there are some mountains that can be
claimed by people like you and me we got
to get a little bit better condition but
I mean it’s not like the mountain
climber mountains that would be way
beyond our skill level but but but some
of these mountains that can be climbed
by you and me that it takes a day to get
to the top and then that you just camp
up there and you come in at down the
next day
and on many of these places we’re in
Switzerland where you could do that
about halfway up the mountain is what
they call the halfway house halfway
house halfway up the mountain so the
group of people starts off with a guy in
the morning and about noon you’re kind
of tired you’ve been walking now for
four or five hours and here comes the
you’re coming up to the halfway house
it’s just a it’s it’s it’s a wonderful
sight because as soon as you enter in
the halfway house you can smell the food
and they’re they’re getting ready for a
good lunch and you sit down there’s a
fire in the fireplace and there’s nice
soft chairs and you can just rest your
body and refresh your body and and so
the people go into the halfway house and
they eat and laugh and enjoy and and
just really really just kind of take in
that that wonderful refreshing
atmosphere about an hour and a half
after be in the halfway house the guide
gets up and says well gang it’s time to
put on your gear we we got a hike we got
to get on up at the top this is a fact
about half the people decide not to go
on up to the top
they’re sitting around the table they’re
just saying you know what go on up and
you’re gonna be come by here tomorrow
gonna be having lunch here again
tomorrow
we’re just gonna hang here and and so
the people that want to get to the top
they put their stuff on and they kind of
leave and the rest of the people sit
behind they you know eat a little bit
more food get around the piano sing some
songs get around the fireplace enjoy the
fire warn themselves by the fire no I’ve
played games all afternoon kind of enjoy
themselves but about 4:30 chordal 5:00
in the afternoon without anybody saying
a word the people who stayed in the
halfway house they slowly go over to
where the window is the big window and
they start looking outside and they
start looking up at the top of that
mountain and say look at the top of that
mountain they see their friends
the friends are now getting the tents
out and they’re getting ready to prepare
for the night and it becomes very quiet
very somber because everybody in the
halfway house realizes the mistake
they’ve made they’ve they’ve they’ve
they’ve sold their mission for a little
bit of comfort for a few hours next
morning down come their friends and by
noon they come into the halfway house
when they come in the halfway they are
laughing they’re high-fiving they’re
talking about what they’ve seen where
they’ve been experiences the fact that
it was almost impossible to get up there
in fact they had to help each other get
up there and how they join teams and
held hands and and they’re just telling
all these stories and talk about the
pictures they’ve taken and they yeah
they got the group picture up there with
the flag at the top and the people who
remain behind they don’t say much they
and then follow the rest of them down to
the bottom the hill where their friends
are waiting for them and those who paid
the price and went to the top who
understood now is the time to reach the
mission they hug can tell stories and
celebrate and the others say just kind
of slip off and get in a car and go home
because they realize they’re never going
to be what they wanted to be they’re
never going to see what they wanted to
see they’re never going to do what they
wanted to do because they failed to
realize when there’s the halfway house
now is the time to rest and they go on
performing under pressure whether it’s
me or anybody else is the same
you know I have the same pressures as
anyone else there’s time there’s
performance there’s financial I mean
there you know there’s deadlines my
pressures are not unique the situation’s
may be different or you know but but
everybody has the same kinds of
pressures but what I found
or what I find fascinating is the
interpretation of the stimuli if let me
let me explain so I was watching the
Olympics this last Summer Olympics and I
was amazed at how bad the questions were
that the reporters would ask all the
athletes and almost always they asked
the same question whether they were
about to compete or after they competed
were you nervous right and to a tee all
the athletes went no right and what I
realized is it’s not that they’re not
nervous it’s their interpretation of
what’s happening on their bodies I mean
what it what happens when you’re nervous
right your heart rate starts to go
you’re you know you sort of get a little
tense you get a little sweaty right
you have expectation of what’s coming
and we interpreted that is I’m nervous
now what’s the interpretation of excited
your heart rate starts to go you become
you’re anticipating what’s coming right
you get a little sort of like tense it’s
all the same thing it’s the same stimuli
except these athletes these these
Olympic quality athletes have learned to
interpret the stimuli that the rest of
us would say is nervous as excited they
also the same thing no I’m not nervous
I’m excited
and so I’ve actually practiced it just
to tell myself when I start to get
nervous that this is excitement you know
and so where when you used to feet speak
in front of a large audience and
somebody’d say how do you feel it’s a
little nervous now when somebody says
how do you feel I’m like really excited
actually and it it came from just sort
of telling myself no no this is
excitement and it becomes a little bit
automatic later on but it’s kind of a
remarkable thing to deal with pressure
by interpreting what your body is
experiencing as excitement rather than
nerves and it’s really kind of effective
it makes you want to rush for is rather
than pull back and yet it’s the same
experience you can spend your whole life
imagining ghosts worrying about the
pathway to the future but all there will
ever be is what’s happening here in the
decisions we make in this moment which
are based in either love or fear so many
of us choose our path out of fear
disguised as practicality what we really
want seems impossibly out of reach and
ridiculous to expect so we never dare to
ask the universe for it I’m saying I’m
the proof that you can ask the universe
and if it doesn’t happen for you right
away it’s only because the universe is
my father could have been a great
comedian but he didn’t believe that that
was possible for him and so he made a
conservative choice instead he got a
safe job as an accountant and when I was
12 years old he was let go from that
safe job and our family had to do
whatever we could to survive I learned
many great lessons from my father not
the least of which was that you can fail
at what you don’t want so you might as
well take a chance on doing what you
love because all the time why well I
hate to say it the best way for me to
get how I feel across I can’t see air
and say you know what I went through
hell week and met it was it was really
hard no that takes your damn soul rips
it inside out and then they say now
we’re going to start it it allows me to
express where I was at at a point of my
life if I won’t give you all of me why
the hell am I here why how will you
learn from me
people take so much offense to me you
will never learn from people if we
always tap-dance around the truth oh god
I love that we tap-dance around the
truth by finding the right word so I
don’t hurt you because you have thin
skin no tighten up people it’s okay
trust me it’s okay you might be called
nigger one day it’s okay you might be
called some Jewish word or some
or gay word it’s okay let them call you
that what are you going to do now they
don’t own your life how are you going to
control that now how are you going to
flip it upside down and say Roger that
now I’m going to harness this and you
read about me years from now how that’s
the question how are you going to do
that thicken your skin become more of a
human being don’t be afraid of the
reflection in the mirror because that’s
all you can be afraid of once you
overcome the reflection in the mirror
you’ve done it
ideas are worth nothing I mean ideas are
really they’re not a dime a dozen are
just nothing all the good founders I
know even the bad founders can come up
with ideas all day long it doesn’t mean
anything you have to be able to execute
and you know one of the sort of Maxim’s
that I was told once was you knew your
success will be measured in the number
of uncomfortable conversations you’re
willing to have so I think it asked if
an entrepreneur should say start the
business based on one of their passions
or if they should find the most
attractive market opportunity and build
a business out of that whether they like
it or not I don’t think it’s either/or I
think you need both I would say look
here and credit card statement identify
where you spend an unusual percentage of
your income where are you price
insensitive then how old are you what
gender are you where do you live and
design a product that has all of those
things intersecting I have been working
my whole life and what I didn’t
understand by being determined to chase
something by being committed to it and
what commitment is commitment is staying
true to what you said you were going to
do long after the mood that you have
said it in has left you see people think
commitment is saying yes I’ll do it on
the days when it felt good but I’ve been
committed to everything that I ever
started in my life and I never stopped
and I never quit it and so by being
committed to everything that I started I
finished it and built a certain type of
spirit it built a certain type of
mentality it built a certain type of
individual and so now I couldn’t quit
even if I wanted to I couldn’t lay in a
bed even if I wanted to I couldn’t stop
even if I wanted to I had too much sweat
equity in my life and everything that I
was doing because I understood my
existence wasn’t about me I went for me
too we long time ago
I understood the process is more
important than the product it wasn’t
about the outcome for me what that made
it to the NFL or not that was
inconsequential in God’s plan for my
life but I was going to fall in love
with that process because I understood
by falling in love with that process it
was going to turn me into a machine tend
to be incredibly modest in terms of
describing your talents and
you you always seem to belittle your
your abilities to a certain extent when
clearly there there’s a reason why this
everything you do has been working out I
was reading about how you said that to a
certain extent that comes from your your
punk rock roots yep there’s no other
choice in those days there’s no idea of
this makes money
there’s no idea like this is my future
it was like a week at a time they have
five shows we’re gonna get to Sunday and
even those days were like fraught with
turbulence and so I never really saw a
future none of us did and some of us you
know didn’t make it some of them are
dead and some of them are just kind of
trying to recreate their past and so I
realized that I have to be very
hard-working because I don’t have kind
of the ease of talent and I come from
that and I think it is you know a lot of
