How to Level Up

Today we are going to talk about how to level up. So, you know why we're going to talk about it? Because today's the book launch, everyone. I've been holding up this book over and over the last couple episodes.

But no one can see you holding it up. What are you holding up?

What do you mean no one? A lot of people can see. A lot of people watch these videos, okay, Neil?

I'm talking about all the podcast listeners.

The podcast— I'm holding up the book. I'm holding up the book. It's an orange book. It says Leveling Up: How to Master the Game of Life. And today's the launch day. So Neil and I want to talk about different ways we level up in our lives, both personal and professional.

I'll go number 1. I'll get number 1 this time. Number 1, read Leveling Up. You can do so at amazon.com.

Yeah, I'll take it. Look, on a more serious note, I think when we think about our daily habits and what we did to get to where we are, I think the reason why I did this book too is to really give people the understanding that, look, life is just a game at the end of the day, and gaming actually creates leaders. Whether you play games or not, it doesn't matter. Assuming you played sports, it's the same thing. You learn resilience, you learn teamwork, you learn all the things. And I think the way Neil and I approach it, Neil doesn't need to work anymore. I don't really need to work anymore, but—

I need to work. I am not rich.

Oh, the game's fun. It's that, that's what it is. The game's fun. The money's a scoreboard.

Sure. But when you have a family like me, you're not there yet.

Oh my God. Please spare me, Neil.

It adds, you'll be shocked on how expensive kids are.

Yeah, I'm sure. But anyway, I mean, the point here is this, right? I think it's, there's a love for the game. Money can be an aspect of it, but I just love playing. And I think it's important to understand that there's a lot of things we learned along the way. So Neil and I wanted to share some wisdom along the way. So I'll go first. One thing I learned when I was maybe in my 20s was I learned to optimize for the money. I was taught to optimize for the money from my upbringing. At the end of the day, if you focus on money, you don't really make money. It's really hard to make money when you're just focused inwards on making money for yourself. That's why poker is really hard because you're— it's inherently a selfish thing. The second thing is I pull up this turtle, those of you that can see it right now on video, but I'm holding a turtle right now. Learning that to think in decades and learning that it's okay to slow down and the results can come in decades, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't hustle short-term. I think both Neil and I early in our careers, we wanted to move really quickly and we wanted results yesterday. I think we're a little older now. We're a little more accepting and waiting on results. We're still a little spaztastic, but still now it's a little more patient. Neil? Yeah.

One thing that I've done in my career that's just really helped me is learning from my mistakes. We all make mistakes, but if you can avoid making the same ones over and over again, eventually you'll be led down a path of the stuff you should be doing. And that's really helped me level up my career.

Yeah. I think one of the chapters I have, people often pay, give copying a bad rap, right? So I have a chapter in there called Thievery. And the whole idea behind it is that, look, there's nothing that new in the world. And Steve Jobs himself had said this, everything in life is a remix. Let's look, look at what Apple did. They went to Xerox, they took the mouse, copied it. They took the GUI, the graphical user interface, copied it. And so if you think about everything that, that, that's going on around you, most of it's not new, right? Even SpaceX, if we use the rockets as an example, it was built off of first principles from previous rockets. And now they just added on— I'm oversimplifying it, but they've added on the ability to come back to Earth. So Everything is a remix. It's okay to copy ethically. It's, there's a lot of inspiration you can pull, just make it 10 to 20% unique. And it's quote unquote original. That's another thing that I learned. And then one final thing I'll add from my side that's in the book is this concept of the wealth ladder. And this comes from the, I borrowed it from the CEO of ConvertKit. And the whole idea is this, in life, you start out as a student and you have to go build great habits. So you get educated first, you go build great habits. And then after that, you get a job. What do you do after you get a job? You can stay there or you can start freelancing on the side, right? You can keep your job at the same time. And if that goes, you can start to build an agency or you can start a dropshipping business and you can start to hold inventory. And then the whole idea here is it scales up and then you can start to invest in software business, like other type of stuff, right? Platform businesses, network effects businesses. You can go all the way to a SpaceX if you want. But the whole concept here is you don't deserve to go to the next level unless you beat the current level, right? So you have to get stronger and stronger. So that's what life is like. It's just different levels and you can stay at the level you're at. It's totally fine if you want to just, you know, chill and then you have other priorities. That's totally fine. Neil?

You know, last thing from my side is just be patient. It's crazy in life. See, I've been an entrepreneur now for almost 20 years. And what I've learned is when you're starting off, it's crazy what you think you can accomplish in a year or 2 or even 3 years. And in most cases, you won't achieve your ambitions. And that happens to a lot of us. Just think about your New Year's resolutions. A lot of us don't accomplish what we're looking for each and every single year. But when you start thinking longer term, 10, 15, 20 years, it's crazy how much you can accomplish. And it's also crazy how much we as humans underestimate what we can achieve in a long period of time, like 10+ years. So just be patient and just be consistent, because if you push hard and you push long enough, You'll be shocked on what you can get done. You may not be shocked in the first year or 2, but over 5, 10 years, you will be shocked because what happens is similar to the stock market, things start compounding and things start progressing at a much, much faster rate.

Yeah. Final thing I'll add from my side is when you think about compounding, apply it to learning too. Warren Buffett has said the best investment you can make is in yourself and the learning compounds over time. And then what happens with the learning is you start to learn in public and then people start to follow you and you start to build an audience around it. You start to build relationships, you start to network. I just think if you think in decades, we're saying the same thing, we're both saying the same thing here. There's virtually no way you can fail. There's like, you have to become a success, right? There's no pressure there, by the way. I think in your own words, you'll be surprised at how far you'll go. So anyway, that is it for today. That'll be the last time I bring this up. For those of you that can see the video, this is the book I'm holding up, Leveling Up. It is coming out today, thanks to all of you that are listening to us first and foremost. And those of you that want to support the book, um, please do, and we will see you tomorrow.