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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

had 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. Um 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

cuz I I've been there and I don't want

that for anybody, you know? Like I

missed I missed my 20s. Like I just I

didn't have them as people traditionally

say it, you know? Like it's it's weird

because in today's like internet culture

like I started my I I started my first

brickandmortar business like storefront.

I was 23. Like I didn't know [ __ ] about

[ __ ] 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. Um, 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 did I didn't know and

I didn't have the money, frankly, to

afford anything else. And so, um, I get

it. Like I get I get I get it. Um,

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 I would

you know I I was reading the self-help

books and all this stuff. And um 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, um, countering that is be

is because it didn't work for me. And

I'm trying like I'm not trying to speak

to everybody. If you if that works for

you, then like awesome. Like awesome.

Like I people mistake me saying this is

what worked for me with this is what I

think everyone should do. And it it

couldn't be further from the truth. I'm

saying if what h 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 um 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 you know 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 if

woe is me is the right 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 did you uh did you go to college and

they were saying that um patronizingly

um and mind you everyone here at least

this channel knows that I don't I don't

give a [ __ ] um but they were saying it

to basically like when I was going to

like 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 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

I went to school. I'm very grateful for

it." You know, like so what are your

goals? I could just move right past it.

And so you develop that skin because I

had to cuz I had to [ __ ] 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 [ __ ] 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 card 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 clean the

wall. And so like you only get that

stuff by doing it. Um, and so if you're

in 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. So I'm not going to lie

to you and say that you like you're

there 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 it's like a it's a it's a huge

amount of 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 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 you have to

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 like the even the concept of

getting ahead. I like I think about this

visually which is like if you have this

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 and 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

and 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 really on a

long 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 why

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, so

my Saturday sessions were done at like

noon, my phone didn't ring. No, like in

some ways very sad because like no one

wanted to see Alex, you know what I

mean? Like no one was inviting me out.

But I was like, well [ __ ] like I got to

make this work. And so I would just 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 I but that was

how I got ahead. And so I I tell the

stories of like I remember when I when I

stopped watching the Ravens and I was

from Baltimore, so that was like like a

tie to home.

And so um yeah, it's fresh for me cuz 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 I don't say that there there's

there's no ways to 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 there

I just didn't I didn't allow another

option because the other option was just

was just worse than dying because

I mean I've told this story before and

things get hyperbolized mean you know

exaggerated romanticized whatever but

like when I had my big consulting job I

was making good money and I had the

approval of my 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 I was I 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. Um, but

and I I I get I get grilled on social

media for saying this because of like

[ __ ] 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 are backslaves. 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 a

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 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 will

give me the respect I deserve? Blah blah

blah blah blah. Um 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 I have to

go to these these groups that where

other gym owners are and I got to learn

their stuff. I got to 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 tugof-war where like most people

their hands just get too

>> cut to keep holding on to the rope is

like it's in it's stuck in my head.

>> Yeah.

>> It's that's really powerful.

>> Yeah. It was tough.

>> So I'm I'm

the first 100 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 $1 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 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 [ __ ] 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 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 a building

which make 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 it's always pushing off. So

rather than uh delaying gratification,

they delay pain. And so rather than

trying 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 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 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 it the thing is is that

and this is what's so deceiving about it

is it's very it's very um

self-fulfilling is that you get more

evidence and you get more confirmation.

You get more evidence, you get more

confirmation, and the more your life

sucks, the more you're confirmed that

you were right. But like, do you want to

be right about the fact that your life

sucks

or would you rather like there's a

there's I think it's an old Zig Ziggler

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 [ __ ]

out of your whole life and you don't

have any confidence because he told you

a piece of [ __ ] 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

[ __ ] And just realizing that um made

me angry. But through that anger, I was

able to say, "Well, [ __ ] 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 you think about if we think

about success in terms of layers like

foundations, right? the the the base

level like when you're digging the

building where you put the hole and you

pour the concrete and 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 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 on to 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 it's

not reading offers. It's not it's not

even your books

>> at the 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 my

employer was a dick my boss sucked

whatever the economy Like but like it

never serves you. Like 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 both 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 uh depression in an

intro to sight class. And I used to I

don't talk about my mother my mother

very much, but I used to harp a lot. I

was an equal 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 [ __ ] 50s. It's when

like it was more accepted to beat up

foreigners rather than let them in.

Anyways, um

so she had a tough time and so it made

sense and 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 balling. 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 had

had that id 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.

That's gross. And so I was like well I

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'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 uh-huh

uh-huh. So I got to the end of the whole

thing and um 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 was like,

"Yes, I yes I will. I'll be able to make

this work for my business for this

reason, this reason." And so the thing

is is that like 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

time, you lose everything. And so it's

one of these frames that I love. Dr.

Cashy 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 going to last. This

isn't the one. and 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 want to start this business, it's not

going to work. It's not going to work.

The second one will work. The fifth one

won't work. The seventh one work won't

work. And they're right, but they're

just wrong on the long enough time

horizon because one of them will [ __ ]

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 you and they get

deceived by their short-term rightness

that they miss the long-term wrong. And

we do this to oursel too 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. You keep it's not going

to work this time either. Because you

get to be right over and over again. and

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. Like we love to complain

about the weather and

>> 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 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 and they 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 where today 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 at about spending money.

Like I I' I haven't had that that habit.

So like 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 gonna

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 100 million people who

worked at McDonald's over over the world

who didn't make it. And like the outcome

they're talking about is like she made

$8 million over 40 years 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 to

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 fact that

these videos and this podcast like all

the stuff didn't ex 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 I want to 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 and I I just took

business as a different another 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 experience. 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 call 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

get you 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. Um, and it does, you know, like

all of these things cost money to start.

Now, mind you, it cost 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. Um, so like the bar hasn't

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 [ __ ] 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 am the one who can get me out

of it. It 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 like should they be thinking

about money at that point or

>> 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.

is 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 cuz 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 mar 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 or you create your own

stuff. Now, if you're starting out,

you're probably going to sell someone

else's stuff. And I do think and I 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 uh referral referral uh

programs, ambassador programs, affiliate

programs for different types of

businesses, almost every business I've

ever owned has an affiliate program. Um

it's great to enroll in those. I'm not

even going to say any of the names of

the companies that that we have because

I want you like it's not about that. I

want you to if you can just because then

you 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 it over and over again. Now

over time you're like, man, I want to

make more of the nut. Cool. Then you

just you eat up more of the

responsibility.

So you can either sell stuff or you can

sell skills. You can scale 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

uh 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." Um, and so we met at a at a

pizza place, ironically.

