Transcription
It is good to bear the yoke in your youth. That's a 2,000-year-old proverb that you should listen to. What does that mean? That means put heavy weights on your shoulders, figuratively. Go out and figure out your life with no fear and no thought of how hard it is.
So if you've got to travel around the world to go meet a mentor, don't be like, "Well, I've got to get on an airplane. That's a lot of work." If you are under 30 years old, you should be bearing tremendous weight on your shoulders. Even if you're under 40, even if you're under 50, the new definition of old's like 80. Put the weight on your shoulders. Go do hard things in everything. Lift heavy weights. Build complicated businesses. Listen to hyper-intelligent people who confuse you. Put the weight on the shoulders. Wake up at 5:00 in the morning if you need to. Wake up at 4:00. Or just make sure you're putting in enough hours that you are really advancing yourself. Because if not, you're going to get blown by by the people who will.
One of my favorite things, there's a basketball coach, John Calipari. He's coached some of the greatest athletes in history. And one of the athletes said one day after practice, he just left right after practice was over. And he did that consistently. And John Calipari came up to him and said, "Let me talk to you, son." He said, "You know, you always leave practice exactly when it's over. You never put in any extra work." And he said, "One day you're going to be playing a game and you're going to come up against somebody who practices more than you, and you will lose."
See, a lot of people losing in the modern world. Put that as your own fault. Did you put a lot of weight on your shoulders? Did you put a lot of weight on your shoulders when you had time? Stop doom scrolling. Stop doom scrolling and start putting in work. Now, that doesn't mean you can't live a balanced life. Yes, you can still go to the gym every day. That's 45 minutes of lifting heavy. You don't. You can still have a social life every day. That doesn't mean don't date. Don't get married. That's all nonsense. That's part of putting the weight on your shoulders. To find somebody, to find love, takes work in the modern world. Do that. Put a lot of weight on your shoulders. It ain't going to come to you as if by magic. You make the magic happen. Go make your own luck. Go make your own luck. Stop shying away from what's hard.
You know, I'm one question to me, Ty, "What's the easiest way to make money?" I said, "Son, you are asking the wrong question, brother. You are asking the wrong question. You should be saying, 'What's the hardest thing I can do that almost nobody will compete with me?'" Because the modern world has made essentially everybody very weak. Why are you asking for the easiest thing? The easiest thing will make you money for a month, and then it'll be copied by somebody who will put more weight on their shoulders, and it won't work for you. And then you'll be in the worst position of all to have made $100,000 in a month one time and never be able to do it again, 'cause it was a fluke.
I like what Naval Ravikant says. When you have two options, pick the one that's hardest in the short term. Imagine if you lived your life that way. Get up, wake up, and do a lot of stuff every single day. You know, I lived with the Amish for two and a half years. They value one thing. They call it a "schaffa" in German. That means a worker. So, you know how we value people on the Forbes list? And we value, they, they value workers. Now, you might say, "Oh, that's a different worldview." Yeah, maybe it's a better one.
Humans were built to work. Karl Marx, I'm not a communist, but he was right on one thing. He said, "Modern capitalism and all its technology will make people lose their mind because they'll have too much free time." And guess what? He was right about one thing. He wasn't right about communism. But 150 years later, anxiety is at an all-time high 'cause people have too much time on their hands. And the crazy thing, people are still asking me, Ty, "How can I work less?" I'm like, "And you mean be depressed? Be anxious? Be bored? Have a sense of there's a hole and a gap in your life?" Why do you want that life? Life meaning comes from doing things.
Now, some people will say, "No, no, Ty, I know there's an Eastern philosophy that there's no value, that we are valuable no matter what we do." Okay, wake up to the modern world. I see no evidence of that. If I look in the animal kingdom, ants work. Bees collect honey non-stop. I have bees on my farm. Are you telling me that that's not the bee's purpose? That the bee's purpose is to actually chill and take a vacation two weeks, two months a year? Do the 4-hour work week? No offense, I like that book, but you, that's not what the bee's like. The bee finds purpose in fulfilling its programming, its destiny. So stop believing in a modern hype that has really no sign to it except finding the opposite, that people have too much free time on their hands, feel a sense of lack of purpose, an increase in anxiety, and also massive regret because they look back and go, "What could have been never came to pass." What could have been never came to pass.
Go out and try for a day, a week, and a month. Make accomplishment your purpose. Try the opposite of the Eastern philosophies. The Eastern philosophies say you are valuable just who you are. Try the opposite of that. Challenge it. Every society at every time, every 50-year block has had some blind spot, some stupid belief that 99% of people believed. My hypothesis is our grandchildren will look back and go, "The stupid belief of the modern 2024 world was that you are good enough, enough, just as you are." Sounds good, but all that sounds good, all that glitter ain't gold. The bee finds his purpose in being a bee and collecting honey. An ant finds his purpose in building for the collective nest. Humans, more likely than not, find their purpose by accomplishing something. It doesn't mean you have no purpose if you're not a billionaire. No, I didn't say that. Go do a lot of stuff. You'll be happier, healthier, and wealthier. Try to go against modern woke society as a test.