hi I'm an ex Google tech lead and today
I want to talk about my seven habits for
success and how I might be thinking
about life differently than you
thanks so much to brilliant org for
sponsoring this video they make fun
educational websites so check them out
now I've built multiple successful
businesses in my life it wasn't just a
one-hit wonder I think part of the
reason is the way I approach things the
way I think the habits that I've built
up so let's get into it the first habit
is to take ownership of your life take
responsibility and stop blaming other
people just accept that everything is
under your control if something's not
going right stop blaming people stop
attacking other people stop pointing
fingers you know the way to think about
this is that you're the CEO of your own
life CEOs have no one to blame except
for themselves there's no one to go to
and that's really the way to think about
your life as well I think a lot of
people like to just point their fingers
at someone and say well I failed because
it was my parents fault they didn't put
me in to the right school or my teacher
didn't teach me the right thing or it
was my friend who got me onto drugs it
was my boss who wouldn't give me some
promotion that's why I'm stuck in a rut
and when you say that it makes you feel
good about yourself and you can just
rest there thinking well you're superior
you were perfect and there was that
other person's fault but in the end you
should understand that everything is
truly under your control you know if
your parents didn't raise you right then
it was your responsibility to make sure
that you were raised properly go get the
education or whatever it is that you
needed go find the mentor if the
teachers didn't teach you the right
thing go make sure you learn the right
things if your boss didn't give your
promotion try to find out why I tried to
communicate gather feedback you're on
the same page and make sure that you get
pretty much on the next cycle or figure
out what it is that you need to be doing
maybe switch jobs if you have to but the
key to understand is that you need to
take ultimate responsibility for
everything that's happening in your life
if anyone's going to be responsible it's
going to be you I had this experience in
grad school where we were working on the
team project people were starting to cry
because the team dynamics weren't going
very well but for my own work I was
doing great on an individual level and I
was thinking well I'm not gonna be
responsible for any of these other
people if the project fails it's gonna
be that person's fault or that person's
fault they didn't do their work but at
least me I got my stuff done
but Indian I had to understand that the
success of the entire project was also
my own responsibility because I had
every ability to influence the direction
of that project I could influence the
team dynamics I could have helped
motivate other people to do more there
was definitely more that I could have
done instead of just focusing on my own
individual portion so this is about
understanding that you need to expand
your own influence expand what you
believe is to be under your domain of
control and to make sure that whatever
you're involved in succeeds even if it
involves doing something above and
beyond was normally assigned to you on
an individual level so that's step
number one take ownership take
responsibility of your life and blame
nobody but yourself tip number two is to
learn to accept failure you may have
noticed that I'm a pretty humble guy and
I'm not afraid to look like an idiot and
I'm not very showy I'm not going around
them in straightly how successful I am
and I think that that is a key trait of
being a successful person is not playing
the game where you have to keep your
appearances up because as soon as you
start playing that game and you need to
make sure that you're always appearing
successful then it's not possible for
you to start making mistakes anymore and
making mistakes is a key part of success
it's often times you may need to fail 10
times maybe even a hundred times but you
only need one success to make it all
worthwhile and so that's why it's
important to not be afraid of failure to
be ready to fail and when you fail to
understand that those are expensive
lessons that you are learning from so
that you don't make the same mistakes
again as you go forward you're only
getting better each time and really the
main point is to stay humble be ready to
get thrown into the dirt a few times and
you know as soon as you start going
around thinking that you're better than
everybody else you start walking around
with really good looking clothes and
then you get thrown into the dirt you're
not going to be able to recover from a
failure like that but if you were to go
around like a normal person and get
thrown into there a few times and people
know that you're not a superhuman person
you're not acting like you're better
than everybody else then you'll be able
to easily recover from failures like
that pressures off learn from your
mistakes and continue pushing forward
until you reach some success the third
point is to think about where you're
spending your time and a p.m. every
evening because when you do at this time
will determine where you will be in 10
years most of the day time you're
generally working on
that need to be done immediately or in
the near future but I think that that
evening time is when you start planning
about your future in reality we don't
have that much time and the short amount
of time that we do have we need to use
wisely and the key to remember is you
