Advice I Wish Someone Gave Me When I Was Broke

This is brutally honest advice for poor people. I've been there. I had to pay rent every night. I would think if I didn't wake up tomorrow, I would be okay with it. And I don't want that for anybody. I get it. I was just going through all these old files yesterday and I saw a goal that I had written which was to make $10,000 a month income. And so it was 13 years ago. And so like I viscerally remember what that was like and I know I was in so much pain during that, during that time that I get it. And so like the reason we make this stuff is because I've been there and I don't want that for anybody. You know, Like I missed my 20s. Like I just, I didn't have them as people traditionally say it, you know, like, it's weird because in today's like Internet culture, like I started my first brick and mortar business, like store front. I was 23, like I didn't know shit about fuck. Like I knew nothing. And like I didn't know you could hire employees. Like it wasn't a thought. Like I didn't know anything. And so like I cleaned, I did the billing, I did the sales, I taught the sessions. Like I fixed the equipment. Like I did everything because I didn't know you could. And I also, I didn't know and I didn't have the money frankly to afford anything else. And so I get it. Like I get, I get, I get it. But to get out of that, you have to take steps. And the first step is saying that it's my fault. The second step is that you have to use what you have. And so in the beginning I would, you know, I was reading the self help books and all this stuff and none of them really hit for me because a lot of it was like power of positive thinking and like affirmations and like all this stuff. And the reason I make the content I do now, which has now almost become like a shtick countering that, is because it didn't work for me. And I'm trying, like I'm not trying to speak to everybody. If that works for you, then like awesome. Like awesome. Like people mistake me saying this is what worked for me with this is what I think everyone should do. And it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm saying if what you have been doing hasn't been working, then consider this, which is that like I remember because I just read this yesterday, the intro in the book. I say I wish I could tell you that the reason I was able to make it out of the gym was because I was like, really passionate about changing people's lives. And I loved fitness and I loved my clients faces when they would light up and they'd step on the scale and they'd lose weight, they'd be able to fit in their high school clothes again, it was none of that. It was just the sheer anger that I had. But the idea of being wrong and having the people back home be right about everything, and I just couldn't. I couldn't. I mean, I still can barely tolerate it. And so, I mean, I took in some ways, and this isn't a. I don't know if woe is me is the right term, but like, I had an otherwise very successful career. Like I was in a white collar job. And sometimes it's hard. Like, I mean, hey, I don't know, I haven't been in the other situation. But taking a step down and humbling yourself to minimum wage after you've been in a white collar situation, not easy. And I remember I had clients who walk in and be like, oh, did you go to college? And they were saying that patronizingly. And mind you, everyone here, at least this channel knows that I don't give a shit. But they were saying it to basically when I was gonna write something down, like, am I literate? And in those moments, again, it was like, I could be right or be rich. Like, I could try and humiliate them back because the pain of what they just said made me feel. They probably didn't even intend that. Or I can be like, yeah, yeah, I went to school. I'm very grateful for it, you know, like, so what are your goals? And I could just move right past it. And so you develop that skin. Because I had to. Because I had to fucking pay rent. And so, I mean, I tell stories about having a kid drawing marker on the wall while I'm trying to close his mom and he's writing in permanent marker. And I'm trying not to lose my shit over the fact that I'm have to repaint the wall because she doesn't know how to parent a child. But I needed to close the car to pay for the paint. And so it's like, I can scold the kid and lose the sale, or I can close the sale and keep my cool and then eventually clean the wall. And so, like, you only get that stuff by doing it. And so if you're in a place right now where you don't have a lot you only have one thing, which is time, and so you have lower leverage. I'm not going to lie to you and say that you, like, there's this one play, this one secret. No, it's just, it's sheer brute for, like, you have to will yourself out of it. Like, there's. You have to do. It's a huge amount of soul driving energy that you have to do outside of what you normally do. So it's like you have to live one person's normal life. You have to do your normal work, your normal job, you have to eat, you have to sleep, you have to clean, you have to do whatever else, and then the workday