ways that served me very well in that I
am is kind of hard-working as I’ve ever
been completely on without confidence
and I have none I don’t I don’t want any
because I think you turn your back on
the thing and that’s when you get gored
is when you think I got this I never
think I got this I think oh man don’t
screw this up and I go at everything
like including you and I sitting here
right now I’m trying to be fully engaged
and that intensity I think has served me
quite well but it comes from punk rock
absolutely last boss I ever had was my
boss at haagen-dazs my my ice cream shop
and to this day he still comes to my
shows and whenever I see Steve who got
me my first apartment who believed I was
living in my car he believed in me
whenever I see him I get all weepy
that’s good to see you sir Henry you can
call me Steve I can’t do that sir
because because he trusted me with his
money and and I said let me run your
store I know how to do this I can do
this he’s like well if you screw up
you’re out of here I said I won’t screw
up when I end up being I ran a store and
so um it would but it was anger that
said I’ll be here all damn week I’ll get
this whole thing right
I fired a staff and rehired a bunch of
people can really work
and it’s it was out of anger like I’ll
be back in four hours to run this $3 and
75 cent an hour job into the ground and
then I joined Black Flag and I thought I
was a hardworking person then you meet
the guys in Black Flag who are so driven
you see Greg Ginn work 23 hour days like
Greg you’re still on the phone I know
Greg won when did you eat I don’t know
Greg when the last time you showered do
we have a shower like the guy we were
not gonna be stopped and I kind of go at
that intensity
what kind of anything I do like you’re
very calm good-looking young man look at
me I’m a spaz sitting next to you like
I’m doing an interview with you focus
I’m sweating ma’am and so but I’d like
it’s going to the airport like 10 miles
out and so um it’s but his anger that
has informed kind of my life and
unflatteringly a sense of vengeance
every damn person who said I wouldn’t be
anything I’m crushing them every day
everybody I had to endure in any band I
was in everyday into a powder yeah thank
you and I wish them no ill I just wish
to shine brighter and if it burns my
body to a crisp I’m happy to go right
now
yes PN call me but they call me one day
now picked up the phone he said is this
inky johnson the last time I checked I’m
inky johnson they said is this the same
guy that said if you could change what
happened to you you wouldn’t I said
absolutely
they said it’s our understanding the
game of football meant the world I said
at one point it did they said it’s our
understanding that your family was
banking on you making it to the NFL they
can have a better way of life I say yeah
that’s that’s correct and said we’re
coming to see you I said all right cool
come on I said but we don’t want to see
you in Atlanta we want to see you in
Neyland Stadium on the exact yard line
where your life changes the same time of
day the only thing that won’t be present
its Air Forces team all right cool and
so they take me to Nealon Stadium they
put me on edge
yard line with my life changed they said
now tell your younger self why you
wouldn’t stop your injury if you could
if you could be in the NFL right now
making millions of dollars tell you
young yourself why you wouldn’t change
that situation if you could and let’s
say the reason I wouldn’t change it
believe it or not has nothing to do with
me
fact on a personal level you he thought
I was gonna say because of the man that
I’ve become the perspective that I’ve
acquired my feet that been fortified he
thought I was gonna say something like
that I said no it has nothing to do it
has everything to do with the lives that
have been affected by the result of the
process and the thing that I represent
in the world what my spirit represents
when she might have seen me they think
perseverance well my spirit represents
where somebody see me they think don’t
quit what my spirit represents when
somebody see me they think that’s a
quality individual right there what my
character represents in the world and
every single day we’re putting something
out like that represent something when
people see that they thinks it’s a
thought that comes to the month when you
say gold standard he gave me that I felt
a certain type of money but he gave me
to go stick I got the certain type I
felt different gold standard I felt like
that with me because I think in what I
do the line of business I’m in I’m gonna
go standard because I don’t compromise
and every single day I’m gonna give you
my very best you can bet your bottom
dollar every single day imma bring that
gold standard the life and I’m not just
bringing it in one aspect of life I’m
bringing it every single aspect of life
I’m not gonna be one of these people in
the world that’s a public success but
they’re private failure I mean they give
everything they got to one aspect of
life but the other areas they lack are
know I’m gonna give every single thing I
got to every aspect of my life because I
represent something when people see me
they think something whether that’s
character never giving up never
surrender and the thing that we can
never do is forget what we represent
because that’s how guys end up under
bridge on a cardboard box leap they
forget what they represent when life
hits him we’re at first
my only charge for you never forget what
you represent one of the things that’s
really interesting about the Old
Testament is that and the Jews in the
Old Testament is that they don’t take
the path of Cain every time they’re
walloped by God which is like fairly
frequently they say we must have done
something wrong and we have to set our
self right and that’s a an unbelievably
heroic attitude because that’s the
alternative to cursing fate it’s like
you take the responsibility for failure
unto yourself and you think well if I
was just maybe if I just had my act
together a little bit more if I took
advantage of every opportunity that was
put in front of me if I wasn’t resentful
and bitter then I could have done
something that would have tilted the
situation in a different direction and
like that’s almost inevitably true
Dostoevsky I think said something like
every man is responsible for everything
that happens to him and everything that
happens to everyone else and that’s you
know that that’s that’s it’s a crazy
statement right it’s a crazy statement
and he was a pretty extreme person in
many many ways but there’s a level at
which that’s metaphysically true you
know because what happens is that it’s
you its failure to act often that’s the
most catastrophic you know I mean it’s
it’s it’s to not do the right thing when
the when the situation presents itself
and it’s very specific you know you’re
constantly in situations where you could
do the right thing if you were willing
to take a risk that’s actually of
relatively moderate size and you know
that you could take the risk and you
know that you should take the risk and
you don’t and that happens to people all
the time and then what happens is the
thing that they didn’t oppose grows a
little bit and they shrink a little bit
and that starts a loop hey enough enough
like living by somebody else’s rules is
a humongous mistake I just literally sat
down with five people under the age of
27 and it’s so refreshing it is so
refreshing if you have not jumped on the
bandwagon
of doing exactly what the you want to do
which is skiing for the next three years
or working at a job that’s not what your
parents want or what society wants this
video is just called enough enough make
this little in one two minute video
depends on when I finish the piece of
content that gets you to stand up and
take life by its throat do something
stopping scared stop letting the way you
were raised the fear as an offense take
that away let me be the person I’ll take
the blame
I loved that some of my employees are
like my parents don’t love what you’re
saying good parents because if you are
playing defense and if you are living a
life where your kids lives are the way
you’re being fulfilled
you’re losing parents and so enough
enough parents imposing their way you
want your kids to be happy on your terms
enough the kid that’s sitting right now
in a desk and saw this in a feed and you
hate your job enough stand up get the
out of here and do you live your life
you’ve got one life do something about
it
I think that I’ve got to make a record
that is the ultimate sort of Here I am
you know so I think it’s time to go back
and you know it’s like in the movies
where the the ex-marine grows the long
beard and long hair and takes off to
like Tibet or something and then there’s
always a moment I don’t do that anymore
and then he shows up at the Pentagon and
totally clean shave and he’s like where
do we start
I may be shaving the beard soon I’m
getting kind of this place in my life
where if if you can man just do it you
know I went I had this moment where and
my youth I was really frenetic and
everything was like but uh and then I
hit this mode where it was like less is
more and now as I get into my later 30s
I’m like if you can do it do it all the
time
you know you do it all the time as long
as you can do it do it just shred show
people what you can do you know so it’s
a sort of this arc also of how fancy you
think you are and find yourself to be
you’ve lived a life dominated by doubt
step that’s how you step into bravery
step take the step step aggressively
towards your fear and that that step
towards your fear is the step into
bravery because we we were scared of
what we don’t know and there is only one
way to learn and to know and that is to
confront that fear you have to step you
have to go and this simple action
this simple attitude it answers so many
questions
so many questions how do you get to the
gym every day you step you go how do you
how do you change your diet you step you
go how do you overcome fear of failure
fear of success or or fear of fear
you step and how do you face the fear of
the unknown you step
don’t wait anymore don’t think anymore
don’t plan anymore don’t contemplate
anymore don’t make any more excuses or
justifications don’t rationalize
anything else no no and no instead be
aggressive take action now and what is
the first action that you need to take
the first step you need to take is just
that step most people don’t have a
compelling vision for their own future
they don’t they move through life
setting goals and goals have no power
we’re almost fear at this point your
goals on Power 1959 when Earl
Nightingale came because I hear of
goal-setting and ever like wow I’m a
goal oriented person and that was great
it worked like 20 years everyone set
goals and they and they got results but
then all of a sudden you know you set
goals and sometimes you hit them
sometimes you know most times you don’t
okay that’s okay but goals almost became
like a synonym for like oh I’m gonna set
a goal who gives it what really happens
afterwards and it almost synonymous with
failure now goal-setting is something
above and I believe in setting goals but
there’s got to be something above your
goals and that’s your vision for the
future and it’s not just about it
doesn’t have like an ending points about
the world being a certain way and that’s