don't actually need that much time to
get something done you know if you were
to put four hours of good work a p.m. to
midnight in the day every single day on
some tasks it's going to get you places
so if you to spend that time playing
video games or watching TV and movies
well that's fine that's great but you
can expect that that's going to be your
future as well not much is going to
change if you're just spent that time
focusing on your day job and doing
additional work then yeah maybe you're
going to get a promotion overtime
because you're going to be putting in
that much additional work if you wanted
to spend that time researching trips
then you might be going on the trip
sometime soon so think about what you're
doing at 8 p.m. every evening and make
sure that aligns with the goals that
you've set out for yourself tip number
four is success is often a lonely road I
know you want to go hang out with your
friends go chatting on Facebook go to
the movies go join all those events and
parties go to the meetups that's all
great and you should do those things if
you want to but you should understand
that now all those people are going to
be on the road to success most of those
people are on the road to being average
people because that's the average person
that you're hanging out with some of
your greatest accomplishments will be
done alone sometimes there's just no
room for anybody else except you when
you're interview at the company you
don't go there with all your friends
it's just you and you need to get used
to that now that's not to say that
getting along with other people and
teamwork and maybe co-founding companies
with other people your friends is not a
bad thing I mean those are great you can
do that too and that's another path that
you can take but I think it's important
to also remember that many aspects of
success are going to be done surely by
your own individual power and you need
to get used to that
sometimes I see some people who just
won't eat lunch alone they go around
with their friends they gotta go eat
with each other everywhere they go and
what happens is they don't get to meet
other people they lose out on those
connections that could have had they
just stay with the same friends the
whole time and plus sometimes it's just
really difficult to find the table where
everyone can sit down together other
times I'll see how groups are friends
just
around each other and they're just
waiting for each other to get something
done and they can't get much done and
sometimes I'll see groups of friends
just doing really silly things like
they'll start walking around together in
the rain although if you take a look at
each person individually they probably
would not have walked around in the rain
alone on their own you know they say
that groups are friends act very similar
so if you have a bunch of friends for a
really fat and like to overeat then
chances are over time that's gonna
happen to you too so you want to be
careful about that tip number five is to
remember that the last ten percent of a
project is often the hardest most people
never finish and so what I like to keep
in mind is to try to finish the projects
that I began you know it's very easy to
quit and just know that every time
you're quitting you're doing what
everybody else is doing very few people
are able to take something to completion
but remember it's that last 10% that
really brings a project home that gets
you that impact and you need to remember
to budget enough time and resources to
finish a project tip number six is
internal motivation you know I did well
in school but the funny thing is my
parents never pushed me very hard at all
and any of this they let me play video
games as long as I wanted to I would
spend eight hours a day playing video
games sometimes and over time it was
through my own understanding my own
internal motivation that I was able to
learn okay I need to be studying I need
to be working hard maybe I need to watch
what I eat stop eating junk food
exercise more you know all of these
things is by being internally motivated
so if you find that you're doing
something only because your parents are
telling you to do something or because
you think someone's expecting you to do
something that's really not a great
motivation to be doing something you
need to try to understand for yourself
why you need to do something and that's
going to help you do your best work tip
number seven the last point is to
continuously learn you know I think a
lot of people learn what they learned in
college for years and they expect that
amount to get them through the rest of
their lives and I think that's why many
people don't go as far as there should
be going for me what I learned in
college was only the basic bare
fundamentals and many things that I did
later on like starting my own businesses
I was really only able to accomplish
because I continued to teach myself new
things new programming languages new
technologies new software designs
systems new frameworks and after a while
you'll find that you're gonna have to
start learning other things too like how
to invest and that's going to get you to
that next step up even in your job you
might find that a lot of what you need
to do is going to be data or metrics
related and then you need to understand
things like probability statistics and
these things you may not have a very
solid fundamental in school it really
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the evenings so they'll do for me let me
know your top habits for success if you
liked the video give it a like and
subscribe and I'll see you next time bye