starts. So that is how you eat today, but you're trying to get ahead and you have to eat tomorrow. And so you have to eat the glass so that you can take the pain today. And you're trying to take as much of the pain from tomorrow as you can today so you can get ahead. And even the concept of getting ahead, I think about this visually, which is like, if you have this timeline of life that you can pull towards you, and it's glass in the beginning and then it's slightly less coarse and then less coarse, and then it gets neutral and then it starts to get a little bit sweeter and a little bit sweeter and a little bit sweeter, but you have to get through that glass period where you pull it towards you. And I do have this theory that, like, on a long enough time horizon, if we could live a thousand years, everyone would eventually be successful. But people wait too long and they die too early. And I say die too early on a long timeline. And so I want, I have to live today and tomorrow and the next day so I can live three days at a time so I can get to my second and third life's benefits now. And so that was what. Like, I remember the only times that I took off when I was at the gym. And one of the biggest things that I was grateful for with the gyms is that I moved across the country. And so I knew no one. I was in Huntington Beach, I was from Baltimore. Like, no one. And what would happen? So one of the gifts of that was that once the week was over, my Saturday sessions were done at, like, noon. My phone didn't ring. Like, in some ways very sad because, like, no one wanted to see Alex. You know what I mean? Like, no one was inviting me out, but I was like, fuck, like, I gotta make this work. And so I would just, I'd sit there And I'd be like, how do I sell memberships? How do I market? How do I. Everything? You know? But that was how I got ahead. And so I tell the stories of, like, I remember when I. When I stopped watching the Ravens, and I was from Baltimore, so that was, like, a tie to home. And so, yeah, it's fresh for me because I just read the story yesterday, but it was, like. It was tough. I'll catch my breath. So all that to say the sacrifices that I encourage people to take are not sacrifices I did not make. And I don't say that there's no ways to get there. I'm just saying that this is the way I got there. And if this path works for you, then maybe it works better than what you're doing right now, which is. I had a lot of pain, and so I tried to use it. I just used what I had. I was just angry. I didn't want to fail, and so I just kept going. And so there was no. Like, there just wasn't another option. And so I think that's, like. That's what I would encourage people to think about was like, they're just. I just didn't. I didn't allow another option because the other option was just. Was just worse than dying. Because, I mean, I've told this story before, and things get hyperbolized, you know, exaggerated, romanticized, whatever. But, like, when I had my big consulting job, I was making good money, and I had the approval of my. My peers and all this stuff, and I just didn't want to wake up the next day, every day. And it wasn't like I was trying to kill myself. It wasn't that, but I was. Every night, I would think if I didn't wake up tomorrow, I would be okay with it. And so when I knew that that was what I was going back to if I didn't make this work, I just had. I had no plan B. I mean, I had. Plan B is that I would drive Uber and strip. I joke about that, but that was very much my plan B if I didn't make it work. But. And I get. I get grilled on social media for saying this because of, like, fucking race wars. But, like, there have been slaves for thousands of years. There were slaves in Egyptian times. There were Jews who were slaves. There were Persian slaves. There were white slaves. There were back slaves. Humans have enslaved one another, period. And I like to think of things in extremes because it allows me to think about what's possible. And so the idea that someone else at some other time in history has worked seven days a week, every hour that they're awake, with the threat not of their own death, but of their children's death. Because that's what I would do if I were trying to control somebody. I would take their kids and say, I'll kill them if you don't work. And guess what? They'll probably work. That that capacity exists. And so I would think to myself, like, I would try and put myself in that frame so that I wouldn't get into the woe is me cycle and think all these things I could blame for why I'm here right now. Why isn't this working as fast? Like, how is it that these guys are making more money than me? Like, why don't these people will give me the respect I deserve, blah, blah, blah, and just say, like, what can I do now? And then just every hour of every day, well, what can I do now? And so it was, I have to learn how to market, I have to learn how to sell. I have to go to these groups that where other gym owners are, and I got to learn their stuff. I got to go to these seminars, I got to save up so I can learn some stuff. And that's what I did. And so that's how I got out of it.

