Warum die meisten Menschen aufgeben

0:00Uh, whenever I get to a low point, where I think, "Why do I even bother?" I just remind myself, "This is where most people stop, and this is why they don't win." And this relates to another one, which is a reminder for the gladiators in the arena who feel beat up and scarred with no hope in sight. Building a business is hard. Hard feels shitty. This is what hard feels like, and this is why most people can't do it, but you can. "This is what hard feels like."

0:24>> Mhm. is so [ __ ] nice to lean on. It is so nice to lean on. Take me through that low point stuff. >> a story. I'm getting a little goosebumps telling it. So, um I was, way back in my day, um like you, a party party promoter. But, I was in a fraternity, so I was president of the fraternity classes. Yeah. And this was my first semester being president. And so, you have a pledge class, you you get two pledge classes as a president. You get a fall and a spring, and then that's your your tenure, and then another president comes in.

0:53And what we knew, and this would be really interesting for the audience from a human behavior perspective, is that like clockwork, every time we start a new pledge class, within 14 days, 10 to 14, it was like clockwork, they would all get together and they'd revolt. And they'd say, "We don't want to do it anymore. This isn't what we signed up for. This is way [ __ ] harder than we thought it was going to be. Like, we thought we were just going to party with you guys. Like, that's what we expected." Which also shows you how long it takes people to adapt or acclimate to a very a significantly more difficult situation, right?

1:22I'll tell you what happens after, and then I'll tell you what happened in between. After we have this kind of talk that we had, and I'll tell you how I how I explained it when I was president, um all of a sudden, it all vanishes. Because their expectations of reality have been completely reset. We break reality. Like, in the first 10 to 14 days, it's so painful for them because it's such a a contrast from what they were just doing. >> Not the fun stuff. >> [laughter] >> And what's not fun? Oh my god, I mean, they can't drink, can't talk to girls.

1:49The only people they could talk to are brothers or each other, and we're mean to them. So, they could really only talk to each other. And the whole point here is that we're trying to get them close together cuz it's a bunch of dudes who don't know each other from different parts of the campus, right? And then we have to get them in 8 to 12 weeks to leave as one unit of people who know everything about one another, that trust one another, that know everything about the other people in the house. So, it's like, how do you do that? Well, there's only X amount of communication you can have every day. So, let's cut out anybody who's not us. Okay? And then, if we really want them to be close together, we'll also reinforce that we're mean. But, part of what they had to do is they had to learn everything about everyone else in the house. And so, every pledge has to do something that would impress a brother. And then they get a signature from the brother being like, "I approve of you." And you have to get every single brother's signature by the time you're done.

2:29Right? And so, that's where each of those side quests become as insane as you might imagine, right? And there's lots of, you know, there was lots of hazing back in the day, which is not fun, and you know, a lot of sleepless nights and things like that. And you go from like partying with girls, feeling like you're top of the world, all these brothers feeding you drinks, being like being like, "You're awesome, dude." to then like the next day, and this is literally how it happens. This is how like the break in reality happens. We do this huge party to like launch the new class, and the next morning they all wake up, they're all like they all sleep at the house cuz that's one of the the requirements.

2:59And they're all hungover, got their ties like vomit in the corner, whatever. And we're like, "Great. Clean it up." And they're like, "What?" Because up to this point, they haven't cleaned after a party. Cuz all they did is got to party, see the girls, and then leave. But then, all of a sudden, they're like mopping vomit in the corner, and they're hungover, and they feel terrible, and they're like, "What the [ __ ] This isn't what I signed up for, right?" So, anyways, 2 weeks of this, they get together, and they wanted me to meet them, and this always happens cuz they want to meet on their their turf, and I'm like, "All right, guys, what's up?" And so, it's just me, all right, and my vice president, and like 25 guys. So, there's like a you know, there's like a size comparison of like just animalistically, there's way more of them than there is of me.

3:40And so, I just asked them a couple questions. I was like, "Who here, before pledging started, was like, 'I want to be a part of this house?'" The guys were like, you know, "Me." Okay. Like, "Okay, got it." "Who here thought it was going to be easy?" And they're like, "Who [snorts] here thought it would be hard?" They raise their hands. I'm like, "Guys, this is what hard feels like." And all of a sudden, there's just like this big exhale in the room, and they're like, expectations get reset. "This is normal.

4:13You wanted this thing. You expected it to be hard. Reality now matches conditions." So, our expectations now match conditions. "This is what hard feels like." And then all of a sudden, it's like they got permission to feel shitty. And by getting permission to feel shitty, they stop feeling as shitty cuz they're like, "This is just my new world." And so, then you know, you're like, "Listen, you give 8 weeks, you're going to get 3 and 1/2 years. Other people are going to do are going to drive you around late at night. Other people are going to clean after you. Like, it's a good investment, right?" And that it was a good deal.

