Consistency Beats Talent - FDDTC #18
8 Apr 2023 · 12 min
This is a podcast episode titled "Consistency Beats Talent - FDDTC #18" recorded in April 2023 featuring Devin Zander as the sole speaker. In this motivational monologue, Devin shares personal stories and insights about the importance of consistency and hard work over innate talent for achieving success, drawing from his own experiences as a high school dropout turned CEO. The episode also includes references to his dog Brutus and promotes his e-commerce coaching program.
What's up guys? Devin Zander here. I just went through a bunch of podcast recordings and I noticed I do this at the beginning of every one. But you know, for those of you who are watching on audio, you have no idea what I'm talking about and you'll never know. That's why you have to head over to YouTube. Anyways, today we are talking about how you don't need to be the best, you don't even need to be great at what you do to be successful. What you do need is to be consistent. Hey, my name's Evan Zander. This is the From Delivery Driver to CEO podcast. These are lessons, tales, stories, good old fashioned times where we talk about how me and my dog Brutus came up from nothing. I was a Jimmy John's delivery driver, high school dropout, now CEO of An8Figure Software and education company. And I was just thinking about my boy Brutus. I included him and said we came from nothing. I was looking at a photo of him last night. He just kicked cancer's ass. It was awesome. Like honestly, we were so lucky to have found it early. Got his spleen removed. Yeah, I think his spleen removed and that was about a month and a half ago. And it seems that he's cancer free. But I was just thinking about it and he's been with me since day one. Like before I had my business and I guess just the thought of doing this, you know, my business and honestly, life, but just continuing the business without him. I mean, when I moved here to St. Petersburg, I moved here by myself. I didn't know anybody in the city at all. It was just me and my dog Brutus. And I was really lonely. That's actually like how I fell into alcoholism is because I was just here alone every day and I was just like so bored and depressed that I just went drinking. But back then I used to tell myself, you know, like, no matter what, it'll always be okay because I'll always have Brutus and he'll always love me. So I'm going to get like all teared up but thinking about, you know, like him, he's 13 now, dealing with cancer and all that. He's good, obviously, but you know, I guess I don't know even know what I'm talking about. Just sucks to accept the fact that one day he's going to be gone and then I have to continue on this road without him. But buddy Brutus, if you're watching, since you can obviously understand English, since I taught you and trained you so, well, Daddy loves you and I will continue your legacy, Boston. Spreading the Boston terrier goodness and gospel throughout all the lands. Anyways, we'll get in today's episode. Today, I wanted to talk about something that I've struggled with myself quite a lot. Specifically here at Scup, it's been less of an issue and in our e commerce businesses. But here at Scup, it's something that I've ran into a lot and I've noticed a lot of other entrepreneurs doing it as well. And the gist of it is this. Everyone thinks they need, like, some special piece of knowledge. Everyone thinks they need to be the best. They need better copy, they need better products, they need better X, Y, Z, blah, blah, blah. And while those things can help, obviously, if you have a better product, it is going to help, right? If you have better marketing, it's going to help. But really what you need above all else is just consistency. You need to show up every single fucking day and just do it over and over and over and over. And guess what? If someone. Someone could be 10 times better than you, all right? But if you're showing up 100 times more than they are, if you're staying at work or longer, if you're getting more done, if you're doing it every day when they're doing it only once or twice a week, because that's what really talented people do, is they think they don't have to work as hard because they think that they're, like, blessed and gifted. And I don't know about you, but I don't particularly think that I am, like, talented, blessed, gifted, any of those things. Anything that I have is just because I went out there and I fucking got it right. Like, like I mentioned in the intro, I'm a high school dropout. Know, I don't have, like, a fancy degree. I don't have a great diploma. I didn't go to a good school. Everything I learned about business, I learned from. Let me just grab. I learned from books. We got a whole bookshelf over here. I just read, okay? And then outside of reading, drop that on the ground. Whoops. There's one other extremely important thing I do, which is implement, okay? That's the most important thing, is implementing over and over and over and showing up every day. And you will learn more from implementing. And Austin can attest to this. Going back to it, he's like, facing the wall over there. I don't know what he's doing now. He's laughing at me. But going back to this, like, you learn so much more from just getting out there and doing things, you know. But that, that's not even the topic. My point is, is by showing up every day you get a huge advantage because people who think they're smart or people who have a lot of money behind them and all that, they tend not to work as hard. And this isn't, you know, I'm making a blanket statement here. Obviously it's not true about everyone. There are some really cold blooded killers, you know what I'm saying, who are genius level and they're like getting it every single day. But I will say that on average, really smart people tend to not work as hard. And it's because they think that their advantage is of, you know, their mental acuity and how smart they are gives them a huge advantage, which is actually amazing news. It really is because it means that the playing field is leveled for people like us. I'm going to be completely honest, like Matt, he's a smart guy, but he's not genius level either. So how is it that when they're. We're competing with people who are literally way smarter than us. I talk to them and I'm like, I have no idea what you're saying. Like, you sound like, I'll give you an