That visual life is this like bloody game of tug of war where like most people, their hands just get too cut to keep holding on to. The rope is like, it's stuck in my head.

Yeah, it's.

That's really powerful.

It was tough. So the first hundred grand is the hardest. And I know that that sounds like an unfathomable amount of money. It took me five years. Like, I get it. So like, you just have to save it one dollar at a time. Like that's like, that's what it is. Now, obviously I talk about other things. Like there are smarter ways to make money for sure. Like if you can sell expensive stuff, you can just move the decimals. Like, I mean, like the thing is it is factually true, it is spiritually false. And I don't even believe in spirituality in general. But like, it is tough to sell a $10 million building and make a million dollar commission or a $500,000 commission when you are broke as fuck. It is very like, it is like you would have to become a different person, which is why most people's first sale is not that. But is it technically possible? Yes. A lot of people watch YouTube and the Internet for complex money making skills and they haven't even mastered showing up on time. And so it's like they want to go straight to calculus, but they don't know how to do simple addition. But the thing is that, like, simple addition is foundational to that, and none of the other stuff will matter unless you can do the basics. But the basics doesn't make them less important. Usually they're the foundation of building, which makes them arguably more important. They just are simpler to understand, but not simpler to do. And I think that's the big disconnect a lot of people have, is that they think they. Because they understand something conceptually, they. That they feel like they have already mastered the skill, which are two very different things. And so one of the most common traits that people who are poor have is that it's always tomorrow. And so they never talk about anything in terms of today. And so it's about starting tomorrow, the diet tomorrow, the diet on Monday next year, my New Year's resolution, It's always pushing off. So rather than delaying gratification, they delay pain. And so rather than try and taking pain now for pleasure later, they take pleasure now and pain later, and so they flip the equation. And so they're surprised when today is later from yesterday, that they're in pain. Because if last week you were like, I'm starting my diet this week, then it is now this week. And you've delayed the pain to today. And that means that the body you have right now is the result of the delayed pain that you are now forcing yourself to endure. And so they're somehow surprised when the bill comes due that they pushed off from the past. And so the first lesson of getting out of poverty is two words. It's my fault. It's. I have to own that. And I think my fault you can kind of extrapolate to right now. Not like you basically have to own everything that passed to this moment. So all the pain that I've gone through, all of the Mondays that I've missed, all of the diets that I've skipped, all of the savings I haven't made, all of those are not my dad's fault, my mom's fault, my circumstances fault, the country I was born in, his fault, the zip code, any of those things, fault, it's just mine. And the thing is that people have this belief that because they have a strong argument for why it's something or someone else's fault, that that somehow helps them, and it just doesn't. Because whatever you cast blame to is where you also cast power to. And so if I Say I can't succeed because my mom didn't love me. Guess who controls me? My mom. And so if you also like replace my mom with a race agenda, a political party, whatever the thing, like, I can't succeed because of Trump's laws, I can't succeed because of the radical left, because of wokeism, because of whatever. You actually give that thing more power in your life than you give yourself. And so it's completely. The thing is, is that, and this is what's so deceiving about it, is it's very, it's very self fulfilling, is that you get more evidence and you get more confirmation. You get more evidence, you get more confirmation. The more your life sucks, the more you're confirmed that you were right. But like, do you want to be right about the fact that your life sucks or would you rather like there's, I think it's an old Zig Ziglar saying, he said you can either be right or you can be rich. And I mean, it's simple. But this is what he was getting at, is that you can say, you know what, you are right, your dad kicked the shit out of you your whole life and you don't have any confidence because he told you were a piece of shit every day you're right. But in order to be rich, you need to let that go. Because every day you say that I'm not successful because of this, it means because this now owns you. And for me personally, that realization that the thing that I hated most in the world, the things that I blamed for why my life wasn't the way it was, I was their bitch. And just realizing that made me angry. But through that anger, I was able to say, well, fuck them, I will succeed. Despite the fact that my dad said this, or my mom said this, or Barack Obama said this, or Trump said this, or the woke left says what? Despite that, despite the fact that the chips are stacked against me, I will still win.

Why does saying my fault and taking that accountability begin to set someone down the path of making more money?

