Transcription
If you can wait 10 years for an outcome, be able to do the doing without seeing the result, but know that it may get done after you pass, then I I believe that you can change the world.
Basically, if you have something that someone else wants and they have nothing that you want, you have all the cards.
People have superiority complex. They believe they're better than others, and they believe that they deserve more than everyone else does, and that they can accomplish big goals. The second thing that they would identify is that they had crippling insecurity. And then the third piece, which kind of adds the beautiful like mix of this, is impulse control. If you are the type of person who has those traits, then you are very likely to be successful.
The two hard such a hard concept to like Like I would be like, what does "two hard" even mean? Um I think that you have a rate of output that occurs over a period of time, and if the rate of output decreases kind of precipitously at some point, then you know you're not being effective anymore. And so like on a micro level, even hour to hour throughout a day, you know, your output will go down, and then you have to sleep at some point. Uh then you wake up, and then your output goes up again. And so I think like the idea of being burned out Like I don't think anyone's like People don't burn out when they're playing video games. Not really. I mean, some maybe some people, but like for the most part, you can like kind of keep doing it. Um and I think that burnout just means that your the reward for the work that you're doing has either you have habituated to that reward, so you've gotten used to it, so it no longer really rewards you anymore, um or the cadence of that reward, which is meaningful, has continued to extend in terms of how frequently you get rewarded. Which are both two different ways of basically saying the same thing, which is just you're not getting out of it what you wanted to get out of it. Um and so I think that is when people quote get burned out. I don't think it's anything to do with the amount of work that you're doing. So I think the it's it's about it's about what's happening around you while you're working, rather than the work itself.
Cuz there are Like if we Like I like looking at across like many thousands of years. And so the even the idea of a 40-hour work week is a pretty modern invention. And if you look at, you know, even a few hundred years ago, people just worked every day. And it wasn't like, "Oh my god, that guy's so hardcore." It's just like he just worked every day because there was that was just kind of the expectation. And you just like had to live and had to survive. And if he had enough to eat for a day off, he could probably do that if he wanted to. And so I think about that a lot, which is like a lot of these confines are self-inflicted. And I think laddering up the belief set to like, "Does this serve me?" And so the idea of like, you know, how do you develop work ethic? I think the big thing is like I don't really doesn't like it's not really developing work ethic. It's just it's doing the things that you have been rewarded for doing in the past and removing things that you don't enjoy as much. And then it gets easier to do more because you enjoy doing the thing you're doing. Now, let me clear. I don't like there's over head. Of course, there's things that I do that I don't enjoy doing, but there's food that you eat that you don't immediately like, but maybe you like dessert and that's something like so it's really just like again, it's a cadence of reinforcement. It's like how many times am I being reinforced over a period of time?
And maybe if anything, the thing that gets developed is that you develop a history of being rewarded for delaying gratification over a period of time. But you know, it's like it's like it's weird. I like I get I get I get I get a lot of I mean like the intro that you gave. It's like I get a lot of press if you could call it that or or like flowers for having, you know, huge work ethic. But like I don't it just doesn't feel and this isn't like oh I do I do what I love. I'm miserable all the time. Like it's like there's plenty of times I'm miserable for extended periods of time. I just like don't really know what else I would do. And so work is just kind of like my default setting.
And so people are like, "Oh my god, that guy works 7 days a week on it, you know, on end, on end, on end." And it's like, "Yeah, but it's like, so have many people." I'll give you a different frame to like contextualize this. So, um so, we have a team here, we have an advisory practice, and um you know, for the team to spend all day with clients in person, it's like, "Oh my god, this is exhausting, and we have to present and all that kind of stuff." And I was like, "Well, I mean, teachers present in front of groups all day, every day, all the time." And it's not like a big deal. It's just like that's just how it is. And so, just reframing something that we see as the big thing as something that somebody else in a different context does all the time, um is probably the most regular practice that I do, which is like, "How can I In what universe would this not be hard? In what universe would this be normal?" And well, then I'll just live in that universe.