inspiring
to you and you when you truly have a
vision for your future that inspires you
you’re gonna jump up out of bed in the
morning and feel
great about going at life versus being
miserable and going through a job you
hate or living a life that doesn’t
empower you and just you know every day
moving through just almost like an
automaton not really you know having the
zest and the great the greatness of life
and I’m joking I’ve been there myself
when I felt like I didn’t really have a
compelling vision for my own future and
I felt like I was wallowing but at least
I’m conscious of that once you become
conscious of that you can consciously
create a vision for your future it
doesn’t happen in once in one minute or
an hour you write it down you work on
until it I mean you finally hit on it
you know you know you got it
when you read it back to yourself your
vision statement and it moves you and
you feel inspired okay and you know so
people had that and and what happens is
every human being is thirsty for a
vision everyone is and so few people
happen to what I do they gravitate
towards someone who has a vision for the
future they want to be a part of a
vision part of being a great
entrepreneur is having that vision being
able to create the vision and then sell
that vision to other people to get them
to want to be inspired to buy into it to
put in their time their hard work their
elbow grease to help you achieve your
vision if you’re a small firm then you
spread the wealth around it’s a it’s a
win-win for everybody when I was at rock
bottom I didn’t know that I was at rock
bottom and you can’t really change what
you’re not aware of and so it was like
one of those things where it’s like can
it get any worse
damn can it get any worse damn and it
just I kept asking the question can it
get any worse I didn’t know that what I
was asking was causing my life so it was
to the point where either I die or I do
something about it because it was like I
didn’t have my mom my my daughter pretty
much was like you’re not my father you
don’t know what love is my girlfriend is
just broke up with me and you know my
mother was pretty much the sixteen
different was it called met she was on
sixteen different medications there was
so much stuff going on and I’m watching
all of these people be successful and
I’m like
I’m more talented than them and I don’t
understand why I’m still in the exact
same spot which I didn’t know was rock
bottom and then it one day just all came
crashing down and I was like why am I
here I remember lying down in the middle
of the road and I’m like I wanna die
like right now and I stayed there cars
would drive them by honking and
everything and I don’t know what
happened in between that but literally
my car had just got out of the impound
my mom had paid for it she didn’t have
much money but somehow she would always
do something for her baby boy and she
got much she got my car to the impound a
day I got my car to the impound that’s
when somebody who broke into my car like
and it was like can it get any worse
that night on La Brea on the corner of
La Brea and Hollywood I’m at the there’s
like this like little shopping center
and I car was parked my window was
busted out to the right and and
literally was raining was 343 in the
morning August 2011 and it was I yelled
out eyes bloodshot red and I still
didn’t know that this was rock bottom
but I’ve always focused on what I don’t
want and I just remember saying okay
okay I’m tired of fighting I don’t want
to fight anymore I want to be healthy I
want to be happy I want to be surrounded
by nothing but positive people I just I
just want to inspire people and I want
to make a bunch of money but I want the
money to represent something that I
passionately believe in just show me a
sign show me a sign show me and I just
kept saying over and over and over it
wasn’t until a week later until I met
the man at the gas station and he asked
me for money and he said he said do you
have any money she’s like it was a
homeless guy not only and he had a lot
of money I say you have more money than
me and he goes if you ever seen the
movie Rain Man the guy was talking to
himself person did the exact same thing
he was like change our mindset change
your life
change your mindset change your life
change your mindset change your life
change your mindset and then they walked
away and it was in that very moment I
felt like my whole entire life was a lie
the best advice I ever got was you only
have one chance to make a first
impression I don’t remember who gave me
the advice but I’ve been certainly
dishing out that piece of advice for the
last 30 years it’s important because you
do only have one chance to make a first
impression if that first impression is a
crummy one you’re clawing your way out
for a very long time so at every
commencement speech that I give I say to
the graduates if you take nothing else
away from this commencement other than
your diploma you only have one chance to
make a first impression
it was to have my own business to be an
entrepreneur and make my own money and
I’ve been thinking about it while you’re
in the monastery yeah the last well not
all those years the last couple years
deciding whether I wanted to leave was
probably – wouldn’t say probably was the
hardest decision I’ve ever made in my
life was to leave the monastery yeah so
the next question would be what would I
do
I could’ve ran a web business from the
monastery we we had the largest website
in the state of Hawaii yeah monks
program in HTML CSS JavaScript and we
were trained how to edit movies when
Final Cut Pro design and InDesign
Photoshop we we knew it inside out Wow
yeah I I learned coding in the monastry
oh that’s awesome I didn’t know well I
thought I literally thought you were
preparing for meditation we we took
those concentration skills into
everything that we did so when we were
programming we focused on programs you
know when we we were building a building
or we were pouring cement on the
sidewalk or sweeping something or
cooking we focused so in everything that
we did throughout the day we practiced
all the tools that we learned so when we
sat to meditate we’d been practicing for
20 s all day when asked me once what
they or many times I think what I
thought it meant to be an artist and I
said what I think an artist needs
essentially more than discipline or even
Talent
is a perspective so if you are always
changing what you do based on what other
people say you completely lose yourself
and you become just you know something
that’s constantly affected by what’s
around you as opposed to stable and your
own and like autonomous and your
identity that most people are not
successful not wealthy it’s not because
they set their goals too high and miss
them it’s cause they set them to go low
and hit them get that it’s not because
you set your goals too high and miss you
set your goals too low and you hit them
and you get caught up in the average
daily struggle of averages and
mediocrity that’s what kills people
everybody raise your hand for a second
please
raise your hand now raise it as high as
you can
I’m gonna crash so I can see okay now
just raise it a bit higher run higher
why the hell would that happen I say
raise it as high as you can
in heaven I said okay then a little high
okay well if you really mean it right
you get it it’s that extra inch that’s
where you want to set your goal not pie
in the sky and add a control like it’s
never gonna happen because that’s a load
of crap to people that set those sort of
goals they abandon those goals and I’ll
get to that later but the idea here is
you want to set the goals just above
so now think about it for a second think
about your goals right now how do you
say to me you’re setting them very low
and hitting them if that’s the case then
give yourself a ten are you setting
goals that don’t inspire you some people
set goals it might behind but they’re
crappy goals they’re not the sort of
goals that make you jump out of bed in
the morning make you want to go to work
for yourself to secure the future not
just for you but for your family you
know they’re compromised or acquiesce to
anybody unless you love them unless you
want to that’s freedom you know money is
just a mechanism to get there in the
18th century there was something that
spread across Europe and eventually made
its way to America where pole fever
also known as the Black Death of
childbed basically what was happening is
women were giving birth and they would
die within 48 hours after giving birth
this black death of childbirth was the
ravage of Europe and it got worse and
worse and worse over the course of over
a century in some hospitals it was as
high as 70% of women who gave birth who
would die as a result of giving birth
but this was the Renaissance this was
the time of empirical data and science
and we had thrown away things like
tradition and mysticism these were men
of science these were doctors and these
doctors and men of science wanted to
study and try and find the reason for
this black death of childbed and so they
got to work studying and they would
study the corpses of the of the women
who had died and in the morning they
would conduct autopsies and then in the
afternoon they would go and deliver
babies and finish their rounds and it
wasn’t until somewhere in the mid 1800s
that dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes father of
Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes realized that all of these
doctors who conducting autopsies in the
morning weren’t washing their hands
before they delivered babies in the
afternoon
and he pointed it out and said guys
you’re the problem and they ignored him
and called him crazy for 30 years until
finally somebody realized that if they
simply washed their hands it would go
away and that’s exactly what happened
when they started sterilizing their
instruments and washing their hands the
black death of childbed disappeared my
point is the lesson here is sometimes
you’re the problem we’ve seen this
happen all too recently with our new men
of science and empirical studies and
these men of finance who are smarter
than the rest of us until the thing
collapsed and they blamed everything
else except themselves and my point is
is take accountability for your actions
you can take all the credit in the world
for the things that you do right as long
as you also take responsibility for the
things you do wrong it must be a
balanced equation you don’t get it one
way and not the other you get to take
credit when you also take accountability
I think it’s important to have at least
one or two numbers that you track on a
weekly basis so that could be more web
based properties or services or products
it could be weekly average uniques what
it is doesn’t matter that much but
matters less than having a metric that
you try to improve every week you can
have one or two of them you really
shouldn’t have many more than that I
don’t think could be conversion from
sign up to let’s say first stage of sign
up to completion of sign up there are
many different metrics that you can use
but you I think that to keep the team
focused especially in a small company
it’s very important to have one or two
the folks on a weekly basis
the only thing that stops you from
getting what you want in life is the
bolt
store and you tell yourself of why you