And so if we think about success in terms of layers, like foundations, right? The base level, like when you're digging the building where you put the hole and you pour the concrete in, the base of the entire thing is who is in power, who is source. Because if it's anything but you in that base layer, all of the other things on top of them will topple down. It's a foundation of sand. Otherwise you can't build on top of blaming other people, there's Nothing that stands on it. You see, like, I want to learn sales, but I can't learn sales because I didn't get hugged enough as a kid. And so I don't like people. And so as long as you keep holding onto that, you have sand as your foundation. But if you want to learn how to sell, or you want to learn how to market, or you want to learn how to do whatever, until you say, well, it's my fault that I don't know it. And because of that, it's within my power to change it.

So it's not sales books, it's not reading offers, it's not even your books.

At the very beginning, you have to accept that, which is the first two words, my fault, my responsibility, all me, I am source. And then once you can accept that one thing, and what's crazy is that that one foundation is where 90% of people literally aren't. They're not there. They can't do it. The reason my girlfriend left me is because of this, not me. The reason I lost my job is because my employer was a dick. My boss sucked, whatever the economy, but it never serves you. Give me one instance, one example. This is to anyone who's listening to this one example of when you blame something else and it made you better one, you can't find it because it's fundamentally not true. And so you cannot bother desire to get better and also maintain blame. You have to pick.

When did this really hit home for you? Was it when you lost money?

No. When I was 19 years old, I had to write an essay about depression in an Intro to Psych class. And I used to. I don't talk about my mother very much, but I used to harp a lot. I was an equal opportunity angry person. I was angry at everybody. In other words, I blamed everyone. And so I blamed her for X, Y and Z. And I remember having to write this essay on depression. And you had to do it from someone else's perspective. And so you had to say, how would they. How would the environment and their upbringing, things like that, contribute to the outcomes in their life? And so by writing the essay, true or not, to be clear about my mother's upbringing and how hard she had as an immigrant coming here, getting beat up as a kid, getting made up for not being able to speak the language, all that kind of stuff. And this is in the fucking 50s. It's when, like, it was more accepted to beat up foreigners rather than let them in anyways. So she had a tough time. And so it made Sense. And when I framed it like that, I was like, you know, maybe she's actually a massive success, given where she started. And so then I thought to myself, now, mind you, I still wasn't over it. But it was in this process that the first thing that happened is when I went back home for fall break or winter break. I remember she said something to me which would normally just, like, be the beginning of some big fight. You get into these routines, like, I'll say this thing that we both hate, and then we'll just get in a nice fight about it. And she said, the trigger. And I was just like, I understand you. I'm sorry you went through the stuff you went through. And she just, like, looked completely shocked and then just, like, started bawling. And so I was like, we're cool. Like, you don't anger me anymore. And I think for the most part since then, like, that's been more or less the dynamic that shifted. But leading into that was also the idea that all the relationships that I'd had that I blamed for not working because of the dynamic that I had with my mother. I was like, I am giving her this power over my love life. That's gross. And so I was like, why? I'd rather just say it's on me to change and not have my mom or parents at all involved in my relationships. And so that was me taking, it's her fault that I can't make these things work. I have commitment issues. I don't want to get close to people. I've been hurt before, blah, blah, blah. To like, okay, well, let's take it to the next extreme. Great. You're right. You'll never be close to anyone. You'll never have a relationship that I'll ask. You're right. Now what I remember I was at a conference, and I had this lady stand up in the crowd, and I had just done a thing on, like, I don't remember what it was called, offers. And she stood up and said, let me give you six reasons why this isn't going to work for my business. And so she went down her list, and I was like, uh, huh, huh, huh. So I got to the end of the whole thing, and she said, and that's why this isn't gonna work for my business. And I was like, you're right. You'll never be able to make this work for your business. And she looked at me like, angry. And she lashed back. She's like, yes, I will. I'll be able to make this work. For my business, for this reason. This reason. And so the thing is that if the victim frame is just taken to the natural extreme, you realize that you're right. You win the game and by being right the entire team, you lose everything. And so it's one of these frames that I love. Dr. Cashy says this, he says you're 99% right, but 100% wrong. And what that means is like for example, if I. Every time I bring a girl home and I want my parents approval, I bring her home and they say, this isn't the one, this isn't the one, she's not good enough, whatever it is. Every time it's easy for them to say that because every single person you date except for the one you marry, they are right on. And so they're 99% of the time they're right. And they're confirmed by saying that that person that you bring home is not good enough. Because every time, eventually you break up. Oh, it's not gonna last. This isn't the one. It keeps going right. But if you keep doing that all the way to the natural extreme, you're 100% wrong. Because you will be wrong eventually. It's the same thing as like, I wanna start this business. It's not gonna work. It's not going to work. The second one will work, the fifth one will work, the seventh one won't work. And they're right, but they're just wrong on the long enough time horizon because one of them will fucking work. And one of the girls or one of the guys that you bring home will be the one that you are going to be with. But it's so much safer for them to be right and right and right. And they get deceived by their short term rightness that they miss the long term wrong. And we do this to ourself too. We. When you're in the victim frame, I don't even like using the victim frame. But when you're in the powerless frame, you give the power away and you get to be right over. That's why it didn't work. This didn't work. This relationship won't work, this job won't work. It's not going to work this time either because you get to be right over and over again. It makes you feel good in the short term, but in the long term you guarantee the loss.