4:40Like, you give one semester and you get the rest of them to just do whatever you want. Um but that concept, like that quote, and both of those came from that experience of having someone tell me, "This is what hard feels like." "This is why most people stop, and this is why they don't win." is also another beautiful uh bit of motivation. And given that I spent a little bit of time with Goggins and Cam Haines, two guys I was telling you about this before, you said, "Must be nice." as we walked in.

5:07So, Cameron Haines, bowhunter extraordinaire, lives in Oregon, uh and he has behind the power rack in his garage, where he lifts, he has "Must be nice." written. And I was like, "Why why why have you got that put up on there?" Uh and he was like, "It's because everyone says, 'Must be nice to be you, Cam. Must be nice to be sponsored by Hoyt and all of these like top-level bow things, and go on Rogan.'" He was uh there was a video that went super viral of Goggins losing his [ __ ] after Jon Jones won Mhm. uh last weekend. Uh and the guy that he's hugging is Cam.

5:37So, it's like, "It must be nice for you to be backstage at UFC. Must be nice for this." And I've seen what that guy does, and that guy picks up a rock that weighs about 80 lb, and it's got the word poser written on the front of it cuz people call him a poser. And he carries it up a hill that is maybe like 1,000 ft of elevation, mile and a half high, with no fanfare at the end, no finish line, doesn't post it on social media unless the team's there filming it with someone else, and then carries it back down, puts it in the boot of his Raptor, drives away. And he just does that because he needs to remind himself that he's doing the stuff that is hard. And "This is where most people stop, and this is why they don't win." combined with "This is what hard feels like."

6:17justifies things being hard. Now, I do worry, and I find this in myself sometimes as well, that you can be so good at dealing with suffering that you can actually push yourself a little bit too far, and you get I'm starting to bear more burden than I can basically take on. And the art of not burning out is something that I think a lot of people, if you if this resonates with you, the art of not burning out is something that you really really need to be able to feel. And like, realizing what happens when you just start to glance off the bottom side of it and go, "Okay, like I'm just going to ease off the gas a little. I need to take this afternoon to go sauna and and get some sunshine and chill out and get some food, and then I can put my foot back on maybe a little bit tomorrow and what temperate." Um but it just it it justifies the fact that I use this stat all the time. 90% of podcasts don't make it past episode three. And of the 90% of the 10% that do, 90% don't make it past episode 20.

7:10So, by making 21 podcasts, you're in the top percentile of all podcasters ever in history. That's what hard feels like. And that's not even hard, it's just consistent. [ __ ] me. It's less than half a year. Yeah. Insane. I hear stats like that, and I just think, man, it is so easy to win. Like that I mean, that like when I hear that, that's exactly what I think. I'm just like, man, for everyone who's like struggling to win, it's like, you like most of the pain that people experience is purely in their own minds.

7:41And so, to your point, I think there's an interesting one between like burnout versus hard. And so, like, for me, burnout is when my I would define it as my output per unit of time decreases. So, I can see that. That's measurable, right? Now, like I can say like number of pages that I edit or the quality of the content that I create. Like, my output per time like the team knows when I like when I'm like 6 hours, 7 hours into recording something, they're like, I literally start like slumping. You're like I physically I just start like slumping, and I like my my [laughter] cadence isn't as like I'm just not as sharp, right?

8:14There's that versus emotional burnout, which I think people mislabel as burnout, when really it's just like they don't know how to reframe reality. And so, what it really is is they got a comment on a post that bugged them. And like again, it's like pulling it from the shadows. It's like, "No, this stuff doesn't work." It's like, "Hold on. What's the one voice that actually is coming through? What is the real thing?" "Well, there was this comment."

8:40Okay. Great. It's embarrassing to even have to say that. But, when you say it, then you admit it, and all of a sudden, you put it in the light, and the shame kind of starts to evaporate. Because then you can name it and be like, "Is this comment better than my bigger than my future? Is this comment bigger than me?" And one of the things that I um that has helped me was saying like, "What's true about this?" 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. And so, I'd like to give you this thing absolutely free. You can go to acquisition.com/roadmap, plug in your business information, and if you want us to actually help you deconstruct the business, and you're trying to scale, we'd love to help you out. On the thank you page, you can book a call with my team, and we will look at the business, see if we can help, and if we can, we'll invite you out to Vegas, and we'll do this in person, live.