can’t have it get that what stops you
back is the story but the story stops
from getting honest and if you can’t get
honest with yourself there’s no way you
can go what mod you like that success in
sales in life it’s like a road map right
you know where you want to go and you
have this perfect strategy with straight
line to get there it’s a perfect
strategy it’s gonna get you there every
single time but if you don’t know your
starting point you’re not getting eyes
where you actually are it doesn’t matter
how powerful strategy is and it doesn’t
matter how powerful your goal is I’m
gonna actually set a goal today write a
60 day goal and let’s say you really set
this goal and I’ll show you how to do it
in a brilliant way so it’s visceral so
it makes you really feel it you see it
you says you smell a goal that’s step
one I’m gonna teach you the straight
line which is your strategy to get to
your goal but if you’re not honest with
where you are right now your starting
point the math is worthless there’s
three things that you need to know where
you are where you want to go and how
you’re gonna get there those are the
three things you must have and take
advantage of any opportunity I’m gonna
give you the strategy I’m gonna actually
tell me exactly where you want to go
yourself
you got to get honest don’t blame the
boss don’t let the league’s don’t blame
your job don’t in the industry you’re in
just get on if you don’t like your
industry find another one
use active imagination is deceptively
simple often what separates creative
from conventional thinkers is that they
simply search wider they use their minds
to generate possibilities that others
didn’t don’t think of and then they work
to verify what they came up with we saw
a classic example of this with past or
another great example is with Henry Ford
early on in his career in the earliest
years of what would later become the
Ford Motor Company Ford was anxious to
Inc to speed up the production of cars
it was he saw the automobile as the
ultimate consumer product but in order
for it to become that he had to greatly
increase the production rate in his
factory so he spent a couple days
looking at his employees on the factory
floor and trying to imagine how he could
get them to move faster from car to car
suddenly one day he imagined something
completely different he imagined the men
standing still and the cars coming to
them he didn’t know what that really
meant that he decided to try it out and
lo and behold it increased productivity
by such an incredible exponential rate
that it could now become the consumer
product that he envisioned things like
antibodies or assembly lines they seemed
so obvious to us now but they are never
obvious in the present and they involve
an incredible leap of what I call active
imagination the difference between
regular and active imagination is that
the latter is used consciously to reach
very very practical results it’s not
imagination for coming up with wild
things it’s a
used for very practical results think of
the active imagination as a kind of
creative muscle that you’re developing
first within the loose constraints of
what you’re working on you open your
mind up to you give a complete free rein
you entertain almost every possibility
that you could imagine or visualize you
engage in what Charles Darwin calls
fool’s experiment and fools experiments
this is the fun play part of serious
play you use notebook sketches diagrams
models prototypes to help externalize
the products of your imagination once
you have gone through this you now enter
the second serious part of the process
first you choose one or few of the more
promising possibilities that were
generated by your imagination
and now you actively work to test verify
or confirm it
this might entail launching a beta
version on the public once you have
feedback you now go back into the first
part of the process in a shortened form
using your imagination to perhaps take
what you have into an even better and
higher form circling constantly through
this process in shorter and shorter
cycles until you’ve got something that’s
both incredibly imaginative and
incredibly realistic and practical like
developing this by going through this
over and over and over again you will
develop your imagination into an
incredibly powerful creative muscle so
entrepreneurs tend to miscalculate is
optimism has a place but I think even
more so for the first time entrepreneur
you need to be pragmatically pessimistic
what I mean by that is you need to
define all the worst-case scenarios in
terms of financial loss time loss etc
look at what you will learn if that
happens and accept and come to terms
with that before you ever start if you
don’t do that and you go straight into
battling the world trying to conquer the
world with rose-colored glasses on the
first time you hit a major hiccup you’re
gonna become really demoralized and you
will quit so optimism all that rah rah
rah that’s awesome but you need to hope
for the best and prepare for the worst
before you ever get started I talked to
so many smart fantastic ambitious
idealistic hard-working kids and they’re
right out of college they’re in their
entry-level jobs and I’ll ask them how
is it going and they’ll say I think I’m
gonna quit and I’m like why they say to
me I’m not making an impact I’m like you
they treat the sense of fulfillment or
even love like it’s a scavenger hunt
like it’s something you look for my
millennial friends they’ve gone through
so many jobs they’re either getting
fired I mean it was mutual or they’re
quitting because they’re not making an
impact or they’re not finding anything
they’re looking for they’re not feeling
fulfilled as if it’s a scavenger hunt
love a job you find joy from is not
something you discover it’s not like I
found love here it is I found a job I
love that’s not how it works both of
those things require hard work you are
in love because you work very hard every
single day of your life to stay in love
you find a job that brings you ultimate
joy because you work hard every single
day to serve those around you and you
maintain that joy it’s not a discovery
but the problem is the sense of
impatience it’s as if an entire
generation is standing at the foot of a
mountain they know exactly what they
want they can see the summit what they
can’t see is the mountain this large
amove Abul object that doesn’t mean you
have to do your time that’s not what I’m
talking about take a helicopter climb I
don’t care but there’s still a mountain
life career fulfillment relationships
are journeys the problem is this entire
generation has an institutionalized
sense of impatience and do they have the
patience to go on the journey to
maintain love to feel fulfilled or do
they just quit and on to the next dump
and on to the next ghost and on to the
next for many years before I wrote the
power of now and it became successful I
was basically a failure in the eyes of
the world so he’s already almost 50 and
what has he achieved my mom said you
have thrown away your life you had so
many possibilities in your life you
walked out of graduate school in
Cambridge why did you walk out of there
you my mum and many other people said
this person has failed in life he has no
job there’s no insurance policies
nothing
no pension plan just almost nothing in
the bank failure and then a few years
later people bought the path now and
became a best seller Oh a big success
okay if I had arrived my identity at
that time from what the world was
telling me or my mind would have told me
if I have been listening to my mind I
would have been very unhappy and I
didn’t though I was fine because my
identity wasn’t derived from that
anymore and fortunately even when in the
eyes of the world I suddenly became a
success I don’t want to derive my
identity from that it’s it’s a cheap
substitute for who I really am so I’m
not I don’t see I don’t arrive but the
satisfaction it comes is the
satisfaction that the work that’s
happening the teaching that’s happening
is transforming people’s lives that’s
very satisfying I don’t get any personal
satisfaction so because it’s not I don’t
feel it as this separate me produced it
it’s it’s very easy to be seduced by
doing things efficiently trying to do a
lot of things well I don’t believe
that’s the most important thing the most
important thing is picking the right
things to do in the first place and
that’s being effective versus just being
efficient so within a startup its
success I don’t think it’s measured by
how many things you can do at once it’s
measured by how effectively you’re able
to pick the one or two things into the
highest priority and there’s always
going to be a seduction to get
distracted and focus on 20 things at
once and the most effective
entrepreneurs I know are very good at
focusing on one or two things and either
eliminating the rest delegating to other
people or outsourcing it so it’s not
done within the team but it’s actually
to third parties I knew I was wired to
be excited about business how or why I
don’t know but you know and do certain
guys they have the genetics to jump out
of the gym right certain guys you know
that you know when they golf they have
the muscle memory and and the discipline
you know dirt
he may not be the most talented guy in
the NBA but his discipline and his focus
to do what’s necessary to be successful
he’s willing to do and combine it with
being seven feet tall and being skilled
you know it makes him an amazing
basketball player so it’s understanding
what your skill set is finding the right
place to use those skills and then going
for it you know will that make you 250
grand it depends if you pick the right
industry but whatever industry you pick
if you outwork everybody if you try to
be a little smarter than everybody if
you try to be a better salesperson and
everybody if you try to be better
prepared than everybody you’ve got your
best chance because if you don’t do it
and somebody else does yeah I have the
same work like someone’s trying to take
it all away from you you know work you
actually work like someone’s spending 24
hours working 24 hours to take it all
away from you and that’s kind of the way
I look at it and I remember asking my
dad to I want a new basketball shoes
because I was a basketball junkie back
then he’s like well your shoes work if
you want a new pair of tennis shoes you
have to go out there and get a job and
I’m like dad I’m 12 years old and it
just so happens he was playing poker
with his buddies and one of his buddies
just like well I got a job for you I’ve
got these garbage bags that we
distribute you could sell them
door-to-door I’m like okay and it was
when I was selling them and realized
that I’d like to sell and that I could
sell and that I recognized that selling
was it was about providing the service
and creating value for people that I
knew that I would literally back then I
knew that I could always succeed I mean
I remember I was 16 I think when I
started a stamp company and started
going to stamp shows and trade shows and
just working a little bit harder than
other people and and trading up from one
stamp to the next I remember one time I
started with a quarter and bought a
stamp and left with $50 thinking hey if
I could do this I could do anything and
and it’s not that everything worked I
failed a lot but I never ever felt like
I I wouldn’t be able to work hard enough to
