And important though success is an often ambiguous elusive word that can sometimes do more harm than good
It should hold a personal definition that you yourself develop for yourself
This is obvious. But we forget that and this definition is likely to evolve and change throughout your life
I'm not here to sell you a definition of success. That's something only you can figure out for yourself
By the way, I have a special announcement at the end of this video. So stick around for that. All right onto the video
Why do some people achieve the things that they set out to accomplish while others don't or more simply?
And directly put how do I become successful in the things that I pursue?
I think we all ask ourselves these questions in some form or another consciously or unconsciously
Throughout our lives unless you have absolutely no attachment to the material world
You've thought about this and it's true that we live in a very competitive world
And there's something about hyper productivity and getting ahead of others in life. That makes me uncomfortable. That's not what this is about
What interests me is realizing my potential? However cliche that might sound
And creating a life that I feel is colorful and dynamic
there are things that I want to accomplish before my time on this earth is up and I
reincarnate as like a goat or a tree or whatever so i'm going to do my best to answer this question and
more than anything this is a topic that interests me, and I just want to share my
Reflections on this subject as I try and piece things together
It's such a massive topic that i'm going to do this in two parts
Let me explain why i'm even talking about this
last year I stumbled on this idea that really struck me and
that I haven't really been able to stop thinking about since what i'm realizing is that there are a lot of invisible forces that
Shape our lives and one of them is what I like to call the law of momentum
And that's what I want to break down in this video
It's the idea that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results
Through the compounding effect of little decisions and little actions and it's actually a lot more than that
But that's a good starting point. Now again, there's a lot that goes into this
This can be an extremely constructive or destructive force in our lives depending on a variety of actors understanding
This idea has helped me get unstuck it has
Shifted my focus from short-term results to building momentum
And so because this is kind of an abstract concept i'm going to use an analogy that I think
most of us are at least somewhat familiar with
there's a well-known concept in the investment world that is known as compound interest and it's exciting when you first
Discover it and understand its power as a new investor. Like I said, you might have heard of this already
So i'll keep this brief essentially compound interest is the addition of interest to the principal sum of a loan or deposit
or in other words interest on interest
Your money starts making more money and it has a kind of snowball effect
And if you can get the snowball rolling early enough you can end up with an avalanche for the record
I am not the only person interested in this idea albert einstein understood the power of compound interest
He famously said compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands. It earns it he who doesn't pays it
It is believed that he also said that it is the most powerful force in the universe
I'm not kidding. That's not a joke kind of a bold claim though, right? So why am I talking about compound interest?
This is not a channel on personal finance
Well, I believe this is an idea that can be applied to other aspects of our lives as well
In fact, I find this to be an incredibly powerful idea on how to build build yourself your wealth your projects your career
Whatever it may be we're all kind of building our own little empires
2020 the age of the personal brand jim collins for example took this idea and applied it to
The building of exceptional businesses in his book good to great where he coined the term the flywheel effect
Darren hardy just straight up called it the compound effect in his book of the same name where he applied this idea to career
and well-being and he talked about how the compound effect can be enormously destructive in our lives as well through
Consistent poor decisions and james claire brilliantly illustrated how many of these same ideas apply in the world of breaking?
Bad habits and building good ones in his book atomic habits, what i'm saying is that this idea isn't just about money
It's about life. It's about construction
And destruction and whether you realize it or not, it's working in your life right now how it works
Looking at things in life through the lens of momentum is really quite fascinating
It dictates
So much of our lives much of your life has been shaped by the momentum of where you come from who you grew up with
And how you were raised that's undeniable, but then all of our actions and decisions act like interest
Either you're adding little by little or chipping away bit by bit from whatever direction you're trying to work towards
And I don't want to paint out like a doomsday sort of scenario
we all have negative and positive momentum in our lives and it's
It's the exciting part of this is that I believe it's something that you can manipulate
It's something that you can do something about now your actions and decisions on any given day lead to
very tiny immediate results for the most part they don't usually lead to
Life-altering changes but multiply day by day week by week. Well into the future the
impact begins to become so much more visible
In fact jim collins explains with his theory of the flywheel that with enough sustained effort. Eventually you hit a breakthrough point where the momentum
Itself begins to self-perpetuate we're talking about compound interest on life and following this analogy. The investment isn't money. It's learned behavior
It's patterns. It's mindsets the things that begin to take root and either build you up or destroy you. Okay? So here's the thing
It's kind of an abstract concept, but it's pretty simple in general to understand
the reason this is hard for so many of us to
Actually incorporate in our lives is because it's invisible you do not see the immediate results
Of your actions and decisions when working towards long-term goals to further out your project the more of a gap
A lag that exists between the energy and time investment that you're making and the results that you're seeing things. Do not operate linearly
That's why it sometimes takes a long time for things to catch up
but if you can stick with things long enough the magic comes later, however
I think a lot of us get discouraged
Along the way and then fall into the destructive side of the law of momentum where we're caught up in
little distractions little setbacks that chip away at our potential now the reason why I believe so many of us struggle to
Actually make this happen and be successful in the things that we're trying to achieve
is complicated there's no simple answer here, but a large part of it comes down to what I believe are myths that
Exist in society that lead us down the wrong path
we need to unlearn limiting beliefs and to break this down i'm going to explore several myths that exist in society that lead us to
Invest our time and energy into things that do not lead to results one
The myth of talent and natural ability tell exists. Okay. I'm not going to deny that
It plays a role in our lives. Some of us do have genes that are predisposed for certain pursuits
I was never going to be a professional basketball player. I'm just way too short for that
however
I would like to make the argument that there are many walks of life where the perceived role of talent or natural ability
is massively overblown and there's a subtle destructive implication that goes along with that starting early in life and through to this day I have
Often heard people say wow. They're so talented when referring to somebody doing something successfully again
I'm not going to say that talent didn't play a role in the successful career of any given professional the implication there
Is that the ability to get good at something or to make progress at all with any given skill?
