easy to buy beat them. You just have to show up, be on time, prepare the night before, remember people's names, actually follow up when you say you were going to and try like you mean it rather than trying like you want to get credit for trying. And I see this is this. This thing that's. That's pervasive right now is that people will comment or they'll DM me, and they're like, hey, I'm trying really hard, as though I'm supposed to give them credit for trying. The world doesn't work that way. It gives you credit for achieving. And the reason that you want credit for trying is because you want it to cost less, take shorter time period, and be easier. And so if you restate your complaint about the difficulty as, oh, I have false expectations about the ease or the price tag of this goal, then all of a sudden you realize that the only real problem was that you expected it costs less. It's like going to the store and being like, oh, I've got these Jordans that I really want to buy. I got $50. I'm so excited to buy them. You go to the store and see that they're $300. At that point, you can just say, jordans aren't for me. Or you can say, oh, I will have to keep working and keep saving so that I can afford this. And so it's a lot about affording the goals that you want to achieve. And a lot of things that we have to spend in order to get them is the time and the rejection of not achieving what we want on the timeline. We originally thought, like, what makes success hard is that the expectation that society puts because we only see the highlight reel. You actually only see people after they finish the race. People think success is like watching a marathon, not running a marathon. When you watch a marathon, you look at the beginning and you look at the end, it only takes you a couple of seconds to see both of those. But running a marathon is 4, 5, 6 straight hours of breathing heavy, wondering when it's going to end, counting, starting to play games in your mind of like, okay, I'm 2/3 of the way there, I'm 2 more quarters of that. I'm only one fifth of one eighth of the way there. And you keep doing this to play tricks on your mind to keep going. But the thing is, is that in a mile marker race, it's very clear to know how you're going to get to the finish line and how long it's going to take. The only difference with success is that you just have to keep running and you don't know where the finish line is. And people will only cheer you on at that finish line that they don't know where it is either, which means you have to get used to running alone. And so the difficulty is you have to start running and you have to keep running, but you just don't know whether you're running for a mile or 300. And so this is where the pacing is important. So a lot of people run really hard. They'll think because they only saw the beginning of the marathon on TV and the finish of the marathon on TV that they can just sprint because both of those clips only lasted a couple of seconds. So they start their marathon of success, of whatever it is they're going after by sprinting as hard as they can, and then they realize that there's no one around and there's just a bunch of open road ahead of them. And they're like, how long is this going to take? And that's when reality sets in. And so I make these videos to say that a lot of times it's going to take longer. So one of the big nasty things that you have to eliminate on this path is the identity that you have about yourself, the isms that you claim. And so, for example, like, oh, I'm a neat freak, I'm not good at math, I'm not techie. And so you make these statements and they don't serve you. Fundamentally, you should have one razor that rules all decisions. And this is pretty cruel, but it's also the reality of the world, which is, does this thing person belief make it more or less likely that I hit my goals? And so if you run every single thing you do, the actions you take, the people you hang out with, you having your phone in the room, you saying, I'm not techie does this increase or. Or decrease the likelihood that you hit your goals? And I'm not saying this to preach, because I had one that I dealt with for a long time. So I always considered myself to be bad at math. I remember I was decent at math, and then in ninth grade, I had a really bad teacher. And it basically put me back a year, basically after algebra, I didn't really learn anything because the year after that, I didn't have the foundations from the year before. The difficulty was I kept saying after that point, I'm just not good at math. But when I was in my 20s, I made the decision that that didn't serve me anymore. And so I was like, okay, well, what would I have to do to feel like I was good at math? And I was like, well, people who, like, can do math in their head. I think that's a pretty cool thing. And so I didn't use a calculator for anything for years. And then I learned. I mean, I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, but then I got better and better at doing math in my head. And I would check it out, obviously, after I was done, but I always let my head try and do it first. And so nowadays, if you were to ask people, man, is Alex good at math? They're like, dude, he just rattles off numbers like crazy. But the thing is that until I was in my 20s, I thought I was bad at math. And so it's like, we are so much more pliable than we think we are. And we had something that set us on a trajectory a little bit earlier in life that just gave us maybe a little bit of disadvantage. Fine. Because you just have to get over it. Everyone's childhood was difficult. And if you want to win the award for hardest childhood, congrats. You win, you feel better, right? No one cares about what happened to you then, only what you can make happen. Now. Identity is a lie. We only describe people about who they are by what they do. Doing is being. And so if you want to be somehow different, you have to do different things. Then only afterwards will people describe you based on the actions you take. Think about back in the day, the actual names people had was, he's John the Carpenter, he's John the Stone. Smith, he's John the Mason. Right? People literally had their names based on what they did. That hasn't changed. The first thing you do when you meet somebody is you find out what do you do? And that gives you indications. And if you want to describe who someone is, what do you say you describe what they do. And so this means that our identity is 100% under our control because we control what we do. And then only after the fact will other people describe you in that way. So we covered environmental things, like with the phone and having a timer. We covered interpersonal things in terms of our identity and voting with our dollars and time about the things that we care about. We eliminated the bad people and their opinions about us that affect our behavior. And so we've eliminated all these things. So now we've made room to get started. And the good news is you only need three things to win. The balls to start, the brains to learn, and the heart to never give up. And the best thing is you already have all three. And for the girls, you have gonads. So it's fine, it still counts. And so my ask of you is to make the commitment. Now, this is again the elimination of alternatives, to make the commitment to never stop. And so it doesn't mean that I'm asking you to commit to be successful. I'm asking you to commit to keep running, to keep walking the marathon, even if you have to pant and you have to slow down, you just can't stop. And so the best way to hit next year's goals is to not wait until next year to work on them is to start now. Because I'll tell you this, if you feel like you need a special occasion to begin making your life better, then it assumes that a special occasion must always, always be there for you to want to improve yourself. It shows that you don't think today is worth improving. And so that means that you typically will always cast forward when you think things are worth improving. And so the easiest way to vote with your action is to make today the only day that is good, because it's the only day you have control over my hot take, which shouldn't be, is you don't have to wait until January 1st to better yourself. And I'm purposely posting this before the year ends because I think it's stupid to wait. Like, why would you wait on getting better? Why would you, like if you had a lottery ticket, why would you wait to cash it in? You would cash it in as fast as humanly possible. And that lottery ticket is the life that you want. On the other side of this, why would you wait? Here's a harsh truth. You're young, you've got time. False. All that lie does is extend. How long it takes people to realize tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Nothing is going to be Easy, get over it. It takes time to get good. And the sooner you start, the sooner you act. And the sooner you act, the sooner you get. And don't stop until you do. And as harsh as that sounds, I do have good news. It only takes 20 hours of focused effort to get decent at anything. The problem is people wait years before they start their first hour. So many of you could probably start achieving next year goals before the end of this year. 20 hours is not that long. If you're like, man, I really want to learn ads, I really want to learn how to make content, I really want to learn how to edit videos, I really want to learn how to sell. You can do that now and you can have that skill like we can onboard a new sales guy in a few days. There's this massive delay that people think because of the unknown, they don't know what is going to happen. And so they therefore assume that it's bad. And so the reality is that most people don't like surprises, even if they're good ones. Have you ever heard people like, oh, I don't like surprise parties. It's a fucking party. Why would you hate a surprise party? That's in your favor. You hate it because you don't like the unknown. And so it's a really good thing to test for yourself. Which is, why would I hate a good surprise? You hate it because there's a possibility that the surprise is negative. But on a long time Horizon, you know, 85 year old you isn't even going to remember it to begin with, this is going to be a weird one for you. But just stay with me. If you've ever been so drunk that you're throwing up and you think to yourself, man, I'm probably not going to remember this. The good news is, is that once you do succeed, that terrible period of vomiting or whatever the difficulty is that you're going through, it'll actually compress in your mind. And so as difficult as it may seem in the moment, it actually doesn't stay with you. All you'll have left is the thing you accomplished. You won't remember the work that it took to get there. There'll be a significant discount on the punishment you endured. I tend to have a bad habit of really not looking back very much. And so I occasionally will go through my photos and I am reminded about all of the mistakes and the detours that I took along the way to where I wanted to go. And I'll tell you the story that my father told me when I Was very impatient. He said, listen, you think that this is taking too long for you to be successful? He said, do you know how long it took me to become a doctor? And I was like, no. He's like, well, so my father's Iranian, and he left the country to get educated. And there was a program for anybody who's Iranian that the government would pay for for your schooling as long as you came back with the education. Now, the revolution occurred during the time he was away, so he actually never got to go back. He went to France, Paris to try and enter medical school. Only problem, he didn't speak French. And so he's trying to do pre med in another language as somebody who doesn't even share the same Alphabet. And so he failed that year. He then took the second year, he tried again because you're allowed in France. It's a different system. You can just basically try as many times as you want. He started again, and the second year, he failed again. And then he talked to his brother, and he's like, I don't know if being a doctor is for me. Like, I just feel like, imagine this, like, failing two full years in a row. And his brother said, hey, why don't you go to Belgium? You know, change the environment, you know, different. Different school, different people go there. So he went to Belgium. And then his third try, he made it past his first year. Now, mind you, at this point, he had two years of learning French, and so he was able to finally actually understand what the professor was saying. So was it that he wasn't smart enough to understand how to become a doctor, or was it that he just had other skills that he lacked along the way? And so a lot of people right now are judging the fact that they didn't succeed because they somehow think it's some innate trait. I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. But sometimes you just lack some pretty prerequisite skills, right? Like, if you're, like, trying to learn calculus and you've never done arithmetic before, it's gonna be really hard, right? Dare I say impossible. And so if you jump straight into calculus, you're not gonna win. So sometimes you have to take two steps back in order to build the foundation to get forward. Now I'm gonna keep the story going. So he then graduates in seven years, because how long it takes. The actual medical school system is different. In Europe, they actually do college and the next degree, all as one thing. So seven years later, he graduates. Okay, then he's this Iranian dude. Can't go back to his own country, meets a girl in Belgium. She says, I'm from the US and so he comes back to the US with the lady who would eventually become my mother. And when he's in the U.S. he then his doctor, his MD doesn't apply here. So he then has to basically do it again in the United States. And in order to do this, you have to get a residency. Now getting a residency as someone who's a foreigner back then was pretty tough. And so it took him two years where he had to basically work minimum wage jobs. He was like, he had to like run slides, like radiology slides back and forth as like a runner, a courier, when he was a full surgeon. But he couldn't do it here in the US and so imagine how emasculiniating it is right? Where your wife comes back, she's able. She was a US citizen and had all this other stuff, right? And she could, she got her internship immediately because she was us and she was a girl, whatever. And my father didn't. And so he then had to do two more years where he didn't have progress. So he told me this whole story. And then eventually, obviously, he got the residency and then he was able to get in the path. But if you look at that, he basically had four or five years of his life where there was basically no, no net gain in progress towards his goals. And so he's telling me this story when he's 50 and he's like, look at my life now. He's like, no one knows. He's like, no one asks me how long it took. They just know what I have now and what I can do now. And so you have this idea that it should take a certain period of time. It should only last this long. It should be this level of difficulty. But the thing is that that level of perseverance when he decided to go out on his own and start his own practice rather than. And left the practice that he was working in. He then didn't know anyone and he still had a heavy accent, was a new guy in a new area, and it took him time to build up. And what did he do? My dad learned how to be a general contractor. He built his own surgical center because he couldn't afford having these outsourced third parties that charged $250,000 to build a surgery center. He built his for a fraction of that. And so his mind, dad going to Home Depot, measuring and figuring these things out as a full plastic surgeon. It's not about the resources you have. It's about how resourceful you're willing to be right now. Getting started is 100% under your control. And I love taking this frame, which is that every self made billionaire is self made. Now if you're like, wait, there are billionaires who aren't self made? Right? That's why I didn't say all billionaires. Every self made billionaire is self made and every self made millionaire is self made. And here's the one people hate, every self made person in poverty is self made. Now that may make you feel uncomfortable. And you know what, you may be right. You probably did have more disadvantages. You probably did have things that worked against you. And now what? You're right. So that's it then for you. The rest of your life will never go the way you want it to go. The harsh truth here is if you want to feel better, blame others. If you want to get better, blame yourself. And so my father told me that story multiple times in my life, as I'm sure your fathers have told you stories multiple times in your life. Or you had a parent or an uncle or a brother and they told you those big meaningful stories. And so I'll tell you another time he told me it. So after I lost everything for the second time, think about. Like I tell the story, but it's very easy to gloss over. But think about this. I had left my job, went to a new area, didn't know anyone, started a gym, didn't have enough money to have an apartment, slept at my gym, just grassroots, got it going, made the gym successful by working there every hour of the day, was finally successful enough to be able to open a second location, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Finally feel like I tasted success. Like I, I'm actually doing something. I'm actually pretty good here. Like that bet that I made actually paid off. And then I lose it all. And so I sell all those locations, I put the money in a new thing and then it's gone. And so I could look back and say, wow, I just spent all those years and I actually have nothing to show for it. The only thing I would have had to show was the money that I made. But my father retold me that story and he said it was never about the amount of failures he had, it was about the education that he had. And so one of the other repeated fatherisms that he gave me was that education is the only thing that no one can take from you. The skills you have, the skills you acquire along the way are the only thing that are truly yours, there's nothing else in this world that actually belongs to you. Your clothes can get stolen, the belongings you have. And he said this from a place of reality, which is, my family came from a country that took all of our assets. They seized everything. They seized land, they seized homes, they seized wealth. They just said, oh, yeah, all that, that's ours now. Good luck. This may not be as real for people in the United States, but having people who everyone in my family had everything taken from them, that is very evident in how they talk to me and how always seen the world as these things are ephemeral. These material goods, the studio, the setup, the lights, the whatever the platforms like, gone. But the thing is, is that my father came here with $1,000 because of the revolution and had nothing and built the life he has. And you can lose it all and gain it back. And so we've seen so many entrepreneurs who've actually lived through this cycle. It's actually a common thing in entrepreneurship, and it's because you have to understand and respect risk. The beauty of it is that after you fail, the likelihood that you're successful goes up, not down. This is the part that people miss. They fail and think it somehow decreases the likelihood of success, but it actually increases it. And so it's like you want to just get the failures out of the way. Why would you not want something that increases the likelihood of your goal? And the reason that it increases that likelihood is that failure is a requisite probability for taking action. And so anyone who has failed has taken more action than someone who's done nothing, which means it increases the likelihood that they are successful. And so when you fail, you get feedback. And when you get feedback, you get better. And when you get better, it increases the likelihood you win. Losers stay losers by never being willing to lose. Everyone loses before they win. And so there's this great moment in the Matrix, which is the famous jump where Neo is trying to jump across the buildings, and everyone's gathered around because they think he's the one. He obviously takes the jump and he falls. And they're like, what does it mean? What does it mean? And Cypher, who ended up eventually being the Judas of this, says, everybody falls the first time. And so even the one or the person who was going to become the one was somebody who had to fail first. And I love that, because everyone falls the first time. Your first business is very unlikely to be your last business. The first product you have will be a product that you will be embarrassed of years from now. But what's important is having the product, getting the product, building the product, launching the product, shooting the shot. And so if you're never willing to lose, you're never going to win. So in 2025, if you start a podcast, you start making content, or you start doing cold outbound, or you, you take a new job, whatever it is, just remember that your second try after you fail, which you inevitably will, takes twice the emotional effort, but half the actual effort. So you'll fail and you'll emotionally feel bad. But guess what? You did. You actually gripped your hands on the unknown, and you go from unknown optimism to known pessimism. So it's like, okay, now I know what it takes. I now have realistic expectations, what is required in order to be successful. And although it may be bigger than I originally thought, I now can quantify what is required to win. And so here's the thing. The best entrepreneurs in the world have the biggest failure resumes. And so I don't even want you to win. I want you to build your failure resume. And so if you're like, oh, must be easy for you to say. I lost money on my first two real estate deals I ever did. Almost lost all the money I in. I've lost money on crypto when I put it in years ago. I lost money on bad hires. I've lost millions in bad hires. Actual hard costs, not soft costs. I've had six failed businesses. I've had nine failed partnerships. And so I bring these things up because, like, you're not going to hit it out of the park on the first shot. But the crazy thing about how success works is that you only need to win once. That's the crazy part, is you only have to win once. I'll read you this quote from Jeff Bezos, which is what I started my first book, 100 million dollar offers with. We all know that if you swing for the fences, you're going to strike out a lot, but you're also going to hit some home runs. The difference between baseball and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution when you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can hit is 4. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1000 runs. This long tail distribution of returns is why it's important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments. And when he says big winners pay, they pay in failures. They pay in the scars that they have to incur and endure. Along to hitting it out of the park and hitting it out so big that they never have to swing again. And so I want to make this as real as I possibly can. I just found an old note from myself to myself that's 12 years old. So I talked about my $10,000 per month income goal, and reading it got me actually pretty choked up. This is all to say that no matter where you're at in your journey, you've just got to believe with all your fucking heart that you're going to make it. Because no one else is going to believe for you. Because you can never expect someone to invest in you more than you invest in yourself. And the crazy thing is, some people say they kill for a shot or they die for a chance, when in reality, they won't even wake up 60 minutes earlier for it. So we've eliminated the distractions, all of the things associated with not doing this stuff. And now hopefully I've removed some of the mental BS around getting started. And so now once you start, you got to get better connections. Money, looks, intelligence, those are all great. But you can beat someone with all of those things if they have only one trait, an insatiable desire to improve. No matter where they start. It's hard to beat someone who improves every second of every day without giving up. And this is why earlier I said, ambitious people buy skills and they pay for those skills with time and money. And in order to have the time and money to invest in those skills, they have to take them from somewhere else. Because the thing is, is that your resources are zero sum. And this is something that a lot of people aren't comfortable with. Whatever you choose to spend your time on, you take from something else. Whatever you choose to spend your money on, you take from something else. And so most people don't have a resources issue. They have a priorities problem. You are choosing to say that other things are more important. And hey, I want to be real. If that stuff is more important to you, then amazing, you won it life, congratulations. But if you don't have what you want and you're spending money to proliferate a life that is not the one you want to lead, then you need to shift the list to invest the time and money and pull from those things that you don't want to put more in the ones you do and you want to starve out failure. So think about this. One of the easiest ways to have more money is to work more hours. You're like, how does that possible? Well, when you work more hours it actually kills two birds. One is that you actually make more money when you work more hours. But on top of that, you don't spend money because you have less time to spend it. And so every hour of work is a net positive in two directions. So it saves you money you're not spending and makes you money. And so you want to find those little twists that you can make in your investments of time and money that are outsized. It's not just that you gain, you also stop the loss. I've always been willing to bet big on me. And so a lot of you guys are trying to like bet big on dogecoin or some meme thing or like some get rich quick. And I promise you, the guys who have all the money know how to do it better than you. And if you have your last thousand or five thousand or ten thousand dollars that you're like, what do I do with it? Bet on you. Because you'll never sell you. You're a long term hold, right? And so if you get better, you guarantee the win. And every investment you make compounds, you guarantee compounding because every skill stacks on top of other skills. Steve Jobs talked about how when he went to college and learned calligraphy was the reason that first fonts showed up in the Mac later. And so he talks about, you can only connect the dots. Looking back, you want to double down on investing more into you getting skills. And I'll tell you something that you probably don't know. So I spent $10,000 and I only had 50 saved up after years of being a consultant. So I had $50,000 saved up. I was 23 years old. That's my life savings. I spent $10,000 to get a gym coach. I joined a mastermind for gym owners. Fun fact though, I didn't have a gym, but I figured if I go to a mastermind of gym owners, I'm going to learn so many of the things that they made mistakes on when they started their gym. They're going to have opinions on how I should lay out the square footage, what locations I should pick, what model I should use. And so rather than say, oh, I'm just going to find out all these failures on my own and take five times as long. I was like, I don't rather pay $10,000 to pull five years forward into the present. And so I was able to get that first location up and profitable and outsourced by month nine. Now some of the guys in the mastermind were at year five and still hadn't done that. I pay down my ignorance tax as much as I possibly can because the cost of you not being able to achieve your dreams, the price is ignorance. And the debt that you pay is the dismantle between where you are and how much you'd be making if you knew how to do it. I've told this story before, but I think it's something that's so ingrained in how I think in terms of how I price what I'm willing to pay in time or money. And before I tell that story, I move geographically whenever I see an opportunity to get around someone who's better than me. And so when I wanted to learn fitness stuff, I moved to an area where I knew there was other fitness entrepreneurs that was like, well, maybe I'll be able to hang out with them a little bit and I'll learn a little bit there. And I went to a city that I didn't know anything about. I knew no one. And when I wanted to get in the gym space, I said, well, California is like the Capital of Fitness SoCal. So I'm going to move out to Southern California because the best guys will be there and if I can win there, I'll be able to win anywhere. And so I moved out to California without knowing anyone. Whenever I've had these big transitions in my life, it's not only being willing to bet with my money and bet with my time, but also bet with my geographic location. I'm willing to risk losing the relationships that I had to gain, relationships that I need. And so 2025 for you might mean that you have to leave where you're at. And that could mean across town, but it could also mean across the country or even across into a different country. It may mean that you're going to spend, take all this money that used to spend here and spend in an entirely different way. You probably are going to have less stuff and that's okay because that stuff only deteriorates, it only gets worse, but you will only get better. Don't invest in Dogecoin. Don't even invest in the S&P 500. Invest instead in the SME 500. Invest in you. Because you will always beat a 10% return in the stock market. And if you think that Dogecoin is going to out compete your personal growth, you're never going to win. Anyone can get rich fast as long as you're willing to make no money for a long period of time while you work to get good enough to get rich fast. And so I told you I'll tell you that story. The story goes like this. A guy is actually using this as a sales close to an audience. He wrote a million dollars on a whiteboard in front of an audience. And so then he called out to a lady in the front row and he said, how much do you make, ma'? Am? And she said, $50,000. And he said, okay, well, right now you pay reality $950,000 every single year for not knowing how to make a million dollars. And when I saw that, I realized that the value of the skill of making a million dollars is the difference between what I'm making and what I could be making. And people wildly undervalue how much more they could be making once they have a skill. And so if you're the type of person who can actually follow instructions, who can show up on time, smile, be able to fail, and keep going, virtually all education will net you a positive yield. Because let me ask you a question. Would you pay $950,000 to make a million dollars and be able to make a million dollars every year? Well, that would be an insane deal. You pay it once and you get the skill forever. So every year after that you make a million dollars a year. Well, of course you should. Now, once you make the million dollars a year, are you willing to give 100% of what you make to make $10 million a year? Of course you should. And that's why education is by far the highest return. You can learn how to make a million dollars a year for probably close to $200,000 a year. And you're like, well, where do I spend that? You'll spend that on conferences, you'll spend it on seminars, and it'll likely be in 2000 to 5000, sometimes $30,000 chunks. But for some reason, you're willing to spend this on some academic who hasn't been in reality for 20 years because they're on tenure and thinks that the world is just going to hand you stuff because that's their reality because they're government funded. Or you can pay money to people who live in real private businesses who do this stuff for a living. And here's the thing. I have never paid for education and not gotten more than what I paid for. Now, I don't want to conflate that with the fact that I've paid for things that I didn't think was worth that money to other people. But I always ask myself, okay, number one, how can I become the best student who's ever gone through this? How do I become this person's number one success story. And I've told every program, every partner, every vendor that I've ever worked with, I will be your biggest success story. And so the reality is, once I am their biggest success story, is that because of them or because of me? And I think that's a choice that you get to make. Am I going to be the number one success story, or do I want to be right and prove that they're not good? Well, congratulations. Maybe they're not that good. Well, what does that leave you with? No skills and less money if you choose to succeed anyways. And say, what can I learn from this person? Because I've learned just as much from bad people as I have from good. Because a lot of times getting good is actually the removal of. Of bad. And so if you find out other ways that people do a terrible job, it's also a wonderful way of figuring out how to not do a terrible job. And so if I want to create a product that's exceptional, and I say, let's say I want to put a phone, a camera, the Internet, email, all in one place. If you remove all of the stuff that sucks from all of those things, what you're left with is an iPhone. Most times, you can always get more than what you pay for when you invest in you. So let's get really tactical. If you really want to double down on you, which will by far. I mean, think about this. 10% improvement is the S&P 500. So you're saying that you could take. Okay, let's be real. Let's do real math. So let's say that you've got $10,000 saved up. Okay, let's say that's what your savings is, which, by the way, makes you like a top 40% American, FYI. So let's say you've got $10,000 saved up. You could put in the s and P500 and have that $10,000 be 10,900 one year later. Or you can spend that on something that can triple your earning capacity. And next year, instead of making, let's say, $50,000 a year, you make $100,000 a year. Well, which of these increases the $50,000 plus increase is more than the net of the 900 because you lost the 10. You spent the whole thing here, you invested it here, you spent it. But did you spend it or did you invest it in an asset you could control? And so I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the extra 50 and put the 10 in. And then what do I do next year? I'm going to take this 50. I'm going to ask myself, is there anything I could put this $50,000 into? So I could put in the s and P500 and I could go and add myself an extra 5,000, $55,000, whatever. Let's say I get 10% that year, okay, so I get 55,000 this year. Or I could put that 50k into 10.5 10k things or two 25k things and all of a sudden take my earning power from 100k to 250k. Wow, what a deal. But I'm going to lose the whole 50 again. And so the thing is that on my way up, I basically took my savings and I spent it almost every year on education. Because why on earth would I want the future to take longer to get to me? When you buy skills, it's the closest approximation to buying time. And so there's this big thing like you can't buy time. False. You can buy the future at a discount. And you buy the future at a discount by buying the skills required in order to get there faster. And so if it could take you five years, if you did it on your own, or it could take you one year if you paid four different people to help you out with each step of the process, why would you not want to pay all