claimed by people like you and me we got
to get a little bit better condition but
I mean it’s not like the mountain
climber mountains that would be way
beyond our skill level but but but some
of these mountains that can be climbed
by you and me that it takes a day to get
to the top and then that you just camp
up there and you come in at down the
next day
and on many of these places we’re in
Switzerland where you could do that
about halfway up the mountain is what
they call the halfway house halfway
house halfway up the mountain so the
group of people starts off with a guy in
the morning and about noon you’re kind
of tired you’ve been walking now for
four or five hours and here comes the
you’re coming up to the halfway house
it’s just a it’s it’s it’s a wonderful
sight because as soon as you enter in
the halfway house you can smell the food
and they’re they’re getting ready for a
good lunch and you sit down there’s a
fire in the fireplace and there’s nice
soft chairs and you can just rest your
body and refresh your body and and so
the people go into the halfway house and
they eat and laugh and enjoy and and
just really really just kind of take in
that that wonderful refreshing
atmosphere about an hour and a half
after be in the halfway house the guide
gets up and says well gang it’s time to
put on your gear we we got a hike we got
to get on up at the top this is a fact
about half the people decide not to go
on up to the top
they’re sitting around the table they’re
just saying you know what go on up and
you’re gonna be come by here tomorrow
gonna be having lunch here again
tomorrow
we’re just gonna hang here and and so
the people that want to get to the top
they put their stuff on and they kind of
leave and the rest of the people sit
behind they you know eat a little bit
more food get around the piano sing some
songs get around the fireplace enjoy the
fire warn themselves by the fire no I’ve
played games all afternoon kind of enjoy
themselves but about 4:30 chordal 5:00
in the afternoon without anybody saying
a word the people who stayed in the
halfway house they slowly go over to
where the window is the big window and
they start looking outside and they
start looking up at the top of that
mountain and say look at the top of that
mountain they see their friends
the friends are now getting the tents
out and they’re getting ready to prepare
for the night and it becomes very quiet
very somber because everybody in the
halfway house realizes the mistake
they’ve made they’ve they’ve they’ve
they’ve sold their mission for a little
bit of comfort for a few hours next
morning down come their friends and by
noon they come into the halfway house
when they come in the halfway they are
laughing they’re high-fiving they’re
talking about what they’ve seen where
they’ve been experiences the fact that
it was almost impossible to get up there
in fact they had to help each other get
up there and how they join teams and
held hands and and they’re just telling
all these stories and talk about the
pictures they’ve taken and they yeah
they got the group picture up there with
the flag at the top and the people who
remain behind they don’t say much they
and then follow the rest of them down to
the bottom the hill where their friends
are waiting for them and those who paid
the price and went to the top who
understood now is the time to reach the
mission they hug can tell stories and
celebrate and the others say just kind
of slip off and get in a car and go home
because they realize they’re never going
to be what they wanted to be they’re
never going to see what they wanted to
see they’re never going to do what they
wanted to do because they failed to
realize when there’s the halfway house
now is the time to rest and they go on
performing under pressure whether it’s
me or anybody else is the same
you know I have the same pressures as
anyone else there’s time there’s
performance there’s financial I mean
there you know there’s deadlines my
pressures are not unique the situation’s
may be different or you know but but
everybody has the same kinds of
pressures but what I found
or what I find fascinating is the
interpretation of the stimuli if let me
let me explain so I was watching the
Olympics this last Summer Olympics and I
was amazed at how bad the questions were
that the reporters would ask all the
athletes and almost always they asked
the same question whether they were
about to compete or after they competed
were you nervous right and to a tee all
the athletes went no right and what I
realized is it’s not that they’re not
nervous it’s their interpretation of
what’s happening on their bodies I mean
what it what happens when you’re nervous
right your heart rate starts to go
you’re you know you sort of get a little
tense you get a little sweaty right
you have expectation of what’s coming
and we interpreted that is I’m nervous
now what’s the interpretation of excited
your heart rate starts to go you become
you’re anticipating what’s coming right
you get a little sort of like tense it’s
all the same thing it’s the same stimuli
except these athletes these these
Olympic quality athletes have learned to
interpret the stimuli that the rest of
us would say is nervous as excited they
also the same thing no I’m not nervous
I’m excited
and so I’ve actually practiced it just
to tell myself when I start to get
nervous that this is excitement you know
and so where when you used to feet speak
in front of a large audience and
somebody’d say how do you feel it’s a
little nervous now when somebody says
how do you feel I’m like really excited
actually and it it came from just sort
of telling myself no no this is
excitement and it becomes a little bit
automatic later on but it’s kind of a
remarkable thing to deal with pressure
by interpreting what your body is
experiencing as excitement rather than
nerves and it’s really kind of effective
it makes you want to rush for is rather
than pull back and yet it’s the same
experience you can spend your whole life
imagining ghosts worrying about the
pathway to the future but all there will
ever be is what’s happening here in the
decisions we make in this moment which
are based in either love or fear so many
of us choose our path out of fear
disguised as practicality what we really
want seems impossibly out of reach and
ridiculous to expect so we never dare to
ask the universe for it I’m saying I’m
the proof that you can ask the universe
and if it doesn’t happen for you right
away it’s only because the universe is
my father could have been a great
comedian but he didn’t believe that that
was possible for him and so he made a
conservative choice instead he got a
safe job as an accountant and when I was
12 years old he was let go from that
safe job and our family had to do
whatever we could to survive I learned
many great lessons from my father not
the least of which was that you can fail
at what you don’t want so you might as
well take a chance on doing what you
love because all the time why well I
hate to say it the best way for me to
get how I feel across I can’t see air
and say you know what I went through
hell week and met it was it was really
hard no that takes your damn soul rips
it inside out and then they say now
we’re going to start it it allows me to
express where I was at at a point of my
life if I won’t give you all of me why
the hell am I here why how will you
learn from me
people take so much offense to me you
will never learn from people if we
always tap-dance around the truth oh god
I love that we tap-dance around the
truth by finding the right word so I
don’t hurt you because you have thin
skin no tighten up people it’s okay
trust me it’s okay you might be called
nigger one day it’s okay you might be
called some Jewish word or some
or gay word it’s okay let them call you
that what are you going to do now they
don’t own your life how are you going to
control that now how are you going to
flip it upside down and say Roger that
now I’m going to harness this and you
read about me years from now how that’s
the question how are you going to do
that thicken your skin become more of a
human being don’t be afraid of the
reflection in the mirror because that’s
all you can be afraid of once you
overcome the reflection in the mirror
you’ve done it
ideas are worth nothing I mean ideas are
really they’re not a dime a dozen are
just nothing all the good founders I
know even the bad founders can come up
with ideas all day long it doesn’t mean
anything you have to be able to execute
and you know one of the sort of Maxim’s
that I was told once was you knew your
success will be measured in the number
of uncomfortable conversations you’re
willing to have so I think it asked if
an entrepreneur should say start the
business based on one of their passions
or if they should find the most
attractive market opportunity and build
a business out of that whether they like
it or not I don’t think it’s either/or I
think you need both I would say look
here and credit card statement identify
where you spend an unusual percentage of
your income where are you price
insensitive then how old are you what
gender are you where do you live and
design a product that has all of those
things intersecting I have been working
my whole life and what I didn’t
understand by being determined to chase
something by being committed to it and
what commitment is commitment is staying
true to what you said you were going to
do long after the mood that you have
said it in has left you see people think
commitment is saying yes I’ll do it on
the days when it felt good but I’ve been
committed to everything that I ever
started in my life and I never stopped
and I never quit it and so by being
committed to everything that I started I
finished it and built a certain type of
spirit it built a certain type of
mentality it built a certain type of
individual and so now I couldn’t quit
even if I wanted to I couldn’t lay in a
bed even if I wanted to I couldn’t stop
even if I wanted to I had too much sweat
equity in my life and everything that I
was doing because I understood my
existence wasn’t about me I went for me
too we long time ago
I understood the process is more
important than the product it wasn’t
about the outcome for me what that made
it to the NFL or not that was
inconsequential in God’s plan for my
life but I was going to fall in love
with that process because I understood
by falling in love with that process it
was going to turn me into a machine tend
to be incredibly modest in terms of
describing your talents and
you you always seem to belittle your
your abilities to a certain extent when
clearly there there’s a reason why this
everything you do has been working out I
was reading about how you said that to a
certain extent that comes from your your
punk rock roots yep there’s no other
choice in those days there’s no idea of
this makes money
there’s no idea like this is my future
it was like a week at a time they have
five shows we’re gonna get to Sunday and
even those days were like fraught with
turbulence and so I never really saw a
future none of us did and some of us you
know didn’t make it some of them are
dead and some of them are just kind of
trying to recreate their past and so I
realized that I have to be very
hard-working because I don’t have kind
of the ease of talent and I come from
that and I think it is you know a lot of
