In this episode of the Realists podcast, we talk about the importance of mental toughness and how it can be used to solve problems in the world. We also talk about how important it is to have a group of like minded people who are willing to talk about anything and everything.
00:18:00.360Mastering the monotonous is the most important skill set that you can develop over the course of your life.
00:18:09.140And if you can realize that the basic shit, the shit that I just listed off, the things that you are in control of every single day of your life are the defining factors of greatness, you got the game figured out.
00:18:40.720So early in my business life, I had no awareness.
00:18:44.540Once I got to be about 8 to 10 years in, I started figuring a little bit out of it.
00:18:50.100Once I got to be 14, 15 years in, I figured out a little bit more.
00:18:53.760It took me until I was 36, 37 years old to really put all this together and understand that this is a game of compounding efforts, compounding inputs attached to the length of time that you do it.
00:19:10.860So my question is, follow up on that then.
00:19:13.140Did you have any, was there any frustration when, I guess, you're looking back like, fuck, okay, well, I probably fucked off a few of those years that could have been.
00:19:23.440Yeah, but what am I going to do about it?
00:19:25.400How do I go back and fix the first 16 years of my business career and say, damn, dude, I fucked all those away because I didn't understand the shit I understand now?
00:19:33.940How do you think I understand the shit that I understand now?
00:19:36.640The reason I understand it is because I fucked off those first 16 years.
00:19:40.080And by the way, I was pretty successful, even fucking off.
00:19:43.560So think what's happened between then and now.
00:20:02.180Whether you want to admit that to yourself or not, that's up to you.
00:20:06.640Most people won't admit it because if once they admit it and once they say, dude, I am in control of my outcome, that means they got to get up off the couch and do a bunch of shit.
00:20:15.200Otherwise, they always feel shitty about themselves.
00:20:17.880OK, so it's very hard to live a life where you are aware that you are in control of your outcome and then just sit there and watch it go by.
00:20:25.700That's a depressing, frustrating, aggravating existence that most people can't deal with.
00:21:28.980You shouldn't piss on it just because it didn't work the way you wanted it to work.
00:21:32.840But I think the fact that you recognize that you didn't earn it should be something that lights a fire under your ass to say, okay, I got a little bit of a break here.
00:21:40.520Let me capitalize on that so that I can progress my career down the road faster and faster and faster.
00:21:47.040You know, there's a saying, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
00:21:50.000Okay, when good shit happens, don't fight it.
00:23:43.300I mean, on this topic of luck, you know, I was thinking about this.
00:23:46.100So, I mean, because I know we don't like, like you said, it's not something you'd like to address.
00:23:49.980And, like, because, you know, a lot of people will see, oh, that's what we're talking about.
00:23:53.340But with this concept of luck, is there, do you believe in the, I guess, the flip side of that?
00:23:58.320Is there such a thing as just somebody being completely unlucky?
00:24:01.580Or is that also a product of their actions?
00:24:05.940It's almost always a product of their inactions.
00:24:09.000You know, people say unlucky, but then you look at the actions they're taking, and they really can't say they're taking anything that moves them forward.
00:26:41.760And the more you bitch, the more you cry, the more you're going to find yourself alone.
00:26:44.960And by the way, you're creating this inescapable box of victimhood that creates your identity.
00:26:50.360Once you tell the sad story, and then you keep telling these other sad stories, and then you tell more sad stories, what's happening is you are creating an identity of that you are a victim.
00:26:59.740And when you believe that you are a victim, and you created the identity that you are a victim, how do you become someone who achieves anything?
00:27:09.120If you're the one sitting there saying, I can't achieve anything because all this unlucky shit happens to me.
00:28:32.080Do you know what they're talking about?
00:28:33.100What they're trying to say is put yourself in environments where you are around more successful, smarter people.
00:28:42.600And I think that's a very good policy.
00:28:44.100I think it's very smart for you to try and be around people who know more than you, have achieved more than you, have done more than you, who are more experienced than you, and then shut the fuck up and listen.
00:28:57.720No matter what level you're at, I still, to this day, and I am a very successful person, if I were to sell all my shit, retire today, there would be books written about what the fuck I've done in my life.
00:29:48.900Because there are things that have changed in society that are different than, let's say, someone who's 75 years old and a multi-multi-multi-billionaire.
00:29:59.040But the principles of what that person talks about, I do absorb, and I do take very seriously.
00:30:08.760Who do you follow that's more successful than you?
00:30:11.120Who do you follow that knows more than you?
00:30:13.100And I'm not talking about these unverifiable dumbasses on the internet who fucking, you know, sell coaching programs and talk about how fucking rich they are.
00:30:24.400They've built a business on promising people shit that they can't even fucking really deliver, nor have they done, okay, especially when it comes to the entrepreneurship side.
00:30:56.360We see a lot of people who want to be successful.
00:30:58.500They get around people who are more successful, and they try to, like, flex how they belong in the room by communicating how much they know.
00:31:06.220You don't even know how fucking stupid you are.
00:31:10.320You don't know how stupid you sound when you're talking all this shit around motherfuckers like me who have been playing this game for 25 fucking years.
00:31:18.020Just like I don't know how stupid I sound when I'm around motherfuckers who have been playing it for 50, okay?
00:31:23.520So when they say be humble and be the dumbest motherfucker in the room, there is a lot of truth to that.
00:31:28.840And if you can't be in the room, consume their shit.
00:33:07.520There's sometimes we need you to assert yourself and you stand up and you say, hey, no, this is the way it fucking is.
00:33:12.060There's other times where there are people in the room who are not as smart as you that you can learn from, okay?
00:33:18.520And if nothing else, you might be able to learn what not to do, okay?
00:33:22.380So it's always a good idea to be humble in this regard when we're talking about learning, all right?
00:33:28.400Humble doesn't mean driving a shitty car and living in a small house and not thinking highly of yourself.
00:33:35.140Humble actually means going out, becoming successful, and then remembering that the reason that you are successful is not because you are great.
00:33:44.280It's because you took the actions that made yourself successful.
00:33:48.000And when you look at another human being, you understand that if that human being were to take the same actions as you, they would be successful as well.
00:33:55.940We are not attaching our success to us.
00:33:58.820We are attaching our success to the actions that we take.
00:34:02.040And so what that means when in terms of humility is not that I think less of myself, but I understand that I am a result of my actions and that person is a result of their actions.