example. Like Jordan Peterson. Sometimes I'm like, dude, don't really understand what you're saying, but I like your message. You know, I'm saying so. And. Or Andy Frisella, by the way, who's my mentor. And no shade to Andy, but he's also, clearly he's not like the smartest guy out there, but he's getting amazing fucking results. Like he is crushing the game. He's built a billion dollar company and he's the most dedicated, inspiring person I've ever seen. Obviously he's smart, but he's not the smartest guy in the room. He's not the smartest business owner to ever exist. But what he does have is determination, fortitude and grit. He'll show up every day and do whatever it takes to make success to get results. And I want this to motivate you because it is motivating. We can compete with people who have more money. We can compete with people who have more talent. We can compete with people who have more skills. We can compete with people who are better looking just by showing up consistently. Remember that. Put it in your back pocket, carry it with you. So what? Yeah, you're fucking smarter. So what? Yeah, you have a head start. Like we're talking this is me pretending to be you, okay? And we're talking to the competition. So while you got a bunch of fucking money, I don't care. I'll work harder. I'll show up every day and I won't stop till I win and I'm on top. That's what we need to do, okay? If you want a huge advantage over everyone else, all you need to do is do what they're not willing to do, which is show up every day when they're at the fucking soccer game or whatever. That was a weird thing to say. Like, the soccer game. Like, I don't know, when they're out drinking on the weekends, what are you doing? Putting in a little bit of work. You know when they're taking the night off to watch tv, what are you doing? You're putting in a little bit of work. And this is the crazy part, too. I want you to understand this really important part, okay? Because most people, when they work or when they show up, right, they're really only showing up for like 30, 45 minutes an hour a day. Like, think about people in office jobs. Like, how productive are they really? They spend so much time on their phone. There's so much time in the water cooler, the bathroom, doing lunch, emails, texting. Not like actually sitting and working, though. How many people actually sit and work? You get like 12 hours max of good work out of people per day. And those people think they're working really fucking hard, but they're really only working one or two hours a day, but they think they're, they're putting out. And that is also great news for you because when I'm talking about showing up every day, I already know what you're thinking. Like, dude, I don't want to work all. I don't want to do 15 hours, I don't want to do 16 hour days. I don't want to do 18 hour days. You don't have to, okay? You can. And I'll tell you what, if you do, you're not going to regret doing it. No one ever regretted becoming fucking filthy rich while they were young because they decided to work hard while they were young. Okay? I know that some people you're going to say, oh, my last wish on my deathbed, like, dude, listen, if you work hard enough when you're young, you can have your entire life ahead of you. But back on point, so. So these people are working two to three hours a day, right? Like max. That is their peak productivity. That's good news for you because what I Want you to understand is you don't need to work 10, 12, 15, 16 hours. You just need to outdo the competition. If you can do four hours a day, then you're literally already double what most people do. Four hours a day is not that much much. Literally wake up early, work from 6am to 10am, then you have your entire fucking day ahead of you. And you've already done twice the work that the average person does. Beef that up to six hours, or beef it up to a normal workday, eight hours, you're four times, like ahead of everyone else. That's all it takes. And if you can do that, it's way more valuable than being smart. It's way more valuable than being talented. Just showing up every single day. Should you read books? Yes, We've covered that in a podcast already. Just make sure you're reading books for the right reason. Man, I feel like I had something. I had a little pretty bow to wrap on all this, and I can't remember what it is, but if you can just show up every day, you'll fucking crush it. And I believe in you now. You need to believe in yourself. So you have to ask yourself, you know, you might be thinking, well, I don't want to work four hours a day. I don't want to work six hours a day. Well, do you want your life to continue as it is? I would expect no, or else you wouldn't be listening to this, right? Because right now you feel like something's wrong. You feel like you need to change something. You need to make more money, you need to have a more successful life. Whatever it is, it's not gonna fucking magically happen. So by saying you don't want to work those hours, you're giving me a disconnect. You're saying one thing and then you're contradicting yourself instantly. You're saying you want success, but you're saying you're not willing to work to get it. So which is it? Do you care about yourself? Do you care about your future? Do you want to change? Or are you okay settling with how your life is right now for the rest of your life? Never changing, never accomplishing all those dreams, never getting the car, the house, the money, the women, whatever it is you want, it all starts today. And you have the advantage. If you're willing to work harder, you can beat out everyone. And it doesn't take a lot. Give it four, six good hours a day. And I remember what I was going to mention before. There's a really good book on this topic. It's called Deep Work by Cal Newport. Deep Work Cal Newport. That's C A L space. Newport. Like the fucking cigarettes. Gross. Anyways, so this is Devin Zander. This is the From Delivery Driver to CEO podcast. Don't forget to like comment, subscribe, leave a five star review, and if you want help building an e commerce business, head over to skup.net skup.net we got a lot of different products including our incubator program, which is our coaching program where we will personally help you build a six figure e commerce business. So this is Devin Zander. I hope you enjoyed. I'll see you guys on the next episode.