ways that served me very well in that I
am is kind of hard-working as I’ve ever
been completely on without confidence
and I have none I don’t I don’t want any
because I think you turn your back on
the thing and that’s when you get gored
is when you think I got this I never
think I got this I think oh man don’t
screw this up and I go at everything
like including you and I sitting here
right now I’m trying to be fully engaged
and that intensity I think has served me
quite well but it comes from punk rock
absolutely last boss I ever had was my
boss at haagen-dazs my my ice cream shop
and to this day he still comes to my
shows and whenever I see Steve who got
me my first apartment who believed I was
living in my car he believed in me
whenever I see him I get all weepy
that’s good to see you sir Henry you can
call me Steve I can’t do that sir
because because he trusted me with his
money and and I said let me run your
store I know how to do this I can do
this he’s like well if you screw up
you’re out of here I said I won’t screw
up when I end up being I ran a store and
so um it would but it was anger that
said I’ll be here all damn week I’ll get
this whole thing right
I fired a staff and rehired a bunch of
people can really work
and it’s it was out of anger like I’ll
be back in four hours to run this $3 and
75 cent an hour job into the ground and
then I joined Black Flag and I thought I
was a hardworking person then you meet
the guys in Black Flag who are so driven
you see Greg Ginn work 23 hour days like
Greg you’re still on the phone I know
Greg won when did you eat I don’t know
Greg when the last time you showered do
we have a shower like the guy we were
not gonna be stopped and I kind of go at
that intensity
what kind of anything I do like you’re
very calm good-looking young man look at
me I’m a spaz sitting next to you like
I’m doing an interview with you focus
I’m sweating ma’am and so but I’d like
it’s going to the airport like 10 miles
out and so um it’s but his anger that
has informed kind of my life and
unflatteringly a sense of vengeance
every damn person who said I wouldn’t be
anything I’m crushing them every day
everybody I had to endure in any band I
was in everyday into a powder yeah thank
you and I wish them no ill I just wish
to shine brighter and if it burns my
body to a crisp I’m happy to go right
now
yes PN call me but they call me one day
now picked up the phone he said is this
inky johnson the last time I checked I’m
inky johnson they said is this the same
guy that said if you could change what
happened to you you wouldn’t I said
absolutely
they said it’s our understanding the
game of football meant the world I said
at one point it did they said it’s our
understanding that your family was
banking on you making it to the NFL they
can have a better way of life I say yeah
that’s that’s correct and said we’re
coming to see you I said all right cool
come on I said but we don’t want to see
you in Atlanta we want to see you in
Neyland Stadium on the exact yard line
where your life changes the same time of
day the only thing that won’t be present
its Air Forces team all right cool and
so they take me to Nealon Stadium they
put me on edge
yard line with my life changed they said
now tell your younger self why you
wouldn’t stop your injury if you could
if you could be in the NFL right now
making millions of dollars tell you
young yourself why you wouldn’t change
that situation if you could and let’s
say the reason I wouldn’t change it
believe it or not has nothing to do with
me
fact on a personal level you he thought
I was gonna say because of the man that
I’ve become the perspective that I’ve
acquired my feet that been fortified he
thought I was gonna say something like
that I said no it has nothing to do it
has everything to do with the lives that
have been affected by the result of the
process and the thing that I represent
in the world what my spirit represents
when she might have seen me they think
perseverance well my spirit represents
where somebody see me they think don’t
quit what my spirit represents when
somebody see me they think that’s a
quality individual right there what my
character represents in the world and
every single day we’re putting something
out like that represent something when
people see that they thinks it’s a
thought that comes to the month when you
say gold standard he gave me that I felt
a certain type of money but he gave me
to go stick I got the certain type I
felt different gold standard I felt like
that with me because I think in what I
do the line of business I’m in I’m gonna
go standard because I don’t compromise
and every single day I’m gonna give you
my very best you can bet your bottom
dollar every single day imma bring that
gold standard the life and I’m not just
bringing it in one aspect of life I’m
bringing it every single aspect of life
I’m not gonna be one of these people in
the world that’s a public success but
they’re private failure I mean they give
everything they got to one aspect of
life but the other areas they lack are
know I’m gonna give every single thing I
got to every aspect of my life because I
represent something when people see me
they think something whether that’s
character never giving up never
surrender and the thing that we can
never do is forget what we represent
because that’s how guys end up under
bridge on a cardboard box leap they
forget what they represent when life
hits him we’re at first
my only charge for you never forget what
you represent one of the things that’s
really interesting about the Old
Testament is that and the Jews in the
Old Testament is that they don’t take
the path of Cain every time they’re
walloped by God which is like fairly
frequently they say we must have done
something wrong and we have to set our
self right and that’s a an unbelievably
heroic attitude because that’s the
alternative to cursing fate it’s like
you take the responsibility for failure
unto yourself and you think well if I
was just maybe if I just had my act
together a little bit more if I took
advantage of every opportunity that was
put in front of me if I wasn’t resentful
and bitter then I could have done
something that would have tilted the
situation in a different direction and
like that’s almost inevitably true
Dostoevsky I think said something like
every man is responsible for everything
that happens to him and everything that
happens to everyone else and that’s you
know that that’s that’s it’s a crazy
statement right it’s a crazy statement
and he was a pretty extreme person in
many many ways but there’s a level at
which that’s metaphysically true you
know because what happens is that it’s
you its failure to act often that’s the
most catastrophic you know I mean it’s
it’s it’s to not do the right thing when
the when the situation presents itself
and it’s very specific you know you’re
constantly in situations where you could
do the right thing if you were willing
to take a risk that’s actually of
relatively moderate size and you know
that you could take the risk and you
know that you should take the risk and
you don’t and that happens to people all
the time and then what happens is the
thing that they didn’t oppose grows a
little bit and they shrink a little bit
and that starts a loop hey enough enough
like living by somebody else’s rules is
a humongous mistake I just literally sat
down with five people under the age of
27 and it’s so refreshing it is so
refreshing if you have not jumped on the
bandwagon
of doing exactly what the you want to do
which is skiing for the next three years
or working at a job that’s not what your
parents want or what society wants this
video is just called enough enough make
this little in one two minute video
depends on when I finish the piece of
content that gets you to stand up and
take life by its throat do something
stopping scared stop letting the way you
were raised the fear as an offense take
that away let me be the person I’ll take
the blame
I loved that some of my employees are
like my parents don’t love what you’re
saying good parents because if you are
playing defense and if you are living a
life where your kids lives are the way
you’re being fulfilled
you’re losing parents and so enough
enough parents imposing their way you
want your kids to be happy on your terms
enough the kid that’s sitting right now
in a desk and saw this in a feed and you
hate your job enough stand up get the
out of here and do you live your life
you’ve got one life do something about
it
I think that I’ve got to make a record
that is the ultimate sort of Here I am
you know so I think it’s time to go back
and you know it’s like in the movies
where the the ex-marine grows the long
beard and long hair and takes off to
like Tibet or something and then there’s
always a moment I don’t do that anymore
and then he shows up at the Pentagon and
totally clean shave and he’s like where
do we start
I may be shaving the beard soon I’m
getting kind of this place in my life
where if if you can man just do it you
know I went I had this moment where and
my youth I was really frenetic and
everything was like but uh and then I
hit this mode where it was like less is
more and now as I get into my later 30s
I’m like if you can do it do it all the
time
you know you do it all the time as long
as you can do it do it just shred show
people what you can do you know so it’s
a sort of this arc also of how fancy you
think you are and find yourself to be
you’ve lived a life dominated by doubt
step that’s how you step into bravery
step take the step step aggressively
towards your fear and that that step
towards your fear is the step into
bravery because we we were scared of
what we don’t know and there is only one
way to learn and to know and that is to
confront that fear you have to step you
have to go and this simple action
this simple attitude it answers so many
questions
so many questions how do you get to the
gym every day you step you go how do you
how do you change your diet you step you
go how do you overcome fear of failure
fear of success or or fear of fear
you step and how do you face the fear of
the unknown you step
don’t wait anymore don’t think anymore
don’t plan anymore don’t contemplate
anymore don’t make any more excuses or
justifications don’t rationalize
anything else no no and no instead be
aggressive take action now and what is
the first action that you need to take
the first step you need to take is just
that step most people don’t have a
compelling vision for their own future
they don’t they move through life
setting goals and goals have no power
we’re almost fear at this point your
goals on Power 1959 when Earl
Nightingale came because I hear of
goal-setting and ever like wow I’m a
goal oriented person and that was great
it worked like 20 years everyone set
goals and they and they got results but
then all of a sudden you know you set
goals and sometimes you hit them
sometimes you know most times you don’t
okay that’s okay but goals almost became
like a synonym for like oh I’m gonna set
a goal who gives it what really happens
afterwards and it almost synonymous with
failure now goal-setting is something
above and I believe in setting goals but
there’s got to be something above your
goals and that’s your vision for the
future and it’s not just about it
doesn’t have like an ending points about
the world being a certain way and that’s
inspiring