of the money you have to get to there and then have four years of gain with that new baseline? You now are living four years, five years into the future. It's like you skipping from being 20 to 25 and you're getting the earning power at 25 plus, but now you're just 21. And then when you're at that point, you pull the next five years forward. And when you're 22, it's like living like you're 30, right? Like now. At that point, though, you might spend all your savings yet again. And this process has been one that I have consistently done for the entirety of my career. And it just gets to a point where you can't even spend the money. And so my very controversial advice is spend all your money on education for as long as you possibly can until you can't even spend the money because you're making too much of it. And so how do you become an expert? You do more repetitions than anyone else in a narrow field, which also means you fail more times than anyone else in a narrow field. And so if you want to beat someone, just try 10 times harder than them, and you only really need to try two or three times harder. But you probably don't realize how much harder they're trying than you are. So try 10 times harder just to make sure you win. People reject this idea that someone can work 10 times or 100 times harder, but I define work as output. And so for you to say that someone can't produce 10 times more than you is just factually false. There's tons of people who produce 10 times more. There's tons of people who produce a hundred times more than you. I'll give you the easiest example in the world. A lot of departments run on weekly cadences. They say, do this thing by end of week. Oftentimes you can ask that person, how many hours will this really take you? And then that person will say something like, I don't know, three or four hours. You say, okay, well, why don't you just get it done by noon? And then at noon, you say, okay, what's the next thing going to take? And they'd say, probably another three or four hours. You say, cool, get it done by the end of the day. Now, from those two cycles, that would have normally taken two weeks or 14 days, but instead it got done in one. And so just right there, you got something done. You got 14 times more done than the competitor who's doing things on a weekly basis. And so this is how you drag the future to the present, is that you're not focusing on hard. You're working. You're focusing how much you're getting done. You'd be amazed at how much better you get after you've done it a hundred times. If you want to win, do it again. I want to be clear. You don't just post 100 videos in a row and see what happens. You post one, see what worked, and then try and do more of that thing. And so the idea isn't just raw effort. It's raw effort with an improvement loop. And so I remember one of my favorite words that I have to teach sales guys, because it's a very repetitive task to teach someone how to sell is, great. Do it again. Great again. Great job again. And so it's that repetition that breeds the nuance of skill. And you want it to be so drilled into you that you no longer have to consciously think about how to do the thing, because you can then do it as a natural skill so that you can move on to putting your attention to the next skill. So it's not just about learning how to do it once. It's about learning how to do it so many times that you don't have to think about doing it at all. Especially if you're starting out. Your goal should not be passive income, mainly because you don't have enough money for the passive income to mean anything. Instead, you should learn how to make money while you're awake before trying to learn how to make it. While you sleep, you crawl, then you walk, then you run. Once you have more money than you can possibly reinvest in education and acquiring more skills, then you can take the leftover and put that into your passive income pool. And so very, very tactically, this is what I'll walk you through. You should have an education investment budget. And so just like you spend X dollars per month. So let's say we pull all of your expenses down and you're making an extra thousand dollars a month, okay? Now, if you're not eating out, you're not buying new clothes, you're not going out with the boys, you're not spending money in stupid ways that if that's what you're doing, then you're going to have $1,000 left. If you have that, then you can take that money and every month you can put it towards bank account that you can either choose to immediately spend or save up for something that is more expensive. And I can tell you that a lot of what I learned when I bought programs and seminars and conferences and things like that wasn't even from the content itself, but it was connections that I was able to make at those types of events that I was then able to leverage the one skill I had, which I was good at sales, and then start giving that away to every person I met so that I could collect those IOUs and then learn skills for free. And so it's like I really just needed the ticket to get in the room and then I could trade with everybody else with the skills I had to then get to learn theirs. And so, as wild as this sounds, at the end of 2025 you could be dead broke, but rich in skills. And so let's say at the end of next year you actually have no more money, but you now have the ability to make more money. And so just like my father had to start over from nothing after losing everything. He didn't lose everything. He still had the most valuable thing he had, which is that he was a surgeon. And so he knew a skill and he could make it work here. Like he'd make it work there. And that is something that no divorce can take from you. No government can confiscate. And it's something that's with you till the day you die. And so that's how you get better. You keep going, you keep improving the feedback loops, you invest appropriately and you keep going all in on you. We've eliminated everything that's bad. We started something that's good. We've gotten even better at being gooder. And now finally we've got to stick to it when it gets tough, because it will. Here's something that's taken me way too long to learn. Staying focused is like beating addiction. It's not a one time victory. You have to fight it all day, every day, then wake up and do it again tomorrow. Because the thing that's going to distract you is going to change every day. The thing that's going to trigger your addiction to distraction is going to keep morphing, keep changing its form so that it can steal or rob you of your future. And so you have to be adaptable in knowing that you have to fight it every day. And so it's not good enough to just say, I was focused for this week. You've got to wake up on the eighth day and the ninth day and do it again. And so you remember that guy who got rich drop shipping and day trading and buying crypto and wholesaling all at the same time? Yeah, me neither. Focus. To win in business, you need to be able to say no without remorse and hear no without a loss of enthusiasm. Which means that you have to keep feeling rejection, keep failing and keep going while being willing to reject basically everyone else. And that seems so counter because you're right there and you're like, man, I don't want to reject this person because I know what it feels like to be rejected. You need to be able to maintain this discrepancy so that you can create the space to do the work that needs doing. So there have been a couple of lessons that I have learned over and over again in my career. I've had to relearn. So it's a lot like a fine wine. It's like it gets better with age and there's more nuance to the flavor. So I think focus is not are you focused or not? It's how focused are you. And you can measure someone's focus by again, the quality and quantity of things that they say no to. Which means that as you get better, more opportunities will emerge. Which is interesting because people who start out can't see opportunity anywhere. And it's because they have so few skills and so there's very few opportunities for them. When you have a lot of skills, there are so many opportunities that are in front of you that you feel like you're missing out. But the real opportunity is actually in solving the problems in front of you. I was able to, in my opinion, become another order of magnitude greater in terms of entrepreneurship, which I would just measure by wealth. Once I was able to learn to say no and accept that, I would not be able to pursue the many things that I know I could crush. Because once you realize how much actual work it takes to make something good, you realize how few things you're actually going to be able do in your entire life. And so this is why picking becomes so important right now. The things that you're going to have to say no to are really the distractions and kind of in some ways easy. Say no to fantasy football, saying no to drinking beers with the boys, going out with the club, whatever. But in a year from now, once you have more skills, there will be more opportunities. You're going to have multiple $10,000 a month income opportunities that you're going to have to say no to to stick with the one that you have. And then once that things becomes $100,000 a month thing that you're doing, you're going to have to start saying no to multiple hundred thousand dollar a month opportunities. And here's the thing, with opportunities that come up, they only show you the upside and not the downside. You have to know where the skeletons are buried. You have to know where the bodies are. If you don't know. And I've gone through this visual because I think about it every single time I have to walk through not doing something. You are here, you see this new opportunity here, then you understand the downsides here, then you live the downsides, then you experience the upside, then you achieve your goal. And so this is the starting point. This is called uninformed optimism. This is now informed pessimism. This is the value of despair. And this is where most people quit. But what they do is they don't even quit because they don't want to say they quit. What they do is they start another one of these things and they say, oh, this is now my uninformed optimism. And then, oh, now I understand this more. But the thing is, is that they never actually get through to this upside. And so they just keep jumping from thing to thing to thing, over and over again. And so the reason it takes so long is because you're in a rush. Big things don't happen on small timelines because you have to start from zero over and over again. And if you actually stick with it, it's actually the shortest way to get to where you want to go. It just takes longer than you think. Must be easy for you to say. Is probably something that you might think by watching this or listening to this. And I like to tell the story because in July of 2017 is when I started my podcast, and it was 90 days after I lost everything the last time. And from that point until now, it's taken that period of time to get to over a million downloads a month. And for the first three years, and I was making multiple podcasts, we're talking 3, 400 episodes for the first few years, I Never really cracked 3,000 downloads a month. And so I could say, man, why is this taking so long? But the real real is that it took me that long to get good. It also being extra real, took me that long to have proof on the outside that what I was saying was true on the inside. And right now, no one who listens to my podcast cares that it took me seven years to get here. They just care that it's good today. And so people quit here when things get hard because the thought of something being hard forever is unbearable. They think that this line is just going to keep going this way forever, but it's not. Because once you fully understand all the bodies where the skeletons are hidden, then you can actually start solving them one by one. The thing is that that distraction only is distracting because you don't know what sucks about it. You might think you know what sucks about it, but you don't know what sucks about it. And so the big difference is you have something called declarative versus procedural knowledge. And so there's two types of learning, and this is actually formal, this is from academia. So you have declarative knowledge, which is knowing about something. So if you go memorize a fact or you learn how private equity works, right? This is knowing about the other type of knowledge, procedural, which is knowing how to. And so a lot of people mistake declarative knowledge for procedural. And so they mistakenly think that if they watch 10 videos on doing a private equity deal, that it means they understand how to do a private equity deal. Or they watch 10 videos on cold outbound and they think it means they understand how to do cold outbound or 10 videos on sales and so forth. But you're never really going to learn how to do it until you do it. And so you're going to Learn more from your first hundred cold calls, your hundred cold knock on doors, than you will from a hundred books or videos that you watch. But I have good news. Nothing hard lasts forever. There's only three things that can happen. You either quit, it gets easier, or you get better. So no matter what, it always ends. You only lose when you quit before you see it all the way through. And I think that's incredibly encouraging. So no matter how hard, whatever it is that you're doing is, which by the way, just means that your expectation doesn't match reality. But no matter how hard it is, you either quit, it gets easier because something changes externally, or you get harder, something changes internally. But no matter what, it will end. Think about it like you're mining for gold, right? You're chiseling away underground and you've got this pile of gold. You don't know how far away it is, but it's underground and you're digging towards it. This difficulty of swinging the pickaxe can end when one, you walk out of the mine and say there's, you know what? Marketing doesn't work. Sure. The second is that all of a sudden you hit a soft patch and then you're like, oh my God, I'm digging so much faster now. This is great. And then you get to the gold or you just start swinging the axe harder because you get more muscled, you get more efficient with your movements and you just keep chiseling away. Even if it goes from dirt to rock, you just keep chiseling away at a slower pace, but you eventually break through and get there. But in all three of those scenarios, hard doesn't last forever. And so I'll give you a little rule of thumb that I've seen on how do I do more of what's working, right? How do I keep going? When it's easy, do more. When it's hard, do different. And so I told this story years ago and I'll tell you guys again. So when gym launch just barely started work, alright? So I'm like three months into gym launch working, guess what, guess what brilliant Alex thought he should do. So I went to this meetup of 10 entrepreneurs. All the entrepreneurs were eight figure entrepreneurs. So 10 million plus per year. I was not making that. We were pacing probably three or four hundred thousand dollars a month. the time it was just me, Layla and I think we had an assistant over kitchen sink, right? So it was, I was making the most money I'd ever made in my life. And probably to this day, because it was the most material change in my life by personal percentage, when you go from no money to hundreds of thousands a month within 90 days. Me looking at bankruptcy attorneys six months earlier to that, I can't explain how crazy reality shifted. But I had this guy who came up to me after I gave my little presentation of, like, hey, this is what's working. And so, of course, what I want to do now is start a supplement company. He came up to me and he said, if what you're saying is true, if the economics of the business that you've outlined really do work as well as you say they do, when it gets easy is when you go hard. It's when you double down on what's working. And he said that to me. And I remember he said, because what's going to happen is that if it really works this well, someone bigger and badder is going to take all your stuff and immediately try and do it with their distribution, their audience, and their leverage. And so if there's ever been a time to focus on the thing that's in front of you, it's right now. And I remember Layla and I felt this huge weight of pressure that started us at that point, because, literally, I think I was really content for, like, six weeks, and I was really thrilled. We had just gotten married. We're six weeks into being, you know, married. We're making really good money. She's 23 or 24. I'm 26, 27. So, like, we're young. I was like, holy cow, this is amazing. Our rent, for context, was $1,200 a month. I was taking home 400. Right? Like. And so I've always lived far from my means. At this point, though, we went back home with the devil inside of us in terms of the fear of us losing everything that we had. And so we basically worked around the clock like someone was trying to put us out of business. And the thing is, is that people did eventually, but by the time they did, we had gone so far ahead that they were way behind us because we were working against a hypothetical enemy who was trying to destroy us, not the ones that were actually mediocre and distracted. When it's easy, do more. Once it starts working, put the blinders on and hit the gas. And I would challenge you with this tactical setup right now. If you've never worked for 30 days straight, I would encourage you to try it. In China, there's something called the996, which is basically the standard for Chinese tech work hours, which is you work 9am to 9pm, six days a week. That's the bar. And so I like to state that because we think we work so hard, that's just the average. And so I would encourage you. Remember hard times, hard men, right? Good times. Well, we need to act as though it's hard times because if you don't, you're surely going to become soft. My challenge for you is work 30 days straight. Work 10, work 12 hours a day, 30 days straight. What you will realize at the end of this is one, how much work you can actually do. Two, that you're not going to die, you're not made of glass, and third, you'll know that you have that gear if the time calls for it. Now, I will be very real with you. I work more now than I have ever worked in my life, save maybe when I opened my very first gym. So I work in absolute hours more than I ever have. And I produced significantly more than I did then. And this year I think I've taken something like 10 or 11 days off. In 2024, I would measure a day off as any day where I worked probably fewer than four hours. I put this as context and I had a. I had a security guard who was here@accent.com earlier this year and he was talking to some of the younger guys on the team and he said, you should never let Alex work more hours than you because he's already ahead of you. And so if you want to catch up with him, certainly don't let him out, work you some of the hoodoo, mental health, whatever. People are going to disagree with me also don't give a shit. And so the thing is, you can just go and make those mental health people happy or you can get what the fuck you came here to get. You can do what you came to do. And I have found that in my life I've gotten significantly more purpose and more drive from a long day's hard work, from earning my shower at the end of the day than anything that I've ever had from a pleasure seeking perspective. As much as it's great to go to the pool for a day and hang out with some people or maybe just watch movies, as great as that may be, there's nothing that I get more film out of than knowing that at the end of a day that I work 16 straight hours, that I have some product that I pulled out of my brain and into the world, that this thing got life. Now, looking back on the best days of my life, it was those types of days. And so when I realized that I stopped trying to satisfy what everyone else told me my life was supposed to be like. They're like, you should take vacations. I took my first vacation this year and it was supposed to be a two day vacation. And Layla and I left after one. Because what happened was I got there at this beautiful resort, five or ten thousand dollars a night, very expensive. And I say that just to say that it was ritzy, right? It was luxurious. I get there, I sit out on the back of this beautiful patio for this really expensive room and I look out on the, this mountain view and I think to myself, this is beautiful. And I don't care. I wish I felt something. And all I wanted was to get back in the game. And so I realized that even that little mini vacation was something that I had done because I thought it was an expectation, it was unspoken or spoken from someone else in my life. And so I have this quote that I live by which is, if you don't know why you believe what you believe, it's not your belief, it's someone else's. At that time, it's like I had this belief that I should take a vacation, but why now? If I can't explain it, which I really can't, then I shouldn't do it. And now I want to be very clear. This doesn't mean that there's no time for rest. But I like to think about the hypothetical extremes. I like to think about the996 that is just the standard in China. And I like to think about people in the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages. They worked above their shop and they didn't have like the seven day or five day workweek is something that was invented in the last hundred years. This is not pointing to your human capacity. This is pointing to a societal constraint. I think that a truly liberated individual operates purely from first principles of what do I want? What does it take to get it? And then what are the things that hold me back? And those, those things that hold you back are going to be physical constraints. You can't operate without sleep, not for an extended period of time. So I'm not saying don't sleep, sleep as much as you can. I'm not saying that you can work physical labor all hours of the day without rest. You need rest and sometimes you need mental rest, which is different than physical rest, and that's okay. So if you need, and I'm going to put need in quotes here, if your way of unplugging is watching Netflix, cool. If your Way of unplugging is gardening, cool. If your way unplugging is working out, cool. Do what works for you. But fundamentally the goal is to increase total net output over the longest period of time. And so it's not about, okay, I'm going to work 24 hours straight. Well, you're actually going to take from tomorrow, so your net output over two days is going to be much worse. And so it's really balancing that. And I learned that much later in life, I was able to get significantly more out of myself working seven days a week and working 10 hours, 12 hours on those days, rather than working, call it 18 every day. That was, for me, a little bit too much. Now, I have had seasons where I call it three shifts. So basically I work six to noon, noon to six, and then I work six to basically sleep time. When I get back home, I only usually have to go into that gear probably once a year for maybe six weeks to eight weeks is when I have to go into the third shift. But most of the times I can pretty much sustain 12 hours of work a day, kind of indefinitely. I bring this up to kind of set the bar for at least where I'm at. So maybe you have some sort of benchmark. But if you're wanting to get ahead, I can promise you working less is probably not the way to do it, especially when you don't have as many skills, because the fewer skills that you have, the more labor or volume you have to compensate with in order to make up for the ineffectiveness per unit of time you work. And so in the beginning is when you actually have to work the most, but in the end is when you want to work the most because of how much more you're getting for it. So my team wanted me to make this point because they've obviously seen me work and they're like, I don't think this is coming through in this video, which is that I have an obsession with speed. This seems kind of weird in juxtaposition with patience. But this is the very classic micro speed, macro, prepaid, whatever ism you prefer. The idea is, though, that you want to pull reality forward. And so I always like to break things down, whether it's me or my team, into how many hours and minutes something's going to take. And then I like to stack those things back and forth. And rather than using arbitrary deadlines of, okay, let's get this done by next week, you use actual deadlines based on how long it should take. And then when you find out how long something takes you then ask the next question, which is, how can I make this take less time? How can I automate this thing? How can I automate portions of this work? How can I give away chunks of this? How can I deem some of this unnecessary? And so that continuous cutting and pulling forward of tasks is how you can move so much faster through life and towards your goals. And so I have this weird mental belief that there's, like, this big path in front of me that I have all these skills that I have to achieve to these milestones that is laid out on this time span. And so I reject the timeline, but I accept the skills. And so the idea is like, okay, it's like I'm a pac man of, like, eating those little dots, and each of those dots is a skill. It's like I want to pull it towards me as fast as I can so I can. So I can ingest the skills and basically power up myself faster, because I know that these skills are requisites. I can't move on to calculus without knowing arithmetic. I can't move on to calculus without knowing how to. There's no way around it. But I can choose to learn algebra faster. And so then it's like, okay, what is required to learn algebra? Oh, and if I do more problems faster than the standard person, then I'll get there faster. And so if the class says, okay, I need you to do these 10 problem sets and they're due next week, well, then how long does it take for me to do those problems? Maybe 30 minutes. Then why can't I do my second lesson 30 minutes later and then do another 10 problem problems and do my third lesson 30 minutes after that and do another 10 problems? Well, if that's the case, then I can do an entire year's worth of work in a week. And this is how, in my opinion, pulling forward is one of those things that I've seen so many of the most successful entrepreneurs do is they simply question timelines aggressively and ruthlessly, eliminate any waste or gap between the actions or questions required to win and everything else. Honestly, I think the things that I'm working on right now for my skills are I'm learning how to reinforce cultural norms across a company that continues to scale, which I define as the rules that govern reinforcement in an organization that is the culture. And those are both spoken and unspoken rules. And when I say rules, I mean when someone does this, they get a pat on the butt. When someone does this, they get chastised or they get A ding. Right? And the thing is, is that people like to say they have a good culture here, but the culture is hundred, a thousand unspoken rules. And that's why it takes people time to learn and figure out what the culture is when they go somewhere new. You can give someone a list of 100 rules, and if you were very granular, you. You could figure it out. The problem is that the culture changes based on the people who change, the reinforcers. And so that means that the culture in a team could be different than the culture in the company because the person who's closest to them manages it differently. And so that changes the behavior. And so that's why a sales team can have a different culture than a marketing team, a different culture than a finance team, different culture than an HR team. And so I'd say right now, a big focus of mine is trying to standardize the rules that govern reinforcement across an organization that scales and making sure that everyone is aligned with that style of work. The second thing that I'm working on right now is basically the highest level of recruiting, and recruiting and talent is actually kind of like focus, where it's one of those skills that I don't think you ever master. You just keep learning how many more levels there are to it. It's like right when you finish it, you realize that you're at a sub peak, and there's actually another peak beyond it. The mist lifts, and then you see the next steps. And so, like, focus, I thought, oh, I was focused at $100,000 a month because I could turn these opportunities down. And then you got some even sexier opportunities. You got to learn how to say no to those. So the same thing happens with talent is that you're willing to tolerate a certain amount of mediocrity at one level that is no longer tolerable at a level above that. And the types of people that you bring in, you have a higher standard, a higher bar for those people. And attracting them in the process, associated with getting them to buy into your culture, your vision, and getting them to take their skills and apply them to your opportunity is a skill set that I am working on now because fundamentally, I have a belief which is the best talent is always yet to come. And that's predicated on the idea that if I get better, my opportunity will get better, and that will attract more people and better people. And I bring this up because I basically want to translate one thing, which is that the reinvestment in learning skills never ends. And so Charlie Munger said this you just have to be a lifelong student. You have to be willing and want to learn. So I actually had an example of this. So recently there was somebody on teams. I did a bunch of one on ones over the last week because I was looking at one of the departments and one of the guys said, hey, I have this particular skill. I was hoping that we could eventually have a role that only does this thing. And I said, you know, it's interesting that you ask or you make that request because if I were you, I would not think that way at all. I would think, how could I learn 10 more skills? Rather than how can the organization meet my demands? It should be how can I let my skills meet the demands of the existing business? It's asking reality to meet you where you're at rather than meeting reality where it is. And I think that too many people do this. Why can't the world insert be more convenient for me? Well, the world is uncaring and doesn't care about you at all. And underpinning that statement is the entitlement is the expectation that it somehow should. And I think that is a poverty lens. And so the wealthy accept the world for what it is and then choose to maximize and adapt. Everyone else tries to stomp their feet and throw tantrums and say how it's not fair and they're right and so what? There's a Haitian proverb that has nothing to do with cats and dogs that I think is relevant right now, which is behind mountains, more mountains. Goals aren't finish lines, they're mile markers. And I think that's a great mental frame, which is that you think that your goal is to get to $10,000 a month or $100,000 a month, or a million a month, or 10 million a month, whatever your goal is. And I can promise you, having hit those, you just move it again. You just. The mist lifts when you get there and you realize there's another mountaintop. But where people lose their way is when they start listening to people at end the the bottom of the mountain who see them at the subhead and say, you weren't happy last time when you got to the last peak. Why are you going to be happy the next time? But that's under their assumption in their poverty lens that you did it to get to the mountaintop, you did it for the climb. And they'll never understand that and don't expect them to. I remember I was trying to understand this person who had made this really irrational decision. And I kept thinking like how does this decision make sense? And I was, I was talking about to my father actually, and he said, you're trying to apply logic to someone who's illogical, and that itself is illogical. And I remember thinking about that, I said, like, there are these people in our lives that say these things that you're like, I don't understand why they'd say that. And then you try and make sense of it, but the effort of trying to make sense of somebody who doesn't make sense is nonsensical. And so if it doesn't make sense to you, ignore it, because they're going to disappear anyways. One of the things that has been true in my life is that the lazy don't know how to start, the losers don't know how to finish, and the legends don't know how to stop. And if I look at that, the lazy, the losers and legends, I know which one I would rather be. And I also say that as somebody who doesn't believe in legacy or anything after we die. So this is tactical. Find what works, do more of what works, find the thing that's preventing you from doing more of what works, solve that thing and get back to doing more of what works, then repeat. And so the reality is that in health, marriage, business, or any game worth playing, you don't win by winning. You win by staying alive long enough that you outlast everyone else. So I will give you the advice that I gave a subgroup in school that we picked 100 people who had a applied out of 500 plus to basically do a 90 day sprint to help them start a school community. So we wanted to do a more in depth kind of training, things like that for this special group so that we could see if this new implementation yielded better results. And so the guy who we had running the group asked me, he's like, can you give any kind of like words of wisdom to these guys before we kick it off? And so this is what I told them. Number one, follow instructions. Number two, when you reach something that you don't understand how to do, Google first. Number three, when you figure it out, post it. Others also may have struggled. Four, actually follow the rule of 100 daily, which is that you reach out to 100 people, you make a post that you spent 100 minutes on, spend $100 plus on ads, and you spend at least a hundred minutes a day making and improving ads and researching ads. As long as you do those things consistently and you get better, you will see results. And the amount of you That I see who tagged me in, like day four, day 20, day 30. The guys who are at day 60 of Rule of 100 are like, I have more business than I can possibly handle. The problem is no one sticks with anything. And this is why I want you to stick with it. Rule number five, you will be excited for a week, then excitement will end, and that is where the work begins. 6. Your work works on you more than you work on it. You are the product that's getting built more than anything that you're actually putting into your business. Remember that. 7. Everything is unscalable in the beginning. That's the point. It's how you learn every piece of it. And once you learn every piece of it, people will call you an expert. 8. The pain of repetition is what forces you to seek improvement. When you figure out ways to get more for what you do, you've gained skill. People want to avoid the pain. One of my favorite bodybuilding coaches, Milo Sarchev, talks about this in the context of how to grow a muscle. He says, find the pain. And then he'll just shout. He'll be like, suffer, suffer. He's like, stay there, find the pain. Because the thing is that that pain is what forces you to change. And so if you encounter the pain and then say, oh, it's not working, that's the pain that you need to lean into. Because when it's not working is what will force you to do an improvement. And that's how you get good at making better content, get good at making better ads, get good at having more effective reach outs on different channels, whatever. It's that pain that forces you to improve. 