>> No, this was after college. This is

after I graduated from college um when I

was still consultant. So I I went 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's like, "I'm trying to lose weight."

And I was like, "Well, this is something

I eat for breakfast that'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 um I had

like a notepad and I gave her the 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 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, "Uh, 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 in at this point

I was competing. So I'm winning. I'm

like I had a state record at that point.

Like I was in I was in shape, you know

what I mean? Um and I think she knew I

was a state record holder cuz the gym

that I was powerlifting gym. Um 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 [ __ ] 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, you know, 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 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

cash flow. Like you're doing something

right. And then people started asking me

about the stuff. And then 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 500,000 a month. They're like,

"How do you get to 4 million a month?"

And I was like, "Well, this is what I

did." And so, like, I've just tried to

figure it out. And it's it's like 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 going to 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. Uh, just

cover the shipping. I think it's like

five or six bucks in shipping uh per

book. Um, 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 uh to

anyone who want them, who choose to

redeem it. All right. Last time I made

this offer, uh, it sold out in like 10

days. Uh, so I did buy a lot more books.

Um, so if you see this, you know, go

check it out. Go grab them. Um, these

are obviously while supplies last. Um,

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

Oh,

>> I mean, in some ways, I think it's

everything. In other ways, it's nothing.

Like one of the cool um shameless plug

for school, the um

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 because the

second dollar comes so much faster after

that. Um that I mean that's why that's

why I invest in the company. That's why

I'm so adamant about it. But um anyways,

the the point is 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 there's

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." 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 um 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,

um, 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. Um, but I

just hate

the people who espouse that you have to

feel a certain way to win or that or

that winning when you are 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 if 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 to

propel yourself forward. All that

matters 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 um in terms of

like I I always identified with the

villain um and the oppressor in most

scenarios, which is bad. But anyways,

but I 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 deserve 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 guy's 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 it as a

great guy, but if I just still did the

things, I could still get the getting.

And I think for me that 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 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 like 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 I mean 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 5 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 lbs." Or like even

like I'm I'm going girls perspective

here. A guy who says something that's

like, "Um,

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 [ __ ] life.

But the thing is is like 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. And

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.

Like that 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 you 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,

then get rid of them. Because imagine

that you have a 100% chance of hitting

your goal and you have three friends

that have a 30% decrease. Like you might

now have a have a [ __ ] you know,

whatever a third times three is,

whatever. You have 27% chance of hitting

your goal now because you have three

terrible friends.

>> Like negative experience.

>> Yeah. Yeah. They're they're they're 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 like

all your all your hits have like half

power. Like

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 of of

drinking glass and starting to to 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 if it mean 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. 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.

Great. 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 if someone like

the moment I have seen somebody as

decreasing the likelihood to hit my

goal, I am happy to tell them that like

I think I think you are not good for me.

I don't think you help me hit what I

want to hit. And they 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 I you 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. Like, and 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. Um, 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 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 broken

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 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. I crossed

100 million in net worth at age 31. And

this is my road map for things that I

learned along the way. I'd like to

normalize a 6 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, to develop proof

that you can get good at a skill. And

you only get good at the 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 it 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. It's your

ego is gone for this. All right? 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

[ __ ] 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 Door Dash it

in so that you can keep working. The

moment I realized I can 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 was now immediately outsourced. All

right? But this advice is for people who

are super broke. Okay? So, if you don't

have the skill set 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 make bets on software. or

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. All

right? And so having a big stockpile

allows you to be patient. The the more

money you have, the longer you 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 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 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 going to be in the same survival

mode. But if you make 40 grand a month

and spend four, you're going to have

you're going to have every month you

make 10 months worth of income. And so

in two months, you've got 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 to

double down. All right, so here's the

very broke 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, uh

birthdays, um just nights out because

it's 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 them 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 what your current current

skills pay you. All right? 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 a 100 doors,

you knock on 200. They make a 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 a $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. Right? 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 the and your life path

will have veered. You will have changed

direction. Your tree of 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 some

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're

trying to negotiate uh 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 a

outbound what like it doesn't matter.

It's not about that thing. The thing is

it's like real life skills actually do

generalize. Like this isn't elementary

school or or middle school when you're

learning calculus or algebra or whatever

and thinking like 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-nocking, 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, and I'm talking not like a a 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 a hundred 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 post

it every day for a year." The thing is

is they didn't do the most important

part, which is you don't just like 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 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 the 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 I and she was like,

"Hey, you know, I want to know more

about the gym." And I said, "Well, 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 uh 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 uh it was like 2 minutes,

right? And I walked out and the owner

Sam was there with a few of other other

gym owners. He had bought a few gym

owners in. So it was like three or four

gym owners there. And uh he was like,

"Damn." He was like, "That was fast."

And I was like, "Yeah." And he's like,

"You closed her?" And I was like,

"Yeah." And and he was like, "With a

credit card?" And I was like, "Oh, no.

She's she's going to 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 is I had no experience. And

I 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? Like,

but it wasn't like that, right? Like I

didn't know I I didn't I didn't even

know the term. And so, you know, over

time, I just started developing like,

okay, well, what do you do? And I

watched other people. So, I was 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 like,

okay, that that 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 I

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 uh Facebook

ads is when I started running them in

2013 were super cheap. And so it

actually gave me so many repetitions cuz

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. Um, and then, and by

the way, if you are local, um, 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

[ __ ] is Alex?" I'd be like, "From

Facebook. You signed up for 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-Eleven."

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 uh at least pretty

decent for this area, but we have five

out of five coolness. And they were just

laughing. They 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

kind like notice the like half giggles

between each word. like it's 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. Uh, would you

like to come in?" They're like, "Uh,

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 is like

if you've seen any of my content, I'm

not naturally like a high energy person.