to you and you when you truly have a
vision for your future that inspires you
you’re gonna jump up out of bed in the
morning and feel
great about going at life versus being
miserable and going through a job you
hate or living a life that doesn’t
empower you and just you know every day
moving through just almost like an
automaton not really you know having the
zest and the great the greatness of life
and I’m joking I’ve been there myself
when I felt like I didn’t really have a
compelling vision for my own future and
I felt like I was wallowing but at least
I’m conscious of that once you become
conscious of that you can consciously
create a vision for your future it
doesn’t happen in once in one minute or
an hour you write it down you work on
until it I mean you finally hit on it
you know you know you got it
when you read it back to yourself your
vision statement and it moves you and
you feel inspired okay and you know so
people had that and and what happens is
every human being is thirsty for a
vision everyone is and so few people
happen to what I do they gravitate
towards someone who has a vision for the
future they want to be a part of a
vision part of being a great
entrepreneur is having that vision being
able to create the vision and then sell
that vision to other people to get them
to want to be inspired to buy into it to
put in their time their hard work their
elbow grease to help you achieve your
vision if you’re a small firm then you
spread the wealth around it’s a it’s a
win-win for everybody when I was at rock
bottom I didn’t know that I was at rock
bottom and you can’t really change what
you’re not aware of and so it was like
one of those things where it’s like can
it get any worse
damn can it get any worse damn and it
just I kept asking the question can it
get any worse I didn’t know that what I
was asking was causing my life so it was
to the point where either I die or I do
something about it because it was like I
didn’t have my mom my my daughter pretty
much was like you’re not my father you
don’t know what love is my girlfriend is
just broke up with me and you know my
mother was pretty much the sixteen
different was it called met she was on
sixteen different medications there was
so much stuff going on and I’m watching
all of these people be successful and
I’m like
I’m more talented than them and I don’t
understand why I’m still in the exact
same spot which I didn’t know was rock
bottom and then it one day just all came
crashing down and I was like why am I
here I remember lying down in the middle
of the road and I’m like I wanna die
like right now and I stayed there cars
would drive them by honking and
everything and I don’t know what
happened in between that but literally
my car had just got out of the impound
my mom had paid for it she didn’t have
much money but somehow she would always
do something for her baby boy and she
got much she got my car to the impound a
day I got my car to the impound that’s
when somebody who broke into my car like
and it was like can it get any worse
that night on La Brea on the corner of
La Brea and Hollywood I’m at the there’s
like this like little shopping center
and I car was parked my window was
busted out to the right and and
literally was raining was 343 in the
morning August 2011 and it was I yelled
out eyes bloodshot red and I still
didn’t know that this was rock bottom
but I’ve always focused on what I don’t
want and I just remember saying okay
okay I’m tired of fighting I don’t want
to fight anymore I want to be healthy I
want to be happy I want to be surrounded
by nothing but positive people I just I
just want to inspire people and I want
to make a bunch of money but I want the
money to represent something that I
passionately believe in just show me a
sign show me a sign show me and I just
kept saying over and over and over it
wasn’t until a week later until I met
the man at the gas station and he asked
me for money and he said he said do you
have any money she’s like it was a
homeless guy not only and he had a lot
of money I say you have more money than
me and he goes if you ever seen the
movie Rain Man the guy was talking to
himself person did the exact same thing
he was like change our mindset change
your life
change your mindset change your life
change your mindset change your life
change your mindset and then they walked
away and it was in that very moment I
felt like my whole entire life was a lie
the best advice I ever got was you only
have one chance to make a first
impression I don’t remember who gave me
the advice but I’ve been certainly
dishing out that piece of advice for the
last 30 years it’s important because you
do only have one chance to make a first
impression if that first impression is a
crummy one you’re clawing your way out
for a very long time so at every
commencement speech that I give I say to
the graduates if you take nothing else
away from this commencement other than
your diploma you only have one chance to
make a first impression
it was to have my own business to be an
entrepreneur and make my own money and
I’ve been thinking about it while you’re
in the monastery yeah the last well not
all those years the last couple years
deciding whether I wanted to leave was
probably – wouldn’t say probably was the
hardest decision I’ve ever made in my
life was to leave the monastery yeah so
the next question would be what would I
do
I could’ve ran a web business from the
monastery we we had the largest website
in the state of Hawaii yeah monks
program in HTML CSS JavaScript and we
were trained how to edit movies when
Final Cut Pro design and InDesign
Photoshop we we knew it inside out Wow
yeah I I learned coding in the monastry
oh that’s awesome I didn’t know well I
thought I literally thought you were
preparing for meditation we we took
those concentration skills into
everything that we did so when we were
programming we focused on programs you
know when we we were building a building
or we were pouring cement on the
sidewalk or sweeping something or
cooking we focused so in everything that
we did throughout the day we practiced
all the tools that we learned so when we
sat to meditate we’d been practicing for
20 s all day when asked me once what
they or many times I think what I
thought it meant to be an artist and I
said what I think an artist needs
essentially more than discipline or even
Talent
is a perspective so if you are always
changing what you do based on what other
people say you completely lose yourself
and you become just you know something
that’s constantly affected by what’s
around you as opposed to stable and your
own and like autonomous and your
identity that most people are not
successful not wealthy it’s not because
they set their goals too high and miss
them it’s cause they set them to go low
and hit them get that it’s not because
you set your goals too high and miss you
set your goals too low and you hit them
and you get caught up in the average
daily struggle of averages and
mediocrity that’s what kills people
everybody raise your hand for a second
please
raise your hand now raise it as high as
you can
I’m gonna crash so I can see okay now
just raise it a bit higher run higher
why the hell would that happen I say
raise it as high as you can
in heaven I said okay then a little high
okay well if you really mean it right
you get it it’s that extra inch that’s
where you want to set your goal not pie
in the sky and add a control like it’s
never gonna happen because that’s a load
of crap to people that set those sort of
goals they abandon those goals and I’ll
get to that later but the idea here is
you want to set the goals just above
so now think about it for a second think
about your goals right now how do you
say to me you’re setting them very low
and hitting them if that’s the case then
give yourself a ten are you setting
goals that don’t inspire you some people
set goals it might behind but they’re
crappy goals they’re not the sort of
goals that make you jump out of bed in
the morning make you want to go to work
for yourself to secure the future not
just for you but for your family you
know they’re compromised or acquiesce to
anybody unless you love them unless you
want to that’s freedom you know money is
just a mechanism to get there in the
18th century there was something that
spread across Europe and eventually made
its way to America where pole fever
also known as the Black Death of
childbed basically what was happening is
women were giving birth and they would
die within 48 hours after giving birth
this black death of childbirth was the
ravage of Europe and it got worse and
worse and worse over the course of over
a century in some hospitals it was as
high as 70% of women who gave birth who
would die as a result of giving birth
but this was the Renaissance this was
the time of empirical data and science
and we had thrown away things like
tradition and mysticism these were men
of science these were doctors and these
doctors and men of science wanted to
study and try and find the reason for
this black death of childbed and so they
got to work studying and they would
study the corpses of the of the women
who had died and in the morning they
would conduct autopsies and then in the
afternoon they would go and deliver
babies and finish their rounds and it
wasn’t until somewhere in the mid 1800s
that dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes father of
Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes realized that all of these
doctors who conducting autopsies in the
morning weren’t washing their hands
before they delivered babies in the
afternoon
and he pointed it out and said guys
you’re the problem and they ignored him
and called him crazy for 30 years until
finally somebody realized that if they
simply washed their hands it would go
away and that’s exactly what happened
when they started sterilizing their
instruments and washing their hands the
black death of childbed disappeared my
point is the lesson here is sometimes
you’re the problem we’ve seen this
happen all too recently with our new men
of science and empirical studies and
these men of finance who are smarter
than the rest of us until the thing
collapsed and they blamed everything
else except themselves and my point is
is take accountability for your actions
you can take all the credit in the world
for the things that you do right as long
as you also take responsibility for the
things you do wrong it must be a
balanced equation you don’t get it one
way and not the other you get to take
credit when you also take accountability
I think it’s important to have at least
one or two numbers that you track on a
weekly basis so that could be more web
based properties or services or products
it could be weekly average uniques what
it is doesn’t matter that much but
matters less than having a metric that
you try to improve every week you can
have one or two of them you really
shouldn’t have many more than that I
don’t think could be conversion from
sign up to let’s say first stage of sign
up to completion of sign up there are
many different metrics that you can use
but you I think that to keep the team
focused especially in a small company
it’s very important to have one or two
the folks on a weekly basis
the only thing that stops you from
getting what you want in life is the
bolt
store and you tell yourself of why you
can’t have it get that what stops you