I think there's also like social reinforcement. We love to complain about the weather.

It's literally the same thing as never investing. Like if you want to invest Your money, right? And you like, you have all this big pile of savings. If you ever invest, there's always the possibility that it goes down in the short term. It's just the nature of markets in general. But if you never invest, you guarantee that you will never get rich over the long haul. And so every day you could make this risk. You take a small risk, but you guarantee a macro win. So you take a small risk today, potential for a loss today, for the guarantee over the long haul that it grows and it makes you money. But the flip side is you don't take the small risk of loss today. You take the comfort today for the guarantee that you get the long loss. And so, so many people flip their life to that same thing is that they have. They flip the pleasure for today and they just forget the second half of this, which is pain for tomorrow. And that today is also yesterday's tomorrow. And we're living through the pain that you cast like you own this. And until you're like, this is my fault. I'm in pain today because the decisions that I put off pain for tomorrow were. Is tomorrow. When you're broke, every dollar means so much to you. But. And you want to see the dollars in your bank account go up. But I never made that my goal. I made the amount of money I made every month my goal because I saw that as my like, potential energy versus stored energy. Not to get, I mean, whatever physics people, you get what I'm saying. And so I was willing to take that stored energy and reinvest it to take $5,000 a month in income to make it $6,000 a month. Because I knew that over a year I was going to make 12. And so if it cost me two to make the 12 in income, I would make that trade every time. And so whenever I'd save up a small like, nut. Now, obviously I've always been pretty good about spending money. Like, I haven't had that habit. So like, again, foundations like, first, it's your fault. Second, spend less than you make. Third, take all of the excess and spend it on making more. Because if you're making minimum wage, I'm going to say what you probably already know. You're not going to get ahead. Like, you're not going to save your way there. You're not. Like, everyone loves to tell the story of that one girl at McDonald's, but you know, they don't tell the other hundred million people who've worked at McDonald's over the world who didn't make it and, like, the outcome they're talking about is, like, she made a million dollars over 40 years of working McDonald's. Like, you can shoot for more. And so, like, take the money you make live on nothing. And the hard part is just swallowing the pride for the fact that in the short term, everyone's going to be right when they say that you're amounting to nothing. And that's the tough part. That's the glass that you have to. You have to swallow, that you have to pull towards you. And there's just no other way. Like, you have to learn the skills now. I mean, to be fair, YouTube didn't exist when I was doing this. And, like, Instagram was like a new platform. So, like, all this stuff, like, the stuff we have today is crazy. Like, the stack these videos in this pocket, like, all the stuff didn't exist. Like, I remember when podcasting came out, like, I was already a business owner. Like, none of this stuff existed. But at the time, I just took all the money I had. And I want to make this point again, is that people think that the money is about buying courses and stuff like that. And you can, like, there's nothing wrong with that. I've learned a ton from a lot of the stuff that I've bought, to be really honest with you. But I think that I've always had an amazing return on education because I always did it. And I think, like, I always wanted to be the best student in every class, and I was good at school, and I just took business as a different. Another type of school. But part of the expenses that come into, like, what you take that money for is experiments that fail. But. And so one of the things that happens when you're broke is that you bet on stuff and then it doesn't work, and people feel like they're back at zero. But you're not back at zero. You're at where you were plus one experience, plus two experiences, plus three experiences, plus four experiences. But when you have plus 18 experiences, all of a sudden, boop, you level up one, you get experience points. There's a reason in video games called experience points, so you didn't trade it for nothing. You got an experience point, and with enough experience points, you get to the next level. And so I think if you just even thought about it like that, it's not a loss, but an experience point. It could bridge the gap between your current income level and the income level that you want to get to. And then, guess what? There's more experience point that you have to get there. And those experience points also cost more money. Because when you take a bet in the beginning and when I say it costs money, it's like if you run an ad and it doesn't work, it costs money. If you want to set up a shopify store or an e commerce store and you spend 30, 40, 50 bucks a month, whatever, it costs money. And it does. All of these things cost money to start. Now mind you, it costs a lot less than it did in the 20s when you had to mortgage your house and guarantee that you'd win or you'd lose everything forever. So the bar has never been lower than it is now, but there still is a bar and you have to get over it. And I still think that the vast majority of the shit that people are trying to get over has nothing to do with the difficulty of business. But the first step, the foundation, which is it is my fault that I am here and in it being my fault, I am the one who can get me out of.