Um 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 uh before and between every sales

appointment. It sounds ridiculous, but

if you I'm telling it's it's like a

hundred 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. And 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 rel I would also

get a little bit exercise. My blood

would keep moving. But it's also just

like mentally um 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 um 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 going to make a lot of mistakes

like biting into the banana like at for

just walking letting someone walk away

assuming it's a close and they say that

they're just going to come back and call

you with their credit card, right? By

the way, that never happens. Um, very

rarely, but instead, uh, you want to

just peel that banana. You want to 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

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, you know, 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 is 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 an 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 uh 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 is this not going to work? What

if I'm on the wrong path? Action

alleviates anxiety. The only thing I

could control with that I was 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 at a

gym, I wanted to own a big chain of

gyms. That was my 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 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 y'all's

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, you know, good

parking." I was, "Oo, these are all

good, you know, 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 right." And so, I took all

these notes in that I would have just

made huge mistakes on the on the

upfront. 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. Um, and the thing is 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 I like that way

better. It didn't mean I'd take

everything as 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 gym 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 this is 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 2,000 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 do that

for content. I do that for meetings. I

do that for 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 is that if you

humble yourself, it's not like there's

some [ __ ] massive scoreboard where

it's like who humbled themselves to whom

across the whole US. It doesn't it's not

not exists. It's just it's 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 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 is

at 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 is

like 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 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 $100 million

scaling road map. It's something that my

team and I put 200 plus hours into

building and breaking the stages of

scaling into 10 steps. All right? All

right. And so what we did is we broke

down everything that got us basically

got us stuck and what we did to break

free at each level of the business. And

if you'd like to know what product,

marketing, sales, customer service, IT,

recruiting, human uh 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

aquis.com/romap. 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 we'd love to help. Um on the

thank you page, you can book a call. Uh,

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 does our

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, you know, space is

limited based on our actual

headquarters. Um, 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 is that that one simple

behavior actually can eliminate a lot of

the things that derail men, especially

young men. And so Charlie Mer 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, right? Then

you become more intelligent. And so

let's let's talk about this from the

from the 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 inshaped 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 inshaped 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

interrelated, like inter relations

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 is like if you

have this one thing that affects every

way 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? Because the thing is 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 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 cost 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 cost 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 cuz I think

it's so good also cuz he was the

greatest of all time and just a cool

dude.

>> What's the 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 9:00 at night.

>> And if you can get by that, you'll make

it.

>> That's the truth. Now, I tell you the

truth. You talk all that running and

hitting the bags and jogging and biting

them. You won't

>> 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 I took off was two years

while I was scaling gym launch from, you

know, the 20 months we went from zero to

4 and a.5 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 Leila 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 I'll partake again. But the

thing is is like if you're 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 going to

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, you know, like 25ish, 25 to 30 is

like peak processing power. But I'm way

[ __ ] smarter now than I was then

because I've still learned more. And

that's the thing is 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 they it still means

that they have knowledge that you don't.

And so listen and 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 you your ego feel good,

but at some point your ego is going to

have to rectify its good feeling with

reality, which is that you're broke as

[ __ ] 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 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? Cuz

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 [ __ ] no big

deal. If everyone says you're an

[ __ ] 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 fruit 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 to 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 is 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 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

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 you 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 these relationships. And this

is what this is the stuff that no one

will tell you. I can tell you

personally, I don't talk to I talked 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 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 in to English

class with you. But as soon as your

conditions change, you change where

you're at. All 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 them.

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 is 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 groupoup. 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 in the real

in the in the n 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

isn't in my life, is it more likely 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 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 to

hit my goal? Is this activity or this

behavior that I do make it more or less

likely to 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 [ __ ]

bigger." Now, if you're like an

afficionado 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 [ __ ] 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. Leila 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's paycheck. And so I want to put

that in context to like was it a ball

and house? Totally. It was sick. I was

super happy to be there. But where I

lived before that cost me 1,200 bucks a

month. And so you're like, wait, 1.6,

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 would 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 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 overindex on investment

because I just I want to become a really

like 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 if for me to pony up for the deal

might be like, "Hey, you got to write a

check for 10 million." I'm like, "All

right, I got to 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 Bizaru 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 to show face,

right? But the thing is is that

everybody who's trying to show face for

hates him anyways cuz 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 um I returned it 6 months later. Uh

and I lost 20 grand on it. And I was

like, "This was 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

continued 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 to

find the best diet." But if I just said,

"No, no, no. You can't look." Make a

guess. What would you say? You're

probably like, "Well, I need probably

like go to the gym, probably do some

weights, probably do some cardio, move a

little bit." Or would I 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 like [ __ ] You

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 endgame

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

doortodoor 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 from Andy Fcell. said personal

excellence is the ultimate rebellion.

And so I think like you want to be a

[ __ ] 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, uh, 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 that overshadows all of this, it's

your ability to delay gratification. Is

to delay a moment of reward. That's it.

Like 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 going to shut everything else off

and I'm going to go all in on this." And

then when they do get that first

feedback loop like, "Holy [ __ ] I made

my first sale. Holy [ __ ] I I got my

first lead from from ads. Holy [ __ ] 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

you'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 that you the

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, if I'm 30, I'm a

millionaire." Yeah, it sounds like a

great deal. By the way, that's like 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 3 seconds. And so the thing is that

3 seconds feels like 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 5-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 5-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 overindex 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 is 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 the feedback loop. Or

even you get you finish the quiz, you go

outside and you're like, "Hey, would you

answer for six?" And you're like, "Ah,

[ __ ] I got it wrong." Or whatever,

right? But the thing is is the world is

completely opposite of that. And so the

re 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 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 uh this big

tweet about this but he and I had had a

conversation about it earlier. He has

two friends. One who's a public uh CEO,

found 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 his

money public is like, you got to 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 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 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 it starts to make

things a lot clearer. It's like, no, me

going to this bachelorette party does

not increase the likelihood to hit my

goals.

And I'm not saying that you have to to

make that sacrifice every time, but the

thing is 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,

you know, comments from uh the [ __ ]

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

[ __ ] about the soft stuff anymore. Thank

[ __ ] 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. That'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'll 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's 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 that this is a

softer way of explaining it. Uh 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 want 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 happen 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 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 out of it. 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

[ __ ] demons." I was like, "Shut up."

And he was like, I was like, "The thing

is And I 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 it's 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. How do what is 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

[ __ ] You're inexperienced. Of course

you have a skill deficiency. You don't

have demons. You don't know how to be

consistent.

You're not you don't have I 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 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 try and 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 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 [ __ ]

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 get burning

the house down from, you know,

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.

In 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.

Say, say it's stored in your body. It's

energy. It's like, no one even knows

what the [ __ ] that means. Show me on

someone's body where it's stored. Do me

an X-ray. Show me where this No. Come

on. Like, you're saying you're you

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 not if I say

them with conviction. It doesn't make.

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'll 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 going to do about it,

right? Because the only per 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

people 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 this force

around I have 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, 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 uh 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 demons 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 like it

happened three times over in, you know,

in my my last job. Okay. Is it really a

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. How

what evidence do I have that this is

actually true that 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 I've had bad

things happen, bro. Like, what? Like,

what occurred? I touched the stove and

it burned 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 of time,

you get better. I promise you. And I'm

saying this to 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 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 Leila 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 a billion or

something like that back back then that

was when a billion dollars meant

something. Um

but I was in college and the and my

girlfriend at the time I was talking to

her and the drawing was that we bought

them for fun. We bought one ticket. I

wasn't expecting to win, but it was just

a it basically I was buying her 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. Um, and I got to make the life

that I have. And so I think that I think

Epictitus 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 is like everyone

has demons. Everyone has hard [ __ ] 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 [ __ ] and has done things and has

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 figure it

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 in 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, how

much 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&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 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 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 [ __ ] 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. And I will read you

the quote that Ila 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. So, 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 to 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 Mosy just came in

just slinging credit cards and stacking

bodies, right? It didn't work that way.

