You Need to Impress Yourself, Not Everyone Else

0:00A month ago I made a tweet that had a lot of shares and like 600 plus replies to it. Everyone's dad or father figure had a few wise words they really wanted you to remember. My dad's top three were whatever you do, be the best. They can never take away your education. And God gave you the power to ignore. Use it. And then I just asked my audience on Twitter, which is 300,000-ish people, what were your dad's? My team and I did is we looked at the 600-plus responses and tried to consolidate them into the 20 top ones that we thought were the most powerful and the most universal because in some ways it's almost like getting all of the consolidated wisdom of everyone's father all at once. For the three that my dad gave me, the first one was whatever you do, be the best. And this was something that I think my dad really pushed hard for me. And mind you, like he pushed it very hard cuz he's like, why are you not the best? And I think that that drilled a lot of things into me. But just having that frame, now mind you, the best is tough because it means it forces you to always compare yourself to other people, which was a really hard frame for me to break for a long time. Um but what it did do was create somebody that always wanted to win. And I've tried to spend a lot of my life trying to redefine what winning means. But that was very deeply ingrained in who I was. He's like, be the best. And some people say that. And so I think a lot of the intention of like how enforced is that from the parent kind of dictates how to what degree you really learn that lesson. And so I remember like for me like if I'd get home and I'd have like a 99 on a test, like he would never say congratulations. He would always be like, what did you miss?

1:26That always continued to raise the bar, which from a from a success and achievement perspective was good. For me, it it made me over time a little bit resentful. I've tried to undo that. Um always asking the question, and if you've seen that little that scene in the little uh Little Giants, I think. No, it's one scene where the kid does some sprint with some guy on his back or something like that. And he goes as far as he can. He's like, is that your best? And then the kid goes a little further. He's like, is that your best? And the kid goes a little bit further. He's like, is that your best?

1:54And And goes a little bit further. Keep going. He's all the way like past the end zone. And he's like, "Great." And so I think like our best is usually significantly further than what we call our best. And that was just like a very deep lesson for me that there's just so much more gas in the tank for how much effort you can do when you want to get something like when you when you want to achieve something. And I think that was a big unlock that my dad helped me with. The second was they can never take away your education. Now, context here is that my dad's Iranian and he was born in Tehran.

2:23He was 18-ish when the revolution happened. So that was like when the like the western version of Iran got flipped by the religious extremist there. He fled the country. And so my my family was loyal to the Shah back then. So he saw all of the wealth, the houses, the lands, things like that complete just in a moment taken by the government. And my dad went to Europe and then from there went to the United States and he was a doctor. And so he came here not being able to speak English with a thousand dollars and built a really good life here in America. And I think in a lot of ways what he did is much harder than what I've done. You can understand why it was so deep for him that he was like, "They can't take your education." He's like, "No one can take that from you. No one can take it from a divorce. It can't get taxed. No government can steal it." Like once you have it, it can't be taken. And so he was always so hard with education in terms of like learning more, learning more, being better that he drilled it into me because it was real for him. And I think a lot of people in the US talk about how important education is. But like he had that viscerally proven to him because everything he had was taken.

3:27And I think that for me that was transferred. The third one and it's probably relatively evident when you If you were If I were If I'm giving you these three pieces of advice, that probably deeply sinks to the things that you probably have found in terms of like essential threads in my content. But he said, "God gave you the power to ignore. Use it." Now, I'm not a huge believer in an all being an almighty being, but I think you have the power to ignore. Use it. For me, a lot of times I would be younger and I'd bring up things that were like thorns in my side and he just never gave me empathy for that. And I don't say that in a bad way. I think he taught me an important lesson, which was that like no one cares. So, you shouldn't either.

4:06>> [laughter] >> And I would complain about this thing and he'd be like, "God gave you the power to ignore. Use it." And he would just always like it was like his annoyed response to my like menial complaints about life cuz he was like, "This doesn't matter, right?" Cuz he had seen like mind you his context was like everything had been taken, his whole country had been turned over. Like he's like, "This is irrelevant, right?" And so, I think that was deeply embedded in me where I just always ask myself like, "Can I just ignore this?" And a lot of times you can. Um and I think that's just become a stronger and stronger muscle as I've gotten older and older. But those are kind of like the three essential pieces of advice that my dad gave to me. And so, I'll take a second and um give you some of the the the top highlights from the 600 that we collected for my audience. And I'll just make them quick little sound bites for you guys. Number one, fault and responsibility are not the same.