back is the story but the story stops
from getting honest and if you can’t get
honest with yourself there’s no way you
can go what mod you like that success in
sales in life it’s like a road map right
you know where you want to go and you
have this perfect strategy with straight
line to get there it’s a perfect
strategy it’s gonna get you there every
single time but if you don’t know your
starting point you’re not getting eyes
where you actually are it doesn’t matter
how powerful strategy is and it doesn’t
matter how powerful your goal is I’m
gonna actually set a goal today write a
60 day goal and let’s say you really set
this goal and I’ll show you how to do it
in a brilliant way so it’s visceral so
it makes you really feel it you see it
you says you smell a goal that’s step
one I’m gonna teach you the straight
line which is your strategy to get to
your goal but if you’re not honest with
where you are right now your starting
point the math is worthless there’s
three things that you need to know where
you are where you want to go and how
you’re gonna get there those are the
three things you must have and take
advantage of any opportunity I’m gonna
give you the strategy I’m gonna actually
tell me exactly where you want to go
yourself
you got to get honest don’t blame the
boss don’t let the league’s don’t blame
your job don’t in the industry you’re in
just get on if you don’t like your
industry find another one
use active imagination is deceptively
simple often what separates creative
from conventional thinkers is that they
simply search wider they use their minds
to generate possibilities that others
didn’t don’t think of and then they work
to verify what they came up with we saw
a classic example of this with past or
another great example is with Henry Ford
early on in his career in the earliest
years of what would later become the
Ford Motor Company Ford was anxious to
Inc to speed up the production of cars
it was he saw the automobile as the
ultimate consumer product but in order
for it to become that he had to greatly
increase the production rate in his
factory so he spent a couple days
looking at his employees on the factory
floor and trying to imagine how he could
get them to move faster from car to car
suddenly one day he imagined something
completely different he imagined the men
standing still and the cars coming to
them he didn’t know what that really
meant that he decided to try it out and
lo and behold it increased productivity
by such an incredible exponential rate
that it could now become the consumer
product that he envisioned things like
antibodies or assembly lines they seemed
so obvious to us now but they are never
obvious in the present and they involve
an incredible leap of what I call active
imagination the difference between
regular and active imagination is that
the latter is used consciously to reach
very very practical results it’s not
imagination for coming up with wild
things it’s a
used for very practical results think of
the active imagination as a kind of
creative muscle that you’re developing
first within the loose constraints of
what you’re working on you open your
mind up to you give a complete free rein
you entertain almost every possibility
that you could imagine or visualize you
engage in what Charles Darwin calls
fool’s experiment and fools experiments
this is the fun play part of serious
play you use notebook sketches diagrams
models prototypes to help externalize
the products of your imagination once
you have gone through this you now enter
the second serious part of the process
first you choose one or few of the more
promising possibilities that were
generated by your imagination
and now you actively work to test verify
or confirm it
this might entail launching a beta
version on the public once you have
feedback you now go back into the first
part of the process in a shortened form
using your imagination to perhaps take
what you have into an even better and
higher form circling constantly through
this process in shorter and shorter
cycles until you’ve got something that’s
both incredibly imaginative and
incredibly realistic and practical like
developing this by going through this
over and over and over again you will
develop your imagination into an
incredibly powerful creative muscle so
entrepreneurs tend to miscalculate is
optimism has a place but I think even
more so for the first time entrepreneur
you need to be pragmatically pessimistic
what I mean by that is you need to
define all the worst-case scenarios in
terms of financial loss time loss etc
look at what you will learn if that
happens and accept and come to terms
with that before you ever start if you
don’t do that and you go straight into
battling the world trying to conquer the
world with rose-colored glasses on the
first time you hit a major hiccup you’re
gonna become really demoralized and you
will quit so optimism all that rah rah
rah that’s awesome but you need to hope
for the best and prepare for the worst
before you ever get started I talked to
so many smart fantastic ambitious
idealistic hard-working kids and they’re
right out of college they’re in their
entry-level jobs and I’ll ask them how
is it going and they’ll say I think I’m
gonna quit and I’m like why they say to
me I’m not making an impact I’m like you
they treat the sense of fulfillment or
even love like it’s a scavenger hunt
like it’s something you look for my
millennial friends they’ve gone through
so many jobs they’re either getting
fired I mean it was mutual or they’re
quitting because they’re not making an
impact or they’re not finding anything
they’re looking for they’re not feeling
fulfilled as if it’s a scavenger hunt
love a job you find joy from is not
something you discover it’s not like I
found love here it is I found a job I
love that’s not how it works both of
those things require hard work you are
in love because you work very hard every
single day of your life to stay in love
you find a job that brings you ultimate
joy because you work hard every single
day to serve those around you and you
maintain that joy it’s not a discovery
but the problem is the sense of
impatience it’s as if an entire
generation is standing at the foot of a
mountain they know exactly what they
want they can see the summit what they
can’t see is the mountain this large
amove Abul object that doesn’t mean you
have to do your time that’s not what I’m
talking about take a helicopter climb I
don’t care but there’s still a mountain
life career fulfillment relationships
are journeys the problem is this entire
generation has an institutionalized
sense of impatience and do they have the
patience to go on the journey to
maintain love to feel fulfilled or do
they just quit and on to the next dump
and on to the next ghost and on to the
next for many years before I wrote the
power of now and it became successful I
was basically a failure in the eyes of
the world so he’s already almost 50 and
what has he achieved my mom said you
have thrown away your life you had so
many possibilities in your life you
walked out of graduate school in
Cambridge why did you walk out of there
you my mum and many other people said
this person has failed in life he has no
job there’s no insurance policies
nothing
no pension plan just almost nothing in
the bank failure and then a few years
later people bought the path now and
became a best seller Oh a big success
okay if I had arrived my identity at
that time from what the world was
telling me or my mind would have told me
if I have been listening to my mind I
would have been very unhappy and I
didn’t though I was fine because my
identity wasn’t derived from that
anymore and fortunately even when in the
eyes of the world I suddenly became a
success I don’t want to derive my
identity from that it’s it’s a cheap
substitute for who I really am so I’m
not I don’t see I don’t arrive but the
satisfaction it comes is the
satisfaction that the work that’s
happening the teaching that’s happening
is transforming people’s lives that’s
very satisfying I don’t get any personal
satisfaction so because it’s not I don’t
feel it as this separate me produced it
it’s it’s very easy to be seduced by
doing things efficiently trying to do a
lot of things well I don’t believe
that’s the most important thing the most
important thing is picking the right
things to do in the first place and
that’s being effective versus just being
efficient so within a startup its
success I don’t think it’s measured by
how many things you can do at once it’s
measured by how effectively you’re able
to pick the one or two things into the
highest priority and there’s always
going to be a seduction to get
distracted and focus on 20 things at
once and the most effective
entrepreneurs I know are very good at
focusing on one or two things and either
eliminating the rest delegating to other
people or outsourcing it so it’s not
done within the team but it’s actually
to third parties I knew I was wired to
be excited about business how or why I
don’t know but you know and do certain
guys they have the genetics to jump out
of the gym right certain guys you know
that you know when they golf they have
the muscle memory and and the discipline
you know dirt
he may not be the most talented guy in
the NBA but his discipline and his focus
to do what’s necessary to be successful
he’s willing to do and combine it with
being seven feet tall and being skilled
you know it makes him an amazing
basketball player so it’s understanding
what your skill set is finding the right
place to use those skills and then going
for it you know will that make you 250
grand it depends if you pick the right
industry but whatever industry you pick
if you outwork everybody if you try to
be a little smarter than everybody if
you try to be a better salesperson and
everybody if you try to be better
prepared than everybody you’ve got your
best chance because if you don’t do it
and somebody else does yeah I have the
same work like someone’s trying to take
it all away from you you know work you
actually work like someone’s spending 24
hours working 24 hours to take it all
away from you and that’s kind of the way
I look at it and I remember asking my
dad to I want a new basketball shoes
because I was a basketball junkie back
then he’s like well your shoes work if
you want a new pair of tennis shoes you
have to go out there and get a job and
I’m like dad I’m 12 years old and it
just so happens he was playing poker
with his buddies and one of his buddies
just like well I got a job for you I’ve
got these garbage bags that we
distribute you could sell them
door-to-door I’m like okay and it was
when I was selling them and realized
that I’d like to sell and that I could
sell and that I recognized that selling
was it was about providing the service
and creating value for people that I
knew that I would literally back then I
knew that I could always succeed I mean
I remember I was 16 I think when I
started a stamp company and started
going to stamp shows and trade shows and
just working a little bit harder than
other people and and trading up from one
stamp to the next I remember one time I
started with a quarter and bought a
stamp and left with $50 thinking hey if
I could do this I could do anything and
and it’s not that everything worked I
failed a lot but I never ever felt like
I I wouldn’t be able to work hard enough to
Please follow and like us: