The Power of Sacrifice #motivation #musings #inspiration #foodforthought

The power of sacrifice. Sacrifice is a good thing. Me, I highly encourage sacrifice. I feel like whenever I talk to entrepreneurs about capital, which is one of the big questions we're always getting, the first thing I say is, you have to sacrifice your own money. You have to put your own savings. Because it's what is called having skin in the game. It shows how badly you want it, how determined you are. It shows that you've committed, you invested. So now when it's time to ask other people for money, it's easier because you can say, I've saved all this much money. I've put this much in the business in the last one year. And it's that same principle that I think goes across your life. So sacrifice, I think, gets portrayed as a negative thing. But sacrifice is a type of investment. If you've heard of the phrase opportunity cost, there's always something you're choosing over. So when they tell you about focus and saying no, it's important because when you say yes, yes, yes to so many things that are not helping, you move in the direction you want, the opportunity cost is you and your goals and dreams, right? So that sacrifice is saying, no, I can't come for your party today, this weekend, because I have to study for this paper because I want to get a good grade in school, because I need to impress the professor, because I need his recommendation so I get the internship that I'm looking for. You see what I mean? So there's always a cost to everything. If you're going to eat badly, you're not going to have the summer body you want. That is the cost. So you need to sacrifice. And sacrifice is a really great principle. It's something that I read a lot about with stoicism, because to learn how to delay gratification is something, firstly, that's an important life skill, but it's something that's being eroded and being taken from all of us because of the society we live in now. I remember one of my uncles telling me, the problem with your generation is you eat sugarcane backwards. And I was like, huh? And he draws for me a sugarcane thing. He's like, have you ever been to a sugarcane farm? I was like, no. In the sugarcane, the way it grows, apparently the sweetest part is the bottom, and then it gets less and less sweet as it grows, right? And he said, in his generation, they were taught you start to eat from the part that's not sweet, and you walk your way towards things. They were taught you have to toil and suffer and hustle and good things will come later. But generation, we are used to the opposite. We want the sweetest thing first, the fastest. I'll download it, I'll buy it, I'll express it. What's the hack? What's the tip? How do I do it in one year? Something that someone did in 10 years? How do I drive a Range Rover next week? Today I'm on a border. That's the attitude we have. And we're used to everything being quick and fast and our attention span is getting shorter and shorter and shorter. TikTok has taken us, Even me, I understand now, if you can learn something in 30 seconds or in two minutes, why would you sit and spend 45 minutes learning it? But what we are losing, the opportunity cost there is the depth, it's the knowledge, the context, the understanding, the nuance. And I think because it's being eroded, it's worth more. Now. When you look at the Stoics and the stories they have, a lot of them are like from the Roman Empire. They are like the emperors and the philosophers. And there were people who learned that suffering is a good thing. I think the first time I heard about it was through Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was watching his documentary. And when you're a bodybuilder, there's so much sacrifice that you have to do. You can't eat certain things, you have to work out every day, you're taking supplements, you're doing six hours in the gym, like you are trying to achieve a goal. So you sacrifice so much in your life that other people get to have because you're focused. When I look at successful people, whether it's business people, athletes, musicians, the amount of sacrifice in their life, when you ask them what did it cost you, it's tremendous. But when you see what they've got, it's only them who can sleep at night with that, it's only you who knows what you're willing to put in to get your dreams to attain what you want. I remember at my Forbes party, my parents threw a party to be like a Thanksgiving, when me and my friends were on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. And I got to speak on behalf of me and my friends who are on the list. And one of the first things I said was appreciating the people in our life who have understood the sacrifice that we make. How many weddings have we missed? How many birthdays have we missed? How many times have we not been there for you? Because we're at work, we're grinding, we're hustling we're at a conference, we're with an investor, we're working on a deck, we're in the field, we're doing the things and you miss so much of like the people who love you and who you love's lives. And I was appreciating people because that sacrifice is what got us there today. To be on a list like the Forbes list was not going to be achievable if we were not putting in that sacrifice. I think that two years before that I worked so hard, I didn't know I could work that hard. It was also learning for me to understand that I don't need this sleep, I don't need parties, I don't need a social life because this was the most important thing in my life in the moment. I think my dad was very surprised in my Musanna days because the amount of times I'd spend in the markets and with vendors. He's like, I just never pictured you, you know, being someone who is here with role. I was like, I also didn't know. But we're in it and it's worth it. I'm sacrificing working in his company and having a nice air conditioned office because I was gaining experience in the field with customers, how to build something from scratch. There was a lot of sacrifice involved, but it didn't feel painful because it's worth it for what you're trying to achieve. And I think that's how we have to think of sacrifice. When you want to eat the cake and I want to eat the cake every day, you think about it, what it's going to cost, sacrifice cake today for cake in three months after the big wedding where you need to look a certain way, you know what I mean? That is sacrifice, sacrifice. Eating fast food and saving that 10k per day so you can invest 100k in your business in two weeks. So those are the small sacrifices that you happen to have on a day to day in your life. And what's important here is I suggest you lean into the sacrifice, lean into the suffering, lean into not complaining as you go through it, but make sure you can live with the sacrifices. The things that people regret are usually things they didn't do. No one is going to be on their deathbed and be like, I went to too many parties or I spent too much time with my kids or I earned too much money, but what did it cost you to have those dreams? And that's where you have to be careful about what you sacrifice. Every now and then I'll Make a mistake and I'll have an error in judgment. Where I wanted something so badly in that moment and I sacrificed something else. And in the moment I'll be like, I need this thing and I'll think about it. And I'm like, that was an important event that you missed. The person is going to keep you. But you were busy with this or at work. I wasn't there for an important day or for important function. And now the team is stuck because I had a family function. So there's always going to be these choices and decisions that you have to make. And when I think of sacrifice, I think of it as a positive way. It's an investment. It's what am I giving up today so I have something better tomorrow? And I've seen from experience removing that quick, quick short term gratification, that sugar, the eating the sugar cane first. You invest so much more. And usually it's small things. It's about being consistent in the things that you do, whether it's your exercise, it's your reading, it's your prayer, it's showing up on time for work, it's doing the reports, it's spending 20 minutes a day on LinkedIn, those small things you're sacrificing. I could be on Twitter laughing at memes, or I could be networking on LinkedIn in those 20 minutes I have before bed or when I'm in traffic, or in the morning when I'm waiting for someone. So it's those small sacrifices that build the life, that build you, that build your character and show you what your life can be. And I think the best way to do that is to experience it. Try to sacrifice one thing in your life and see what results it brings in your life and see if it's worth it. Because then it's also like a muscle. You start to improve. You start to see and understand why sacrifice is important and how to invest in yourself in these many small ways.