4:51Something may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility. And I love this message because it's a message of personal accountability, right? Which is that we are masters of our own domain and it gets people out of victimhood. And you can imagine how many times kids are like, "It wasn't my fault." It's like it doesn't matter if it's your fault, it is your responsibility. You were supposed to clean your room. You were supposed to be here on time even if there was traffic, you should have planned ahead, right? And so, it just teaches people to think ahead, be proactive. And I think that applies to work, relationships, health, whatever element of life you want to improve like sure there are outside circumstances, but saying that like it is my responsibility ultimately gives you the power. Two, my dad was a soccer player and he said, "If you try to be everywhere on the field, you won't be where you have to be."

5:31And so, I think a lot of that comes down to prioritization and to some degree pleasing everyone, right? It's like I'm trying to please everyone, be all things to all people and then you're really nothing to no one. And so, a lot of it is like sure there's the business element of like skate where the puck is going to be. Um Um, but being confident in picking the path and knowing that when there are forks in the road, there are going to be roads that have not been traveled that you will not be able to take. But, that's part of making the decision. But, most people sit at the fork and spend decades trying to make the decision rather than taking the fork and accepting the fact that they're not going to be everywhere. But, if they're not everywhere, they'll also never be where they're supposed to be when the time's right. Embrace discomfort voluntarily or life will choose your discomforts for you. I'm going to reframe this. Today, we have this kind of like mental masturbation culture around suffering because our lives are so easy that people are doing lots of things to like make life harder, which is why I like Tough Mudders and all this stuff continue to proliferate because people's lives are so easy. But, how you choose to perceive the discomfort is the power. Right? Like, if if you imagine that this traffic that you're going through right now happens every single day for the rest of your life, you would probably not be bothered by it on the hundredth or thousandth time that it happens. In some way, like life chooses your discomfort for you, but really you choose your discomfort. And so, I think that just having that frame when we're getting into any kind of difficult situation is the ultimate power is that it's the thought of us to make the decision of what we deem hard and what we deem easy. Love this one. Leave things better than you found them. I feel like this is just one of those like great dad-isms. Like, if you're going to borrow someone's lawnmower, bring it back cleaner and better, you know, better prepared or whatever than anyone else does. That's just like such a respect-driven lesson.

7:05My take on this is that like if you're going to do someone a favor, go above and beyond, which is I think the like the spirit of this is that like anything worth doing is worth doing well. And so, like if you're going to help a friend out, don't just half-ass help. Like, if you're going to help a friend move, like be better than anyone else could possibly be for helping the friend. If you're going to do a free, you know, build a free deck for someone, don't just be like, "Well, it was a free deck." and do a half-ass job because it was free. Make it better than if they had paid or don't offer it at all. And so, it's like if you're going to do something for someone else, just make it far in excess of what they expect. And I think that that element of going above and beyond starts to people very quickly associate your identity with that kind of behavior. It's a very positive association from a respect perspective.

7:50Six, you can learn something from everyone. This is one of the great interpersonal skills of our time, which is like I'm sure you can imagine some kids like, "Yeah, why should I be with that person?" Or like, "I don't want to talk to Annie, whatever." Right? But the thing is is that like everyone is better than us at something. And I think the fun part is trying to figure out what that thing is that they're better than you at and then learning from them. And so that is a frame that allows every conversation to be both meaningful and additive to you as a person, while also making you interested, which other people will perceive as interesting. And so if you're talking to anyone, simply trying to say, "I wonder what they're better than me at?" and trying to learn from them is a great way to make lots of friends with lots of people and make life more interesting. The better you get, people you know won't like you and people you don't know will love you. And so it's interesting, this is a lot like uh Jesus was never Messiah in his hometown. You can imagine in dependent of your religious beliefs that there was somebody who many people believed to be living God on Earth, but everyone from his hometown denied him. And I find that really interesting when it comes to entrepreneurs and success and and driving forward in life is that the people who knew you when you were your most flawed earlier on in your life after you've invested more time in yourself will always try and anchor you to your old self, to older versions of yourself that you've developed beyond.

9:03And they'll try and say like, "You've changed." Right? And you're like, "I hope so. Some people call that growth." Right? But they will they will cast those stones as negative things. And I love this because it just gives you the expectation of what success will look like. And so I consider these requisites for success in that if the people that you grew up with are not denying aspects of what you have accomplished, then it means you're not successful enough yet. And so rather than seeing it as a negative, seeing it as a checkmark to know that you are you are getting close to where you're trying to go. Some opportunities only exist within a certain time frame, so take advantage of them.

9:37This is the whole idea I mean there was a tweet that I did that was that went that viral on this concept which is just that like by the time you have all the information the opportunity is closed. A lot of times you need to make decisions with imperfect information and a lot of people want to make perfect decisions and it's a fallacy of living life that makes life very hard if you wait for that because you always will miss the boat. And so risk is a factor of life cuz none of us can predict the future and being comfortable with risk I think is the essence of this which I think is great fatherly advice which is sometimes you just got to shoot your shot. It's never eaten as hot as it's cooked. If you give things a bit of time you'll see it clear without emotions. Yeah, the moment you get off the phone with the breakup, the moment you have some heated conversation you're literally like you're totally in fumes, you've got sky-high emotions, sky-high hormones.