9. If you complain, you are dead to me. And I said this because I believe it like, there is nothing weaker and more helpless and that has lower agency than someone who simply complains about what has occurred. It's something that happened in the past or is in front of them in the present. And regardless, complaining literally does nothing. It's a net zero, it's a net loss. You both lose the energy that you could have spent improving. And you also lose respect from every single person that you complain to. And they will associate the complaints with you. They won't remember what you complain about, only that you complain. 10. Literally thousands of people have already succeeded. You are not special. Repeat the same activities and you will be able to repeat the same outcomes. Before you make a conclusion that something doesn't work, I want you to state the objective truth of what you're claiming. You're like Facebook ads. Don't work. Sure. So the 400 billion a year in advertising that gets spent on Facebook just somehow doesn't work. People aren't doing it because. Because it's not working. Cold outbound doesn't work. Yeah. So the gazillion Companies that do 10,000 emails, 10,000 calls a day, they just. It just. It doesn't work. What? You have to reframe it as is. I don't know how to make it work. I am not good enough to know how to make it work. Because you're not making as much money as you want because you're not as good as you think you are. 11. Write down every reason that you're going to stick with it. Put it in front of you and revisit it when you need a reminder of why to stick with it. 12. Business is shockingly simple, but surprisingly hard. The hard comes in the form of consistency. The moment you don't want to do it or just skip. Today is the day you realize what hard actually feels like. Learn to endure. Overcome. 13. Just win. Because at the end of the day, all of this hardship will be forgotten. It will fade into your memory. And so know that as you're going through it, you're actually just going to, disproportionately, in your memory, remember the good stuff and not the bad stuff. I only have a few glimpses in my memory of the time when I was sleeping on the floor and I, you know, had my gym and I was getting started, and I remember being so tired that, like, a good night's sleep couldn't fix it. I remember that, but it's almost like I remember the words that I told myself more than I even remember these experiences because it was so long ago. Things will get better and you will remember the betterness more than you remember the suffering, because the betterness will carry over in today, which will always be fresher for you than how long ago the suffering may have been. The best time to work on improving your business was last year. The second best time is today, so you might as well get started. So if you're a business owner and you'd like to scale, I'd like to invite you out to my headquarters for one of our scaling workshops where we help identify and solve your number one constraint so you can start the year with lots of momentum. So it's two days again at my headquarters with my team talking about your business. And so if that sounds at all interesting, click the link below, book a call with my team, and if you're a Fit. We'd love to see you out here. Most of my success in business has come from finding and exploiting unfair advantages. Here are 15 lessons on finding and leveraging yours. So let's start with number one. Pain is the price of progress. The fastest growth periods are often the most miserable. If you want to progress, get used to pain. If you think about what actually occurs when you grow, you stretch past your point of comfort. So even if you're growing a muscle, like you stretch it, you break it down, it's painful. If you have growing pains, like as a kid, it's like you grew too fast and your joints are in a lot of pain. If you're a company and you expand, this is technically supposed to be good stuff, but it doesn't make it any less painful. Elite athletes don't get stronger during easy workouts. If we want progress, we must accept the price of pain that's attached to it. You cannot both want progress and live an easy life. These two things conflict. Number two, happy but not satisfied. So let me explain this. So you're allowed to be happy before you hit your goal, just not satisfied. And so there's a very big difference between being content with your life, content with your work, and complacent, meaning you're not going to take any more action. There's this great Haitian proverb which is, behind mountains are more mountains. It's kind of like after every peak, you can just see more peaks ahead of you. The work works on you more than you work on it. For me, I remember I had a year that I basically went in retirement trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And the thesis that I came out with was that hard work is the goal. And so the fact that there's something that happens as a result of hard work is really just a secondary effect. It's a consequence, but the goal is the work itself. I, you know, I had a friend this morning who messaged me, and they're like, why do you still work? And I was like, because it's the thing that I enjoy doing most. And when I looked back on my life when I didn't work, I was bored and felt depressed. And when I do work, I am stressed, but I do have moments that I really enjoy as well. I took this as a kind of a foundational truth for me, not for everyone, that there is misery on both sides, so I might as well be productive and useful. And the only way to be productive and useful is to be happy about the process but not satisfied. So you can Continue to provide value to the world. Now, number three, ignore critics. Now, this is probably easy to say, hard to do. So let me break this down a little bit more. So friendly reminder that most people are fat, poor pansies. Don't listen to them when they try to deter you from doing whatever it takes to succeed. So the average person will always try to keep you average. It makes sense that if you want to be extraordinary, you will do things that an ordinary person would see as extra. Right. And so a lot of people, and this is the really hard part that I had to come to terms with, is that a lot of people want to see you fail because it justifies the risk that they chose not to take. We always have to think about listening to the people who are closest to our goals, not closest to us. And if you want a more violent version of this, your critics are going to eventually die, and their opinion isn't going to matter then, which means it probably also doesn't matter now. So might as well do what you wanted to do originally. Number four, selective productivity. Productivity comes from all the things that you choose not to do. I'm going to define two more terms for you because I think it's important. I see commitment as the elimination of alternatives. So if I get married, then I eliminate all alternatives to the person that I'm married to. Right. That is commitment. Right. Which is very similar to focus. Focus, if you think about the hypothetical extreme of focus, is that somebody does literally nothing but one thing. So they don't eat, they don't sleep, they would eventually die, but they would be 100% focused during the time that they were alive. Right. Obviously, we have to put a couple of things in. You have to eat food, you have to sleep. But the most focused person does the fewest things outside of the thing they're focused on. Focus is about the number of things that you say no to. Having this framework is, in my opinion, more powerful for productivity than just about anything else. Right. People are always trying to figure out, like, productivity hacks, but they want to add things to their lives to become more productive, which is completely counter to what focus even means. It's getting rid of everything. That's not the thing is how you focus. Now, part of that also means environmentally. Right. So if you, like, have a window that you look outside of and you've got people who walk past your office and people can knock on the door forward, you've got slack notifications. Of course you're not focused because all of those things are not the work. So I'm going to give you an analogy here. So imagine there's a wall that you have to get over, all right, in order to. You have to get a critical mass to get above this wall, right? And so you start putting up, you know, these ladders against the wall to try and climb over the wall. All right? This should make some sense. But as you try to build up the. The little rungs of the ladder, so you put four rungs up, well, you're not going to get the critical mass required to get over the hump to actually get the success you want. But the idea, the fallacy is that, oh, I'll just do all three or four of these things and I'll see which one works, when the reality is that any of them work, but none of them will work unless you work on one. And so we have to take these four rungs that we're able to build and say, you know what? We're not going to do that. We're going to put that rung here, because I'm going to take that time. Then I'm putting, for my second opportunity, put it here. I'm gonna take this rung and put it right here. And then I'm gonna take this rung, and what do you know? I can get over this hump on top, and I can get to the other side of the wall, which, of course, is where all the money and all the happiness and all the, you know, the girls with, you know, beautiful, beautiful hair. Look at this beautiful hair, right? This beautiful hair. Now she looks like a bug. Anyways, hold on. There you go. What's crazy is that this literally happens at all levels of business. Like, people who are starting out, trying to start five things. People who are, like, their second or fifth year. I talked to a guy last night who has a really good business, really good margin, 50% margins, has great revenue retention. He was in cyber security. People stay with him, people pay. He has no problem getting customers. He has no problem delivering on them. And I was like, what's the problem? He's like, me, he said, I just. I get bored. He's like, I just want to start more things. And I'm like, yeah, you got to stop that. Like, it's like, the thing is, think about how much more successful you'd be. So zoom all the way out. Think of somebody who gets better every single year and works on the same project for 20 years. You'd be like, my God, that guy's probably really fucking good. And what's interesting about this is that it doesn't matter what project the person works on. You do 20 years of reps and you do nothing else, you're going to be good. And so if you know that that's a fact, that's a certainty that you're going to be good with 20 years of practice, then the objective is to just get 20 years of practice in one thing and stick with it. So, like, your plans aren't working because the plans are wrong. The plans aren't working because you're not working on the plan. The hard part about the plan is not creating the plan or even following the plan. It's sticking with the plan. That's the hard part. All right, number five, fear versus regret. So change is scary, but so is regret. And so the life you live depends on the one you fear most. The more successful version of yourself also has fear. It's just that your fear of regret is greater than your fear of rejection. Think about that for a second. I'm going to say one more time, your fear of regret must supersede, must be bigger, must be greater than your fear of rejection. And so I remember when I quit my management consulting job, which took me six months, so I'm not saying this from a pedestal. Took me six months, I decided I wanted to go quit. It took me six months before I actually quit. By the way, you can measure how powerful someone is by the distance between when they make a decision and when it happens in reality. So if you want to feel impotent, then take as long as you possibly can between when you make a decision and when you act on that decision. Now, for me, it was six months, and all I did was I called my friends up every night. I was like, I'm going to quit my job. I'm going to start a business. And, you know, we talk every night, literally every night. And I would be pacing in my condo like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And I wouldn't do it. I was too afraid. I was too much of a scaredy cat. But the thing that got me over the hump was this. Number one, I knew that when I looked back on my life, if I never took the jump, I would have been ashamed of myself and I would have felt like I was a pansy. And I was like, I can't die a pansy. I have to be able to make a jump. Number two, I played out plan B, which is, okay, let's say I actually completely fail. What happens? I was like, well, I'm not really going to be homeless. I know enough people that I can get food. I was like, okay, so I'd probably just couch surf. I'd have a little bit of shame. But at the end of the day, what would I really do? Well, I could always apply to get the job that I had back, or I could just go to another place with an experience or a story that would set me up for something cooler later. And so all of a sudden I was like, wait, so my plan B is that I just have a cool experience that I could talk about at a job interview or to go to business school. Okay, that doesn't actually sound that bad. And so there was this huge amorphous fear. But I've just noticed in my life that fear only exists in the vague. It doesn't exist in the specific. If you're afraid of something, try and break it into pieces and spell it out. Play out the next two or three steps. Because all of a sudden, if you're in the developed Western world, the downside risk is not really real. Like, the only real downside risk is the opinions of other people who will say that you failed, who you don't care about anyways. But, like, you think you're going to die, but you're not. You're just going to learn some stuff, and you'll be like, oh, maybe next time I'm not going to make that mistake. And that's it. And I say this, and it's easy for me to say, but it took me six months to figure this out. But I do remember my final straw was the realization that I had, at the time, no girlfriend, no kids, and I had no real financial responsibilities besides, like, eating and having a place to live. I said, if I can't make the decision now because it feels too risky, I will never be able to make the decision because if other people rely on me. Now, some of you are in a position where people do rely on you, and you're like, well, Alex, you know, I've got people who rely on me. Yeah, I would say that it makes it harder and what now? Harder and so what? But for me, that was the thing that got me over the hump, was like, if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it. I'm never going to have fewer responsibilities. And to play this out a little bit more, if you have people who depend on you, their dependencies on you might increase. And so if you can't do it now, you still might as well do it, right? Because it's only going to go one way. Number six, persistence creates timing. So you can time everything perfectly if your intention is to never stop. I want to say this one more time. You can time everything perfectly if your intention is to never stop. So think about this visually. So let's imagine that this line right here is your lifeline. It's life as time passes. Right now, let's say that you have some special thing that's going to happen here and some special opportunity that happens here, and some special opportunity that happens here. What most people try and do is they don't want to take. They don't want to work at all. And then they're like, oh, I'm just going to work here, and then I'm going to work here, and then I'm going to work here. But the likelihood that you're there in these three moments is very low if you're trying to time it. But if you work the whole time, then the timing will always be perfect because you will be ready. And so perfect timing is a complete myth, but perfect preparation isn't. And that on a long enough time horizon, your opportunity will come. People think that they need perfect conditions to start, when in reality, starting is the perfect condition. It creates the perfect condition for opportunity to be capitalized on. And I can tell you this from firsthand experience with me. Like, the more you do, the more you see you can do. And so opportunities multiply with skill. And so the better you get at doing stuff, the more things you know you would be able to do and. And win at. And so the goal is to gain as many skills as possible so that you have access to the maximum number of potential opportunities. A lot of people are thinking that, oh, I'm going to wait for the right moment. But when you have unlimited skills, like, Elon can go do whatever he wants. He could build a city in the middle of the ocean, and so he could do that. He has the skills because the world of opportunities open to him. He also spent all of his younger years just developing all these different skills, becoming a polymath across all these different things. Independence, political stuff. Put it away. The point is, the guy's good, all right? And so the goal is to get good, and then you will never have a shortage of opportunities. Number seven, envy versus effort. All right, let me break this down. If people worked for their goals as hard as they envy others for achieving them, they would already have achieved them themselves. So think about the amount of mental effort that goes into the hate that people spew out the envy for wanting other people's stuff. I'll give you a couple hard truths about this. Number one, no one is doing as well as you think they are. So by comparison, you're actually better off than you think. Number two, you don't win by beating people. You win by growing into your potential and then allowing them to shrink into irrelevance by consequence. Three, and guess what? Your biggest threat is not your competition. It's a mediocre version of you that never realized what you could become. And as pithy as that may sound, it's also true, right? A lot of people think it's like, oh, you know, that guy's doing really well. It's like his doing well changes nothing about your reality. Something really ironic that I noticed is that the people who get copied the most by their competition are the people who ignore the competition, who are copying them. Fundamentally, you start by focusing on the customer. And if you always put the customer first, everyone will copy you because you're actually doing the thing that will work, which is focusing on the customer. And there's a lot of weird things in life like that where, like, it's the opposite. Is what you. What you'd think like, oh, I'm going to look at what everyone else. It's like, no, just do what matters most. And then people who don't know how to think will just copy you. Real threat is that no one copies you at all because you're doing nothing. If you take all this effort that you look, that you put into comparing yourself to other people, that you look to kind of like tearing them down, sometimes even in your mind, let's be real, maybe you don't say to other people, but in your mind you're like, like that. Whatever that is, whatever that feeling is, that just do that towards you not being good enough. What happens is that when you do that, all of that effort, all that energy goes into improving yourself rather than tearing down somebody else. And only one of those things will help you. Number eight. Hard conversations create opportunities. Hard truth. Everything you want is on the other side of a few hard conversations that you have been putting off. People either grow into their potential or they keep living the same six months of their life over and over again. And the difference is how many hard conversations you're willing to have and how fast you have them once you realize you need to. If you shirk away from this, and I get it, I'm somebody who, like, for a very long time, had a hard time having hard conversations. I, like, I literally Traveled across the country before I told my dad that I left. All right, like, I get it. So if you think having uncomfortable conversations is hard, just wait until you see the result of not having them. It will be harder. Basically, the struggle is that you have short term pain versus long term pain. And long term pain, I call regret. Comfort is short gain. Regret is long pain. Fear is short pain. Fulfillment is long gain. You want to trade short pains for long gains, not short gains for long pains. It's not the safe bet. It's a guaranteed loss just later. All right, so I'm going to spell this out. This is short pain. This is long pain. This is short gain. This is long gain. You want to trade short pain for long gain. That's the goal. It's the best trade. Number nine, endure. There's a reason that when I gave instructions to some of the new business owners who were going to start, you know, putting a community on school, one of the sole instructions I gave them was, learn to endure. And so the fastest way to become the person you want to be is to put yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to become them. You'd be amazed at what you can endure when you have no choice. For me, when I signed my lease for my Gym, I had $5,000 in my bank account. The rent was $5,000. I had never really made money before, and so I was like, oh, wow, how does this work? If I made 100% of the money that I had made in my job, I would have been able to pay rent and have no food or anything else. But one of my favorite flavor texts on magic cards is necessity is the mother of invention. Right? It's the constraints that create the innovation that is required to get you out of the constraint, to get you out of the hard time. And so when I think back on, like, human history, sometimes we think the things that we're going through are hard, but they're certainly much easier than things that other humans have endured. And how did they endure them? Well, when the only choice they had was die or endure, you tend to endure number 10, results. Excuses. This is not going to be a big surprise here. The thing with excuses that's interesting is that they may be valid. And I think that's the part that people struggle with, is that they're like, yeah, obviously results matter. More excuses, but insert special snowflake. The thing is, is that, like, you might be right. And I just like this quote from Layla. She says, it's not your fault, but it is still your Problem, you still have to do something about it. Or you can just wait and say, you know what? I'm going to continue to not live the life that I want until I die. And everyone will be like, oh, yeah, he had an excuse. That's why. Right? Is that what you really want, is that people were like, yeah, he had an excuse. That's it. It's a weird thing to want a permission slip for mediocrity, which is fundamentally what excuses are. You just want permission from everyone else to still get respect without the outcome because of your extenuating circumstances. And the thing is, there's a ton of allure, but the only person who actually believes that is you. People might not along. The people who love you might say, yeah, you know what? You are special. You are a special snowflake. Your mama might still love you, but, like, you're not going to earn anyone's respect. And I think you certainly won't earn the respect of the person that matters most, which is you, because you'll always know that you could have done more, that you could have done better. That's the one that keeps me up. I have a saying that I tell myself a lot when I'm doing something that I don't want to do, and it's, I will do what is required. It's not about doing your best. It's about doing what's required. Because what's required might be better than your best is right now. But the good news is that your best can get better. So number 11. And this is. This one's real. All right. The hard way is the easy way. You're like, how does that work? The hard way is the easy way, because the easy way never gets you there. So think about it. People always are looking for the shortcut, but you have to accept a very simple truth, which is that the shortcut never actually takes you to the place that you're trying to go. And it's because it's rarely one big thing. And I would postulate, fancy word, right, that there are a lot of shortcuts that exist in life. Wait for it. Wait for it. And everyone already uses those. And so whenever an actual shortcut gets found, all humans immediately do it, and it no longer becomes a shortcut. It's just a thing that everyone does, and it's not really a thing anymore. Like, we learned how to tie knots. That was a big breakthrough. And then everyone ties their shoes, and they're like, oh, my God. Let me show you the shortcut to this. It's like, oh, you're like, oh my God, everyone does it and it's like not a thing anymore, right? And so all the things that you want to have that most people don't have don't have shortcuts. But thing is, so many people waste so much time, they literally waste longer then it would have taken the hard way or the only way to get there. In search of the easy way that doesn't exist. And so the reality of this is that it's usually 100 small things that make days, weeks and months hard. It's the never ending onslaught of shit. And then you remember after going through that onslaught of shit that you signed up for this, but then again you figured that it would be hard. And then you're reminded that this is what hard feels like. And so you keep going because it's the only choice you have. I want to remind you that a lot of times what we imagine hard to be is different than how we experience hard because the nature of hard changes too. And it's more of a limitation in how we describe hardship than it is. And I actually think there's a big problem with this. So just kind of like Eskimos have like seven different words for snow. I feel like I should have like 25 different words for hard. Right. Like the amount of things that you go through, there's like lifestyle hard, like, okay, so there's sacrifice. Hard of like you're giving up things that you enjoy. There's also like effort hard of like starting to do things that you hate doing that you're not good at. There's risk. Hard of the fact that you could lose something that you currently have. Right? That you have the chance of losing what you currently have. You have the uncertainty. Hard of the fact that you might be doing all of the sacrifice for nothing. There's lots of different flavors of hard and each one of them presents at different times. And for some reason, when it gets a new kind of heart, it's a new seventh type of snowflake hard. Then you're like, oh, this is different. But it's not. It's just that the thing that you grow comfortable with, then you conquer and then you're exposed to a new level. And so I love this quote from Paul Graham. He said, if you want to make a million dollars, you have to endure a million dollars worth of pain. Fundamentally, in my opinion, the people who end up building, building, not inheriting, building tremendous wealth, just have massive concentrations of pain. So don't go looking for the easy way because it Will never get you there. Number 12, don't. This is a big one. Don't give away your power. Now, this sounds very like, you know, girl power or a little like, rah rah. But I will break this down in a little bit less rah rah way. So what offends you controls you. Whatever you point your finger of blame towards is what also you point your power towards. Meaning we talked about excuses earlier. I can't do it because insert X, insert X is the thing that has power over your life. And I remember when I realized this was that I had this belief that I would never be able to be in a long term committed relationship because my mother had hurt me as a child. I didn't get enough hugs, who gives a shit? Whatever. But I realized that by using that excuse and by saying, it's her fault I'm broken. It's her fault I can't trust people. It's her fault I can't love anybody. By saying that over and over again, all I did was I said, my mother controls how my love life will go. Ooh, heavy. Real well. I don't want her to have control over how I choose to love or not love or how content I get in a relationship or anything like that. So I actively had to say, maybe all these things happened, maybe they didn't. Also, who cares? Me, I care. I'm the one who's affected by this. And what's crazy about this, it's kind of a weird thing with, like, parents is that you think by hurting yourself, you get back at them for hurting you. And you do hurt them when you hurt yourself, but you hurt you more at some point. And this is like, this is like super real, let's say that you were parented tough, Whatever that means for you. You had lots of bad things happen, okay? And it was probably because you were a child trying to deal with the world without the skills of dealing with the world as an adult. But you had these things happen, right? And on some level, you might believe that you becoming successful, you making it work, validates the way that you were parented. And so you have this conflict where you're like, well, I don't want them to think that they did a good job by me being successful. And so then you want to keep not being successful to prove to them and to hurt them for hurting you. And you stay there as long as you want them to control you. And so the day that you choose to control yourself is the day that you choose to divorce your results from the Very viable reasons that you have to not win. You are right. And so what? Number 13, rejection versus regret. At some point, everyone needs to choose whether they'd rather risk rejection now or guarantee regret later. And so losers fear rejection, winners fear regret, and most attempts fail of anything. Failure is literally a prerequisite for success. And one of the, one of my favorite quotes of mine is greatness rejects all first time applicants. And so it's kind of like that person that just is like, oh, I can't get a job. And you're like, well, what have you done? They're like, well, I applied somewhere. And you're like, what do you mean? They're like, I applied somewhere. And you're like, and, and they're like, yeah. And I, and I didn't, I didn't get the job. They didn't call me. You're like, you went to one place and you're like. And they're like, yeah, this is gonna be a really good analogy for somebody who's listening to this. Only for people who don't have a business yet. A lot of starting a business is the number of reach outs that you had to do in order to get the path, the job, the career that you want right now. So think about the amount of interviews, think about the amount of outreach, think about the amount of job ads, think about the amount of resumes that you sent out. Think about all of that and all of that work got you what I would consider one sale. You got one person to say yes to you and they would give you money for work. All right, obviously within the context of an employee relationship, but fundamentally it actually works the same way. All you do in a business is the same thing. If you can handle that level of rejection, then you can handle the same level of rejection in a business. It's not actually that different. The question is whether you can handle that level of regret years later for not doing it. And I'll say this, one of the things that I've noticed between champions and everyone else is that people, everyone else is so excited when they win. They're so excited, you know, by the idea of them getting first place. But there's a reason that they never get first place. It's because they're excited about it. The people who always and very consistently hit first place and win the championships are relieved because they tend to hate losing more than they love winning. And they expected to win because of the level of preparation they had compared to everyone else. Which brings me very magically to number 14. Consistency beats talent. So listen to this. You can beat most people at anything if you just stick with it for, for a year. You can become competent at just about any skill in 20 hours. It's just that people will wait 10 years to get the first 20 hours logged. Right? Like if you want to learn how to play the first few notes of a guitar, you can learn about 20 hours. Now, are you going to be Jimi Hendrix? Which Gen Z? Who's a guitarist? Purple Haze. You can look it up. Anyways, the point is, is that people have this huge delay before they begin. And what makes things hard isn't complexity, it's consistency. And so as boring as it is, you just have to keep doing it before you get anything back. So one of my favorite quotes from myself is, the world belongs to those who can keep doing without seeing the result of their doing. You have to delay how quick you get a reward, how fast you need a cookie in order to keep going. I've been told that I'm decent at presenting and talking on stage in front of people. And what a lot of people don't see is that for years I spoke at the microphone in front of a group of people, and I did it like multiple times a day. And I did that in the form of a fitness session. And so I had to literally stand on a box and shout around and tell people what they had to do. And I had to do that for years. And I remember when I had to get on stage for the first time and I. I had in high school, been very nervous to public speak. And as I was about to get up on stage, I was like, why am I not nervous about this? Like, this is weird. Like I should, I was like, I should be nervous. Like, why am I not nervous? And I was like, I've done this so many times. Like so many times. And I'm not talking about, you know, Civil War history and Abraham Lincoln. I'm talking about stuff I know. Outwork out your self doubt through repetition, not affirmations. You don't do it through belief, you do it through stimuli habituation, which is just fancy words for saying you expose yourself to the bad things so many times they get used to and it's no longer a bad thing anymore. It's just life. If you want to get over a fear, the way they do it is habituation. So if I wanted to get over, you know, being afraid of spiders, I'm not afraid of spiders. But some people are afraid of spiders, right? If you want to get over that fear, you literally lock yourself in A room with a bunch of spiders. And all you do is you just have panic attack after panic attack and you pass out and you wake up again, the spider's a little there, you pass out, you keep doing it. Eventually, eventually your nervous system adjusts. And five hours later, eight hours later, you walk out of the room unafraid because you have habituated. And so the point of practice for all of these things is to habituate as fast as you can. And so we're trying to microwave that period of time. And the thing is, let's say it takes. Let's say it takes this many reps. You can have this many reps, take you a year, or you can have it take you a month, depending on how dedicated you are to it. Number 15, have no shame. All right, Now, I have told this before, but my plan B was that I would drive Uber and strip. Now, I think part of that was because I wanted to, you know, thumb my. Whatever the Shakespearean saying, I bite my thumb at you. To bite my thumb at my very respectable parents and say, like, I would take off my clothes for money. Now, of course they would be horrified by that. But I think part of the reason I was okay with it was I was like, I'm going to do it my way. I want to be crystal clear here. If you have no money and you want to make money, you should have no shame. Knock, call, email, text, dm, ask. Life changing doors do not open themselves. And sometimes I feel like shame was invented by people who have to prevent people who have not from taking action, because all of this is just an