Sounds like in that stage three, when you start experimenting and investing in that, and let's say the kid who has a failed drop shipping experiment or starts a school group and they want to win the school games, but they don't, their measuring stick for whether or not they're doing well shouldn't be how much money they're making or should they be thinking about money at that point?

So the wealthiest people I know only think about skills. They think about what can I learn and then what can this skill get me? And so they will always take any money they can to buy more skills. And in the beginning you have to buy all the skills yourself. Once you have enough skills that you can generate an excess of income, you can start buying other people's lives. And what I mean by that is like everything comes down to buying time. And so at Some point, you're 10 years into your career and you have a handful of skills, but you can buy someone else's 10 years of skills by just paying them to do something too. So you don't have to learn all those things. And so you do need to get good at stuff. And then eventually you generalize to being good at people. And that's pretty much always the path for everyone.

Maybe the framing is like a lot of people who are wanting to make more money just don't know what the avenues are.

Yeah, so a lot of people who want to make money don't understand how money is made. And so it's made by getting it from someone else. And they have to give it to you voluntarily or it's theft. And so assuming you don't want to steal, then you have to give something to someone else first. And then by doing that, they give you money in exchange. Which is why I love capitalism. It's voluntary exchange between two parties, and both parties say thank you at the end because both parties think they're better off from the trade. And so the idea is what you want to be able to do is find something valuable to trade. And so you can either trade stuff, you can find a place where you can get stuff, then bring it to other people where it's convenient for them so they pay you more than you did when you had to go find it at some back alley. Because, you know, suburban mom doesn't want to go into back alley to get X, Y and Z, but you'll give it to her. Man, it sounds like I'm explaining drugs, but, well, there's a reason they make money. But anyways, point is that you can sell stuff at a margin, and a part of that margin is going to be the convenience that you deliver them. And either you're selling stuff that someone else manufactures, you create your own stuff. Now, if you're starting out, you're probably going to sell someone else's stuff. And I do think, and I mean I'm saying this right now, I do love the concept that the first thing you sell is not the last thing you're going to sell. And so learning to sell in and of itself, the best way to learn to sell is sell something. And that's why referral programs, ambassador programs, affiliate programs for different types of businesses. Almost every business I've ever owned has an affiliate program. It's great to enroll in those. I'm not even going to say any of the names of the companies that we have, because I want you. Like, it's not about that. I want you to. If you can just. Because then you only have to figure out one skill. Like, if I just sell someone, if I just promote, I get paid cool. And I can just do it over and over again. Now, over time, you're like, man, I want to make more of the nut. Cool. Then you just, you eat up more of the responsibility. So you can either sell stuff or you can sell skills, you can sell outcomes. And so that's where you develop a certain expertise. So, like, in the beginning for me, and like, the first time this ever, like, the first money I ever made from a stranger was that I had a lady at the gym. It's a real Story. I was in really good shape. I like to think so. And she said, will you meet me and do a nutrition consultation for me? And she didn't even say that. She said, will you help me with my food? I think is what she said. I said, sure. And so we met at a pizza place, ironically. No, this was after college. So this is after I graduated from college when I was still consultant. So we met at a pizza place. And I was like, okay, well, what are you currently eating? And she was like, this. And I was like, well, what do you want to do? She's like, I'm trying to lose weight. And I was like, well, this is something I eat for breakfast that's less calories than your thing. It's pretty good. And try this, and try this and try this. And it took like an hour. And then I had like a notepad and I gave her the notes or whatever. And she took out her