I came in, it was a 5-minute

conversation. The girl was like, "I need

to go get my card from home." 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 a minute straight.

Like they couldn't breathe cuz 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 7.8. 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

[ __ ] script. Which one do you think

would get 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 one. 9%

don't get past 20. And then 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 be judging

yourself on the difference between your

first one and your 20th one. Are you

better? Probably. And the difference

between your 20th one and your hundth

one because the win is you. You are the

asset you're building, not the downloads

that you get on your first shot. Mosy

immediately had a podcast with millions

of downloads every single month. No, I

spent 4 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

they 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 4 and a

half to five when things started taking

off. And you know what 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 with 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

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 [ __ ] 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 more. But

I have proof. So it's like you can 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 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 [ __ ] good

that only one person who gets exposed 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 at the end of the 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 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 he practices the

script, how many calls he's made before

you, how many sales he's closed before

you, what time a day he shows up at

work, what time a 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

deal. If you're doing all the inputs,

the m 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.

Yeah. Again, one of the biggest

misnomers in 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 happen. 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 or 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 between 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.

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

at 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 into 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 cuz

I'm not accepting the world's rules for

winning. I make my own. An easier

analogy here is, and this is a Naval

Ravicon quote, he said, "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

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

[ __ ] 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 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 cut

scene and you're two months in, three

months in, remember that the rocky cut

scene in the movie lasts a couple

seconds and the rocky cut scene 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 and 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 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 do 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 others people's opinions be

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's super proud of

me, graduating Vanderbilt in three

years, president of the fraternity, vice

president of the powerlifting team,

management consultant, to a 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 [ __ ] murdered

it and I did everything." And the cuz

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

other 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 valition, 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. I 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 IM statements, labeling statements

like this. Like, I'm 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 statements really early on to set the

stage. Like, I'm this 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

rather what you do and your identity as

a result something under your control.

You don't want to blame the things in

the past that you can't change. You want

to 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 is that you

don't know what reason it is cuz I could

say let's say imagine all these things

happened. 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.

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

[ __ ] douchebag for saying 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 [ __ ] 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.

They're different people. People want to

have 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, 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 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 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 85year-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 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 ourel 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, it 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?

But 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, 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

an 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 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 going to hurt it back." Heroes say,

"The world hurt me. I'm not going to 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 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 5 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 going to be the reminders that

you use in the present day of things

that you have been through and proof 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 account's 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 poorer self, this is what I

would say. This is more brutally honest

advice to my younger poorer self. This

advice is only for somebody who wants to

make more money growing 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 3-hour morning routine.

There was a kid who DM'd me who said,

"Hey, I've been working with this

business coach and he has me doing a

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." He's like,

"After I do that, it takes me about 3

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 going to give you the

biggest hack in the world. Cut the

3-hour morning routine, replace it with

3 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

[ __ ] 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 5 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

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

5 12 oz Cokes a day.

>> All you have to do also on the corlary

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 [ __ ] around.

It doesn't matter cuz 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 happened 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

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

20s 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 someone who 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 5 years ago, Mr. Beast has

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

humanly 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

might watch this and be 30 or 40 or 50

and be like, "Well, [ __ ] 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 what 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? means that I'm going

to read 2 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 [ __ ]

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 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 multi-million dollar company

or heading 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

I worked at a real estate firm and I

made their social media content. Who

gives a [ __ ] 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 00001%

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 a $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 100, you

know, six figures as a 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. I had a top

secret clearance. I had everything that

looked good on paper. space, cyber

intelligence. I had a two to threeear

path clearly for for getting an MBA at

an Ivy League school and then decided to

drop all of that and start working for

$13 an hour at a gym after I graduated

Magnum Laui in 3 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. is like I

want to find my passion. But the big

misnomer is actually a language issue

which is that people say they want to

find their passion rather than 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

cost you $950,000 a year not to know how

to make a million dollar a year. So how

much is that education worth? Answer the

difference. The difference between $1

million and $50,000, which is $950

grand. If you learn how to make a

million dollar, 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, 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 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

20s 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 at

marketing, immediately make more money.

And so I had 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 has continued to sell more

copies month after month after month for

2 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,000 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 one which is too good to fail.

My headline for $100 million offers

makes no sense. No one knows what $100

million offers is and it's just like a

picture of a $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.

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 spend

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 eight and a nine is 10 times

the work. The difference between nine

and nine and a half is 10 times the

work. The difference between nine and a

half and 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 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,000 hours into something, it'll

probably be pretty good. And most people

spend like a 100 hours on something or I

mean that's [ __ ] Most people spend even

less than time than that. You start a

clock when you start working. You stop a

clock when you stop working. You spend

1,000 hours or 2,000 hours on 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. Hey, 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 uh 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 can 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 brand to associate with. And

anything that is not those things by

default detracts from it 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 ensure 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 had 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 will 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 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 going to 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

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 2 or 4,000

copies sold its first month, something

like that. You know, the second book

that launched 2 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 buy

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 limit test is who talks about

the future and who talks about the past.

Keep the ones who only talk about the

future. Cut 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. 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 limus 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 two 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? Cuz 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 upfront. I hate why

questions cuz 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, "Well, 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 or 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've been given and

then keep the ones that you choose. Most

parents are riskaverse rather than

risk-taking for their children. So like

we are willing to take more risk for

ourselves often times 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

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 of

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 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 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

with that cuz 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, postconulting 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

problems. And then lo and behold, uh

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 abhore

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. 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 hotthead.

Literally people from home describe me

that way. I was like I don't think I'm a

hotthehead. 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's the evidence that this

is not true. What would a hotthead do in

these scenarios that is not the way I

behaved therefore right? And I have to I

have to basically unwind that [ __ ]

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 a 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 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 Ila 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 cuz 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 9 and 40, who knows?

She's leaning over and she has these two

paint brushes 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 and our budgets in accordance

with that so that 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's not that person

independent of sex, right? That is a

commitment, right? If you enter into a

uh 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 lipmus 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, Leila, 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 a touring musician, right?

And they had these goals, but I'm like,

dude, I see you just playing Fortnite 4

hours a day and you 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

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. 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 you're not hanging

out with the boys. It's like why aren't

you participating in the fantasy league?

