Arbeit = Volumen mal Hebel

0:00And 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. is is this concept of 100x not 2x is applied to so many different areas in 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."

0:40Uh 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 with 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 needed to do more volume. And the thing is is when we did more volume, 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, but we get even more output. And then, I had a different friend who talked to me, billionaire guy, who was thinking about getting into content. He said, "Hey, I'm really not growing that fast." And I 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 TikTok 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 what a lot is for me. So, this year, the first 100 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 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.

2:06And 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 Arkema. Arkema, if you want to know how they say it. [music] 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 partners and I only had one exchange with this particular legal partner. It'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." And I just remember how dismissive what she said was. But I I understood, I mean, I understand now especially what she meant. Which is 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 is 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 five-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.

3:52It 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 cuz usually lasts less than 20, sometimes it's just five, it'll just go away. And the same thing happens with focus, but we then just take off we take off 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 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 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.

5:05Like 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 didn't 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'm 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 three hours, four hours, six hours more pass 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 not work another day in your life. That's just I just don't think it's true. Like there's the It's so many things that I don't enjoy doing that I have to do.

5:54And that's why at least for me, my saying is always 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 you're 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 I slept 9 hours last night, which was the first time I 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. Well, 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.

7:00And so there are the fewest requirements necessary to maintain consistent focus on the one thing. And those things 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 cuz we all will die and we all probably will work at some point.

7:30But 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. Real quick, if you're a business owner and you are not growing as fast as you'd like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So, my team and I put together the $100 million scaling roadmap, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through and more importantly where they got stuck and how they got past it. And so we broke it in these 10 stages and we made this little kind of quiz thing where if you put in your business information, it'll tell you where you're at and the most important part for you, what to do for each of functions of the business across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, human resources and finance. And so, no matter what you're struggling with, someone else has already struggled with it and solved it.

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