F*ck Every Motivational Speech
F*ck every motivational speech you have ever read/heard- I’ve read em all, watched em all. Every Steve Jobs keynote speech, Mark Cuban interview about execution, Kobe Bryant talk about hard work. I preach this sh*t every fucking day. I learn about it and I back it up. I talk about this stuff …a lot! Not sleeping when you need to make shit happen, taking absolute pride in your work, executing no matter what, killing yourself while creating time to rejuvenate, beast mode-ing, positioning yourself for opportunity, investing in human capital, etc.
I have said the following 4,978 times in conversation, but for some reason, it's not incorporated in my rants, when I coach others, or just in general life conversations. I think I have several skills that separate me from others, but I think the game-changer is my willingness to do whatever the f*ck I have to do to get ahead all while not cutting corners. 99% of my life doesn’t feel like work, and, I often work 12-15 hour days. Yet at the same time, I have absolutely no issue getting on my hands and knees and scrubbing a floor or cleaning shit off a toilet. I’ve done the 4 am shift at Starbucks to open up the store. I’ve tutored 80-year-olds with dementia how to use a computer, I’ve volunteered in an Alzheimer’s ward at a nursing home, and I’ve literally slept in my car to drive 4 hours to a meeting last minute (and still managed to show up an hour early as I commit to being perpetually early to everything). I'll sleep on a floor or a dumpy couch if I have to. I'll drive 11 hours for a meeting that may not seem very important and if I give my word I'll eat piles of sh*t to make sure I hold to it.
I love sports for the wisdom and discipline….and there’s a lot of wisdom that great athletes acquire. I get paid to play a game I love, just my sport isn’t physical.
1. Napoleon Kaufman (RB for Washington) said he'd hit the track and gym at 1 am cause he knew that no one else was doing that. He had to do what no one else was willing to do. I started reading annual reports of publicly listed companies in high school and would ship in huge boxes of paper reports every week. I’d read this shit on school nights cause I knew no one else was doing that.
2. Charles Barkley said "what I lack in size and skill I more than makeup for in heart and determination". This quote super charged me. I could score in life at will, shooting the metaphorical jumper was like a layup for me, but that one line took me from a metaphorical great defender to a lockdown defender. It took me from an average rebounder to an animal. I played at 100,000% every single second on the court (with the court being life). If a shot was taken it was my job to grab that one rebound. If I had an assignment defensively my only job in the world was to make sure he never scored one single bucket. Every possession was the last one ever.
I remember reading Warren Buffett’s bio and thinking "what I lack in size and skill I more than makeup for in heart and determination." I’ve always looked up to people that I thought had 'heart'. There was something special about them and I wanted to be that guy. I wanted people to say, "he has heart.” This one stupid idea fueled the sh*t out of me. It meant something to me that I knew I did whatever I had to do.
I've carried this mentality into my adult life and my professional life: Traveling and often sleeping in my car while having a fear of being robbed in my sleep I've done whatever I have had to do. If I've had to sleep on a floor, rent my car to people, take loans, teach a mentor's kid ball to pick his brain, enroll 30 people in an idea (you know, whether it be my first project that got funded by a billionaire ‘energy Independence Day’ in which both Ron Paul and Nancy Pelosi co-sponsored the US NAT GAS ACT or my current project ‘project flywheel’….which really isn’t mine anymore as I’ve given it away to you beautiful humans out there making a difference for the cause of Liberty), whatever. I’m 1000% flexible- I don't have rules, standards, minimums, or ceilings other than to do everything I do with batshit psychotic integrity and never cutting corners. 99% integrity degrades into 50% pretty damn quickly if you’re not careful. I will do whatever the f*ck I have to do to make something succeed. Can't sleep? No problem. I have to go grocery shopping for a client? Cool. I'm willing to inconvenience the living f*ck out of myself, swallow my pride, lower my standards and barrel through to accomplish a goal. I think a real problem w most people is not that they don't know where to start or how to start, but that they are unwilling to roll around in a pile of mud to succeed. If I knew my business will succeed if I walked around the snow in New Hampshire or New York or now Philly all winter- no problem I'll do it.
In my experience w some of you guys (and certainly the vast majority of people I meet in day-to-day living) - you are not willing to sacrifice your silly little lives. You aren't flexible enough to eat dog sh*t.
You want to succeed, then do whatever the f*ck you have to do, THE END.
There are no excuses. Instead of finding reasons why you can't, find reasons why you can't not- that is my mindset. You do what you have to do. I vacated my f*cking home when I had to, I’ve been on my knees cleaning a toilet for no pay when I had to. Stop complaining, stop ur bullsh*t activities and suck your d*ck with your unwillingness and be insanely unreasonable to reach goals at any cost necessary. Because what you get in the process is your aliveness and purpose. And that’s damn good living.