illusion. What, are you ashamed of trying? Like, let's play it out. Remember I said fear only happens in the abstract, not in the specific. So if you reach out to a stranger, no matter what happens, you always come out better than before because you either have a sale or you have an experience. Both make you better. And so the crazy thing about trying is, is that it has an asymmetric risk, reward, return. So worst case is you get a no, and you learn from it. You get better. Life gives you unlimited shots while you're alive. And so if you have nothing, like, you're just basically cashing in lottery tickets and saying, oh, my God, I lost. But what you're paying with is time. Fine, Pay more time, get more tickets, keep scratching. So do you know the difference between shame and guilt? Guilt is when you break your own rules. Shame is when you break other people's rules. So if you are gay and you're in a religious community, you would probably feel shame if you also share that religious community's rule set. You would also feel guilt if, let's say, you were in a very liberal, progressive environment, you might feel neither shame nor guilt. And so the question is, whose rules are you following? If you have this feeling, this fear of being ashamed, then the question is, who's the one who wrote the rules that you're choosing to follow? And I can promise you it's not the people who are successful, because they're the ones shouting on the rooftops telling you that it's totally different once you get in the pool. It's very different. It's kind of like you have the lights of the world turn on and like you're living in this mirage when you're not succeeding, where there's all this. All this uncertainty, there's all this ambiguity, there's this fog of the unknown in front of you. But as soon as you start taking action, things become very crystal clear. I think there's, I'm sure, some stoic analogy that said this, but basically, like, if you've ever walked through very dense fog, you can only see a couple steps in front of you. The only thing that you can do in fog is just start walking. And as you walk, more steps become available to you. And so there's this misconception that you're going to be able to see the entire path ahead of you. But it has two fundamental fallacies in front of it. Number one is that you have the right vision to be able to see that far with your current skill set and resources, which you don't. Because imagine today, all of your conditions change. You had more skills, which is hard to imagine because you can't imagine what it's like to have the skill. But maybe, let's say you have resources that you didn't have before. Well, that would probably change the way you'd play the game. So trying to play out and try and play 17 steps in advance, when the game itself is going to change and you as a player are going to change. The only thing that you can boil all of this down to is to take the steps that you can see in front of you one at a time. And I would write this down of, like, what are the things that are stopping me? And more specifically, whose voice do I hear? Whose voice or judgment am I afraid of? Because usually it's people, it's society is what we say. But it's usually like two people. And I remember when I had this big decision that I had to make. When I was considering selling Jim Launch, I thought that $46 million was not a lot of money for the business. Now, some of you may hear this and be like, oh, my God, that's amazing. But believe it or not, before we. Before COVID happened, Jim lynch was valued at 150 million. And so for me, going from 150 to 50 or, you know, 46, it felt small, right? It felt like a really small number. And I remember there was a particular person, we'll call it a frenemy, if you will, that I thought would think that they were better than me if I sold for this small number. And when I was able to narrow it down to just that one person's voice, I thought to myself, am I going to give that person power over my entire life? Which is literally what it was. I was choosing not to make a decision because of someone else. That person has complete power over me. And I was like, well, that's a terrible reason not to do this. And the crazier part is that even if you're right and that person does say that you suck, so what? Most people don't want you to win. And even if you do win, they will try and do a reverse excuse, which is called a justification for why you should be excused of the respect that you should earn for having won. He just has good genetics. He has great parents. He inherited his wealth. He had good connections. He was born in America. He speaks English. He's a man. He's white. He's whatever you want. But giving the person justifications in no way helps you. You might be right. And so what? It's so funny. It's like, let's say you have some advantage. Whatever it is, whatever advantage you're born with, right? You might have one. It's kind of the same thing as the parent thing. It's like, well, I don't want to be successful because I don't want to prove that I had this advantage. It's like, would you prefer to prove everyone wrong by saying, I had this advantage? And I also wasted it? I remember. I'll tell you a story, and I think that'll round this off well. So when I was younger, I didn't want to be a doctor, but that was pretty much the path that was laid out in front of me. And so my father's a successful doctor, and I was like, it's cheating to. To, you know, just assume your practice and just, like, immediately have a practice that makes a lot of money. And he said, do you think Shaq when he was 7ft tall was like, it wouldn't be fair for me to play basketball. Other people aren't as tall as me. And I always remembered that he's like, you play the cards you're dealt. These are the cards you have. Play them. And I remember thinking that as now, obviously I didn't decide to be a doctor, but the reason that I didn't want to do it was because I thought other people would say that I would, they would disqualify away my success as not earned by me, when the reality is that they're all going to disqualify your sex no matter what, because it makes them feel bad. And so fuck them. But if you have some cards, for the love of God, play them. 2026 is going to be an interesting year. Reports just came out that For Black Friday, 95% of purchases were financed, 67% of them, or from people who didn't plan on paying it off in the next 30 days, which is a very negative indicator for consumer strength. And everything starts with consumers and then it bubbles up to B2B. And so if your business in general, this will affect you. And so there's good news and bad news. The bad news is businesses that do not change the way they behave when the environment changes get left behind. It's called adapt or die. On the other hand, the good news is that when all the other laggards and the slow to move businesses don't respond, those customers still exist. And so some of the best companies that you've heard of actually grew the most during economic downturns because it's a redistribution of customers and market share during these truncated periods of time. And so it's highly likely that in the next 18 months, 12 months, six months even, there could be a softening of demand. And so if your business is set up so that you have more reliable lead gen from multiple sources and a team that's in place that can actually continue to run the business and potentially continue to increase your margins because of AI, because of automation, then your business can be one of the winners. So if that's not in place in your business, and you'd like it to be, I'd love to invite you out to two days here in Vegas with my team to a scaling workshop. We walk you through the things that we're doing@acquition.com in our portfolio companies to help themselves scale in 2026. So if that sounds at all interesting, click book call. Love to have you out here. Before I had my $46 million exit. I went completely broke twice. Starting from zero multiple times taught me what actually matters. And so here's everything I Learned. I hit $100 million in net worth at age 31. But before that, I lost all my money twice. And the difference between me losing all my money the first few times and now are these rules. So this is nobius advice for making money and keeping it. Number one, passive income is a lie. If you think about how money is made, you make money during time because every minute we're alive, a minute passes, time passes, and we make money over that time period, which means every single person on planet Earth has a dollars per hour that they make. And so it's not that passive income doesn't exist just as much as active income doesn't exist. It's a spectrum where it's how active is it, or how passive is the activity that I'm doing relative to the time that I'm investing. And so I would eliminate active versus passive and simply say, what is my return on time? Or how much do I make per hour? It's just that most people get really scared of that because they're like, no one should trade their hours for money. Everyone trades their hours for money. It's just that when they receive the money, it's just not denoted in hours. And so I think there's two downstream impacts in terms of changing your behavior around this that I had to apply. Number one is that I was obsessed with trying to find quick, easy, low effort money things. And so I ended up spending tons of money on things that I was obsessed with, hoping would cost me no time to make, and I would put not nearly enough time to the things I was actively making money with and thinking, how could I just make my active income significantly higher? And I would get obsessed with the idea that everything I did actively had to be scalable or it wasn't worth it. Because if it's not scalable, then why, why should I bother? I shouldn't trade my time for money. But if I looked at what I was making over the last year and divided it by the amount of money I made per hour, this activity was 15 times what I was averaging per hour. So I should absolutely do as many hours of that until all of my hours are that, and then I should find something else I can trade my time for that's even higher. And so if you want a very humbling experience, look at how much you made last year and then divide it by 2000 if you want to know how much you made just in a 40 hour workweek. Now, if you want to look at how much you made per actual hour of being alive, you can divide it by around 8,000 or just take that number and divide it by four and that's actually how much you make per hour. And so when you're looking at is this worth my time? If it's more than that number, it probably is. And so what I should have done and what changed for me was that I stopped trying to invest my money from my active into trying to find more passive things and tried to say, how do I invest my money more into my active to multiply my active that I know is working number two. If you can't buy it twice, don't buy it once, or even buy it three times or four times or five times over, don't buy it once. And the way that really shifted how I started spending money, or rather started saving money and not spending money, was when I started looking at how much time it took me to make the amount of money post tax to buy whatever I wanted. And I remember this clear as day. I was working at smoothie King as a blender tender and I was making $6.75 an hour and I had just gotten a raise from $6.25 an hour. I'm dating myself anyways. And while I was there, the coworkers that I had and I would always go to lunch next door at cosi, which was like a sandwich shop. And it was like 13 bucks for a sandwich, right? And a drink and chips and whatever, right? And so I remember looking at my check and my 675 an hour after taxes and fees was like six bucks an hour. And I was like, man, I gave up two hours of my six hour shift every shift to go buy lunch. And I was like, I'm literally giving a third of my earning away for lunch every single day. If I knew that I had to work the first two hours just to get the sandwich, I don't think I'd ever make that trade. And yet I was making it every day. And then I started thinking I'd go to the mall and like, oh, do you want a new shirt? And it was at the Gap and it was 30 bucks. And I was like, okay, well shoot, that's a whole shift. And I was like, would I work a whole shift if someone just held up a shirt that I didn't need to do it? And I was like, I don't think I would. And so all of a sudden it started shifting how my buying happened because I started feeling the pain associated with what it would take if I had to do that before getting the thing I was going to buy. And it completely changed my buying behavior. And to be very clear, saving money won't make you money, but saving money allows you to have money and having money allows you to look further out. And when you look further out, you can take on bigger risks, which absolutely will make you more money. And when you're looking at the price of whatever the thing you're trying to buy is, obviously when I was a teenager looking at a shirt, I was looking at, okay, I'm making six bucks an hour, a shirt's 30. But when you're an adult and you're making $100 an hour and you're looking at a 500 or thousand dollar purchase, would you work two days in order to do that? I don't know, would I? Probably not. And sometimes you think, hey, would I work all day for two days to go out with the boys for three hours on Saturday? I'd probably be like, guys, I'm not going to work for two days just to go have three hours of fun, right? I'd rather just not work the two days. And that was the thing is, whenever I had the, well, I'd rather just not work than do that thing, then I was like, I shouldn't buy that thing. For example, when I was poor, I only spent cash. And so my easiest way of actually creating a budget was that I had a personal training client who paid me $2,000 a month in cash. And so 100% of my money that came in through the business and credit cards and everything else is just what went into my bank account. And the only thing I knew I could live on was inside of my wallet. And so as that got replenished. And the thing is that I'm so scared with money, or I was so frugal with money, that I would always make sure that I had more than that to make it for the next payment. Because sometimes the guy would take a day or two. You pay on Wednesday rather than a Monday or whatever. And I need to make sure that I had food for chipotle. 3. Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and they underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade. And every new employee that I have that walks into acquisition.com, the number one thing that they say they want is growth. And I have this talk with them, which is the 10 year million dollar contract, but it's less about the million dollars and more about take whatever your net worth is now and add a zero to it or add two zeros to it, you can accomplish that in a decade. If you look at the biggest companies in the entire world who were worth multiple billions from their inception until the time they were worth multiple billions, many times it's under 10 years, but it's still more than five, more than seven. And so you can accomplish life changing crazy amounts of wealth in a decade. And so if you could write a contract to yourself and say, I will make no money for 10 years, but on the 10th year I will add a zero or two zeros or three zeros to my net worth, would you do it? And if the answer is yes, which it almost invariably is with every person who comes into my business, then I say, great, now act like it. And so if you knew that you would make this amount of money over that period of time, you would stop this obsession, myself included. This is me giving my advice to myself, who lost it twice when I was able to shift to okay, what would I have to do that would make it unreasonable that I don't 10x in 10 years. Then all of a sudden I started making very reasonable bets that I knew would compound unto itself over that period of time. And then winning became inevitable rather than a game of chance. And so oftentimes you have potential earning and then actualized earning. And usually as you're realizing the potential earning you have, you're usually losing out on your investing into that potential. Right? You're realizing the potential. And that's kind of like the kid that learns one skill and then immediately says, I'm going to start a business opportunity around this one skill that makes me $5,000 a month. Or they have this one skill and say, hey, this company is willing to pay me $100,000 a year to go do this skill. Where I have this other company that will give me a free internship where I could 10x my potential earning in 3 years, but I'm going to make $35,000 a year for the 3 years. Which one would you take? The problem is most people will take the $100,000 now and forego the investment in self. And that's the thing is we are the asset that we invest in. And the currency we invest into ourselves in is time, experience and skills. Right? Skill is the outcome. The time and the effort is what we put into it to gain the experiences which ultimately give us the skills. But if you're in an environment where you're not compounding your potential earning, then you're actually losing out long term, you're ripping up your million dollar or your 10x or 100x contract for a decade from now, so you can get the short, fast money today. And that's why in the early days, when you have limited amounts of money but lots of time and energy, instead of putting your money in The S&P 500, I like to say put in the SME 500, because the asset that is you will always beat the stock market. Number four, you should only have to get rich once. In other words, don't bet what you have and need for something you don't have and don't need. And some of the gravest mistakes I made manifested in, for example, me getting into a partnership that I shouldn't have gotten into because I wanted even more faster. Now, when you get into a partnership, which is usually the time where you put the most risk on the table, one is you guarantee the largest decrease in your earning power. You pay with the most expensive thing you have, which is equity, to somebody else. And so people get obsessive about what they're 5%, 10% later when we're making money. But day one, they're like, all right, we cut the pie in half up, we cut the pie into thirds right up front, before anything's really happened. If you work with a partner or decide to partner up with somebody, one of your friends, one of your co workers, this is coming from somebody who has nine failed partnerships before I met Layla, and then that has now worked and now I have successful partnerships. A partner needs to have one of these three things that you do not have. They either have to have money that you don't have, and then the clear contribution is that money they need to have experience you don't have, and the clear contribution is that experience. Or number three, they have time and energy that you don't have, and the clear contribution is that time and energy. And so I added that second part on is that just because someone has experience, if they're not contributing it to the partnership, clearly, then you're still not going to get the benefit from it. If they have the time and the energy, but it's not clearly defined how they're going to invest that time and energy into the things you both get a return, then it's not going to be a good partnership. And I've lost so much money in partnerships, especially early on. One of my two big losses was from a partner. And a big part of it was I was insecure and I thought I Just had to have somebody else because I was afraid to do it on my own. If you are a business owner and you're trying to scale and you're doing a million bucks a year, and you want to go bigger, go to acquisition.com, hit scale. And we'd love to see if we could help you out at one of the workshops we run here in Vegas. Which brings me number five. If you never learned to manage your time, you're never going to learn to manage your money. And so the thing is that all of us obviously have equal amounts of time that we're given, not necessarily in life, but at least every day. And so the people who get the best returns on their money are the ones who learn how to best invest their time. And so a big misconception around money is that money, in my opinion, is an encapsulated version of time. And since all of us trade time for the money that we get, then it means for each person, money represents a certain amount of time. And the wealthier you get, it's just that the denomination of money represents less time for you. And so for someone else, $100 may represent four hours. For a wealthier person, $100 may represent four minutes. And so it's a constant appraisal that you do on a regular basis, looking on your calendar and saying, what things do I have here that I could trade my time for for. For more money? And so, again, this video is about making money overall. I'm not saying that you can't spend time with your girl, but there is a transaction cost for that time. And as long as you're willing to make the trade, then trade it all day. But the bad trades are the one that when you actually think about it in terms of what it costs, you'd say, I wouldn't do the trade. That's a bad deal. And so, over time, if you continue to trade up how much time you invest for what it makes you, you will always make more in your income year after year after year. Number six, check your bank account before you check social media first thing in the morning. And if it hurts you to check your bank account first thing, then you need to do it even more. Because for me, I started not knowing where my money was going. And so I had a friend who was like, dude, just look. And I honestly had anxiety looking at my bank account, looking at what money was going out, and all that kind of stuff. And so I started making that habit, and I had to confront it. But the crazy thing is, is As I started looking at my money, as I started paying attention to my money, my money started paying attention to me and hanging around. And so Peter Drucker said, what gets measured gets managed. And so one of the most fascinating things that I found with human behavior in any kind of change is that the first thing that you can do to improve any metric for any skill is to actually measure it. And so if you want to lose weight, if you weigh yourself every day, no matter how painful the number is, that intervention alone helps people lose weight. You don't even have to talk about diet. You don't have to tell someone to exercise. If they look at the scale every day, they become aware of it. And when you become aware of a problem, you start consciously or subconsciously making moves to change it. You have that hesitation before you put that food in your mouth. You have that hesitation before you take your wallet out. When you're looking at your bank account every day, it doesn't matter what it is, whatever you're trying to improve, but look at it, Confront reality, and then reality will start to improve. And if you're curious, how long do you still check your bank account every day? And the honest truth is, I stopped checking when we had about 20 million bucks. And so that started when I had in the hundreds to thousand dollars and cash, continue to check every day. And when I stopped checking, it was when I realized my daily fluctuations in market movements and things like that across my assets, I basically wasn't able to really see it on a daily basis. So I had to start extending my time horizon for when I would check it. So it'd be monthly or quarterly that I started checking it. Because that way at least I know I should have some movement upwards. And that is something that if you've done checking your bank account every single day for years, you start to already have developed some of those disciplined skills, which then you can delay gratification of having saved money for a day to having saved money for a quarter. Number seven, learn how to make money before you start trying to learn how to make money, make money. So I see so many guys, especially young guys, who are like, I've got a thousand bucks. How do I invest the thousand dollars? They're trying to figure out a way to go get that $1,000 to compound they put into a compounding calculator, and they're like, man, if I get 50% returns for the next 40 years, I'm going to be a billionaire. But the thing is, is that one, it's most likely that you're going to buy a fucking dogecoin and then it's going to tank and then you're just going to lose your thousand dollars and be like, wow, think about this. I just worked for two weeks or one month to save that thousand dollars and I lost it in seconds. So alternatively, if you take that thousand dollars and you put it into how do I make more money? How do I actively improve the actions and skills that I have that will get you far more and that is where you invest the time rather than how do I make money? Make money because let's be real, you don't have much. So take the money you have into the skill, the flow of making more money rather than trying to take this tiny thing and going from a 10% return to a 20% return. Because the 100 bucks extra that you yield on that thousand dollars, I promise you, if you learn how to add 50% to your skill set, it'll take whatever your annual earning is up by 50% and that's going to be a hell of a lot more than 10. And that's assuming everything goes up this year. Which one out of four years it doesn't. When you say you don't have time, just immediately think to yourself, I'm lying. This is bullshit. Because every single person has between 5 to 9am and 5 to 9pm every day of the week. Even if you have a 40 hour job, even if you're a full time student, because everybody has those eight hours per day. Now the thing is, is that we're not willing to make the trade offs because we have these things that make us comfortable. Cool. If you reframe that thing as the thing that makes me comfortable today is the thing that's going to make me uncomfortable for a decade. All of a sudden the cost of that comfort goes up. And so then it flips to if I can become uncomfortable for today, I could be comfortable for decades. And so then you can seek out those eight hours and say, you know what, I'm going to on focus, flip this thing. And here's the crazy part about work. Work makes you money in two ways. One, you work and you make money. And secondly, when you're working, you're not spending money. And so when you're starting out, you literally have a double effect. The money that you're making the whole way through is stacking up because there's no drains on it either. And so one of the biggest advantages you have is that you stay busy. One of the keys to investing is patience. What is Patience. Patience is figuring out activities to do in the meantime. Think about it for a second. Unpack that. Patience is figuring out what to do in the meantime. So then if the goal is to get rich, and we know that that takes time, and it takes time for money to compound and grow, then what you do in the meantime is that you work so that you have even more money to invest, and that money has the time to invest and compound while you're working. And I am so passionate about this because this isn't something that I didn't do right. Like, when I had my job in the beginning, I just wasn't really taking the time that I should have. And then I was like, you know what? I don't want to do this thing forever. I got to get ahead. But I couldn't stop doing my job. So I started spending my mornings and my evenings, every day and both weekend days working on what I was going to do next. And in the beginning, that was studying for the GMAT because I thought business school was going to be the next move. But after studying, studying for the GMAT and crushing the test, I came to another realization, which was, I'm going to go to business school because I want to start a business. Well, you know what? It's going to cost me less than two years and $180,000. Plus what I didn't make during the two years of not working, I could probably net $10,000 a year of income, which is what the average business school person graduated with. When I was looking at business school and I was like, I think I could get to 10 grand a month if I had two years to work and didn't spend 180 grand. And I took that money and just put it into a business. Now you're like, well, you didn't even have 180 grand. You're damn right I didn't. I was able to save up 50, and I was like, I think with this 50, I'll be able to spend it to learn enough to make 10 grand a month. And that's what I did. 9. If you don't know how you can lose money in something, then you're going to lose it. Think about this for a second. If something looks amazing and you're like, dude, there's no way I can lose money on this. You're absolutely going to lose your ass because of how little you actually know. And so you have to figure out one what is my downside? And all the different ways that downside can occur and then attach a reasonable likelihood that that happens, and then probably multiply it by three. Because whenever you have your rose colored glasses on, you're an entrepreneur or you want to be an entrepreneur. One of the quintessential traits of entrepreneurship is optimism. We are optimists, we think it's all going to work out and you have to have that level of optimism to start. But when you start, you can't continue to have that optimism around every other opportunity because then you are going to lose your ass because you're going to be split between multiple things. And so if you don't know how you can lose money, you absolutely will, because it just is an index of how little you know. 10. The biggest cost that you have is ignorance. So every single month, you've got your rent, you've got your food, you've got your clothes, you got your car, you got whatever else you spend, and you think, that's my fixed costs. Years ago, I was sitting in the audience and I saw a man write a million dollars on a whiteboard. And he called someone from the audience. He said, how much do you make per year? And they said, $50,000 a year. He said, would you like to make a million dollars a year? And the person said, yes. And then he put a minus sign. He said, did you know that it's costing you $950,000 per year to not know how to make a million dollars a year? And it was such a light bulb moment for me that I realized that the cost of ignorance is the difference between what your goals are and what you have today. Because if you knew how to achieve your goals, the difference is the value of that education. And conversely, the difference is the cost of that debt of ignorance. And so the number one priority in my life has always been to pay down ignorance as fast as I possibly could, using whatever currency I needed to. So if that was relational capital, that means using my network or doing favors for people or paying money, which is the least efficient way of doing it. I would try and find a way that I could pay down ignorance to achieve the things that I wanted so I could get the information, so I could get the learning. When I started, I paid to get into rooms. I paid $25,000, $35,000. And you're like, wait, I don't have that right now. I get it. Well, you pay $10,000 was the first thing I ever bought that was information based. That's what was the first thing I ever invested. And how was I able to do that? Because I had saved for two years. And I'd say 50 grand up. And so for me, I was like, okay, this is the direction I'm going in. I'm going to invest in learning. And when I got in that room, the first room I was in was a gym owner room, and I didn't have a gym. And I paid to be in that room so that I could start the gym the right way. When I paid to the $25,000 room, it was an Internet marketing room. And guess what? I didn't have an Internet marketing business, but I paid there so I could try and learn how to do it the right way rather than try and start it the wrong way and have to fix it. And so I think of a lot, lot of people wait too long to try and learn. I always want to grab my future and pull it towards me. And so I was willing to spend as much money as I had available to me to make those bets because it was a bet on me. And I knew I would never lose that. You can't lose you. You always have diamond hands on you till the day you die. You've got you. And so the thing is about investing in education is that sometimes the lessons you learn aren't the lessons you expect to learn, but you learn them nonetheless. And so sometimes you go into an education thing and you don't get what you thought, but you still get something and it was still more than what you paid. And so when I went into those rooms, I'd already used up all my money to get in the room. So I was like, okay, what else do I have? And so at the time, I knew how to sell. And so I just went to every single person in the room and was like, can I help you sell stuff? And so they'd be like, well, sure, my sales team sucks, or sure my script sucks, or sure my offer sucks, or I don't know how to overcome these objections. And so I would spend an hour, two hours, three hours on the phone with these people, training their team, writing scripts. And they were like, dude, thanks so much. This is way. I can't believe you did all this. And the thing is, is that if you're going to pay for help from someone, pay in full. Don't half ass a free gift. And so if you're good at something, you're good at a skill. You're an accountant, you don't do one page of someone's taxes. If you're going to do a favor, you do the whole thing. You treat them like they're a paying customer. And then they will respond as though you have paid them. And so it will be like you've given them money. And then you will get that reciprocity. And at the time when I did those favors for all those people, I didn't know what I was going to ask for. I just knew that I would need someone's help in the room, and I'd rather have more phone numbers I could call for help that owed me one than none. And when I wanted to make a webinar, I called one of the people who's good at webinars. When I wanted to run ads, I called the guy who's really good at running ads. When I When I wanted to figure out funnels and landing pages and stuff, I called the guy who was really good at funnels and landing pages because each of those guys wasn't good at what I was good at. And so we were able to barter, which, by the way, still to this day is the most efficient form of trade. Because Uncle Sam don't take any piece of it for us or them. Everybody wins. 11. There's two types of things that you can learn. And so if you're trying to pay down ignorance, you got to know what you're buying so you can learn about something, something that exists that you didn't know existed. And then you can learn how to do something. And so one is called declarative knowledge, knowledge of existence. The other is called procedural knowledge, which is knowing how to do it. And so if I explain to you that private equity exists and this is how you can buy, package, and sell a business for a lot of money, now you know about it, which is a prerequisite for learning how to do it. And so when you buy into access to networks, to people, to relationships, the primary thing that you're learning is learning about things that exist. They're going to tell you tax strategies, investment strategy, marketing strategies, sales strategies, business models that you haven't heard of. That is what you learn there. But if they tell you those things, you leave and you get excited, but then you're like, well, shoot, how do I do it? Which is the second thing that you learn how to do, which is the how part. And so when you're going into any kind of investment, whether you're investing time, you're investing trade, you're doing some work for someone so they do work for you back, or you're investing money, you better be sure what you're buying. And the interesting thing about those two types of knowledge is that the declarative knowledge tends to teach you things that you didn't know existed. It's the unknown unknowns that is why some of these are the biggest breakthroughs. When you get into those rooms with someone making 10 or 100 times more than you, they see the world in a different way. Whereas when you go for how to, it's more predictable what you're going to get, because you're specifically trying to learn how the scale is. You know it exists, and you just need to clarify the steps to getting there. And so just delineating what you're trying to learn will help you actually learn it. So the first time I learned declarative knowledge was that Facebook ads existed. That was in 2013. And so I learned how they. How they worked, and I learned just enough to make them work. So I learned declarative knowledge that they existed, and I learned how to do them in one weekend. Super valuable. Now I was able to ride that skillset for a couple years until I was like, you know what? I need to learn how to do this at a bigger scale. I wanted to go national. We'd start a gym launch, do the turnarounds. And so I was like, I need somebody. Because I had only run local ads, which, by the way, are much easier than national style ads. And so I tried to go all around asking people for help. And at this point, I'd probably used up the relational capital that I had before. So I called a bunch of agencies. All of them said they were going to charge me too much money that I could afford. And then finally I just asked one guy, hey, instead of your money, monthly rate of $5,000 a month, which I couldn't even come close to affording at the time. I was like, can I just pay you per hour now? Of course, he said, I don't trade my time for money. Except, of course, he works overtime and then he gets money later. But sure, anyways, he doesn't trade time for money. When I said, it's America, everything's got a price. And he said, you know what? 750 an hour, I'll do it. And I was like, done now. Mind you, 750 an hour was still a ton of money for me. And so I showed up like it was Harvard on steroids for these calls. Because I would prep for the call, I had my notes out, I recorded it. I was like, I had two people in the room be like, make sure I don't miss anything, right? And so I would go, and I had him first document the process of what he did to run ads as though he were me. Then I had him demonstrate it. So he clicked the buttons so I could see what he was doing. And I had him stop and explain to me each of the steps so I could put it into my little checklist too. And then finally, I duplicated in front of him, which means document, demonstrate, duplicate. I then did in front of him to make sure that I was doing it right. And so once I did it right and I did it right multiple times in a row, and I didn't need him to correct me while I was doing it, that's when I had mastered the skill. It took me eight sessions, so it took me eight hours and whatever that is times 750 in order to learn 12. A watch isn't going to replace work. A Rolex isn't going to replace reality. And so what happens a lot of times when you're coming up is that you want to get status, right? You feel downtrodden, you feel like no one respects you, and that's normal. As a young man, that's what you do. You don't have any status. That's what you come into the world as. And you got to go make it. And so the thing that you want to do early on is get status as fast as possible. The thing is, a lot of times you trade short term status at the expense of long term. And so as somebody who has lots of young men in my audience and middle aged men in my audience, you'll never impress someone who's wealthier than you with assets. You'll only impress people below you. So you have the wrong target audience. Because to impress poor people, you outspend them. To impress rich people, you outwork them. And once I understood this, I was like, oh, the guys who are at the top of the game give me respect because they know I'm a future one of them. Because they know when they were my age, they doubled down on the hustle, not the highlight reel. And that overspending on status happens at every level. So in the beginning it's a watch, right? And a little bit later it might be a car payment. And a little bit later it might be a really big, expensive car payment. And then it might be a really big condo, and then it might be a really nice house, and then it might become a yacht, and then becomes a jet. And the thing is that you add zeros to it. But again, you, you only impress the people underneath of you, not the people above you. And if you want to impress the people underneath of you by all means do it, but know that that's what you're about. Buy time like a rich person, buy stuff like a poor person. And so when you're thinking about time being the most valuable thing, if you've already dedicated yourself to working and earning an income and learning the skills, then you just want to pour as much time into that as you can. And so fundamentally, you're buying your time back, your low cost time or low income time. So it's prepping food, going grocery shopping, cleaning your house, whatever else you do with more income earning time. I remember the first time I closed a $500 sale at my gym. I realized that that sale took me 30 minutes. And I knew that for me to buy groceries for the whole month, four times would take me $500 and far more than 30 minutes. And so I thought to myself, my God, if all of that time I was grocery shopping and food prepping and cleaning up after myself and then doing laundry, if all of that time I could just sell more in a couple hours, I could do all of that stuff for free. And my poor mind was like, hey, that's wasteful. You could be doing that stuff on your own. But you buy time like you're rich. You spend money on stuff like you're poor. So buy time, not stuff. Because when you buy time, you can replace the money you bought it with. And some. Let me put some real numbers to this. So the average American spends $1,500 a month on 96 hours of work. And that breaks down roughly to cleaning their house, cleaning their clothes, buying food, preparing food, and cleaning food. I'm not even to get into the four hours a day that the average person spends on social media and watching television. You're going to keep doing that. So I'm not even going to try to convince you not to. But if you just replace those things that you probably don't want to do, it costs about $1,500 per month. And so as long as you make more than $15 per hour, because it costs about 96 hours to replace those activities, which means if I can replace 96 hours of work for $1,500, and it's also 96 hours of draining work, like it expends energy, it's not like you just sit there for 96 hours, you're actually getting actively tired from doing that stuff. If you took that same thing, and if you make more than $15 per hour in your active job, it makes sense. It's the logical decision for you to Buy that and then go make more, because you're also going to make money twice. Not only are you going to save the time and then work and make more, but you also get better at your job because all of those extra hours aren't just making you more money, you're also becoming more skilled, so you get better faster. And so if I have a year long guy where he spends $1,500 a month to replace all of those things at the end of that year, not only does he have more money at the end of the year, but because he had an extra hundred hours of high energy time that he didn't have to spend per month, he's getting 50% better per year. And so that assumes that he doesn't get rewarded in his work for getting better. Which by the way, in reality you typically do. As long as you ask who you compare yourself to, not who you spend your most time with will be the highest predictor of how much you make. And so we are motivated by the things that we lack. And so if you are very hungry, it's because you lack food. If you lack sleep, you're very tired, you're very motivated to sleep. And so if you want to be motivated to make money, it's not enough to not have money. You have to have a desire to make a lot more money. And the strongest way to create that desire is to visually see the people who are making far more than you. And so it's about who you compare yourself to, not who you spend time with. Fundamentally, the richest man in the world only spends time with people poorer than him, but he continues to get richer because he's comparing himself to the future version of himself. That's his reference point, that's his reference grid. And when you start out, there's real people, as you evolve, it becomes imaginary. I heard this quote from one person to another when I was walking through the street. And he was talking about buying something that was a no return investment, let's call it a big toy. And he said, there will always be time to make money later. And I remember hearing that and thinking that's what someone who's poor says. And so to be clear, I think if you want to enjoy life, by all means do it. This video is about making more money. That's the stated objective. And so that's what I'm talking about. And so the idea that you're going to spend now, work later is the fundamental crux of poverty. And so you have to break that with all your heart. And when you have those people around you and this was a toy, but it could be, let's go out. It always comes under the guise of yolo. We have to live life. But everyone who says that assumes that getting better and learning is not life and is not living. And for me, the purpose of my life is to learn as much as I can and pay down ignorance as much as I possibly can and squeeze the last drop of potential out of me that I can. And the way that I do that is through learning. And so for every person that asks you to sacrifice working now so that you can have fun now, just make sure you know the trade you're making. I'll be real with you. There's no perfect way to live your 20s or even your 30s. You either end up an under skilled 30 year old or 40 year old, or an under lived 30 year old or 40 year old. And so fundamentally it's not either or, but knowing the trade off and living with the consequences because you can't do them over. And on a personal note, I sacrificed, or said differently, invested my 20s in order to have lots of skills and under lived. But in that same time period, I built to where I am now. And I genuinely am very happy with where I am now in life. And I would not redo those years to have, quote, lived more because the real secret is as I was doing it, I loved the game. And so some of the best moments of my life when I look back were some of the moments that I felt like I was struggling the most because it was when I underwent the most growth. And so it's interesting because the pain that you go through in the moment often becomes the purpose that you look back on in your life. And so the idea that we want to avoid pain so that we can live today I think conflates reality because when you look back on your life, a lot of times those are the things that define you. And so we should be seeking those out, not running away from them. So if you're not sure who you compare yourself to versus who you spend time with when you're about to make a big decision, the people who come up in your mind, who you're weighing their opinions on, your decision, those are your reference group people, the people whose opinion you care about. And so if all your friends for example, are billionaires and they all sacrificed their 20s, got rid of their friends, got rid of their material belongings, spent all their time working for free so that they could learned this big skill set and then doubled down in their late twenties, and then made it big by the time they were in their 30s and 40s. Those people, if that was your reference group, if you're thinking about leaving home, what do you think that reference group's gonna say? For sure. And because of that, you're out the door. And so whenever you have these frictional moments where you are like, I think I should do this, but whoever that person is, whoever that voice is, if they don't have what you want, don't listen to what they say. Only listen to other people's opinions about your life. If their dreams for you are bigger than yours, if they're not, disregard. Invest, then spend the rest. So the idea is that you invest first and then spend what's left over. And so an interesting thing is that Switzerland has the highest per capita millionaires in the world without having the highest GDP or even GDP per capita. And so how are they able to do that? That means that they have different rules around money, which is what this video is about. And so if we adopt those rules, we can get those outcomes, which means these are just decisions that we get to make. And the easiest way to do that is you take what you need off the top, and then you spend the rest on what you want. And so it comes down to saying that you need your future, you need your future self to be bigger than your current self today. And so you invest first, and then you spend the rest. And so the way that I like to think about this is point 16. This is how we operationalize this, which is automate investing and then create friction around spending. And so you want to take the money off before you see it. If your job, for example, has a way that they can automatically skim off your paycheck and put it into some sort of investment stuff, do it. If they don't have that, have one of these apps that does segmentation or has multiple bank accounts that you could say, this automatically goes here, this automatically goes here, and I don't touch this. And if you want to get real crazy, the advanced version of this is that as you make more money, you keep what you're living. The spend the rest part, instead of making it a percentage, make it a fixed amount. And then as you make more, you're just investing more and more and more into the future. Now you're like, well, how do I invest in the future if I'm just starting out? The future is you. But you're making sure that when you're investing that money, you know, whether you're buying declarative knowledge, or you're buying procedural knowledge, you're learning about stuff that you need to learn, or you're learning how to do it. And the longer you do this, the easier it gets. For the record, I have zero Lamborghinis, zero Rolexes, zero jets, while also being able to buy multiple of these every single month. And so the idea is you start to become addicted to getting good. And once you get that first little reward of seeing an investment that you made in yourself start paying off, you see your income go up, you start making more money, you're like, oh, my God, this game is awesome. And so that flow of investment that comes to you is one of the best games that you want to win for yourself. You want to just keep seeing, keep making cash flow PRs, keep making that investment account PR and hit records in that account. And if you get addicted to that game, if you can just do that, from everything in this video, you've already won. And so you want to automate deposits and manualize withdrawals. So everything that is automatic in terms like your rent, you want to write it as a check if you. Or drop it off as cash if you have payments that you make, like a car payment, as much as you're like, wait, this is going to cost time. The value that you get back for knowing exactly, exactly where you spend your money is going to make you more money than the one hour a month that you have to pay your bills. That is a promise. And so that may also mean if you make it difficult to buy, well, then maybe you delete some of the apps on your phone. Maybe you don't save your credit cards on the sites that you tend to spend money on. You want to make it as hard as you can to spend money and make it as easy as possible to stack it. Number 17. It's easier to make a million dollars than it is to make $100,000. And let me explain. If I told you to go down the block, you would go at a certain speed. If I said, go as fast as you possibly can, at some point you'd run, and then you'd improve your form and you get better footwear, and then you change your clothes, but at some point, you wouldn't be able to run any harder or any faster to get there. But if I said, I need you to go five blocks, you might be like, huh, okay, now, some people will then try to walk or run that. But the smart cookie then says, huh, I could take a car and I would go a hell of a lot faster. And If I'm speeding in my car, I'll probably get to the fifth block before the other guy gets to the end of the first block. And so the magic of thinking bigger is that you change your solution set, meaning you use different tools to accomplish the objective. The reason $100,000 per year is the hardest amount of money to make is because it assumes for most people that they will trade their time in terms of hourly wages or salary and traditional work in order to get it. And so they have to spend all of their time in order to make the $100,000. But if I said make a million or even 10 million before the world explodes, you would know that you would have to use a different way of solving that problem. And so the reason it's easier to make a million dollars or $10 million is because you can do it in less time with more skill. If you start solving for the skills required to make a million or $10 million, you don't want to love money. You want to learn to love making money. So there's two misconceptions and then one truth around this. The first misconception is money is the root of all evil. And then that obviously is a quote from the Bible, 1 Timothy 6, 10, the 201 version. Someone says, no, it's not money that's the root of all evil. It's the love of money that's the root of all evil. But that's just the 201 version, the actual translation. There's five translations for it, and four of the five are the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, meaning if you desire money more than anything else, then you will commit the other sins in order to attain it. And so the idea is that it's only a pathway that has a high likelihood of causing you to do things that are unethical or immoral. And so there's this huge, terrible paradigm in society that money is somehow good or bad. It is just potential energy. It's just bottled time. And that bottled time can build bombs, that bottled time can build hospitals, it can build wells and build schools. It can make YouTube videos that educate. And so the idea that you're afraid to make money means that you're afraid of having power. And maybe you should be afraid of having power because maybe you'd misuse it. But if you do want to help the world, then all it's going to do is amplify your ability to do that. And if you have that mission on your heart or in your mind, then it's your duty to remove everything else in your fucking way to go get it. The more money you make other people, the more money you make. And so the amount of money that you will be able to make in your career comes down to three variables. Number one is the value that you're able to create in total for all of the people you create it for, times your ability to negotiate how much of that value you're able to get times number three, which is the amount of other people who can also create that value. And you have to have all three, because, for example, if you develop a skill of sales and you can create millions of dollars in value for a company and you're really good at negotiating, then in theory, you'd get millions and millions of dollars from that company. But if somebody else is willing to work for a few hundred thousand dollars a year in order to make that value, then your position disappears. And so that gives us the blueprint for making money is that not only do you want to be able to create that value, you want to be able to create a value in a way that no one else can. And the way that you do that is not by, in my opinion, learning some incredibly secret, unique skill. What makes skills unique is the skill set. It's the stack of skills together that create the uniqueness. If someone else has to try and recreate something I could do, they would have to have lived my life. And so your life and the time you spend becomes your competitive advantage. It becomes your asset. It becomes the moat that other people can't chip into. They'd have to go through being a competitive fitness person, and then go through owning lots of gyms, and then go through doing turnarounds across the country, and then go through doing a licensing business, and then go through making a supplement business, and then go through launching a meal prep business and then also starting a software company and then going through an exit for both and then starting a private equity. They'd have to do so much stuff. There are so many skills that are required. Your time is your weapon if you invest it wisely. And the one thing that I would leave you with is that money loves speed, wealth loves time. Poverty loves indecision. I spend more time than I deserve with billionaires and multibillionaires. And something I noticed is that all of them share similar behavior patterns. And there's 11 that I found. And the best part is you can steal just about every single one of them. Enjoy. I crossed $100 million in net worth at age 31. I'm 35, significantly higher than that now. And I have the privilege of talking to lots of people who are at billion dollar plus. And so in this video I want to break down a handful of themes that I've seen repeated that can make you significantly more successful. The rich buy time, the poor buy stuff, ambitious people buy skills, and lazy people buy distractions. As much as these seem like four different groups, it's really like you have these pairings. Rich people use money to buy time, ambitious people use time time to buy skills. And the reason it's ambitious people is because generational wealth isn't transferred through assets, it's not transferred through stuff, it's transferred through education, it's transferred through skills. And so there's this Sanskrit proverb that I love. If you have a good son, you don't need to accumulate wealth. If you have a bad son, there's no point in accumulating wealth. And so the idea that you're going to pass on your wealth to a child who doesn't have the skills makes it irrelevant because fundamentally, either it is a good son who has skills, and then if the son has skills, then whether you transfer the wealth or not makes the wealth itself irrelevant. And I find that there's so many things that are like this in wealth creation that you don't understand until you're on the other side of it. Because the answers that you're looking for are not in your newsfeed, they are not in the distraction. And so the vast majority of lazy people that I have encountered continue to distract themselves because the difficulty of looking at themselves in the mirror and saying I am inadequate is too painful. And so instead they would rather watch fluff videos on the Internet that make them feel good and tickle their ears rather than confront reality that they are just not good enough. And so they consume the stuff that's like, I am worthy. I deserve these things. In other words, entitled to them. Which by the way, if you feel entitled to something, then when you get it, you are never grateful because you thought you deserved it it to begin with. We know that gratitude, for example, is something that increases your subjective well being in life, which is that you enjoy life more when you are grateful for what you get, which means that you have to by very definition expect nothing, which means you are entitled to nothing, which means that you deserve nothing. In reality, you are worthy only of the things that you currently have because you have already gotten them. You have proven that you can't work a minimum wage job, so you are worthy of the compensation of minimum wage. And as much as this is painful, and I'm sure this will get clipped 100 times to show me as some evil rich guy, I'm willing to take that hate for the few people who will hear this message and decide to change the way they act. You can be ambitious and distracted, which keeps you poor. When I started out at my peak, I had nine businesses because I heard seven income streams make you wealthy. But it doesn't. Seven income streams just spread you seven ways. And I had nine. I was like, well, seven good. Nine must be better. To give you context, I had a chiropractor agency. I had a dental agency. I had a gym turnaround business. And then I had, at the time, six locations. So there's nine. Wherever it is, boom. And I had partners in each of these businesses. I was still the one who was required to rain make, meaning I was the one who was required to sell customers into all nine. If you are required to work inside of the business, then you can only really do one job. And so when people hear that someone has seven income streams, it's because they own assets that generate that kind of income. But in order to gain the cash to then buy the assets that create the cash flow, it requires time and focus. Let me make focus real for you. Focus. A very amorphous term. Focus is measured by the amount of things you say no to. And inversely, you could measure it by how few things you say yes to, meaning the most focused person says only yes to one thing and says no to literally everything else. And so the next thing that separates the rich from the poor is it's 100x, not 2x. And so this concept is one that I had dinner with a friend of mine who's a public CEO, and. And I asked him what he had done to grow the business, I think from a $200 million market cap to a $1.2 billion market cap in less than two years. All right, so that's absurd growth for a company. And I was like, so, you know, what are you doing primarily? He said, I'm shaking hands. I'm kissing babies. I'm going to events all the time. And I was like, well, how many? He's like, well, I'm going to do 66 events this quarter. And I was like, in person? He was like, yeah. I was like, are they coming to you? And he's like, no, I'm going to them. I want to make this real. He has a wife, he has kids. And before anyone listens and Says, I can't believe he. Well, cool. He makes trades. If anything, I would hope that people watch this and say, I wouldn't make that trade. In which case, great. Also, don't complain about not having what somebody who has made that trade made. And so one of the big misconceptions, by the way, this is a sales thing too, is that people want your outcome their way. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to say, hey, I want to not change the way I'm eating. I want to not change the way I'm living, but I want to have a six pack and I want to be in shape. I want to continue to live this way. And I want to get the 10 chick or the 10 guy. I want to continue with my work life schedule as I currently have, but I want to have hypergrowth. They are trades. They're price tags. When you go to the store, you either want the shoes and you're willing to pay the price, or you're not willing to pay the price. That's it. You can't pick the price for the shoes. You pay it or you don't. My telephone back to myself is that I thought I worked a lot when I was younger and I did spend a lot of time working, but I made so little progress because a lot of that time I wasn't actually creating output. I encourage people to do something called the 12 by 30. All right? So it's, it's very simple and it's actually not as unsustainable as people would think. You work 12 hours a day for 30 days straight, no weekends. By the last day you realize, one, you aren't made of glass, two, how much more you could be working, three, how much faster you could be achieving your goals, four, how much you could be getting better every single day. Five, you don't need to work like this forever, but if you need to do it for a season or for a reason sometime in the future, you've got that gear in you. And six, there are people who are working more than you, who are beating you. And you get all of those lessons for the low price of getting more done in a month than you probably did last quarter. And so everyone. And like, of course, you've got one side of people who are like, I work more than this now. And of course, course they don't. They obviously don't. And the thing is, is that people are like, well, I work like that, but I take a couple days off, right? That's the point, is that you have to push through it. Now can you work 16 by 30? Sure, if you want to, you're welcome to work more than that because I've found that working six to six is kind of like what I do every day anyways. I'm on 12 by 100. You know, in terms of how I think about working, there's plenty of days that I work 15, 16 hour days because I get here at 5 or 6 and then sometimes we have an event, there's always a dinner, things like that afterwards and ends at 9. And that's where you have to be on. Not just at the office, not just in front of your computer, but people actually demanding things of you on a regular basis all the time being on camera. And I'll tell you that there are levels to this. Like working alone for a full day is not as exhausting as being on stage for a full day being on camera for a full day. Because every second that you are not peak, you are losing. You can take a break while you're working alone. You can't take a break when you're on stage, when you're meeting customers, when you're making content. Like, right, like, like every minute that is not recorded is basically a minute wasted. There's a whole team here behind this camera, right, that is making this stuff for you. And I'm costing them every second I'm not showing up. I remember there was a period of season of my life where I think I had like nine straight months of this. And it was not 12, it was 15, 16 because I had to wake up at 4 to get to the gym where I was at the gym, but I wake up at four and then I would get the class ready, I'd open the gym doors at 4, 30, would start the classes at 5 and the last class at night would end, it would be a 7 o' clock class, would end at 8 and then at 8 I would then do billing, I'd reach out to old customers, I would confirm lead appointments for the next day, all that, sometimes until 10, 11 at night and then I'd wake up again at 4. And so I don't know what the hours are there, but it's more than 12. And I did that for nine months straight. And I used to describe it as the kind of tired a good night's sleep couldn't fix. It was like, it was tired, it was deeper than like one sleep. I needed like weeks to like basically come back to normal. And the thing is, is that I think it is valuable because you have to Learn that you have that gear. I think that that gives you supreme confidence when you're entering any new endeavor because you know that you have acquired the trait of being relentless, that you do not relent, you do not let up, you do not stop until you get what you want. And you know that you can push through being tired or being underslept or being overwhelmed because you realize that you didn't die and that you've done this before. And so the difference between the newbie and the veteran is that the veteran looks on something and looks back on what they have done to get to that point and says, I've seen this before. This is another one of those. And that's why they don't have the anxiety, that's why they don't have the stress. That's the women, they get on stage, they crush it. That's when they the high pressure situation, they still breathe normally, their heartbeat doesn't go up because they have done it before. And the only way that you can get to the point where you can say you've done it before is to do it now. And so I define work as volume, times, leverage. And so it's about how many times you do something and how much you get for each time you do it. In the beginning, you need to do a lot more of this, right? You do way more volume. Because of that volume, you gain skill and then the leverage also increases. And so you get 100x the volume, which then over time builds skill, which then gives you more for what you put in. And then over time, that continues to increase your output. The thing is, this concept of 100x, not 2x has applied to so many different areas of my life. Like when I paid a large brand for insight into how I could grow my personal brand. When I decided to get into this game, I was like, hey, I'm not growing that fast. And he said, oh, well, pull up your social media profiles. And we pulled them up one by one. And he said, look at what you're doing, look what I'm doing. And he had genuinely been doing 10 times more volume than I was doing. And so he basically said, you're not doing enough volume. I then said, okay, that was clear as day. I need to do more volume. And the thing is, is when we did more volume, we got better at doing it. And so now we continue to do the same volume as I did in the beginning, which is 10 times more than when I started. We get even more output. And then I had a different friend who talked to Me, billionaire guy, he was thinking about getting into content and he said, hey, I'm really not growing that fast. And I got to have the exact same conversation with him. But the thing is, is that, that this guy had done 100x, not 2x before in his life. It was just that he got to realize, like me, that it has been 100% domain specific. And so when he. Then I showed him my Instagram and his, I showed him my TikTok and his. I showed him my YouTube and his, and I said, Dude, I'm making 450 pieces a week, you're making seven. And he was like, got it. Like, understood. He immediately got it because he had already learned that lesson in a different domain. I want to, I want to zoom out for a second. Right now is a period of time where I'm working really hard. I'm working a lot. I'll give you context as to what a lot is for me. So this year, the first hundred days of the year, I didn't have a day off. And so my time was only spent working. And so it's like, well, what's the difference between when you were, quote, working all the time when you're younger and working all the time now? Is that what I get done in a day is significantly greater than what I got done. And the quality of that work is also higher because the thing is that you learn how to work, you get better at working the more you do it. It. And so a lot of people are like, man, I. I feel like I'm not that productive when I work. Like, what should I do? It's like, work more. Like, you work more until you get better at working. I remember when I was a legal intern at a, at a company in France called Arkema, if you want to know how they say it. And I was a legal intern and I was spending the whole summer there, which, by the way, they always try and like, use and abuse interns. I was like, man, I'm working so hard. And I talked to one of these legal partners and I only had one exchange with this particular legal partner who's, you know, high up in the firm. And she said, oh. She was like, that's cute. You don't even know what work is. She said, you don't even know how to work. She's like, you spend time here. She's like, but you don't know how to work. I just remember how dismissive what she said was. But I understood. I mean, I understand now especially what she meant was like, you're spending a lot of time here, but you're not getting anything done. And it takes time, it takes reps to get better at working itself. And so that measure of focus, the equal opposite of distraction, is just how long you can stick with it. And I can tell you that me, from a very visceral perspective when I work, there are many times, like, you know, when you work and you're like, man, I feel like I, like, need a break. The thing is, is that that break period for people who aren't as good at working might be like the rest of the day. And