my experience is with people that were probably running at about 51% of our
capacity something mean you can think about this yourselves I often ask
undergraduates how many hours a day you waste or how many hours a week you waste
and the classic answer is something like 4 to 6 hours a day
you know inefficient studying watching things on YouTube that not only do you
not want to watch that you don't even care about that make you feel horrible
about watching after you're done that's probably four hours right there
now you think well that's 20 - 25 hours a week it's 100 hours a
month that's 2.5 full work weeks it's half a year of work weeks per
year and if your time is worth $20 an hour which is a radical under
estimate it's probably more like $50 if you think about it in terms of deferred
wages if you're wasting 20 hours a week you're wasting $50,000 a year and you
are doing that right now and it's because you're young wasting $50,000 a
year is a way bigger catastrophe than it would be for me to waste it because I'm
not going to last nearly as long and so if your life isn't everything it could
be you could ask yourself well what would happen if you just stopped wasting
the opportunities that are in front of you you'd be who knows how much more
efficient ten times more efficient 20 times more efficient that's the Pareto
distribution you have no idea how efficient efficient people get it's
completely off its off the charts a lot of people talk about talent they say
look you are multi-talented and that's why you're a superstar you differentiate
though between talent and hard work absolutely I've never really
viewed myself as particularly talented I view myself as you know slightly above
average and talent where I excel is ridiculous sickening work ethic you know
while the other guys sleeping I'm working while the other guys eating I'm
working while the other guys making love well I mean I'm making love too but I'm
working really hard at it I'm working really hard at it
so when the phone rings and you have an alarm goes off says Denzel Washington
right now is hooking up you gotta go at it right now you know for me it's like there's separation of talent
and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who
are trying to excel who have dreams that want to do things talent you have
naturally skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on
your craft and you know for me it's I feel like I have a relationship with the
audience they agree that they're gonna go in droves and I agree that every time
they go it's going to be better than the last time so I think that's part of the
the relationship and I'm gonna hold up my part as long as they keep holding up theirs
you have to enjoy it if you don't enjoy it you're not gonna be a
good student and that's the most important thing that I did in my own in
my own education is that I really convinced myself to enjoy a lot of the
studying that I did I was very intrinsically motivated so that just worked out really
well for me and then I took this principle of repetition and when I saw
that oh man I can literally program anything I want into my mind it's just
so dumb it's so simple the way that it works there's nothing fancy behind it
there's no magic behind it then I'm like oh damn I have the tool I have all the
tools I need to learn whatever I want and at that point it just becomes a
matter of discipline and practice discipline and practice discipline and
practice decide commit and resolve some of you in the past you've gotten
momentum you've gotten passionate you've even made a decision but a decision is
the first step decision is like a war I got to do this or that all right I'm
gonna make myself through this but commitment is when you now after you've
decided you commit to do this for the long term whether it's hard or easy
doesn't matter you're doing this it takes it from this moment and it
carries it into the future even when things are difficult and the third state
is resolve resolve means it's done it's like it doesn't even if you took
action it's done inside you so it's done out there there's no question whatsoever
then once you decide the only way the commitment and the energy and the
momentum continues is if you take immediate massive what my friends
massive what? write down in your notes massive action is the cure-all
massive action is the cure-all if you're having a difficult time with something
your relationship isn't where you want it to be your finances are not where you
want to be your body's not where you want to be your business is not where it
want to be you need to take massive action and if that doesn't work try something
else if that doesn't work try something else keep going with massive action and
you will find the way because it will give you momentum there's so much
knowledge out there so much information so many ways to get better and we make
we make so many mistakes whether were the product of our mistakes and
oftentimes the lesson is sitting there right in front of our face it's there to
be learned but we miss it or we don't pay attention to it
or we think we know better until it punches us in the face
and the most important thing to learn is that we have so much to learn we all do
and we can learn from school and from people and from experience and we learn
from life but you have to process the information you have to absorb it you
have to accept it you have to open your mind you got a free your mind
so that you can learn and make real progress and as far as regrets and
things I wish I would have done differently of course hindsight
hindsight is 20/20 and looking back of course who wouldn't want to take another
go at something and improve on the first try by doing it again but the fact is
you don't get that chance you get one shot one shot at this gig right here
life one life that's all you've got and regret in and of itself it's worthless
it does nothing for you in fact the only valuable thing in regret is the lesson
you learned the knowledge that you gained but walking around filled with
regret it gets you nothing so learn and move on don't let regret beat you down
don't be a slave to regret no let it teach you let it make you better let the
fear of regret fuel you to take action today now to take action now to become a
better person so I would say to little Tom you need to understand that
the whole point is growth your talent and intelligence are not fixed they're
malleable so you suck at skateboarding because you're afraid of pain so the
only thing you need to know right now the point is not to avoid the pain and
you need to stop asking yourself what's the least you can do to get good and you
need to start asking yourself what's the most you can bear to become great once
you understand the whole point is to let the suffering and the pain harden you
into becoming the version of yourself that you need to become in order to
execute at the highest level to be world-class at anything and stop
avoiding it stop being afraid of it and start understanding for what it really
is which is the thing that shapes you so my entire youth I feared pain I moved
away from pain if something was emotionally or physically difficult I
avoided it and I remember being in the gym one day and going would you stop asking
like what's the least you need to do to consider it a full week workout because
it was like could I stop now could I stop now could I stop now and I was like
do you want the muscles or do you want to like put on a show that you showed up
like you showed up right like cuz the muscles demand what the muscles demand
like you have to break them down you have to push you have to do more like so it is
purely a question of how much you're willing to bear because there's never
gonna be enough you could have always done more I think the greatest tragedy
of mankind is people holding on to wrong opinions that could so easily be
rectified and that's doing them harm because they're making wrong decisions
so how do you collectively do that well the answer is by everybody seeing
everything and seeing how others see they begin to gain those perspectives
they also get to get an appreciation for the other way of seeing
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