10:19It's amazing how much clearer things can be with a single good night's sleep. There is there is I think it's a Persian saying but it says uh before any major life decision spend uh 3 days sober, 3 days drunk and then make decision on the 7th day. You can do that or not, but I do think that having a full belly and a good night's sleep uh ideally in a different area than you normally are is some of the best ways to make the biggest life decisions because it's you will be the most abundant in that time like you're not stressed from sleep, you're fully fed um and ideally you have a different background what you're looking at to give you a little bit of perspective, a little bit of space from your current existence so that you can make the most long-term strategic shot which may be when you're skittish, more stressed, hungry, tired, uh in your same grind, you might make the more short-term decision.

11:03Talent with no self-discipline is worthless which I think is just if you don't do [ __ ] nothing's going to happen. Doesn't matter how good you inherently think you are, but the real real is that you only get really good by doing a lot of [ __ ] anyways. So 100% agree. Here's a contrary one. Just because it's a good opportunity doesn't mean it's a good opportunity for you. And I would rephrase this as just because it's a good opportunity doesn't mean it's your good good opportunity. And I like that um a lot because like I think of my life entrepreneurially is like I have four to six seasons of entrepreneurship.

11:33There is a One of my big regrets of life is that I can't live a thousand lives cuz there's so many things I would love to get into. I'd love to learn more about building a massive mortgage business. Big building a big insurance business. Getting into banking. Like there's so many things that I wish I could do that I know that I might not have the time to do in this lifetime. And so like you only have a few big shots on goal and so you have to make the most of them. And being really strategic about the difference between a good opportunity and your good opportunity, I think are the most important decisions in your life. life. And I think that I could see a father being like, "She's a great gal. I'm not sure if she's your great gal." And I think this is really important cuz a lot of people want to poopoo things that they don't choose to do rather than being like, "It's amazing. It's just not amazing for me." And I think that's a really powerful frame so that you can live a much nicer life rather than Like I'm sure you've seen people who like as soon as they get out of a relationship or they get out of a partnership, they feel like they have to [ __ ] talk everyone in their past. Which is like what a terrible way to live because then it means that every memory you have is salted by your negativity in order to justify your current existence. And so I think flipping the frame of like they were amazing for that season is just a for ex-girlfriends, ex-spouses, you know, whatever partnerships, I think is a much better frame to walk through life with. Do you one thing like all the things which is your best? So yeah, I agree. If it's if it's if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, which is one of my Like if I were a father, I think I could probably give my three pieces of fatherly advice at the end. Um but I think if you're going to do it, do it well. Um is definitely a really good piece of advice because it has two elements. One is deciding whether something's worth doing which most things aren't.

13:11And I think that's the part that's underestimated with that piece of advice and people over index on do your best, but you can only do your best on a very few amount of things. Which means that most things aren't worth doing because you don't have the resources to do your best for them. Put your shoulder to the wind and keep pushing forward. You only lose when you stop. So you know I will obviously agree with this which is you just got to keep moving forward. Everything you do is a direct reflection of who you are. Yeah. I agree with that because I think a lot of times, uh you know, we will claim we are certain ways, and just as importantly, other people will claim they are certain ways, but when you look at their behavior, you're like, "Uh I'm not so sure about that." It's like when someone's like, "He's a really good guy deep down." You're like, "Yeah, but he's literally always a dick, so I'm pretty sure he's just a dick, right? Or she's just a dick." Like it is what it is.

13:54Um and I think for me, judging people by their actions and not by their words or their intentions, which how do you measure intention, has been way more helpful for me in terms of making decisions around people. So, I I like that frame. Measure twice, cut once. Absolutely. Love it. Plan a little bit, >> [laughter] >> which is I think very similar to uh you'd be amazed at how much smarter you can seem with 20 minutes of preparation.

14:18Right? Like if you go into a job interview, you go into a client meeting, you go into a just a meeting within your company with just 20 minutes of prep, you will you will crush the meeting compared to everyone else cuz most people show up late, completely unprepared. So, it's so easy to win. There's a thin line between love and hate. And in The Wire, there's a fine line between heaven and hell, uh which is one of my favorite shows. Um because the real opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. It's not caring at all. Because you've seen someone go from like a lover to a hater of the same thing in an instant because you're supercharged in one direction. So, it's like flipping a charge versus having a neutral charge. It takes a long time to go from neutral to hate or neutral to love, but you can go from love to hate in an instant. And so, it's much more like you've got apathy here, and then you've got love and hate here, so you can flip here really easily because it takes a lot longer to get around to apathetic or neutral. Don't wait for opportunities, create them. Yeah, I can imagine people be like, "Well, that they haven't given me that." And then the dad's just like, "Dude, go create it. Go do shit," which I totally agree with.

15:16When I was getting better at golfing, but hit a bad shot, he would say, "Good miss." Point being, even your bad shots are getting better. I love this. The simple frame shift of taking action and improvement as the goal, I think is probably one of the best things you can transfer to anyone. Is that like you're getting better is the goal, rather than like you beat Tiger Woods, which most people try to start golf and compare themselves to Tiger Woods and they're like, "I'll never get there." But it's like you don't get there by comparing yourself to Tiger, you get there by comparing your shots to yesterday's shots. And if like you improve yourself in a long enough time horizon, you do you can beat Tiger. But I think that if you're transferring that to a kid, that's an awesome piece of advice. You have two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion. I feel like that's a a wonderful piece of advice. Most people should just shut up and listen more, myself included. It only takes one moment to change your life forever, and that's positive and negative, which has very deep implications. Like all you have to do is drunk drive one time or get one girl knocked up, um and your life will change forever. One of my favorite things from Warren Buffett is that a string of extraordinary numbers followed by zero still equals zero. And so like you can erase a lifetime of excellent returns with one bad mistake.

16:16And so that's why he and Charlie Munger spent so much time talking about trying to avoid mistakes more than trying to make great decisions, because if you avoid all the mistakes, you end up just kind of failing your way to success by default. And I think a lot of times we're better at looking for threats than we are at finding opportunities. And so spotting and identifying the threats and eliminating or avoiding them a lot of times will navigate you to success by default. Be open to everything and be attached to nothing, which is strong beliefs loosely held, which is one of the big traits of founders who are very successful. Is that once they when they hear something they will commit to it, but they don't attach themselves to it until there's an alternative better explanation or better strategy or better idea. And I think this is one that [ __ ] society needs, which is like people identify with their political beliefs, their religious beliefs, their whatever, and take anyone who says anything contrary to that as them insulting their very existence rather than insulting an idea. As a side note, a sign of intelligence is being able to hate an idea and a person at the same time.

17:17And I think two smart people can talk about an idea and debate the idea without hating one another at all. And most young people cannot do that. So, try not to be that way. >> [laughter] >> I'm trying to think of like if I had kids, I know one of them would be around show me. Like don't tell me, show me. Cuz a lot of people are like, "I'm going to be better." Like don't tell me, just show me. And I think that's an over It's an emphasis on action rather than words, which would be what I would want my kids to have overall.

17:48I would bet that do the boring work would definitely find its way into my dad lexicon. Um because they would probably be bitching and moaning about whatever they're doing, and I'd be like, "You just got to like got to keep doing the work, you know? Do the boring work. Keep in the reps in." Um I think your work works on you more than you work on it is one of my favorite sayings ever. Um because it reframes what you are working on, and I think it makes the work inherently more meaningful when it feels tedious.

18:19And then um probably think long. It's like whoever has the longer time horizon always wins. And so, I would just want my kids to have the longest time horizon compared to other people because when you have a long time horizon, it also allows you to get out of the day-to-day comparison game. Cuz it's like, "Yeah, so-and-so, you know, got on the A team for soccer." It's like, "Yeah, but we're playing long here."

18:44Um and I think that's like if we continue to do the boring work, you continue to show those actions, right? Rather than say you want to be the best, show me you want to be the best. Um and you have a longer time horizon, like you'll get the A team, and then you'll become number one on the A team, and then we can move from there, but I think those would probably be some of the things that would find my find their way into my dad lexicon. I could probably come up with like 30 of them on my own. Um but those would be some of the big ones that I'm sure I would repeat myself with. And, um you need to impress you, not them.

19:18And, I think that would probably be a big one. It's like, if I could get my my kids to impress themselves, rather than try to impress other people, like, if you give someone that kind of agency in their life, it's it's they're able to be independent thinkers. Cuz, like, most people cannot think independently. Like, people only share stuff once it has a lot of likes because they feel like they're validated in sharing a quote safe piece of content because other people have shown that it is good enough. But, independent thinkers can find uh the rising star rapper before they're popular because they can make their own decision, rather than leaning on other people. And, it means that they're thinking from principles, rather than from social proof. And, I think that if I could make that shift, which is like, you need to be the judge, rather than thinking about other people's opinions.

19:58Like, if I could just get that one thing in, it would likely allow them to be significantly more successful in their lives. If you like this video and you're business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling, I just sold every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million, and three businesses past 100 million, into a completely free scaling road map that I've used to go from zero to one, zero to 10, and zero to 100 plus. And, so you can click here, and you can check it out. Again, absolutely free. And, since you're business owner, appreciates you, and uh enjoy.