the better and better that I've gotten at working is that I can like, kind of like whip my, like whip my head back in and be like, confront, like, keep going. And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna keep going. And then you kind of realize that there's like a 5 minute, sometimes 15 minute period where like, your output slows a little bit, but then you catch the next draft and then you're in again. It's being able to whip yourself back in. And that of doing that takes practice. And the only opportunity that you get to flex that muscle to practice it is to work yourself to the point of fatigue, to the point or distraction or respite or rest would be beneficial, or you feel like it's what you crave right now. And then being able to be like, no, I can power through this. And the thing is, is you can, you can power through it. It just takes practice, and practice takes repetition and being willing to be uncomfortable for an extended period of time. And it's kind of like when you're eating and you're dieting, there are moments where you get these cravings where you're like, man, I'm starving. I want something sweet. If you've ever dieted before, and this is where repetitions help, it only lasts like 20 minutes. So if you ever do this, by the way, dieting hack is just set a timer. When you're like, man, I really want something, wait 20. And if you still want it, which you rarely do because it usually lasts less than 20, sometimes just five, it'll just go away. And the same thing happens with focus, but we then just take off. We take off for our diet for the day. We order a pizza, right? We order ice cream, right? Or we take off working for the day, right? And we just say, I'm just going to watch Netflix for the rest of the time, or I'm just going to go hang out with friends, whatever, or I'm going to go out. But I will say now that I have worked for 100 days straight, and that was in the earlier part of this year. I think this year I've probably taken three or four days off since the year started, and I still probably worked until like, two on those days, but I still consider those, like, more or less days off. You're not going to die. And so I think back retroactively, or, like, historically, like, there were people who were forced to work for years on end or they would get killed. As gruesome as that may seem, I see that as hopeful in that they have already demonstrated that it's possible, like, you can work continuously for an extended period of time because fundamentally, you're just alive, you're moving, right? And like, you think, super ancestors, it's like they didn't have computers, they didn't, like, they just were around. And so you do keep busy while you're awake. And so you might as well keep busy continuing to nudge things forward. And I can't tell you the amount of times where now I'm like, my mind checked out and I was like, my brain checked out a little bit, but I'm just going to keep. I'm going to keep going. And then three hours, four hours, six hours more pass, and I'm like, oh, I actually finished everything that I said I was going to do. And it's just so much more work and it's fewer days off and it's earlier mornings and longer nights, and it's being able to do that for an extended period of time. I know the whole idea of, like, you know, work on the things you love and you'll never work another day in your life, that's just. I just don't think it's true. Like, there's so many things that I don't enjoy doing that I have to do. And that's why, at least for me, my saying is always, I will do what is required. How I feel about it is relatively irrelevant because the things that have come from doing what is required have made doing the requirements something that I know will pay off. And so I kind of like, feast on those morsels of past achievements as the fuel to continue doing things that may be uncomfortable or unpleasant in the moment. And most work isn't unpleasant. It's just work work. It's like, I have to get this done right. And you're like, I get to get this done, sure. But, like, I'm just being real. For me, it's. It's usually not sunshine and rainbows. Like, I work a lot, and I get. And I'm tired, you know, I. I slept nine hours last night, which was the first time I've slept nine hours in a while. And I feel amazing right now. But sometimes you got to work on six, sometimes you got to work on five. And so think about this hypothetical extreme. Let's say that you played video games. That was all you did. When I say that's all you did. You didn't go out, you didn't talk to people, you didn't see anyone. You didn't. Didn't eat, you didn't sleep, but you would be incredibly focused. Now at that point, you say, well, in order for him to play more video games, he needs to sleep. So there are contingencies, right? You do need to eat or you'll die. And so there are the fewest requirements necessary to maintain consistent focus on the one thing. And those things become requisites for focus rather than distraction. Like, there are periods of time where you will need to rest. That rest, therefore, is productive because it increases your total output in the one thing that gets you the most leverage, that gets you closest to your goals in the shortest period of time. And so this isn't a video of me saying, you know, work until you die. Well, you will work until you die, because we all will die, and we all probably will work at some point. But it is more video of saying that every single thing that is not a requisite for you continuing to do the one thing that one. Yes. Are all distractions. They are all things that take away. And people have a hard time with this because they like to say, like, you need to have balance, but this is what poor people do not understand. And I am going to do my very best to kind of like, pass down a message from the future to my past self about this. And this goes for entrepreneurs specifically, which is you do not understand how much work it is. Like, you think you understand how much work it is. And I've had multiple times in my life where I've met someone who was way further ahead than me, and I saw them actually working five to ten times more than me. And I was like, wow. And there's this scene in Invictus, which is a movie with. With Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. I love this moment. There's an exchange I'm paraphrasing, but he says something to the extent of, I've heard that you've been playing with an injury. And Matt Damon just kind of says, well, no one ever plays at 100%. And I just love that because to me, that kind of encompasses the champion mindset, which is that it's not about playing when circumstances are perfect. It's that playing creates perfect circumstances. We have to learn to play when the chips are stacked against us. It's like having values. Values are only valuable when they are tested. You can say you're loyal, but if you know a girl, if you're in a hotel room and a girl is there and your wife isn't there, and there's no way that she finds out, that is the test of whether you're loyal. It's when there's stakes. Test of whether you have work ethic is whether you can work when you're tired. It's whether you can work when you're distracted. It's whether you can work on things that you don't find pleasant. Because all of the. And I see this with, you know, some of the young guys. Like, there was a guy we hired, and then in three days, he said, I don't think this is for me. And he got hired to a sales role, and he was. He was making outbound calls. I was like, you don't think this is for you? I was like, you don't even know what's for you. You were here for three days. You didn't even get the ability to get good at the basic thing. And so there's a level of intolerance for discomfort in some sort of expectation that it's going to be this amazing thing that you're going to love at all times, and it's just not. And so I would. I'm okay being a different voice in the. In the entrepreneur space. That's not like, you know, passion is what. Is what gets you through the. The hard times. I don't think so. Passion has not been the thing that has gotten me through my. My harder times. It has been desire. It has been wanting to make something into a reality by dragging something from your mind into the world. And sometimes I feel like you're giving birth to this thing, which for every mother, which I obviously haven't given birth, it's like you give birth kicking and screaming. It's a painful experience, but then there's life that happens afterwards. And I see work as very much labor. And we even use the same word. It's labor. It's work. It's painful. The pain is that you're halfway through, I would imagine, and you're like, I still have to keep pushing because it's still not alive yet. It's still not out. And so I think learning to push through that. And this is the part that my friend was saying where he's like, they don't get it. They don't get it. They think that I do one of these speaking events and they see my Instagram and they think, oh, okay, well, why is my brain not growing like that? He's like, well, I was in five different cities this week and I just had to do FaceTime with my kids in order for them to see me. And people are then like, I wouldn't make that trade. Fine, but don't want what he has. And so let me draw this out for you in a nice little visual to show you how I see work, right? This volume that you need to do. So you have excitement, right? So when you have this new idea, which we have them, and you're like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Right? This is so good. The thing is, is that once you become neutral and then you become worried and stressed, this is when work begins. And so in the bodybuilding world, they'd be like, okay, once you have achieved failure, that is where your working reps begin. It's an old school bodybuilding saying. I'm sure the science bros will be upset about it, but I think that it very much qualifies for how it relates to work in this world is, is that your motivation fades very quickly. It's that work begins once motivation stops. And I think if you measure it that way, then you will measure how much you work and how hard you work very differently. So it reminds me this Muhammad Ali quote where he says, I hated every minute of training, but I would tell myself, suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion. I have this tweet that I said a minute ago that I really like. And so whenever I get to a low point where I think, why do I even bother? I just try and remind myself, this is where most people stop and this is why they don't win. That period, that wall that you hit like that is. That is the champion wall. That is where you leave everyone else behind, because everyone only works until their point of excitement and then they stop. It's like, you have to find that next gear. So the next point is that they cannot copy your proof. People want to gain reputations, they want to be known for certain things, they want to get status. But people can copy your promises, they can copy your services, they can copy your logo, they can copy your name, but they can't copy what you've done. I have sometimes younger entrepreneurs who reach out and they're like, hey, I want to build a big brand. And they're like, I want to start making content. But I advise them to only make content if they're truly documenting. And don't transition into teacher mode, because the thing that will build your brand is the stuff you do. Like, we look at the business titans that are out there. You look at Elon, you look at Bezos, you look at maybe now Sam Altman, you look at Jensen Huang from Nvidia, and they now have these, quote, big business brands. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, they are considered probably the leaders of the business world in terms of thought leadership. But did they get there by building personal brands or did they get there by building personal businesses? And then by building personal businesses, which, I'm joking here, they just build big ass businesses. By extension, people wanted to know who was the person behind this big business. And then they built their credibility before they built their likability. Everyone wants to put the cart before the horse. Everyone wants to put the. They want to eat the pudding before they have the proof. The proof comes before the pudding. In the real world, in a world where anyone can say anything and get instant reach, trust is the thing that is the scarcity, that is the. That is the rare commodity. And so the idea is if you want to build a really big brand, then you want to index super hard on trust. And the way that people can trust you is that you do what you said you have done. The reason Mr. Beast videos worked is because he used his videos as proof. He didn't say, I am super knowledgeable. He said, look, I did something that no one else is willing to do. His first video that went viral was him counting to a million or something crazy, right? And so he did something that other people were not willing to do. And so he just happened to have documented that thing. And so if you're like, well, how do I get proof? I'm so young? It's like, well, you just do epic stuff. And then people will be like, wow, he did epic stuff. This is interesting. And so it still requires epic amounts of work in order to do that. The reason that there's such a misconception about overnight success is that it's just that there's a threshold over which you are good enough that you go viral. All right? And so this is, call it like, here is the viral, you know, viral moment. All right? So this is our viral moment right here. The thing is that we, the person lived this whole Life. What we in the public see is this moment, what happened since. And so we have the perception of overnight success. And this is why it's so difficult for people to wrap their heads around, because they want to model what they see, not what occurred. And so we have to model what they did, not what happened. And so this fundamentally is the inputs, this is what they put in for a long period of time. What we see here is the output, this is what's visible. And so this is where it gets especially difficult for people trying to learn, is that most people get rich and then they get weird. And then what happens is people then try and copy what they do here, not what they did to get there. And so they copy the wrong stuff. They model the plateau, not the rise. So you don't get rich by flying on private jets. You get rich, then you can fly on private jets. And so a big thing that richer people do is that they will act with urgency. And I would say this is just not even richer people, this is entrepreneurs specifically that I'm making this video for, is that they act with urgency. All right? And so you can tell in some ways how, how successful someone's going to be by how quickly they do things, the gap between thoughts and action. And so this is something I personally work on a lot, which is like, how quickly between when I make a decision to do something, does it actually occur? And you can improve your potency as a person, how powerful you are, by decreasing the gap between thoughts and action. Like if you think about the hypothetical extreme of this, the God figure, if you will, thoughts and reality are one and the same. He thinks planets and universes, and they appear. And so that would be the ultimate demonstration of power, in my opinion. And so we can up approximate that we can get as close to that as we can by shrinking the time it takes between when we think and when we decide, and then when we ultimately do. When you don't have any more information to collect in order to make a decision, then you make the decision and you make the decision by eliminating alternatives. So, like literally the word decide comes from decadere, which is Latin for to cut off. And so the question is, what thing are you eliminating by making the decision that you're going to make? And a really easy tactical thing is whenever you say, I'm going to get this done by the end of the week, ask yourself, can I get it done by the end of the day? And that seems like a very small hack, but that increases your pace of progress by 7x. And so if you hear that, you're like, wow, 7x, it's like, yeah. And for that reason, there are people who are working 100 times faster than you. And I think that this is a really good cultural thing, which is you can just say end of day, not end of week, and not end of month, end of week. So in each of the instances, this is a 4x increase, this is a 7x increase. Right? And you can even go end of day goes into end of hour. Now, this is one that Layla talks about a lot and she's a master operator, is that she heard this from a mentor. She said, if it's a five minute task and you have five minutes, do it now. And so the amount of times where I'm like, hey, we should do this thing. And then literally in 60 seconds, it's handled by Layla, like, while I'm just walking around talking, just like shooting ideas out there is baffling. And so her speed of like, that's a great idea, it's already been delegated out. Like, she doesn't keep things on her plate. And so there's this big falseness that I think is propagated by a lot of the social media world because it feels good and to get lots of shares because it gives people permission to be lazy. It gives people permission to tell themselves that they're great just the way they are. I wholeheartedly reject that entire notion. The idea that they sell you is that you're young, you've got time. And I think that is false because all this does is extend how long it takes you to remember that number one, tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Like, I just looked at my newsfeed this morning and there was a guy that I knew who's my age and he just died of stomach cancer. Really sad, really nice guy, wife and three kids into fitness, really in shape, just a freak thing that happened. And so the assumption that you've got time assumes that you know you're going to live forever, that you know you're going to live to 100. And we know that that's not true. And let me put this in perspective. 3 out of 10,000 people live to 100. And so everyone has this assumption in their mind that they're like, yeah, I'm at 50, so I'm going to make it to 100. Yeah, well, you've got a three in 10,000 shot at doing that. Very unlikely. More realistically, you'll die at the median, which is 74 for men in the U.S. which means that at 37, you're actually at the halfway point just in years. But if you adjust for the increase in speed of time. So the same reason that Your kid at 5 years old thinks that something takes forever when you say it's going to happen next year. And when you're 40, something that happens next year feels like you blink your eyes and it's there is that when you're five, one year is 20% of your life. When you're 40, one year is two and a half percent of your life. And so it very much in real way is nine times faster than it is for your five year old. And so it's my belief that as we get older, we don't become more patient. Time just moves faster. And so if you adjust for that time speed, your midpoint isn't 37, it's closer to 21. And so this is also why, in my opinion, when you think back on your life, you have so much meat in the first 20 years. So much stuff happens, all these material life events, and it's because in that time period, it was half of your life. And then after that, everything happens real fast. And so what you have to realize is, one, tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Two, nothing is going to be easy. Just get over it. Every time you think, oh, this could look, just get immediately skipped it, oh, that's not true. There's something I don't know about that. Just skip to it. The faster you can train that muscle, that as soon as you have this fomo, just slow down and realize that you don't know enough. Three, it takes time to get good. There's no one who's good at anything that was immediately good at it. And the people who are immediately good at it. I remember telling a professor, I was like, you know, I've just naturally been good at languages. He was like, when you were a kid, did you have multiple languages in your household? And I was like, well, yeah, I'm bilingual. And he's like, what are you even talking about? Like, you literally started with that. So of course languages are easier for you. And so the thing is that the people who have things that come naturally to them, they just only came because they forgot the work that generalized to the new skill. Once you realize that it takes time and repetitions to get good, then you also realize that the sooner you start, the sooner you get and don't stop until you do. So let's assume you act with urgency, right? You've gotten that done. You've moved end of week to end of day You've moved end of day to end of this hour. You moved end of month to end of this week. And you've massively increased the speed that you. Well, then you start running face forward into the fact that things are going to get really hard, really fast. And so I will. I will tell you this one is that hard is for now, not forever. And so the good thing about bad times is that they end. And the bad thing about good times is that they also end. And so whenever you're going through a good season, it's also a good reminder that this too shall pass. And so what ends up happening is that when you're in the hard time, that can give you that necessary respite. It can give you the end of the. The tunnel that you can look forward to. There's only three outcomes. You either quit, it gets easier, or you get harder. So think about that. Because no matter what, it always ends. But you only lose when you quit before you see it through. Because two out of the three outcomes get easier. Either it relents, the outside circumstance gets easier, like the hard thing moves, or you become harder, and then by extension, it no longer feels hard for you. Which I'll make this real for you. Right now. Think about the problems that you were stressed about five years ago in your business, right? Think about the things that you were dealing with, what you were stressed about. Now think about you trying to solve those problems today. It's probably a joke to you now. You'd be like, well, yeah, obviously it's not that those things became less hard, you became better. But here's where this gets really interesting. For me, it just means that nothing is inherently hard to begin with anyways. We are just always inadequate. For me, I remember when I had five employees, and I was like, man, it's so many people to manage. Or, you know, I was like, where am I going to, you know, I have to manage cash flow. How do I do that? Or like, how am I going to get new customers? Like, how do I. How do I. I can't sell really expensive stuff. Like, what if someone gets upset? You know, if I. If I charge more, right? What if. What if someone finds out I charged this much? As though it's like something wrong. Like, all of these things are just. Just irrelevant to me now. Just so silly. Though, for me, at the time, they were difficult. And I can only imagine how inconsequential the problems that I deal with growing, hopefully $3 billion companies right now within the portfolio compared to what Elon deals with having 6 multiple hundred billion dollar companies and I compare myself to that so I can always feel like I have a long way to go. If you are a business owner and you're making, you know, you've got a legitimate business, you've got employees, revenue, profit, etc. And you'd like to see how we grow companies. Every month@acquition.com in person at my headquarters, we hold basically two day workshops where my team, my actual director, marketing director of sales director, media, all of my team basically works with businesses to just help them grow. And it's a cool way for us to meet new companies. That kind of builds our pipeline on the investment side, but it also just provides value to you guys. And so it's kind of a cool win win. You know, the reviews are exceptional. So the link is acq, acq, the letters dot com. You can go there and you grab a time with our team. They'll just ask you a couple questions, make sure the business makes sense, that we can help you out and if so, then we'll invite you out here to Vegas and have a, have a party. Not really, it'll just be almost all entirely business. And I would encourage you not to party at least till afterwards. But beyond that, let's get back to it. But let me give you one thing that, that'll also give you a little bit of hope about these, these hard times is that these hard times are also. Your best times, but only in reverse. And so let me explain what I mean by that. Think about the times when you were younger and you were in love and you were poor and you're like, man, those were the good old days. The thing is that when you were in that moment, it was stressful. You didn't know how you're gonna make ends meet, how you're make rent, where you're gonna get food, whatever it is. You have these hard times, the hard times that you go through today. But these hard times become the good old days. And so we only see the truth when we look back. You have to go through them to get the perspective. And it's something that I try and like remember on a regular basis that like I'm going through the good old days. And if they're the good old days in the future, they might as well be the good old days today. So let me tell you a little bit about what it feels like throughout this entire process. Because if you are consistently growing, you were consistently in pain. That's why they're called growing pains, not growing joys. And if you have stress from growth, remember, the alternative is that you can have stress from stagnation and you can have stress from decline, which fundamentally means that hardness and stress is a fact of life. You will always have stress. You will always have problems. And the largest problem of all, the largest stressor of all, is determining that having problems is a problem, is that being stressed means there's something wrong with you. But being stressed just means you're alive. Having problems just means that you are actually doing something. I'll tell you this story that I think can drive this home. And I think this is the path to fulfillment over comfort. So imagine you talk to the creator of the universe before birth and pick the person you get to become. You say, I want to be the most courageous. The creator replies and says, well, then I will give you monsters to terrify you so that you can conquer them. And you say, well, I want to be patient. The creator replies, well, then I will make you work harder and longer so you can learn to wait. So then you say, I want to be wise. Then the creator replies, then I will give you failures that will crush your spirit so you can learn the value of judgment. You then say, sounds like a rough life. Can you give me a good life? Creator replies, just like we measure the quality of a blacksmith by the strength of his steel, I measure you by what you are at the end, not the fire and the hammer it took to make you a good life isn't a life that's easy. A good life is a life that makes you into a good person. And that, my son, is a hard life. And so I remember when I, when I sold gym launch, there was a year that I more or less took off. I had all these kind of existential crises that I was going through because all I had been doing was just working and working, working. Then I hadn't, like, put my head up to like, look around and smell the roses, per se. The problem that I had was that when I was smelling the roses, I was miserable. I was very sad. And the. The sadness for me came from the thing that I had that was most reinforcing my life was the work that I was doing. That was the thing that was that I enjoyed the most. And so not having that actually created a huge loss for me. And so then I had to create, like, what am I doing? Like, why am I here? Right? And so for me, that was when I created the hypothesis, or at least the thesis I have for my life, was that hard work is the goal, is that nothing left in the tank, which I got from Jesse Itzler, which I love, emptying the tank every day is the point. Because for me, those are the days that when I look back are the days that I feel the most fulfilled on. In the moment, you feel tired, you feel exhausted, you feel like you're bored, you feel like you don't want to do another repetition, you don't want to do another two hours, but another two hours, another repetition, another edit is what is required. Not what you want, but is what is required. And if you have a little bit left in the tank and you don't know if you have a little bit left in the tank until you empty it, until you physically can't. And so I think about that steel that we're trying to make, and the only difference is that we are both the steel and the blacksmith. And so the creator in this would just give you the fire and either you can stand far enough away from it that it just keeps you warm, or you can go into it and you can hammer out the impurities so that you can just become better and better and better and stronger. And if you're watching this and you would like to start a business, but you're not sure where to start. I am a co owner of Skool and we just started the Skool games. And right now we're giving a hundred thousand dollars away in cash or a cyber truck to the person who builds the biggest community on School in 30 days. And so school is just a community platform that helps people start businesses. And right now, one out of two people who start a community, a paid community owned school, make their first dollar online. And so you're like, okay, well that's cool. And right now, on average, the average paid community owner makes $1,360 per month. So this is not going to be the thing that makes you a billionaire rich, but it can help you get started, which is why I invest in the company. I spent four years looking for something that can make the easiest kind of starter business for people to get going, especially starting online. The reason that we have this success rate, right, the reason that we have this very high success rate is that I meet every single week and onboard new people. So every Monday I'm on a call and I onboard. You know, right now I think it's about 300 people per call that are on there. And so I answer questions live with everyone on there. And it's a lot of times it's the same faces. So while the calls are relatively small, I'd Encourage you to come on. On top of that, I have kind of like step by step instructions of exactly what you need to do that the best community owners have done. And so you can just model the behaviors, just do this stuff. I don't explain psychology and triggers. And it's just like, do this stuff. And this is what, what yields this outcome, right? And then finally we'll give you the entire platform that basically makes all the tech really easy. And so right now we've got people who are in foreign countries who don't speak English. We've got. I mean, I think there was a guy who won the games who's 15 years old. So, like, I'm telling you, it's not rocket science. Like, we've really taken a lot of effort to make it as simple as humanly possible. You don't need any other software to make this work. And so if that sounds at all interesting, the best part about all of this is that you can start absolutely free. And so we have the course, we have the calls, we have the platform, and we also have the community of other people. All right? And so you can start for free. Get 14 days. You can click the link which is right here. Oops. Other way around. School.com games start for free and hopefully I'll see you on the other side. And so a big part of why this is so hard is that so few people want to go into the fire, right? And the fire could be entrepreneurship. The fire could be content creation. The fire could be starting a new product. The fire could be doing outreach and knocking on doors, or quitting your job and starting another job in a completely different industry. That's the fire. It's the thing that other people aren't willing to do. And they tell you not to do it because it helps them justify the risk that they chose not to take. It helps them feel better about the risks they aren't willing to make. I remember thinking about this at long length when I was younger and I thought about the word exceptional, right? So buried in the word itself is the key point, which is that you cannot expect to be accepted if you want to be exceptional. To become exceptional, by definition, you have to become the exception, which means you have to be unlike other people. You have to do what they don't agree with. If they agreed with you, if everyone agrees with you, you can be sure that it's the wrong path. When I quit my job, every single person in my life told me it was a bad idea. I graduated in three years from Vanderbilt. I had A nice white collar consulting job. I was set up to go to grad school to one of the Ivy Leagues. I aced my GMATs like I was set up. I'd done the path. And so for me to quit and be like, I'm going to. I'm going to be a personal trainer for minimum wage at a gym, that was not a happy news for the vast majority of people that I knew. But the thing is, is that I've had those conversations multiple times in my life. When I ended up leaving the gyms and started the turnaround business, every person was like, you finally made this thing work. You finally, you know, now we finally agree with you again. And it was right at the point where they accepted me that I was like, you know what? I think I want to do this other thing. And I'm going to sell all these. These gyms for basically nothing in 90 days to then start new. And they're like, but you spent so long on this. And they see sunk cost fallacy. And the thing is, is don't listen to the people who are closest to you. Listen to the people who are closest to your goals. And so a lot of people like to think about how they have these mentors and these heroes, but the most important group is your reference group. And your reference group is who you compare yourself to. But the thing is, is that people think they compare themselves to their mentors and their heroes, but they don't. Who you compare yourself to is who influences your decisions. So the voices you hear, the voices you listen to when you're about to make a big move, those voices are your actual reference group. And if those voices are not close to your goal, you should not listen to them. If anything, sometimes the best advice in the world is do the opposite of whatever it is that they did to get in their life. If you don't want what they have, don't listen to what they say, even when you're an entrepreneur. So let's fast forward a couple years. So there was a point where I started the Outbound team. So this is gonna sound super tactical, but I'm gonna zoom out for you. So we at Gym Launch had. We were all paid ads for the most part. We, I made content. I had a book. Like there were things that were out there, but still, 70% plus of my of my new customers came from paid ads. And I knew that if I wanted to sell the company, I would have to create a second acquisition channel that was very different from the primary one so that I could create more Stability, so you don't have one. Itis one point of failure within the business. And so I remember reading this book about how to set up outbound, and it said, it will take a year. And I said, I'm really good at marketing, really good at sales. It'll take me 12 weeks. And it took 12 months, like the book said. And so when I walked through that, what was interesting is it took 90 days for us to get our first sale. And the whole time, I'm investing in this team. I'm investing in software, I'm investing in training and consulting to, like, learn how to get all this stuff going just to get our first sale. But that's not very good for the amount of time and effort