Why aren't you watching football on

Sunday with us? And for me, I actually

used to love watching football uh with

my friends. It was actually one of my

biggest things that I look forward to.

But the thing is is that like I needed

that Sunday cuz 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

is that like 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 today

will I 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,

you know, 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 misqued 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 it'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 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 for ever doubting you.

Seasons. And so, everyone takes a

different amount of years to stop giving

a [ __ ] 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 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 85year-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 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

were in my life decades ago. They're

just not even I don't hear those 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 you

know 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? And 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. All right. 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 I don't know a single

incredibly successful entrepreneur that

can't sit down and have hyperfocused

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 and the

affiliate uh you know 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 who's hypers 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. Right? Like 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 it's 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 I I 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 them,

which means I have to suck for a period

of time. And sucking sucks. But the

thing is 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 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 uh 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

by 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

researchbacked. It's 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 uh 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 uh my

team doesn't contact me via email. And

so if you can eliminate entire channels,

that's also an easier way to concentrate

uh 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

poor expectations, not that 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 is a 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 beat them. You just have

to show up, be on time, prepare the

night before, remembers 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 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 to

cost 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 four, five, six

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 I'm 2/ird of the

way there. I'm two two more quarters of

that. I'm only one of the of 1/8 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 will run really hard. They'll

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 I'm a neat freak. I'm a

I'm not good at math. I'm not techy. And

so, you make these statements and they

don't serve you. Fundamentally, you

should have one razor that rules all

decisions. And I this is 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 techy, does this increase

or decrease the likelihood that you hit

your goals? And I'm not saying this to

preach cuz 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 nth 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 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 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 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. And 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 Stonesmith, 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 what do you do? And that 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 the 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 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

in 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 [ __ ] 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, 85year-old you isn't even

going to remember it to begin with. This

is a 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 uh 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 a run-in,

and he left the country to get educated,

and there was a program for anybody

who's a run-in that the government would

pay 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 uh France, Paris, to

try and enter medical school. Only

problem, he didn't speak French. And so

he's trying to do premed in another

language as somebody who doesn't even

share the same alphabet. And so he

failed that year. He then took a the

second year he tried again because

you're allowed in in in France. It's a

different system. You could 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

prerequisite skills, right? Like if

you're like trying to learn calculus and

you've never done arithmetic before,

it's going to be really hard, right?

Dare I say impossible. And so if you

jump straight into calculus, you're not

going to win. So sometimes you have to

take two steps back in order to build

the foundation to get forward. Now, I'm

going to keep the story going. So he

then graduates in uh you know seven

years because how long it takes the

actual medical school system is

different in in in in uh in Europe. They

actually do college and the the next

degree all is one thing. So 7 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 US, he then his doctor, his

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 uh 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

emasculineating 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 uh 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 he told me the whole

story and then eventually obviously he

got the 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 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's that it

should take a certain period of time. It

it should only last this long. It should

be this level of difficulty. But the

thing is is just that that level of

perseverance when he decided to go out

on his own and start his own practice

rather than and 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 charge $250,000 to build a

surgery center. He built his his for a

fraction of that. And so as my 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 I tasted the

success, like 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 I 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 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 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 talked to me and how

I've 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 at 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 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, "Ah, what does it mean? What does

it mean?" And Cipher, 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'll

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 or you

start making content, you start doing

cold outbound or you you 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 it 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 put in. I've lost

money on crypto when I put it in years

ago. I lost money on uh 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 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 four. In business, every once

in a while, when you step up to the

plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This

longtail 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. And 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

[ __ ] 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 want 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 to have more money is to

work more hours. And you're like, how is

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-richqu. 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 5,000 or $10,000 that

you're like, "What do I do with it?" Bet

on you cuz 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, it

was the reason that 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. was 23 years old. It was 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 they're going to have

opinions on how I should lay out the

square footage, what 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 my own and and take five times as

long," I was like, "I'd 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 outsource 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 distance between where

you are and how much you'd be making if

you knew how to do it. I I've told this

story before, but I think it's so it's

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 I 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 when I wanted

to uh get in the gym space, I said,

"Well, California is like the capital of

fitness, SoCal. So, I'm gonna 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 is 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 you used to spend here and

spend it 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." 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, 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

a 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 a year for probably close

to $200,000 a year. And you're like,

"Well, well, where where do I spend

that?" You'll spend that on conferences.

You'll spend it on seminars. and it'll

likely be in 2,000 to to 5,000 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 cuz they're on tenure and

thinks that the world uh 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 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 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&P 500 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 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

and I'm going to ask myself, is there

anything I could put this $50,000 into?

So, I could put in the S&P 500 and I

could go and add myself an extra uh

5,000 uh $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 five 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 gonna lose the

whole 50 again. And so the thing is 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, 5 years

into the future. It's like you skipping

from being 20 to 25 and you 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 5 years for it.

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

100 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.

Often times 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 gonna

take? and they'd say, "Uh, probably

another 3 or 4 hours." You say, "Cool,

get it done by the end of the day." Now,

from those two cycles, that would have

normally taken 2 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 how 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 a hundred 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

you we pull all of your expenses down

and you're making an extra $1,000 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 a 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 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 IUs

and then learn skills for free. And so

it's like I really just needed a 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 allin

on you. We've eliminated everything

that's bad. We've started something

that's good. We've gotten even better at

being goodter. 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

and 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 uh got rich drop

shipping and day trading and uh 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

like a fine wine. It's like it it gets

better with age and there's more nuance

to the flavor. So, I think focus is not

a 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 to 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 thing

becomes a $100,000 a month thing that

you're doing, you're going to have to

start saying no to multiple $100,000 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 this 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 this 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, so we're talking

three 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

cared 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 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 uh this

is from academia. So you have

declarative knowledge which is knowing

about something.

So if you go memorize a fact or you you

you learn how private equity works,

right? This is knowing about. The other

type of knowledge is 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 or 100 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 you're

mining for gold, right? You're 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 the 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 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 to work, all right, so

I'm like 3 months into Gym Launch

working. Guess what? Guess what

brilliant Alex thought he should do? So

I went to this meet up of 10

entrepreneurs. All the entrepreneurs

were eight figureure entrepreneurs, so

10 million plus per year. I was not

making that. I we were pacing probably

three or $400,000 a month at the time.

It was just me, Ila, 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

percentage. When you go from no money to

hundreds of thousands a month within 90

days, me looking at bankruptcy attorneys

6 months earlier to that, it's I can't 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 better 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 Leila and I felt

this huge weight of pressure that

started us at that point cuz literally I

think I was I was really content for

like 6 weeks and I was really thrilled.

We had just gotten married. We're 6

weeks into being, you know, married.

We're making really good money. Uh she's

23 or 24. I'm 26 or 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 below 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 the 996, which is basically the

standard for Chinese tech work hours,

which is you work 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

6 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 atacquisition.com

earlier this year and he was talking to

uh 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 outwork you. Some of the hoodoo

mental health whatever people are going

to disagree with me. also don't give a

[ __ ] And so the thing is is you can

just go and make those mental health

people happy or you can get what the

[ __ ] 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- seeeking 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 filming 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 Leila and I left after one. Because

what happened was I got there at this

beautiful resort,5 or $10,000 a night,

very expensive. And I 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

this, you know, 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 the 996 that is just the standard

in China and I like to think about

people in the middle ages in the dark

ages. They worked above their shop and

they didn't have like the 7-day or 5day

work week 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 of 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 6:00 to noon, noon to 6:00, and

then I work 6 to basically sleep time

when I get back home. I only usually

have to go into that gear probably once

a year for maybe 6 weeks to 8 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 just position with patience,

but this is the very classic micro

speed, macro patience, you know,

whatever whatever whatever is 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 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 this big

path in front of me that I have all

these skills that I have to achieve to

hit 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 algebra. 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 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

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

uh 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 is 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

aundred rules and if you were very

granular, 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 uh

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 me

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

missed 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 Mer said this, you

just have to be a lifelong student. You

have to be willing and want to learn. So

I actually had um an example of this. So

recently there was somebody on uh teams.

I did a bunch of one-on- ones uh over

the last week cuz I was looking at one

of the departments and uh one of the one

of the guys said, "Hey, I have this

particular skill. I was hoping that we

could eventually have a a role that only

does this thing." And I said, "You know,

it's interesting that you 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 underlying 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 are 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

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 mountain top. But where people

lose their way is when they start

listening to people at 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 how does

this decision make sense and I was I was

talking 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 is that 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 loser,

the 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 a

100red people who had 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 a 100 people, you make a

post that you spent 100 minutes on,

spend $100 plus on ads, and you spend at

least 100 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 tag 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.

Six, 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. Seven,

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. Eight, 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 Sachev, 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 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

reachouts on different channels,

whatever. It's that pain that forces you

to improve. Nine, 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 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 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 the

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 of 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 into 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. 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 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 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 of 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 things in. You have to eat

food, you have to sleep, right? 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 or 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 cuz

I'm going to take that time that 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 rugg 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 uh with, you know, beautiful,

beautiful hair. Look at this beautiful

hair, right? This beautiful hair. Now

she looks like a bug. Anyways, uh 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 at

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 uh security.

People stay with him, people pay. He has

no problem getting customers. He has no

problem delivering on them. 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

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 [ __ ]

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 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 it 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 when I when I quit

my management consulting job, which took

me six months, so I'm not saying this

from a pedestal. It took me 6 months of

I decided I wanted to quit. It took me 6

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 6 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 I, 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, right? I was like, okay,

so I would 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's that

doesn't actually sound that bad. And so

there's 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 6 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, you know, 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 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'm

going 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 is the 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 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 were

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, independent,

political stuff. Put it away. The point

is the guy is 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 pathy as that may sound,

it's also true, right? A lot of people

think it's like ah, 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 is. 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 it to other

people, but in your mind you're like me

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 sherk

away from this, and I get it. I'm

somebody who like it for a very long

time had a hard time having hard

conversations, right? 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 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 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 that

things that were going through our

heart, but they're certainly much easier

than the 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 Ila. 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 like is that what

you really want? is that people were

like, "Yeah, he had an excuse."

Like that's it. Like you like like 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 extenduating

circumstances. And the thing is is

there's a ton of lure, but the only

person who actually believes that is

you. People might not along. 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

cuz 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 tie." 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 is so many

people waste so much time. They

literally waste longer than 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 a hundred

small things that make days, weeks, and

months hard. It's the neverending

onslaught of [ __ ] And then you remember

after going through that onslaught of

[ __ ] 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 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 heart of the fact that

you might be doing all of the sacrifice

for nothing. There's lots of different

flavors of heart 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

heart, 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 who 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 uh little like rahrh, but I

will I will break this down in a little

bit less rahrh 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 [ __ ] 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

by saying that over and over again, all

I did was I said, "My mother controls

how my love life will go." Oo, heavy

real. Well, I don't want her to have

control over how I choose to love or not

love or how 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 have 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, "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 and they're like,

"Yeah." And I and I didn't I didn't get

the job. They didn't even call me. And

you're like, "You went to one place?"

And you're like, and they're like,

"Yeah." This is going to 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

reachouts 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? Now, obviously within

the context of an employee relationship,

but fundamentally 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 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 in about 20 hours. Now, are you

gonna be Jimmyi Hendricks? Which Jenzie,

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 make 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 with

a 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 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 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 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 a panic attack and you pass out

and you wake up again. The tires are

there. You pass out. You keep doing

eventually eventually your nervous

system adjusts and 5 hours later, 8

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 the Shakespearean saying, I bite my

thumb at you. uh to bite my thumb at my

my very respectable parents uh 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 gonna 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 that it has an

asymmetric riskreward 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 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. And 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 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. If you had more

skills, which is hard to imagine cuz 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 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 gym lunch. 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,

at before we before COVID happened, uh,

Gym Launch was valed 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 friend of me, 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 uh, you know, inherited his wealth.

He had connect good connections. She 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? Like it's it's so funny.

It's like let's say you have some

advantage, whatever it is, right?

Whatever whatever advantage you're born

with, right? You might have one.

It's kind of the thing 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 it'll probably that'll 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 I was

like, it's it's it's cheating, you know,

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 7 feet tall was like,"It

wouldn't be fair for me to play

basketball. Other people aren't as tall

as me." And I always remember 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 [ __ ] 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 were 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 you're a

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 lagards 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, 6 months even, there

could be a softening of demand. And so

if your business is set up so that you

have more reliable lead genen 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 where

we walk you through the things that

we're doing at acquisition.com and our

portfolio companies to help them 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 two times and now are

these rules. So, this is no 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 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,

you know, 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 2,000.

If you want to know how much you made

just in a 40-hour work week. 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 675 an

hour and I had just gotten a raise from

625 an hour. Uh I'm dating myself.

Anyways, and while I was there, the

co-workers that I had and I would always

go to lunch next door at Coy, 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 be 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 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 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 bucks. But

when you're an adult and you're making

$100 an hour and you're looking at a

$500 or $1,000 purchase, would you work

two days in order to do that? I don't

know. Would I? Probably not. And

sometimes you think, hey, is uh would I

work all day for two days to go out with

the boys for three hours on Saturday? I

I'd probably be like, "Guys, I'm not

going to work for two days just to go

have three hours of fun, right? That

feel like 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 was inside of my

wallet. And so as that got replenished

and the thing is 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 have food for

Chipotle. Three, 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

my 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 this company is willing to

pay me $100,000 a year to go do this

skill where I have this other company

that'll give me a free internship where

I could 10x my potential earning in

three years, but I'm going to make

$35,000 a year for the three 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 they're, you know, 5% 10% later

when we're making money, but day one

they're like, "All right, we cut the pie

in half. Oh, 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 Leila 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 so 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

cuz 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 uh we'd love to see if we

could help you out at one of the

workshops we run here in Vegas. Which

brings me to number five. If you never

learn to manage your time, you're never

going to learn to manage your money. And

so the thing is 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 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 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 in 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 Ducker 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 in every day?

And I the honest truth is I stopped

checking when we had about 20 million

bucks. Um and so that started when I had

in the hundreds to thousands

uh and continue to check every day. And

when I stopped checking it was I

realized my daily fluctuations in in

market movements and things like that

across my assets. uh it like I didn't I

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' be monthly or

quarterly that I started checking it. Uh

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,000 bucks. How do

I invest the $1,000?" They're trying to

figure out a way to 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 [ __ ]

Dogecoin and then it's going to tank and

then you're just going to lose your

$1,000 and be like, "Wow, think about

this. I just worked for two weeks or one

month to save that $1,000 and I lost it

in seconds." So, alternatively, if you

take that $1,000 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? Cuz

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 hundred bucks extra that you

yield on that thousand dollar, 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 [ __ ]

Because every single person has between

5 to 9:00 a.m. and 5 to 9:00 p.m. 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 can be comfortable for

decades. And so then you can seek out

those eight hours and say, "You know

what? I'm going to 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

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 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. Nine. 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

rosecolored 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 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." And he said, "Would you like to

make a million a year?" And the person

said, "Yes." And then he put a minus

sign and he said, "Did you know that

it's costing you $950,000 per year to

not know how to make a million dollar 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

um 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 I 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 saved 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 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 a 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. Like

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 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, 2 hours, 3 hours on

the phone with these people training

their teams, 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 halfass 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 wanted to uh figure out funnels

and landing pages and stuff, I called

the guy who was really good at funnels

and landing pages, cuz each of those

guys wasn't good at what I was good at.

And so we're 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 strategy, 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

skill 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 skill set 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 with started gym

launch do the turnarounds. And so I was

like, I need somebody cuz 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 had 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

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 and 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 cuz

I 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 to 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 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 double 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 is that you add zeros

to it but again 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 lowcost 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 and food prepping and and

and 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 going to get

into the 4 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 cost 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 end of the

year, but because he had an extra 100

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're

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 group. 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 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, we 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

underkilled 30-year-old or 40-year-old

or an underlived 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 underlived.

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

belonging, spent all their time working

for free so that they could learn this

big skill set and then doubled down in

their late 20s 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 going to 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 can 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 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 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'd 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 in 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 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 2011 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

2011 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. It can

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 [ __ ] 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,000 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

multi-billionaires. 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

by time, the poor by stuff, ambitious

people by skills, and lazy people by

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 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 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're 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 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 a hundred 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 location. So there's nine.

Where it is? Boom. And I had partners in

each of these businesses. I was still

the one who was required to rain,

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 is 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 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 2 years.

All right. So that's absurd growth for a

company. And I was like, "So, you know,

what what are you doing primarily?" And

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 uh 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 hyperrowth." 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 12x30.

All right? 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, you know, one side of people

who are like, I work more than this now.

And of 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. And there's plenty

of days that I work 15, 16 hour days cuz

I get here at 5 or 6 and then sometimes

we have an event, there's 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. It's 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 every m 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 a season of my life where I think

I had like nine straight uh 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 4 and then I would get the

the class ready. I'd open the gym doors

at 4:30 start the classes at 5:00 and

the last class at night would end. It

would be a 7:00 class. It would end at

8:00 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 4:00. And so I don't know what

the hours are there, but it's more than

12. And I did that for 9 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 a 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 so when 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. Uh, 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

had got to have the exact same

conversation with him. But the thing is

is 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 Tik Tok 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 is that you learn how to work. You

get better at working the more you do

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 Archma, Ama, if you want to 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 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 uh what she said was. But I 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 I like need a

break." The thing is just 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 going to 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 muscle 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 where 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 a

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 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, I my brain

checked out a little bit, but I'm going

to I'm just going to keep I'm going to

keep going. And then 3 hours, 4 hours, 6

hours more passed 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 it it just 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 the 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 um 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. It's like I

have to get this done right now. Like I

get to get this done. Sure. But like I'm

just being real for me. It's it's it's

usually not sunshine and rainbows. Like

I I work a lot and I I get and I'm

tired, you know? I I um I slept 9 hours

last night which was the first time I've

slept 9 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 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 thing 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

5 to 10 times more than me. And I was

like, "Wow." And there's this scene in

Invictus, which is a movie 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 uh 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 3 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

It's painful. The pain is that like

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 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 thing. 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 uh

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 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 um 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,

right? You look at Elon, you look at

Bezos, you look at maybe now Sam Alman,

you look at Jensen Hang 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 built 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

car before the horse. Everyone wants to

put the uh 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 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 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 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 uh 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 I 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 5 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 Ila, 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, you know,

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 I 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. Three 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 3 in 10,000 shot at doing that. Very

unlikely. More realistically, you'll die

at the median, which is 74 for men in

the US, 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 2 and a

half% of your life. And so it very much

in real way is nine times faster than it

is for your 5-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 skip to 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? 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 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 execute.

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 5 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 three

billion dollar companies right now

within the portfolio compared to what

Elon deals with having six multiple

hundred billion dollar companies and I 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. Uh, every month at

acquisition.com in person at my

headquarters, we hold basically two-day

workshops where my team, my actual, you

know, director of marketing, director of

sales, director of media, all of 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.com

vegas. You can go there and you grab a

time with my 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. Uh 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 is that when you were

in that moment it was stressful. You

didn't know how you're going to make

ends meet, how you're going to make

rent, where you're going to get food,

whatever it is. You have these 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 were 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." Then you

say, "Well, I want to be patient." And

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 is

just working and working, working. Then

I hadn't like put my head up to like

look around and 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 gets 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

tired 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.

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 school and we just started

the school games. And right now we're

giving $100,000 away in cash or a cyber

truck to the person who builds the

biggest community on school in 30 days.

And so school's just a community

platform that helps people start

businesses. And right now, one out of

two people who start a community, a paid

community on 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, you know, 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

could 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 uh,

you know, right now I think it's about

300 people per call that are on there.

Uh, and so I answer questions live uh

with everyone on there and it's a lot of

times it's the same faces. So while the

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 NLP.

It's just like do this stuff and this is

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 aren't in foreign

countries who don't speak English. Uh

we've got I mean I think there was a guy

who won the games 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. uh you can click the link which is

uh 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 and 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

had acedc. 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

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 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 uh the outbound

team. So, this is going to sound super

tactical, but I'm going to 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 3 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 from my my executive team

that were like, "Hey, we think this is

shiny object." They were 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 it

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 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 100, like if I

know I'm going to 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. H

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 this, 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 is 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 uh me messing stuff up and

just losing tons of money, but I

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 uh he

kept saying no. I I offered 100k and

then 200k and 250k and then 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 have spent

so much money for 1 hour 2 hours

anything to gain context because I 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 $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 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 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 a $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 like

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

tea the first time. Then take what works

and 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 bass 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 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 tea 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 cuz 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 uh shows you how to do. So, you

paid money and they give you these

little bricks 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 uh, 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. Hardwick and he taught

me calculus, she only taught me

arithmetic. She is 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 and

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

anyways. So, who gives a [ __ ] 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 in 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 and move on." Um,

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 call 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 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 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 one of

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 they want

somebody to be 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 tradeoffs. And if you're not

willing to make the trade, fine, but

don't [ __ ] about it. And 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 do this is 10 out of 10 hard for me

right now, but they're actually only

doing onetenth

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 a 100K

goal, but they're doing a 1 out of 10

work for a $1 million 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 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 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. 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 Leila

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 three 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. And

they're like, you're like 100.

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 podcasts 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 cuz I was so nervous about

sounding stupid. In the fourth version,

I would say like the highest version of

this. So let let's I'll 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. 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 own. And so this is

where your standards become source. And

this is where you get into rarified 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 standard. It's 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,

then 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 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, J.R.R. Tolkien worked on The

Hobbit for a decade and he didn't even

submit the draft. One of his friends saw

that he had 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 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 J.R. Tolken. 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 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,000

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 basically are the same as this

person. You just have a price at that. 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%

allin 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

scratchoff 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 myself

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

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 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, well, I

fall here. Okay, well, I'll fix this one

later. And then you take a and then you

you start again and then you fall here

and then you fix this and you keep going

and then 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 uh it doesn't happen at

all and then 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 that is binary.

But the process of building the system

is actually very linear. I'm also not

saying this from a position of um like

even though I 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

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 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 believing

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 get 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 going to be 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

slope, right?" 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 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. It's very repetitive.

Right? It's 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 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 passion about

now. And I'm sure that things I'm

passionate about when I'm in my mid and

late 40s are going to be different than

things I'm 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, you

know, maybe it is your passion, which 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 dropshipping, 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 can do multiple things at

once and beat someone who does one thing

with all their effort. You have to pick

one thing and go allin 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 don't know. Six of those I

had 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 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

IDriveacquisquisition.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. I And then I also had five

gyms of my own at the time. All right?

Depending on how you want to describe

it, I had five locations plus the three.

So I had eight. It's a lot. All right?

It was 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? Leila 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 cuz 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 going to 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 didn't 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 imposttor syndrome will

start creeping up on you because you're

like man I you know 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 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 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 who are all in

only on the imposter stuff, the guys

that I knew that are that were, you

know, when I was in my 20s who were kind

of like hustle bros, whatever, a lot of

those guys faded, you know, and or

they're still like jumping from thing to

thing to thing, kind of like pretending

to be successful, but like 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, it 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 there are

seasons of life, right? In the

beginning, you're in exploration. I

grabbed this from Nval and I really love

it. Later on, you get into exploitation,

which is where you go allin, right? And

so, the thing is 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. Right? 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. I say from the

beginning of when I started until I

really graduated from it was about 5

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 this season, losers

congregate. 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 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. 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 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 going

to 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 I network

with people who are above who 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 cuz 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 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 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

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 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 cuz

you can always fix it later. And so said

differently, if it takes you 5 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 5 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 to understand was that

the things that dragged me down were not

the things that I thought they were.

Because the heaviest things in life

aren't iron or gold, but they are 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 it for and what I can sell it

for. Okay. Well, how much does it cost

me waiting 6 months to do this? Probably

a lot. And if I need that car to to, you

know, or 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 actually 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 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 faster than that, guess

what you could do? Decide now. And so

sometimes like my team has seen me do

this. Well, we're like, "Okay, so um 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

are 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 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 going to 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

in 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 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've 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 sooner 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 cuz 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. Uh, just

cover the shipping. I think it's like

five or six bucks in shipping uh per

book. um 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 uh to

anyone who want them who choose to

redeem it. All right. Last time I made

this offer, uh it sold out in like 10

days. Uh so I did buy a lot more books.

Um so if you see this, you know, go

check it out. Go grab them. Um these are

obviously while supplies last. um

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 some

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 cuz 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 is 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 going to let John be the reason

that I don't get married to this girl?

Is Joe really going to be the reason

that I don't raise my prices? Is Sarah

really the reason why I'm not going to

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 the everyone

else calls that reason an excuse. And at

the end of the day age, 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 were also born into your

situation, whether it was abuse, whether

it was your gender, whether it was your

your race, whe 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 TLDDR. 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 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. All right. 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

have 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 cuz 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 a great analogy that I

got from Steven Schwarzman 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 of 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 are 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

don't even need to think about it. It

shouldn't be a reason to do something or

not do something cuz 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 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 cuz

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 EAS 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 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 would 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 the body you have, right? And

they're going to be like, "Ah, you're

chewing to 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

benefits 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. 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

cuz 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 is

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 Ila uh had this very

early conversation with 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. But the thing is is you're li

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 boredom.

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? And so you imagine you have this

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.

Tada. 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. Cuz no one

cheers for you not drinking for a day or

not smoking, you know, on a lawn 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

consist 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 out and

someone else might be like, "Okay, well,

I mean that's a workout. Maybe I should

kind of work out like that." And 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 cuz 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 trait, 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're 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 this 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 had at zero. You have things in

your 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

underskilled 30 or 40-year-old or you

work them up and become an underlived 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

doovers. 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

Tik Tok 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

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. They 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 Senica said

this, it's not that we don't have enough

time, it's that we waste the time we

have. I come back to this which is like

is it really a sacrifice or 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 going to get, why 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 uh into

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.