Jesus Gabriel Mendez breaks down "moving the needle": doing hard tasks that directly advance your goal, not busywork that just feels productive. In wholesale real estate, his four actions were waking up early, making calls, making offers, and solving title issues. Save six months of runway, pick a business, and execute instead of watching videos.
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If you clicked on this video, you're probably wondering, what does moving the needle actually mean? I'm going to show you. It's been a cold couple days here in Dallas, so I've been staying in. I've just been thinking and reminiscing and observing why I do the things that I do and why I've actually seen change in my life when most people don't. So moving the needle means for me you actually doing the work that nobody wants to do so you can get to the goals that nobody really wants to achieve, right? Because everybody has goals. Everybody says they want to be rich. Everybody says they want to be jacked. Everybody says they want to have the nice car, the family, this, that, that, but nobody does the actual actions that are needed to get to those goals, right? So whatever goal you have, the action of moving the needle will help you get closer, but it's about focusing on on a specific goal or goals, right? You can do 1, 2, or 3, but obviously you have diminishing returns the more goals you focus on. My goal for the past couple years has always been financials because financials have brought me freedom. And for a lot of you guys watching this video, you're chasing that financial goal so you can have location freedom, you can have time freedom, and you can have autonomy, especially in these days, 2024. We don't really know what the fuck is gonna happen. You know, so we might as well have enough funds so we can relocate and do whatever we have to do to survive these days, right? So moving the needle— a lot of people feel that they're moving the needle— the needle— a lot of people feel that they're moving the needle by being productive, but everybody's definition of productive is different. And I believe there's a right way, the right definition for productiveness, and a wrong definition. I'll tell you the definition that most people have. Is busywork. Doing busywork does not mean you're being productive. Busywork, as an example, is this right here: eat healthy, cleaning car, hang out with family, give out to charity, watch YouTube videos, meditate, read books, clean place, go to the gym, do this, do that. None of that actually gets you closer to the goal. Now, in this list, the goal is financials, right? Having more money in your bank account, having more money to have more freedom. None of these things right here gets you closer to that goal, but they make you feel productive, but they help your dopamine receivers say, you know what, you're okay, you did something today, you weren't a lazy bum like every other day that you have. But the reality is that none of these things will get you closer to your goal. So you doing any of these things is not you being productive. So most people do those things and then they say, I'm busy, I'm productive, I did so many things today, when in reality you didn't move the needle. You're not getting closer to your goal by doing all these things, right? And some people call it procrastination, but it's hard to do the things, right? If it was easy, everybody would do it. If it was easy, everybody would be rich, everybody would have location freedom, time freedom, and do whatever the fuck they wanted to do with their life. But instead they are limited because they don't have the freedom to do these things. We have— because they have responsibilities. They have a kid, you have a job, you know, you have expectations to meet from other people that you surround yourself with. So back to this, busy work is not being productive. Busy work is not moving the needle. So stop doing busy work. Sometimes it's stuff that you have to do, but the main priority is the shit that moves the needle. For me, what moves the needle for my wholesale business? The business that has brought me financial freedom, location freedom, and time freedom, right? These 3 things that most people, and I would imagine that everybody watching this video wants to have the 3 things, which is time freedom, location freedom, and financial freedom, aka you are an autonomous, autonomous individual that could do whatever the fuck you want to do, right? Most people want that. I have that already because of doing these 4 things. Things. These are the 4 things that brought me those 3 positives in my life. I have location freedom. I'll tell you again, I have location freedom, time freedom, and financial freedom because I woke up, I made calls, I made offers, and I solved title company issues. It's that fucking simple. Now, was this easy to do? No. Was I consistent at this at the start? No. That's why at the start of my wholesale journey, I wasn't rich. This is not easy to do. Nobody's sitting here trying to give you a cheat code because there isn't a cheat code. You have to wake up on time. You have to make the calls. You have to sit there when calls are 15 minutes apart. You have to sit there when for 5 hours straight all you got was no, I don't want to sell, I've been called before, stop calling me, fuck you, fuck off, I don't want to do this, leave me alone, you've called me a million times, why are you calling me again? You have to sit through those 5 hours to get that one yes. And that one yes gives you the opportunity to make an offer, gives you the opportunity to solve title company issues, gives you the opportunity to negotiate with buyers, gives you the opportunity to have a $20,000 check. But none of that is easy to do. That's the thing. If it was easy, everybody would fucking do it. But these are the things that move the needle for me. Now, what are the things that will move the needle for you? For a lot of you