Comes down to talent which is something that you're either born with or not put another way whether we realize it or not. There's oftentimes
Very little attention or value placed on the effort that one
Invests in developing a skill in that way talent is a dangerous word
experts are digging into what really goes into mastery of a skill and
Consistently there is no shortcut
Even what we consider to be child prodigies have already invested thousands of hours of concerted practice and effort
To get to where they're at. There may not actually be any shortcut instead
There might actually be a better way to evaluate ability and how to develop it over
The last few decades researchers have been placing a new focus on persistence and how this single trait can
help predict the future success of any given individual instead of focusing on talent versus non-talent researchers have been approaching things in terms of
Persisters versus non-persisters which are attitudes that start to become visible in childhood psychologist
Carol dweck has done a lot of very interesting experiments with children
In this field of psychology and she writes acquired beliefs play a critical role in how well people function
Some people have a fixed or entity theory believing that their qualities such as their intelligence are simply fixed traits
Others have a malleable or incremental theory believing that their most basic qualities can be developed through their efforts and education
Research shows that people with a malleable
Theory are more open to learning willing to confront challenges able to stick to difficult tasks and capable of bouncing back from failures
So while i'm not saying to completely ignore the fact that
Some of us are probably at some level predisposed for certain things i'm saying that in all likelihood
The playing field isn't level when we all start out
but there's not a whole lot you can do about that specific fact, the stoics would say
What can you do about this in terms of your own attitude?
I think they would say this is not about the ability that you're born with
This is about the effort and energy that you're willing to invest in finding solutions and solving problems
and in that framework
Your potential is only really dictated by the amount of effort that you're willing to put in what i'm saying here
Is that effort and strategy seem to count for more than we think it does?
And that's an idea i'm gonna come back to a little bit later on here two the myth of good fortune
This can almost be considered a part two to the previous myth another thing
I remember kids saying all the time to each other whenever anyone did anything
well was oh you're so lucky almost as like a synonym for
Congratulations an idea that I explored in a recent newsletter is that we are obsessed with luck
And without the bigger picture which none of us have it's impossible to know what really is and isn't good luck
I then linked to a zen proverb that brilliantly illustrates my point
It's commonly known as maybe so maybe not and the proverb does a great job of challenging our ideas around good fortune
So here we go. I'll give you just a very brief
recap
A farmer and his son have a horse a stallion that helped them make a living and one day
This stallion runs away and the neighbors go
Oh what poor luck and the farmer just drugs and says maybe so maybe not
We'll see a few days later. The stein returns with a few wild mares with it
So several horses come back and the neighbors see this and go. Oh what incredible fortune and the farmer
Looks at them and shrugs and goes maybe so maybe not. We'll see a little while later
The sun is trying to break one of the mares and he falls off and breaks his leg
And the villagers who are just observing everything that's happening with this farmer in the sun. See this
And they go. Oh what poor fortune and the farmer just looks at them and shrugs and goes
Maybe so maybe not
We'll see the next day the army comes and they're looking for able-bodied men
and because the sun was with his broken leg he was
Not able to join and by now I would imagine you can guess what happens next the villagers. See this they go
Oh what good fortune your son has been spared and the farmer just looks at them and shrugs and goes
Maybe so maybe not. We'll see the point is we never know in life. It's really just a question of perspective
And so it's undeniable that luck that which is outside of our control does play a major role in our lives
however
I always end back up with the stoics and what they had to say on all this
the only thing that you can control
Is your attitude and how you feel and react about the things that happen to you in your life?
And therefore that is where we should place all of our attention and energy. There's a psychologist by the name of angela
Lee duckworth who did a wonderful ted talk that's related to this
She's done a ton of research on why certain people become successful
and so when referring to all the different people that she studied
She said in all those very different contexts one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success
It wasn't social intelligence good looks physical health and it wasn't iq
It was grit
Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals
Grit is having stamina
Grit is sticking with your future
day in day out
Not just for the week
Not just for the month
But for years grit is living life like it's a marathon
Not a sprint
I know I include a lot of quotes on this channel
But there's something about crystallizing that idea in that quote is just phenomenal like yes
She's totally right by her description grit seems to be about sustained effort like if this were an equation
effort plus time equals grit now the tricky thing about this is that even duckworth herself has stated
There's so much we still don't understand about grit like where does it come from?
She did say though that grit is usually unrelated or inversely related to measures of talent
She does speak about the link between grit and what is known as wealth mindset
Which is related to the persister non-persister idea that I spoke about earlier if you believe that you can get better
You will make a greater effort a growth mindset is believing that failure is not a permanent condition
So what i'm proposing here is to instead of focusing uniquely on talent and natural ability want good luck
On things that are out of our control that were decided when we were born to focus instead on effort
Persistence and grit that's actual. There's something that you can actually do about that
What i'm saying is that it's actually worth it to try. I truly believe you will surprise yourself with what you're capable of accomplishing with
Sustained effort. This is about belief more than anything
So as I said before this is an enormous topic and i'm still only just scratching the surface
But i'm going to leave things there before the video gets too dense
There are more myths that i'd like to explore and debunk but i'm going to save that for part two, and these are not clear-cut
fixed ideas
So i'd love to hear your input if you agree with me or if you don't why?
That's the thing. Our idea is about success and what it takes and
The elements that have to come together for it to happen are evolving
Our understanding of this is evolving and it's interesting to see how as we develop a better understanding of the human condition
These ideas change
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Thank you so much for watching and i'll see you soon