Fundamentally, if we if we describe a behavior set within a given condition, then it's a skill that we can develop. And we develop skills through modeling, and we develop through role-playing. With other basically seeing what other people do, and then doing it ourselves. And so, like, doesn't matter what you're trying to learn. If you like And it's just that there are some skills that people like people think reading, people think math, people think like public speaking, like these are all skills. But it's like, in what way does is does podcasting not fall into that category? In what way does having a conversation not fall into that category? Of course it does. And so, I I don't see it as any different. The only thing is that you'd want to have some sort of feedback loop so you can know you're getting better. But even just the fact of just like after every podcast, if you had 5 minutes you're like, "Okay, what did I do well? What can I do better?" And then the next day reviewing all the podcasts, and then doing it again. Like, eventually you would no longer get fatigued from it because you'd also again you'd habituate. And so, for that one podcast, if you only do one a month, you're probably going to have, you know, your adrenals will will dump while while you're having the podcast, you have, you know, anxiety, your your heart rate goes up, you start sweating. But if you do it all the time, then it no longer creates an adrenal response because you were just accustomed to doing it. And so, I mean my goal was just to uh go through the habituation cycle as fast as humanly possible. So, I just get used to it. But like I'll do a consulting day um for 12 straight hours. And I do it I I'm pretty fresh at the end. I enjoy doing it. I like doing it. And so, and I'm not saying that like that was this how I've always been. It's just like I've done it over time. And you know, answering questions even uh ad hoc. It's like, how can you answer questions? It's like, well you know, when I had I'll tell you two different stories. So, when I gave my first public speech that wasn't in high school. Uh when I was in high school, I was really nervous because um I didn't know the subject matter that well cuz it was, you know, Civil War whatever, right? Or you know, pro or con affirmative action, whatever. You have to put you have to make some debate. Fast forward, I get on stage my first stage I ever spoke on as a business person had 1,200 people in the audience. First stage ever. And I remember as I was walking up on stage, I was like, why am I not nervous right now? It was like very weird. I was like, I should be nervous. Why am I not nervous? I've been nervous all the other times I've spoken. And so, I thought about it and it was I have been doing eight public speaking things a day for years because at my gym, I had a I had a microphone, same headset, big speakers that I could I could hear myself on, and I had a bunch of adults in a room that I had to tell what to do. And I did that every single hour on the hour, eight hours a day, and then I started the business on top of that. And so, I'd done that for years. And so, when I got up on stage, I was like, oh I'm just telling another group of people while I have a headset on about something that I already know about. And so, that was kind of the making where you start to have a, you know, domain generalization. It's like, okay, something I did here also applies over here, and so it doesn't need to be a big deal. And so, that kind of pattern recognition of like, what other time have I done something like this that it wasn't a big deal? Why can't I just use that as the frame of reference for how I'm going to think about what I'm doing right now?
There's three traits that people then they looked at cuz they were trying to find habits of highly successful people and when they actually pulled apart it's not, you know, and I hope I'm not contradicting anything. Um but there's people who are really rich who wake up really late and work really late. And there's people who are really rich who wake up really really early. And there's people who are really rich who eat really healthy. And there's people who are really rich who drink Coca-Cola and eat french fries every day. And so there's all these things that we want to make as truths but there there's easy examples that counter those things. So it's like what are the few things that are true or at least that seem to be present in all of the situations. And it seems as though there were surprisingly few. And so the three common traits that they had that they had found were one, that people have a superiority complex. They believe they're better than others and they believe that they deserve more than everyone else does and that they can accomplish big goals. Right? So they have a bigger vision because they believe they deserve it or whatever it is. That they were able to identify that. The second thing that they would identify is that they had crippling insecurity. And which which is a paradox of paradoxes. They feel they'll never be enough um and they'll always be measured against the things that they've achieved. And so you've got this crazy dynamic between they they think they're better than everyone, they think they deserve more, they want to go after this big hill and at the same time they fear they'll never be good enough, they'll never actually achieve it and they actually suck.
And then the third piece which kind of adds the beautiful like mix of this is impulse control. And so they're able to control their actions and focus on a single thing for an extended period of time. And so if you put those three things together it's like you've got a big goal that's pulling you this way, you've got this big fear that you were are running away from, and then you've got impulse control to keep you focused on the one thing that matters. And if you do that if you if you are the type of person who has those traits then you are very likely to be successful.
So to the marshmallow point cuz I think this is really interesting and I don't think it's talked about enough. Which is they they like to separate the kids into the two buckets, right? Like uh the kid who waits for two marshmallows and the kid who just says I want the marshmallow now. But I feel like they should have a third bucket which says how long do they ask the kid to wait for the marshmallow? Right? Because it's not do you have like as I I to think of things and like a lot of times we have false dichotomies or we have binaries where we're like good or bad, you know, disciplined or undisciplined, I'm honest or dishonest, right? When I think more reality is to what degree am I honest, to what extent am I disciplined, to what degree am I, you know, loyal, right?
And so, I think that each of those three traits that we just went over, it's it's not do I have them or not for the people who are listening cuz people like to think, yes, I have it or like, oh well, I have all three of those. It's not having them. And I'm sure you've interviewed some of the most successful people on the planet, it's how much do you have? Right? And so, I think that like your ability to delay gratification, it's not just like, oh, I can wait a week or I can wait a month. I made this tweet that that went pretty viral and it was like, if you can wait a year, you can make a ton of money. Like if you can do something for 12 months, you can not need for financial goodness pretty much for the rest of your life. I'm not saying you're going to be hella rich, but you're not going to need for anything if you can wait 12 months. If you can wait a decade, you're going to be a above the 1%. If you can wait 10 years for an outcome, be able to do the doing without seeing the result for 10 years, you will be able to be above any most achievement of most people. And if you can wait a lifetime and you don't even need to see the result of you're doing this even while you are alive, but know that it may get done after you pass, then I I believe that you can change the world. And I mean that. And so, I think that if people can just extend the time horizon that they're measuring themselves on, they can just do so much more. I mean, you've probably heard the Bill Gates quote where he says, people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade. I think it's the same thing, just continue to draw it out. And I think as I've as we've been able to, you know, achieve more leverage and make more money, etc., my horizon has extended. And when I listen to the people who are the people who I want to emulate, I can almost tell by the measurement of money that they talk about and the measurement of time that they discuss how successful they are or how successful I think they're going to be. Like if I talk to a 25-year-old and he's talking about what he wants to do in two decades and his whole plan of what he's going to do, as long as he's not just blowing smoke cuz he's heard an interview from me, um then I'm like, "This kid's got it. He gets it. He gets it." And most people I just don't think they can they can't wait 90 days. They most people can't even wait a month, right? They start a diet and 14 days later they don't have a six-pack and they can't wait. But like if you do a year, you can look whatever way you want for the most part, you know, by and large. And if you wait a year for the ability to learn how to sell, you wait a year for the ability to learn how to market, wait a year just providing value to a group of people for free and then delaying your ask, you can do whatever you want.
So how do we have as few of those as possible and how do we have that those need to believe statements are as high likelihood as humanly possible? Right? So it's like do it like if we had a business that was reliant on and you know, an inflationary period or something, I'd say like, "Okay, well, I believe that that's, you know, it's high likelihood that it's going to occur. Okay, so I feel okay about that one." And if that was the only thing I needed to believe for this whole business to be successful, I'd be like, "Where do I write a check? Cuz this is the only thing I need So it's how many of these are there, right? And if there's a lot of them, then with each additional line our likelihood of getting the outcome we want goes down. Um and so I think that if reversing that for success for somebody who's coming along is like what amount of action would it be unreasonable for me not to be successful? And so for me it's like I I believe that if you do 10,000 cold calls, you'll you'll get better. Like it would be unreasonable for you not to be good. Like after that level of effort. If you if you run, you know, if you take half your paycheck every month or a third of your paycheck every month and you say I'm going to advertising university, which is I'm going to spend money actually advertising, trying to get people to click on this thing and give me their name and phone number, if you go and you spend that amount of money on actually advertising, after a year, after two years, you'll probably you'll probably be pretty good. Especially if you join a community of other people who are doing the same thing, right? You seek out mentors who are doing who who have done and can give you frameworks that you can just work off so you can shortcut your path to success, it becomes unreasonable that you wouldn't be more successful in the future than you are today. And so I like thinking about things in terms of directionally correct rather than will I hit it or not. Right? I think there's so many binaries because it's easy psychologically for us to say yes, no, honest, dishonest, etc., successful, not successful. Um but it makes making decisions really hard. Cuz you're like, is this the path for me? Is this the product going to the business I'm going to start? Whereas like, well, if I started something, I would be more likely to be successful than if I did not start anything. Most people had a graveyard of failures before they had their actual first success. And so most people spend all this time um a different tweet that went viral. It said like, with 20 hours of focused effort, most people can be pretty decent at something, whether it's guitar, it's singing, even cold calling. If you actually cold called for 20 hours, focused effort, you'd be decent. But most people spend years waiting to do the first hour. And so it's like, how can I decrease that action threshold and get someone to just just just embrace the suck? And so it's like, how can I normalize no's? So it's like, if I'm teaching somebody to sell, it's like, dude, I need you to get 100 no's. All right? Let's get 100 no's for me. I'm not going to say yes. Just get 100 no's. And the thing is all of a sudden if the if the no becomes the goal, then they realize that it's about the process and not the outcome. And then they will become better sales people cuz they stop being afraid of it. The same thing like we're training sales person, I want them to hear the gasp, right? Which is like you say a price over the phone. Everyone's afraid of saying the price. It's like, dude, if you didn't get a gasp, you didn't go high enough. Right. They're like, what? I'm like, oh, you failed. Terrible sale. They didn't gasp. They're like, really? And so then it becomes it flips it and becomes a point of pride. It's like, oh, I got her to You should hear the gasp on this one. And so all of a sudden they stop being afraid. We normalize. We do like exposure therapy on the things that people are most afraid of. And I hope that with all the stuff that we do, that we can do that in a microwave for at least a handful of people. So they just start doing and realize that they're going to gain perspective and the light of their knowledge will give them the next foot. But, the thing is they're stuck on the first one trying to pick the first path when they have no idea what they're doing.