guys, you're in this position right here. You want these 3 things, but you don't know how to get there, right? And you keep watching YouTube video after YouTube video after YouTube video, and you're not learning anything. You only learn when you actually take action, right? The only thing you're doing while watching all these YouTube videos is memorizing. What's the point of memorizing if you don't completely understand why you're memorizing it? Why is this right and why is this wrong? You don't know until you actually take action, until you actually wake up, make the calls, make the offers, solve title company issues. You don't know what's right or wrong until you actually do those things, right? And that's the shit that nobody wants to do because it's hard. So in your position, you need to stop watching YouTube videos. You need to just do shit. Do shit that will get you closer to your goals. If you want to start a wholesale business, start making calls, right? If you want to do a dropshipping business and be successful at it, you have to start testing products. If you want to be a day trader, you have to start placing trades. These are the things that will move you closer to your goal. If you're not doing these things in your respective industry, you will never get anywhere. What is the point of learning? What is the point of telling all your friends that you're gonna be an entrepreneur and you're gonna do this and you're gonna do that if you're not doing the hard work? That's what's going to change you from being a wantrepreneur to an entrepreneur, right? If I were to just off the top of my head give you a game plan is if you're working a 9-to-5 job, go save 6 months worth of savings, right? So you can live off for 6 months and test things in a specific business. If you're doing wholesale, right, save your money for 6 months, then go all in into wholesale for 6 months. You have to get a deal. There's no way around it, right? There's no way around you not getting a deal in 6 months if you're actually doing the hard work, if you're actually doing needle-moving work. If you're not, if you're just gonna take those 6 months and do fucking research, you'll never get anywhere. You'll stay poor. That's the reality. You can do that. You can do— you can save your money while working a 9-to-5, get an education product, buy a program, buy a course, get a mentorship, and and then learn all the lessons that you were going to learn in those 6 months and get the result faster, right? Depending on who you buy the program from, you know, I can only speak for myself. I can't speak for other people, but that will instead change your result, right? The result that you want to get, the destination where you want to be at, the person that you want to become, that's going to come faster because you've skipped all the learning lessons. You can do that. You can do, you can do both at the same time. You can work your job and then slowly over time as you learn more things and as you start taking more action, as you start, noticing that you need more time to actually be successful in the business, you start taking some time off. But now that you have time off, you have more time to focus on the business. And now the business is making money, and now you're making more money than you were making at your job. So now you can quit your job because you were doing the needle-moving work, because you were doing what you were supposed to do. The bare minimum of what will get you closer to your goals, that's what you need to do. But a lot of you guys like to waste time. You're on YouTube, you're scrolling on fucking reels. Making calls and getting cussed out is not as fun as doing this. This is way more fun than making calls. Everybody knows that. This sometimes makes me more happy than calls. That's just the reality of it. But this will never make me a fucking dollar. This won't retire my parents. This won't buy me a brand new Lamborghini. This won't put me in a bigger apartment. This won't put me in a bigger house. Now this is fun for now, this brings me pleasure now, but it's not about pleasure now, especially as a man. A lot of you guys are wasting your 20s on a phone like this, watching YouTube videos, texting girls, going out with friends, drinking, smoking, doing drugs, all this other bullshit to feel good now because you think, oh, I'm young right now, I have a lot of time. You don't have a lot of time because if you died tomorrow, everybody would have said, yeah, he wasted his fucking life, he never did anything with his life. Right, from an actual critical opinion, right? Because everybody's opinions are different. Some people might say, oh, he lived, he lived a beautiful life. But as a man, it's not about being satisfied right now. It's about providing for others. And for me, the way I provide for others is financially. So I have to do the needle-moving work to provide financially and be fulfilled in my life. But that's just the life that I want to live. A lot of people don't want to live that life, and that's perfectly fine. This video is not for you. But that's my rant on actually moving the needle and doing what you're supposed to do, right? You don't have to wake up at 4 in the morning. You don't have to eat a carnivore diet every single day. You don't have to— you don't have to do anything but the shit that will get you closer to your goal. If your goal is the gym, do that. If your goal is financials, do the shit that's hard, right? Everybody has different goals. Depending on your goals and depending on the phase where you're at in your life, if you're tired enough of your situation Where financials is what you want to change, I just gave you the game plan. So go and do it. How I end off every video, go take action. You will learn from taking action, not from watching another YouTube video. Thank you so much for your time and watching this video. Now please go do something, please don't watch another video.