we put into it. And then three months, you know, after that, we started getting a couple sales trickling in, still not a lot. And I actually had almost like an intervention for my. My executive team that were like, hey, we think this is shiny Object. They're using my words against me. They're like, we think this is a distraction. It's. It's not, you know, yielding a result for us. I don't. I think we should, you know, cut our losses and. And move on. And I just. I kept thinking to myself, like, this is what hard feels like. Like, we have to just keep inching our way through because we have made sales, which means we could just. We just need to get more efficient at it. And then we did another six months, and then we got to the point where it became 50% of revenue. But here's the thing that you don't see. And so whether you're starting a new acquisition channel like I was, you're starting paid ads, whatever is that. If I tell you in one year, I could double your business, right? Let's say you have to pay me $100,000, right? And in one year, I will double your business. Many people would probably be like, yeah, sign me up. I'll do it. Maybe I'll take a loan. But even for the hundred, like, if I know I'm gonna double my business in a year, I would do it. Okay. But then what happens is month one, they drop 5k, and then they lose 5k. And then month two, they lose 5k again. And then they say, ah, ads aren't for me. Ugh, outbound's not for me. But the thing is, is that the way it actually feels is that you lose 5k, you lose another 5k, you lose another 5K, and then all of a sudden, one month, you make 25k. And then the next month you make 50k and you make all of this back and some. But it happens all at once. And so there's a saying on Wall street that I like, which is it happens slower than you expect and then faster than you can imagine. And they talk about that when it comes to market drops and market explosions. It's like we should. Like we should be crashing. It hasn't adjusted yet. It happens slower than you expect and then faster than you can imagine. And so you have to be willing to forego that period of time for a long time, understanding that you just want to make progress. And so I think the thing that separates masters from beginners is that masters have more ways to win. So you can measure your expertise in anything by the ways you can measure, equaling the number of times and ways you can win. And so if you're an expert at making videos, then throughout the entire process of a really long project, you have many wins on the way. You know all the little progress markers that occur to create some big outcome, and you approximate those little progress markers for the ultimate goal at the end, when you're a beginner, you only see the output, and all you see is, I'm doing stuff and nothing is happening, but you just aren't able to mark progress well. And so if you want to increase your expertise, then you need to increase the number of ways you can measure so that you can increase the number of wins you have in a given time period. And by the way, that is what makes you enjoy your work. And this is how the work itself becomes reinforcing. And so in order to develop that expertise, you have to have education. And people think that education is expensive, but the only thing more expensive than education is not being educated. And so I would say that in my life, I spent more money than I could possibly imagine simply trying to acquire skills and relationships that would make me better. To give you an idea, I think the most expensive thing that I bought for this, this is not including me messing stuff up and just losing tons of money, but actually wrote a check for, was $350,000 to have a dinner with a guy who was worth 7 billion. And I got exactly what I wanted from that dinner, and it was incredibly valuable for me. And he kept saying, no, I offered 100k and then 200k and 250k and 350k. And when we offered 350k, he said, fine, I'll just have dinner with you. And he didn't ask for the money, but I Think he was just seeing that I was willing to spend the $350,000 for it. And so I've spent so much money for one hour, two hours, anything to gain context. Because I heard this close and you've heard, if you've watched my channel, you've heard this before. But pick whatever number your income goal is, right? Let's say it's a million dollars a year. And let's say you're currently making $100,000 a year. If you value that million dollar goal, the value of the million dollars per year, what's the price you put on that education? The value of that education is the difference between where you're at and where you want to go. And so that's why if I want to, if I want to become a DECA billionaire, then I should be willing to pay everything that I have in order to gain the skills, the experience, the knowledge in order to get there. And so if there's a way that you can spend $50,000 in order to learn a million dollar per year skill set, then every year you don't do it, you lose $950,000 that you would have made if you had made that investment. And so the key point here is that we use poor people language when we talk about education, when we should be using investor language. Because it should be an investment in an asset and the asset just happens to be you. And you can't sell it, but you can invest in it and you can grow it. If you think about investments, you'll never say an investment is expensive. There's just a cost and a return. But if someone says there's $100 stock or $1,000 stock, it could be expensive relative to the return. But if the return is supposed to be good, then no one says that that amount of money itself is expensive. It's just what the cost is for the return. It is the investment. And so if you think about education in that same way, it always has to be framed in terms of what you get for it, not how much it costs. It's not about how much you make now, it's how much you're going to make and how much that's worth to you. And for me, whatever my delta is, is what I'm willing to pour into that without hesitation. And so for the first probably, I mean, shoot, I lost everything at year whatever six of my entrepreneurial journey. And I put all of the extra money that I had right back into learning more stuff. And so even though I made profit, my like biggest Expense was me, but it wasn't on my living and my lifestyle. It was on my education and my network and my surroundings and the skills I wanted to learn. The courses, the workshops, the seminars, the coaching programs, all the things that I did. I'm a product of that world. Despite the fact that I think that world overall has a lot of shitty people, I still learned a lot. And you can learn just as much by learning what not to do and say, I will never do that or treat someone the way that person treated me, because the best students never come out negative. So really they think that, like, I have always been the top performer in every single program coaching, whatever I have ever done. And so the process that I use is, number one, do everything they tell you to, to the T the first time, then take what works, then toss the rest. You can learn something from everyone, but only take in that which makes you stronger. Which is a quote that I have from Harry Potter, the sword of Gryffindor. But I love it because it was enchanted to have this, this spell that it would only take in things that made it stronger. So it took in the Basilisk venom, which allowed it to kill, you know, the Horcruxes later on. But I like to see myself as that sword, is that I continue to invest, I continue to put things into the steel, but I only take in that which makes me stronger. So a lot of people have these negative experiences with, with coaches, consultants, vendors, whatever. And I just like to think to myself, like, in what way will this make me better? And so by instead asking that question, rather than enumerating the many things they could have done better or the things they did wrong, simply saying, there is something that I can learn from this and there is something in this experience that will make me stronger. And that frame may have been one of the most valuable frames that I've had because I, like you, have spent plenty of money on things that have, quote, not worked. But I still learned enough from them, and oftentimes what not to do that allowed me to then see what to do. But before I ever did that, I had to do the first three steps of that, which was do everything they said to the T the first time. And if, for whatever reason it did not work, I would then use my other skills to patch the difference so that I could find a way to make it work. And by the way, if they have a success story, which they usually do, because that's how they sold you, is that you find that person and figure out what they are doing, that is lacking in the education that the person who's teaching taught. Fundamentally, if you ever buy something where there is somebody who has been successful, then it means there are activities that yield success and the discrepancy. I'm going to show this to you visually because I think it's important. So let's say there's a bridge, right? And you've got, you know, here's. Here's money, and here's you, okay? So you've got this path that someone shows you how to do. So you paid money, and they give you these little bricks here. Here, right? They give you these little bricks that you paid money for. And maybe these bricks, you had to pay different vendors different amounts of money for each one of these bricks, but you still haven't made money yet. The thing is, is that there's a gap here. And the reason that some people are successful with some people's, you know, programs or implementations and other people aren't is because that the people who already bought that brick from somebody else before that that brick isn't missing. And so if you see the education you have as these bricks on the road, then you wouldn't say that the foundation of a house is in some way a ripoff. You would just say it's not a complete house. Now, if they sold you the expectation that you would have a house, sure, you could be upset by them, but they still helped you build a foundation. And so it's the same people who get upset saying, oh, I Learned arithmetic from Mrs. Glass. But then when I found Mr. Hardwicke and he taught me calculus, she only taught me arithmetic. She's a moron. You wouldn't say that. But for some reason, people talk about the basics of business the same way when they become more advanced. If someone taught you how to do outbound and do warm outreach so that you could sell your first customers, then someone else later teaches you how to run ads. Well, you probably learned how to work the leads from the ads that work for you, because you learned how to do outbound. You probably learned how to sell because you learned how to sell strangers. And so when you did the ads, it worked for you. And then somebody else who did that same exact implementation didn't have the bricks that you had, and they never got the dollars that came across. And so whenever something doesn't work, if you can, it doesn't make you any better by saying it's their fault. And fault also only matters in the eyes of the law, which you're not going to sue anybody anyway. So who gives a shit? The only thing that matters is whether the outcome happens or not, which is under your control, because it means that you simply have a discrepancy where you are and where you want to go. And so a lot of people would then say, sure, Alex, it's easy for you to say. You're a white guy. You're right, cool. So just don't watch the video. Move on. But for everybody else, you've got connections, you've got money, you've got looks, you've got intellect or intelligence. These are all great. But you can beat all of these. You can beat somebody who has all four if you have one thing, which is the desire to improve, the insatiable desire to improve. No matter where you start, if you have this, it's hard to beat someone who improves every second of every day without stopping, without giving up. And so I have met people who have connections, money, looks, and intelligence, and they do not. People who have an insatiable desire to improve who do not stop. And so if you think about it like this, if life were a race where at the end, you die, so got to finish first, right? There are people who may start at different parts of that race, but what is not measured is the speed that you can move. And so I don't know if you've seen these. These clips that have gone viral in the NFL where they have, like, one of their wide receivers start, like, 20 yards behind a fan, and they have to race the length of the football field, and then the wide receiver will usually catch up, like, talk to them, and then just speed right past them. And so it's far less about where you start, because that's where a lot of losers will define themselves. They'll define themselves by what happened to them rather than what they made happen. And somebody else may be here, but it only matters if you think that there's fairness. But I don't believe fairness is something that exists in the universe. And so I don't hold it as an ideal that I proclaim must exist. But there is simply a starting point in a rate of progress. And the starting point you can't control but the rate of progress, you can, and so control what you can control. If education is a change in behavior, that's what you do. If you become educated, you do something different. After you learn something, then intelligence is rate of learning, which means that you can, in a very real way, influence. It's the rate of learning, the speed of learning. You can influence how quickly you move along this race. Independent of where you start. And you'll also note that the person here has no influence on what this person does. These two people are independent nodes. The only reason that this person gets upset is that they think it's not fair. And if you just eliminate fairness from your vocabulary and think only in terms of what do I need to do, then it eliminates a lot of the distraction that keeps you poor. So if you recall from the very beginning, lazy people get distracted. They focus on distraction. And one of the biggest distractions is it's not fair. It's not fair. I shouldn't have to, I should get, I should, I should, it should, things shouldn't. It's all shoulds. And I will tell you that should in my worldview, should not exist. Because should creates expectations of an uncaring universe. It says that you demand something and I promise you, you that the universe will win. And so all you have to do is watch, like baby seals just get immediately eaten by orcas after, like a mother is laying there on the ice to be like, wow, life isn't fair. I'm sure that seal could be like, it's not fair that my babies were literally eaten in front of me. Tough, right? Tough. They have mammal brains. We can see that they got, they got some feelings, right? And so if we go back to the sword of Gryffindor, does demanding that it should be fair make you stronger? Does saying that that person started further ahead of you in any way benefit you? No, because your actions are entirely independent from them. And so the only thing that that does is actually delay your speed of taking action. It makes you dumber. Because if we define intelligence by rate of learning, then it means it takes you longer to learn. It makes you stupid. And I think that that's why people stay here for a very long time and many of them never leave. So what are the things that bad entrepreneurs talk about with good entrepreneurs is one of the excuses they'll make is that they will make preference excuses. They will make trade off excuses. They will say, this is not worth the price. In which case, fine, but don't also want the thing. So, for example, privacy is the price of fame. Loneliness is the price of ambition. Pleasure is the price of discipline. Novelty is the price of loyalty. Discretion is the price of trust. And so so many people want the benefits of these traits but can't afford the cost or the price. They're not willing to be discreet, but they want someone to trust them. They can't hold someone's secrets. They want somebody to be Loyal to them at home. But then they want the thrill of the new relationship. They want the benefits of discipline, of consistency, but they can't trade the pleasure in the moment. They want ambition, but they're not willing to pay the price of being lonely, of being the exception. They want fame, but then all of a sudden they are startled when they realize that they have no privacy. And so each of these things are trade offs. And if you're not willing to make the trade, fine, but don't bitch about it. And I think part of it is that we have a hard time understanding to what degree. And so each of these ideals are not binary. It's not discretion, it's how much discretion you have. It's not novelty, it's how much novelty. It's not pleasure, it's how much pleasure. It's not loneliness, it's how lonely. And it's not hard work, it's how hard do you have to work and how long do you have to work? And so most people, and I think this is where a lot of the complaints come, is that they believe they're doing 10 out of 10 work, right? They're like, I'm doing this is 10 out of 10 hard for me, me right now. But they're actually only doing one tenth of the amount of work that it takes to get to this goal. And so they might be doing a 10 out of 10 work for 100k goal, but they're doing a 1 out of 10 work for a 1 million dollar goal. And I think a lot of that work comes down to being able to accurately assess reality and see what your actual discrepancies are and realize how much work you really have to do in order to get good at every one of those discrepancies. Because most outcomes don't occur until you've met all of the conditions, like a pipeline. All right, so let's say you've got this pipeline here and you've got these valves. These are the valves. You've got this water that's coming here. And let's say once you get all the way through, the water comes out the other side. These valves have to open. You have to open this thing, open each of these valves and let's say you've checked off three of the four boxes. The water's still going to be stuck here. You're still not going to get the water through. And so the thing is that as much as you work and you're like, but I did that, and I did that and that didn't work. And that didn't work. It may have worked. It just might not have met every condition to get the outcome. And so if you think about life and outcomes that way, it gets a lot easier because it stops being emotional. You can simply say, there's a condition that I haven't met and I have to figure out what that condition is, rather than proclaiming that the universe isn't fair or that you started further back and that's why your effort hasn't resulted in it. Maybe. And maybe this person only has to meet three of these and you have to meet four. Okay, well, then I guess that means that you're going to be better than them. Why is that a bad thing? It means that you're going to develop more skills to achieve the same goal. Great. If the end of this life is that you are the steel, you are the thing that gets created, then you can't resent the hammer and the fire that makes you you. Because you can't wish for strong character and an easy life because the price of each is the other. So either people aren't succeeding because they don't understand that they have to make a trade that they're not willing to make, or the trade that they're currently making isn't sufficient. So they either think that they deserve to get the Nike shoes just for being who they are and think it's not fair and think that the store owner should just give them the Nike shoes. And look, all you have to do is look at the news. There's plenty of people who think that way and they go and try and take it. Right? But that makes them a thief. That makes them significantly worse. It actually does more harm to them, in my opinion. But there are people who believe that that's the worst, that's the lowest level. The next level above that is people who say, no, I'm willing to pay for the Nikes, but I'll pay 30. It's like, yeah, but they're. They're 300. That's the price. It's like, yeah, But I'll pay 30. They don't extend. They understand the extent of the trade off. And then they complain that their $30 isn't good enough. It shouldn't be so expensive. It is what it is. And so there's a saying that Layla and I say a lot internally. I'm like, it takes what it takes. And so if we want this thing, what often has to happen is you have to keep bidding. It's much more like an auction of a trade off. Because the real World Level 3 is that you see the Nikes and then you bid 30, and then you realize it's not enough. And rather than moan or put your thing down and walk away, you're like, 50, they're like, you're like a hundred. You're like, God. And so that is the pain is being able to consistently reset the expectations and bid again and again and again until eventually you make it all the way through and you bid $300, you do get your Nikes, and then all of a sudden, everyone says, must be nice to be born so naturally good. All you have to do, by the way, is watch some of my very first content pieces. And you think, my very first content pieces are the podcast that I made various for content pieces that I made, I made for my gyms 13 years ago. And so it's like, man, you're so naturally good on camera. Watch those videos. Tell me if you think the same way. I had to take shots before the videos because I was so nervous about sounding stupid in the fourth version. I would say, like the highest version of this. So I'll break this down. So the zero level of trade offs is. Should you just say you should get it for nothing? The next level is too much. So you say it's 30 bucks, but it's actually 300. And you say it should. The next level is bidding, so you bid. So you say 30, 50, 100. And you find out that you're insufficient and you keep going up. The final is source, which is where you determine the price. And this is often, in my opinion, where you create your reality. So it's continuing to hammer away at content, continuing to write drafts of the book before anyone else has seen it, because you are the one that holds a standard higher than everyone else's. Because no longer do you accept the approval of others as your litmus test. The market for sure in the beginning will tell you whether you're good or not. But Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, right, they would have asked for faster horses, not cars, is that they demand more from themselves than anyone else does. And by setting that standard here, where everyone else is here, by actually meeting the standards of the market, you actually lower your run. And so this is where your standards become source. And this is where you get into rarefied air. And this is what the quote rich guys, if you will, when we talk behind closed doors about what people don't understand, it's about holding the standard. And in my opinion, the person who should make the decision in every organization is the person who has the highest standards, not the person who's most senior, not the person who has the most shares. It's the person who has the highest standards for whatever it is. Our marketing should be at this level. If the owner thinks it's less than that person should be the person who's running marketing. If somebody else thinks the product needs to be this good and someone else thinks it'd be less, that person should be in charge. Whether it's their first day or the thousandth day, the person who has the highest standards is the one who should be making the decision. They should become source. And so when you get to that level, the only person you're making trade offs with is yourself. You're the one who's determining, is this good enough for me to put my name on? Rather than is this good enough for them to say it's good? And for example, JRR Tolkien worked on the Hobbit for a decade and he didn't even submit the draft. One of his friends saw that he'd been working on it for a decade and submitted it, grabbed it from his desk and submitted it for him to a publisher. And then it obviously became the Hobbit and everything came after that. And so his standards were so high that he still didn't even think it was ready, but it was still so good that they ended up releasing it. Now, many of you think that you are JRR Tolkien, but most of you were not. It's actually just very bad. And so once you realize how high your standards really have to be in order to be excellent, what you then have this daunting realization is that you can only do two to four things in your whole life because of how long it really takes to get to there. And so it's like, I want to be the best author in the world. That's not a desire of mine, to be clear. But if I wanted to be the best author in the world that I know that that's going to take take at least a decade of actually working hard every single day to get better and believing that for me, because I'm special, I should somehow be able to be. My first book is an overnight success. And, and, and, and that is the thing that chains you to mediocrity. It's believing that it should be a different way rather than accepting reality as it is and then changing your actions as a consequence. And so this is also why lazy people distract themselves, because distraction makes you believe the lie that you can try a hundred things and then figure out which one Works when the reality any of them can work, but none of them will work unless you pick one to work on. And then that is you making it work. The vast majority of things with enough iteration can become success. It's just that people underestimate how many iterations they need to have. It's 19 drafts, not two. It's 500 minutes of editing to make the video, not 50. It's making a thousand phone calls every week for two years, not two months. And so most of the times it's just that our level of understanding, it's, it's here. And this is where a lot of people get stuck. A lot of people get stuck here. They say, I should be better, this should be easier. I've already paid a little bit. I said I was willing to pay 30. The Nike store owner won't give me the shoes. And then you continue. You basically are the same as this person. You just have a price attached to. I should, I should, it should be, I deserve, I am worth takes what it takes. It costs what it costs. You got to be willing to make the trade. No matter what your goal is, you will suffer to achieve it. So pick a goal big enough it's worth suffering for. Here's how to achieve that goal. Give me the next 30 minutes and I'll help you make the most of your 20s and your 30s. So I made my first million when I was 26. A decade later, my portfolio companies generated last year over $250 million in aggregate revenue. And I'm 36 now. And so in this video, I'm going to give you the real world advice that I wish someone had told me much earlier. So number one is you want to take asymmetric bets. If you're under 30, you have no reason not to go 100% all in on your goals. The downside is nothing and the upside is everything. If you think about life as giving, you kind of lottery tickets, right? You can scratch off a ticket and if you don't win, then what did you lose? The scratch off ticket. But the thing is, is that when you have nothing to lose, you have nothing to lose and you only have things to gain. And so the objective when you have as little as you can is to take as many shots as possible because your downside is zero, right? And so it's the only time in your career where you can take more shots than anyone else. And so the reason or the fact that people don't take shots, and my self explanatory included, when I was younger, I was so afraid to take a shot. But the only reason that was holding me back was the belief that other people who I don't even talk to anymore, would somehow judge me as a, quote, failure. You never actually start from scratch ever again, because every time after the first time you start from scratch, you start with an experience, so you still always net a positive. And so that's the beautiful thing about taking shots, is that you either get the big win or more likely, you learn something, and then that learning compounds. And so the thing is that I had a misunderstanding of how success worked, which is that it's far more stacking many things on top of each other than it is nothing, nothing, nothing. And then something works, right? And so if you imagine success like a bridge, right? So you're over here and you've got this chasm that you have to get across, right? This is, you know, let's say there's alligators here and lava and all sorts of stuff, right? And then there's you over here, who's got, you know, your big smiley face, and you're happy and you're doing all the stuff you want. The thing is, is that I thought that I just kept wanting to jump over this gap over and over again and think, like, if I just jumped hard enough or if I had the right opportunity, that's what would do it. But more likely than not, it's really like, you install these. These bricks on the path, and you keep. You keep walking, and it's like, okay, why fall here? Okay, why? Well, I'll fix this one later. And then you take a. And then you start again, and then you fall here, and then you fix this, and you keep going and you fall here, and then you fix this, and then all of a sudden, you make it all the way across. And that's what it looks like, or what the experience of kind of becoming the overnight success is. And that's why so many people talk about it where it doesn't happen at all, and it happens all at once. It's not that it happens all at once. The actual outcome of getting a system to work all the way through, through that is binary. But the process of building the system is actually very linear. I'm also not saying this from a position of, like, even though I, you know, I saw some success early in my career, I also started pretty early. And so I had nine failed businesses, nine, before I had one that really worked. And so I bring this up to say that, like, I don't know what failure you're on Right now, maybe you're on zero failures, you're on one failure or two failures, but you have have way more failures in you at the end of the day. Like, one of the big realizations I had is that since life is an infinite game, and what that means is that there are, there are games where you have a defined time period and at the end you count the score, right? And then there's infinite games where the only point of the game is to keep playing the game. And so, like, the point of marriage is not to get married, it's to stay married. The point of health is not to get healthy, it's to stay healthy. And the point point of business is not to get into business, but to stay in business. And so basically, the only thing that you have to do to stay in business is to choose to continue to fight. And so once you realize that, then you realize that you become a success the moment you decide you are. Because being successful is far more about being in the game, about being in the arena. And so when you're in your 20s, what you lack in experience you have to make up for in effort and hours and believe otherwise leads to a life of honestly well deserved mediocrity. So if you're hearing this, you're like, okay, I got it. I need to take more bets, and I need to take maybe riskier bets, because my downside is nothing. All right, well, which bets do I take? So number two, don't follow your passion. So passion is vague. And so it's very difficult to say, I like this thing more than this thing. But what you can say is, I'm better at this than that. And so passion usually then comes from competence, not creates competence. And so we usually like things that we good at rather than getting good at things that we like. Right. And so this is the thing like that, I think, confuses a lot of people. And so the other flip side of this is that enjoying something doesn't even guarantee that you're good at it or that you're able to make money from it. And I remember my dad used to tell me when I was much younger, he said, listen, if I were following my passion, I'd be a bartender at a ski slip. He said, if you can just make money, he said, the rest of your life, you can do whatever you want. And I actually think it was very practical advice for me, and I'm very grateful that, that I got that. But the thing is, is that getting good at anything, you have to slog through this period where you're probably not going to be passionate about it because it's very boring, it's very monotonous, very repetitive. Right. It's one thing to say, oh, I like ping pong. It's another thing to say, like I hit 500 forehands and 500 backhands every morning and every night. Right? It's a different level of dedication that you have to have to it and that isn't going to be something you're passionate about. You might like playing the game, but getting good at the game are two very different things, right? And so it sets this false expectation that I think ultimately harms more people. And, and I think one of the biggest reasons of not following your passion is that your passions will change as you age. I promise you. The things that I was passionate about when I was 20 is not things I'm passionate about now. And I'm sure the things I'm passionate about when I'm in my mid and late 40s are be different than things I am now. Same as 50s and 60s. And so this idea that like I have to find this one thing, it puts a ton of pressure on that thing that it has to be perfect forever. And if it's not going to be perfect forever, then why don't we be practical now so that we can give ourselves options later? So fundamentally all we're going to look for are things that you're good at that people already spend money on, because that creates a very high likelihood outcome of you creating something that you can exchange in the marketplace. Once you've decided on something that you want to get better at, you're already good at it, you want to get better at it, which is hopefully now maybe it is your passion, which would be amazing, but a lot of times it's not. The next thing is you have to get good at one thing. Think about the equal opposite of this. How would I get someone to be poor? I would get them to keep starting new things rather than getting good at one thing. And so do you remember that guy who got rich drop shipping, day trading, buying crypto and wholesaling all at the same time? Yeah, me neither. You have to focus. And it's arrogant to think that you could do multiple things at once and beat someone who does one thing with all their effort. You have to pick one thing and go all in. And then you become the one who's hard to beat. So I told you earlier that I had nine failed businesses. Now here's the part that a lot of people, people don't know six of those ahead at the same time. And so I like to tell people, oh yeah, I'm a CEO. I've got multiple companies, right? Like kind of the way I do now. But it's very different now because the thing is that I actually have CEOs who run those businesses, right? Not me, because you can only be CEO of one thing. You can only drive one thing. Now I drive acquisition.com, right? But CEOs of each of the divisions of each of the portfolio companies, like those are people who run their own profit and loss statements. And I didn't understand that. And so I had a chiropractor agency, a dental agency, a gym launch business where we did turnarounds, and then I also had five gyms of my own at the time, alright? Depending on how you want to describe it, I had five locations plus the three. So at eight, it's a lot, alright? It's too much. And because of that, I was stressed out of my mind. I was so spread thin. And basically I had lots of things that generated revenue and I didn't make any money. The only thing that it fed was my ego, not my bank account. When did this big turnaround happen for me? Layla came into my life and she was like, hey, you're clearly really good at this one thing. Why don't we just cut everything else? And that's exactly what I did. It was the hardest period of my life because I had to shut down all the other businesses but one, which also meant that I had to end partnerships with all these different other people that were relying on me. And that was hard, I'm not gonna lie. Like, it was not fun. Like, these are people that I liked. But I had to make this decision. I had to cut off the life that I did want to have, the life I wanted. If you want to impress people who are poor, talk about how many things you do. If you want to impress people who are rich, talk about how good you are at one thing. Like, at the end of the day, your ability to demonstrate excellence is going to be the only thing that someone who is ahead of you will look at. And so you only fool the people who have no idea. And I'll be real. There's a lot of people who have no idea. So the thing is, is that this is where the whole imposter syndrome will start creeping up on you. Because you're like, man, I kind of feel like a little bit of imposter. Because you are, you're misrepresenting yourself. You know, you're not as successful as you pretend to be. And so if you want to eliminate imposter syndrome, just stop lying. When I say lying, people are like, I don't lie. If you present something in a way that you know is going to be perceived differently than what reality is posturing, in my opinion, lying, you're misrepresenting. What you want to be able to do is state the facts and tell the truth, period. And then if, if those facts and truth are not compelling and do not get you status, then change the facts and change the truth. Meaning, not that you lie about them, but you work so hard that the truth is compelling. And sometimes that takes time. But I promise you, the people who are all in on the imposter stuff, the guys that I knew that were when I was in my 20s, who were kind of like hustle bros, whatever, a lot of those guys faded or they're still jumping from thing to thing to thing, kind of like pretending to be successful. But I know that they're barely able to afford their house. At the end of the day, it's a choice that you have to make. Do I want to pretend to be rich? Do I want to pretend to be successful? Do I want to look like I'm successful? Or do I want to be successful? Which more likely is do the things that success requires, which today do not look like success. It looks like a very long string of failures because you will be rewarded far more in life for your determination than your intelligence. But the problem with determination is, is that in the short term, in looks like a long string of failures until it works. Okay, so you're like, got it. I'm going to focus now. Let me give you something that's going to help you stay focused. Number four, stop networking. All right, now this is a really, really important point. Now it's not that I even have some big problem with networking overall. That's actually not my point. It's more that there are seasons of life, right? In the beginning, you're in exploration. I grabbed this from naval and I really love it. Later on, you get into exploitation, which is where you go all in, right? And so the thing is that in the beginning, you're tasting lots of stuff. You're trying to figure out what you are good at or have some proclivity towards. When you have that proclivity, then it becomes very clear. Now is the time to cut everything else so that we can focus and go deep. So you go broad in the beginning so that you can figure out what you to go deep on the broad period that you're in is never the period where you're going to make money. Like, this is the part you have to get. And I'd say from the beginning of when I started until I really graduated from, it was about five years. It's less of a binary, more of a continuum. In the beginning, you taste lots of stuff, and then you just have to. Because in the beginning, you have to say yes to things. You have to say yes because you're so bad, you're so scared. You never want to say yes, but you learn to say yes a little bit. And then you say yes more, and then you say yes more. And then very quickly, you learn to say yes and get overwhelmed. And so the only way out of this yes trap is you have to start practicing to say no. And if you're like, wait a second, that means that I have to change what I do. Welcome to entrepreneurship. Like, you have to learn, you have to evolve, you have to grow. So let me give you a very tactical example. So if you're debating between going to a networking event, right, or like a lunch with some dude who's like, hey, we should collaborate, we should synergize, we should maybe trade ideas. Let me pick your brain, whatever, right? And if you're picking between any of those things and working, choose the work. Because when the work works out, the people will still be there to take your call. But if you never do the work, no amount of networking will get the work done for you. And the bonus or negative bonus here is that if you don't get the work done, they're not going to take your call in the future. And so they're willing to take the call today with whatever small amount of success that you have. But if you lose that success because you get distracted, they're not going to take the call in the future. That door will be open, I promise. And not only will that door be open, 100 other doors will open for you if you win during the season. Losers, congress, winners, isolate. If everyone was supposed to win, they would have made podiums bigger. The top of the mountain isn't supposed to fit a lot of people. It's normal. The air is harder to breathe. And the thing is, if all of this seems antithetical or different than what you've heard or what other people around you are experiencing, ask yourself, is that, do those people have the lives you want? A great way to make a mistake is to ask someone else's idea about your idea. Who has no idea idea when you make this transition from going from the exploration period to the exploitation phase. You go from many looser connections to a very few tight ones. I tend to be very transactional as a person, but I think we all are. And some people are just open about it. Everybody, on some level, does some sort of math in their head of, like, the person, this person in my life, I get more benefits than I have costs. But the thing is that if you want to raise the standard of your life, you have to raise the standard of the people who you surround yourself with. Because the fastest way to change your life is to change who you're friends with. Because that reference group is ultimately gonna be what you compare yourself to. And so if you change who you compare yourself to, all of a sudden you will create deprivation around the difference between where they're at and where you're at. The only way that people let you into circles that you don't deserve to be in is work ethic. There is no other way. It is the universal currency of respect across cultures, across time periods, across cohorts, across generations. An old man will respect a young man who hustles. And they will always be willing to give time to somebody who they think will execute. Like, this is. That was my secret, and it still is my secret. Like, I network people who are above, you know, I punch above my weight class in terms of the people that I'm connected with because they know that I'll do the work. And so they don't feel like they're wasting their time by helping. Because the thing is, a lot of people are actually very happy to help you. What they aren't happy to do is waste their time helping you when you actually don't help yourself. And so I've shed friends at every season of my life, and my close circle has always been very small. Like, very small. The thing is that I think of my life in kind of seasons, right? And so you're going to have friends for this season, and maybe you keep them for life, but maybe you don't. And I think giving yourself permission to say, like, that was that season, and they were amazing friends for the objectives that I had then. And then my objectives change, and it's not really fair to them to say, hey, I'm completely changing all the things that I'm doing. You. You have to still be friends with me. It might not make sense for them. And so not keeping this expectation over them has helped me kind of, like, free myself of that so that I can reinvest the time that I have in friends that I think will help me get to where I'm trying to go next. Okay, so if we're taking these big bets and we're following something that we're good at rather than that we're passionate about, and we're not going to get distracted, we're doubling down on one thing, and we're turning off these other things that in the beginning, we were exploring, the little lunches, the little networking, because we know that if we just succeed at this one thing, all of those doors will be open. What do we do to make money? So let me give you a money rule. Money loves speed. And this will relate back to the asymmetric bets. By the time you have all the information, the opportunity is gone. Sometimes you just have to make your bet. And it's almost always faster to make a decision, then make a mistake, and then correct that mistake than it is to painstakingly deliberate on the decision. If you know how long it would take you to fix something, if you're wrong, then just make your best bet, because you can always fix it later. And so, said differently, if it takes you five minutes to decide and then 10 minutes to fix something, don't take two hours to decide, because you could just do it. And if you're right, you immediately are moving forward five minutes later. And if you're wrong, you're moving forward 15 minutes later. But either way, it's going to take you less time than trying to assume that you're going to know everything, because you're just not. You have to get a grip with uncertainty. Like, uncertainty is the job. Like, if you want certainty, don't try and go after your dreams. Because the thing is, is that the only way to go after a certain dream is to go after an old dream. And if you go after an old dream that's already happened, you're trying to fulfill something that will not happen again. And so you're either going to do the work or you're going to sit around wishing you'd done the work. And one of the things that took me a very long time to understand was that the things that dragged me down were not the things that I thought they were. Because the heaviest things were in life aren't iron or gold, but they're unmade decisions. They're the things that weigh us down. They take up all of our attention, all of our brain power. And so right now, there's probably a handful of decisions that, you know you need to make that you're just not. If you want to Feel yourself go so much faster than you ever have. Just decide. So few decisions in life actually are irreversible. Even the ones that people pretend are irreversible. What if I. Should I buy this car? Should I buy this car? You could buy it and then flip it. It's not like you can't sell it again, right? And so the real cost of the decision is the delta between what I could buy for and what I could sell for. Okay, well, how much does it cost me waiting six months to do this? Probably a lot. And if I need that car to, you know, a truck so that I can, like, go to job sites or pick up clients or whatever it is, then, like, I am losing all of the time that I'm waiting to decide. And I'm telling you, where people slow down is at the decision process more than at the doing process. Doing usually takes very little time. It's the deciding that people. That bogs people down in quagmire, right? They just get stuck. They. They feel like they're trudging through mud because they just hit these walls, and all of a sudden there's no action because they're just thinking they're planning. And I think I had to get comfortable with the idea that there's so many variables that I do not know, that I just have to get comfortable with the idea that I just should test and learn, and I'll learn way faster than if I try and delay deliberate. And that has happened more times in my life than not. I would say that approach has served me with bigger and bigger decisions in life. Like, I have. I've made monster mistakes, but the bigger mistake that I would have made is just not being able to make decisions to begin with. And so you can move through life at seven times the rate of other people by simply changing when you say you're going to make a decision from the end of the week to the end of the day. And if you want to move even faster than that, you can decide at the end of the hour. And if you move any faster than that, guess we could do decide now. And so sometimes, like, my team has seen me do this. Well, we're like, okay, so, you know, we've got to. We got to make this decision. And people are always like, yeah, let's kick that to next, you know, meeting, or, let's. Let's circle back. Let's. Let's go offline for that. It's like, no, let's confront. Let's just choose. Let's pick which vendor we Going with? Which website design do we like? What headline are we going to use? What's the ad hook that we're going to go with? Just pick. That's why all of this stuff comes down to to bets. If you want to have a future that you want, you have to get comfortable with risk. So if money loves speed, where are some of the money potholes? So, number six, pay off your debt. Now, I'm gonna hit you with something you probably haven't thought of before, which is there are many kinds of debt. There's obviously financial debt, but the biggest and most expensive debt is ignorance debt. It's the cost of what you do not know, but should. And to be clear, I still pay off ignorance debt every day. It's the debt and skills and knowledge that I should know to get faster and further to where I'm trying to go, but I don't. And so I have to just fail until I get this knowledge. But the thing is that if I don't fail, I will never get it. I am willing to pay in looking bad, in money, lost in time, lost in people judging me to make bets. And so I like this perspective on experts, which is that an expert is just somebody who's made all the mistakes you can make in a very narrow field. You have to learn how to lose before you can learn how to win. And the first rule of losing is that you didn't lose, you just learned you paid down the most expensive debt. So then the question is, if you know that you have to pay this debt off, why aren't you? And I think it's because you don't realize how expensive not paying it off really is, and so know the price of inaction. Do you think that the reason that you're in the situation you're in right now is because you struggled to decide in the past that you've gotten all the way up to the edge, you've gotten all the way up to the precipice, all the way to the front of the line, and then you choose not to. And so the question is, how many times have you run that cycle? How many times have you thought through this decision and then not done something about it? And is the life you have you want as a result of those actions? Because maybe the best thing you can possibly do is maybe see this and then just choose to make that call? Because not making that call has gotten you where you're at. If you genuinely believe that you're going to do this soon or later, right? Make this bet, make this call, whatever, sooner or later, then you might as well do it sooner so you can start enjoying the benefits now, because you're going to enjoy the benefits either way. But why would you want to delay the benefits of taking action? The real real is because you want to delay the costs of potential failure. Real quick, I have the most amazing offer for you, which is all three of my books for free. Just cover the shipping. I think it was, like, five or six bucks in shipping per book. You get the actual hardback shipped to you. And the reason for that is because some of you guys may know we had 3.6 million copies that were donated from entrepreneurs. And I'm doing my part to give the books away, but I'm also giving the other two books to anyone who want them who choose to redeem it. All right? Last time I made this offer, it sold out in, like, 10 days. So I did buy a lot more books. So if you see this, you know, go check it out. Go grab them. These are obviously wall supplies last, because this lives in the video forever. And if you get there and it's not there, then, you know, don't get upset. All right, back to the video. Let's say you have a reason why you haven't taken action, whatever that is, right? Just imagine in your mind like it's a visual thing. Realistically, it's probably one or two voices in your head, and you can probably think about whose voice that is, and it might not be yours. And so who is the person that you're choosing to not live your entire life for? Whose judgment do you care that much about? And so I will tell you the story. I almost didn't sell Gym Launch because I thought that $46 million was not enough to impress a specific colleague of mine. Real talk. I was very, very hesitant to sell the company. And the main reason is because I thought that they would think that that wasn't that. That impressive. And when I thought about that, I was like, wow. I was like, and this. This wasn't family. This wasn't friends. This was just kind of a colleague that I respected when I was able to really listen to the voice. Whose voice does this belong to? And what are they saying? And most importantly is that the person who I want to give control over my entire life. And once I saw that, I was like, well, that's ridiculous. I don't care about this. They're usually subconscious. Like, you don't notice them unless you listen for the voice. Unless you name the voice. Am I really gonna let John Be the reason that I don't get married to this girl? Is John Joe really gonna be the reason that I don't raise my prices? Is Sarah really the reason why I'm not gonna sell this thing? Ridiculous. But people do it, myself included, every day. And look, this isn't going to be easy, right? Building these skills, losing friends, taking bets, taking losses, you might find yourself stuck and then blaming your previous experiences. Which is why number eight, get over yourself. Everyone's childhood was difficult. Get over it. And if you want to win the award for hardest childhood, congratulations, I'll give it to you. You have the hardest childhood. You win. Feel better, right? No one cares about what happened to you then, only what you can make happen now. And so the only person that's satisfied with whatever that reason is is you. And everyone else calls that reason an excuse. And at the end of the day, do you want to get to your life and have everyone be like, you know what? He wasn't successful, but he had a lot of really good reasons. Wouldn't it be so much more powerful to say he had all these reasons he shouldn't have been successful, but was anyways? Like, those reasons actually give you even more fuel because you become a stronger story to everyone else. Like, no one cares when the silver spoon kid succeeds, really. And so all of the reasons that you can normally tell yourself of why you shouldn't do it are sometimes the best reasons of why you should. If you had disadvantages, I agree with you. Like, you're right, it's harder to be successful if this thing happened to you, or if you're born with X or you're in this gender or this race, or you have this birth deformity, or you speak a different language, or you're born in a different country, or you had abuse, whatever. So the main point is, despite the disadvantage, you only have one choice. What are you going to do? You can take action anyway and become proof to other people like you. Your people who are also born into your situation. Whether it was abuse, whether it was your gender, whether it was your race, whatever, your country. And you can prove to them, or prove to yourself that you can overcome it and that they can overcome it too. Or you can do what the vast majority of people do is that they protect their ego and blame and complain. And to be clear, this is not a pulpit. You can do whatever you want. I support your choice. Go you. But only one of those decisions is going to make you better. And likely only one of those decisions is going to get you closer to where you want to go. Because at the end of the day, here's the tldr. Losers define themselves by what has happened to them. Winners define themselves by what they can make happen despite what's happened to them. And so where some person sees an excuse, another person sees an origin story. Like you look at every, every champion, every hero, every comic book, they all have hard pasts. And so you having a hard past, whatever that is for you or some disadvantage, just makes you like every other superhero who ends up, you know, changing their lives. And I actually love this. I heard this from Joe Rogan. So this is not mine. Every single one of us can today wake up like it's the first day of a video game. Like you just like got transported into this body and you're like, okay, look around. I have a wife, I have some kids, I have a job I hate, or I have a business I don't like, or I have some bet that I, I have this thing inside of me that I know I can do more, but I'm not. You have all this stuff that's around you and now you can choose like everything else behind you. You could just have today be your spawn point. And so when you're in a video game, it's easy to just forsake all that stuff because you don't have this emotional connection to it. But the thing is, is that like, the action needs to be taken either way. So whatever frame of mind you need to be in in order to do it, then do that. Alright, so once we have this head trash out of the way, then we have to get back to, back to business, if you will. So what's the next thing that we have to do? We have to solve bigger problems. If you want to make more money in your 20s and 30s, solve bigger problems. Right. If you want to make a million dollars, you have to be willing to endure a million dollars worth of pain. If you want to make $10 million, you're to endure $10 million worth of pain. And here's the thing, is that most people have never endured that. And so when they start getting into it, the thing is, is that the nature of the pain changes. And so in the beginning, the pain is, I don't know what I'm doing. Later the pain is people judging me. And later the pain is lawsuits. And a lot of the pain is just not knowing what the hell you're doing at whatever stage of business you're at, because that never goes away. And so not knowing is a constant. So trying to solve for not knowing is silly because it's never going to happen. And so this is why you have to get comfortable with uncertainty. You have to make uncertainty your friend. If we're going to solve problems right, we might as well pick big ones. And I'll give you a great analogy that I got from Stephen Schwartzman, who's the founder of Blackstone. He said big goals and small goals are usually just about as hard. A common VC saying is that having a really successful restaurant, you might have to work 80 hours a week and manage all these different people to have a really successful local restaurant. And you might also have to manage all these people and do all this other stuff. If you want to build a billion dollar unicorn, both those things are hard. And so if it's going to be hard regardless, you might as well go big. And actually, it's been a very like. That is a very helpful frame for me because one of the beliefs that I have about business and life is that suffering is a constant. Like, I have to remind myself this on a regular basis, which is that if we are growing, I am in pain. If we're plateaued, I am in pain. And if we're declining, I'm in pain. Which means that I am pretty much always in pain. And so to think that there's something wrong with pain misses the point of how this works. It is a constant. And if it's a constant, we even need to think about it. It shouldn't be a reason to do something or not do something because it's just always there. Competition for big goals, believe it or not, is actually much rarer. It's thinner air. People believe that it's so unrealistic that they don't shoot for it, which actually makes fewer people there to go compete against. And so it is probably harder in some ways to have a local restaurant that is really successful than it is to have a, you know, big business. And what I found is that most problems are solvable, which means that most things are knowable. And the reason that you probably haven't gotten to where you want to go is because you haven't actually started trying it. And so you're going to have to be obsessive about it. And I think one of the big things that I didn't understand was just how obsessive I was going to have to be. Is normal to not be like your other normal friends if you want to have extraordinary outcomes? If you think about the reverse, it wouldn't make sense if we do the same things as our normal friends and somehow get something different. It's a positive indicator, it's a green flag that you're living a different life than everyone around you. Like, I had a conversation with my east this morning. They were like, man, I feel like if you were a normal person, that's what they said to me. They're like, I feel like if you were a normal person, you would drive this kind of of car. I like looked at them and I was like, so basically, if I were not me, I would do things that not me would do right now. It would make sense that you're going to do things that normal people won't do because you're trying to not have the same outcome as them. 10. Obsession is the ticket of entry. It's the price of entry. And the thing is, is that obsession isn't really obsession. It's actually just trying and no one else tries. Like that's the real, real is that normal people call what I consider sane people to be obsessed. But sane people, which is what I consider myself, consider everyone else insane because they do nothing and waste their lives. And so we have to be comfortable with reasoning from first principles of like, I am only going to live here for not that long and I'm only going to have a certain amount of hours to do the stuff that I want to do. Why on earth would I not do it? Because of some face noise that some person, some other, you know, advanced ape is going to say to me about them having a preference about how I'm living my life. And so you can boil almost all insults or judgments down to this statement. And I think, like, I hear this, I translate it when I hear hate. You do not live your life in a way that I prefer. So they're like, you know, you shouldn't. I do not live my life in a way that you would prefer. And that's okay because that's why you live a life that you prefer and not a life that I would prefer. And that's why you live your life and I live my life. And so people just get so triggered by this. So when people hate on you, it usually means that they're jealous and believe that you are undeserving of some part of your life. And so to be clear, it's not that they're jealous of your whole life. They might be jealous of the attention you get. They might be jealous of maybe just the money you make, but not the way you look. Or they might be jealous of the body you have, right? And they're gonna Be like, ah, you're into that food, right? Or, you know, you work too much, or whatever the. Whatever the little snide remark is, right? But what they basically think is that life has unjustly given you the benefit that they believe they rightfully deserve. And they might be right, but life isn't fair. Here's the thing, people who obsess about work life balance are typically mediocre at both. And so obsessed people apply their obsession to everything and just call it life. And they also don't consider themselves obsessed with. They just consider everyone else unobsessed and just plain and banal. And so I get criticized all the time for work life balance. People say, like, Alex, you don't have any hobbies, right? I don't want any. I don't want any. They're basically saying, yet again, you live your life in a way that I would not prefer if I were in your position, I would live life differently, right? And that's why you're not in my position. So why should I sacrifice the things that I prefer to do in order to do the things that I don't want to do, right? Just to make your definition of work life balance happy, which I don't accept. So, like, work life balance is a wonderful goal. I have no hate for it. It's not going to happen if you want to be the best. Like, you've probably heard the, you know, work smart, not hard, right? That only works when you're competing against people who are not smart. If you compete against other smart people, the only thing you will have left is to work hard. If you work smart, not hard, you will get beaten by someone who works smart and hard. And if I don't know about you, I would rather be that person because at the end of the day, I would like to just win. And that is point 11, which is work hard and smart. If you extrapolate out what a normal life is like, right? Maybe someone makes, you know, a million dollars or $2 million over the span of their entire career, right? 40 years plus. I think there's just a certain amount of work that must be done to generate income. And so what I would rather do is just take that 40 years and just cram it into four and then have the other 36 years of my life to do whatever I want with resources far beyond what I would be able to do there. And so I remember Layla had this very early conversation with me. I think it was our first date. She said, she's like, I just want to help people, right? It's like that was her whole thing. And I was like, do you think it'd be possible for you to help people and to make money? And she was like, well, yeah. And I was like, okay, do you think you could help more people if you made more money? And she was like, yeah. And in that conversation she shifted from being what I would consider a bleeding heart of just like doing everything, like just trying to just, just help every single person. The thing is, your resources are so limited, you can't do much. And so if you want to help a lot of people, it's like you got to learn the game. And the thing is, to win that game, it's like you probably have to outwork people, a lot of people, and you have to be called names by people who live lives that you don't like. I want to be very clear about this. When I say work hard and smart, it doesn't mean it's going to be exciting. So 12 here is accept mortem. Like, if you want to be creative, you must first learn to be bored. If you want to achieve a goal, you'll either have to accept boredom or pain. And the bigger the goal, the more of both you're going to get. I have this great visual in my head about how winning works, right? So you imagine you have this marathon, right, that you're running. So you've got this starting line here, right? Start, and then you've got this big race, right? And then you've got a finish line over here. Ta da. Finish. Now, when you've seen a race, where do people gather? They gather here and they gather here. So here's the question. Where does the winning happen? On your own. Because no one cheers for you not drinking for a day or not smoking on a long drive. If you're trying to quit or not overeating for one night or skipping out on going to the club with the boys, no one cheers for that. No workout or meal is ever impressive on its own. And so the reason so few people understand success, or at least achieve it, in my opinion, is that consistency never looks impressive in the moment, only at the end. Because if you think about how consistent, like, it's very difficult to visualize consistency because you can only see someone do something once, right? You see a snapshot of someone take a shot or hit a backhand. The only way that you can actually witness consistency is working with people who are consistent. Because the thing that you have to see is that person show up every single day. Like someone could show a workout of me Working, working out. And someone else might be like, okay, well I mean that's a workout, maybe I should kind of work out like that. Sure, there's a level of intensity that might be there or form and things like that, whatever. But the thing that people won't see is it's very hard to witness 20 years because you have to be there for 20 years. And this is why I think so few people are able to internalize consistency, which is the most important success rate. Because it's very hard to lose if you show up every day. It's very hard. And showing up every day is boring. And so if we willing to accept boredom, the next thing that we're going to have to be willing to accept is sacrifice. We have to give up some things to get others. And so like at the end of the day like all we have are trade offs. We have what we have and what we want. And the question is, what are the things that you currently have? Are you willing to trade for the things you want? And I think there's such a perfect way of thinking about it. Like you have everything in your life right now that you're going to have to trade. Like everyone trades, everyone starts even when you add at zero, you have things in your life life and you have to trade those things for things that you currently want but don't have. There's no perfect way to live your 20s or your 30s, right? You either live them up and become an under skilled 30 or 40 year old, or you work them up and become an under lived 30 or 40 year old. You just have to figure out which you'd rather be and accept the trade offs and know that there are no do overs and that's okay. And when we're really thinking about sacrifice right now, no human will ever get more than 24 hours per day. We all have that, right? And so fundamentally everything that you spend your time on that is not you pursuing your goal, you are determining is more important than your goal. And so if you look at what you did every single one of these hours and then you actually surface it and say, you know what, watching Netflix, you know, doom scrolling TikTok and Instagram, hanging around, doing nothing, surfing the web or whatever it is that people do these days, that is what's actually more important to you based on your behavior. And so is it really a sacrifice to give that up for what you want? Because the thing is that a year from now you're not going to look back on today and be like, man, I'm so Glad. Like, those clips that I watched really changed things for me. You probably won't even remember any of the clips that you saw. They did a great research study on this where they did short form versus long form even. And people remember like 11%, like 24 hours later. It was a tiny percentage. And so we have to accept that the things that we spending our time on, most of the time is just wasting our time on. And so I think Seneca said this. It's not that we don't have enough time, it's that that we waste the time we have. I come back to this, which is like, is it really a sacrifice or are you finally just saying, I believe this is my priority, and therefore all of these things that are not helping me pursue that I'm now going to trade out for things that will help me get this priority? That's it. And to me, if you like what you're gonna get, how would you not make the trade? And so I had this clip that went super viral from a podcast that I did yesterday. And the host asked me if all my books and all my tweets and all my emails and all my YouTube videos were all deleted and I had to compress all of my stuff into 60 seconds. What would I say for somebody who's in their 20s and 30s? This is what I said. Figure out what you want, ignore the opinions of others and do so much volume that it would be unreasonable to not be successful.