purse and she wrote $200 on a check. And she handed it to me. She was like, thanks so much. And I was like, I was just, like, looking at the check, looking at her, looking at the check, looking at her. And I was like, okay, don't act surprised. And I was like, oh, thanks. And then she left. And I was like, holy shit. I was like, I just got paid for. But, like, realistically, I'd been. At this point, I was competing, so I'm winning. Like, I had a state record at that point. Like, I was in shape, you know what I mean? And I think she knew I was a state record holder because the gym that I was powerlifting gym. But I had done some stuff. I had gotten some level of authority on some tiny thing, and people were like, oh, can you help me with that too? And to be really honest with you, my entire life, and I'm saying, like, there's many paths, but, like, my life has been, learn something, get good at it, have evidence that you were good at the thing. And then people ask you for help on that thing. And so in the beginning, people asked me how to get in shape. And then I started a business around getting people in shape. And then people who had businesses around getting people in shape asked me how I was getting my businesses that were getting people in shape to work. And then people who had businesses that were national scale that helped people in a specific niche or industry started asking me how I was helping people in a specific niche or industry. And then people who had really big businesses just started asking me, how did you get a really big business? And so, like, My entire life been simply doing as hard as I fucking could to get good at something and then do it enough times. And to be really like very clear with you, every time I did it, it was not to move on to the next step. It was to just get good at the thing. And then by getting good at the thing, people asked me about it. And so it wasn't like I lost 10 pounds and then tried to start selling weight loss advice. I had multiple state records and I like, I looked good, you know what I mean? Like, I was in very good shape. And then people started asking me about it and then I didn't have one gym and start telling people, hey, here's how you run a gym. I had six gyms by the time I was 26. And then people were like, okay, you're 26 and you have six gyms and you did all of cash flow, like you're doing something right. And then people started asking me about the stuff. And then when I had the licensing business doing 4 million a month, people who had other bigger businesses were doing a million a month or 500,000, like, how do you get to 4 million a month? And I was like, well, this is what I did. And so like, I've just tried to figure it out. And it's like the path has always been revealed as I took more steps. And so I think a big fallacy in the early on days is trying to think that you're going to figure out the entire path before you even take the first step. It's just not true.

I was going to ask how important is it for someone to have that moment with the check where they just make their first.

I mean, in some ways I think it's everything. In other ways it's nothing like one of the cool, shameless plug for school. The 30.44% of people who finish their first month of school make their first dollar online. And that's like. So like that's why we do it. You know what I mean? I know how hard that first dollar is. There's so much to get the first dollar across. The. Because the second dollar comes so much faster after that. I mean, that's why I invest in the company. That's why I'm so adamant about it. But anyways, the point is that yes, I think having the first dollar get across is very important. But if you can reframe it from that experience points perspective that there's probably three levels before that you have to like level one is that you have to understand that it's my fault. Level two is that you have to use what you have, not what you wish you had to get to where you want to go. And where you want to go isn't 100 steps forward. It's just the next step. And so, like, I don't think that anger drives me as much as it used to, but it was everything that I had when I started. And so if I had listened to the positivity mantra when I started, I never would have gotten going because nothing made me feel happy. And so they were like, follow your passion. I was like, my passion is to not be poor and to not be here in Baltimore. That's my passion, is not be here. And so that's what drove me. And so I think that it just needs to be restated that, like, is that the goal? Sure. But is that necessary to start? No, it's not. And so I can tell you that even when I was angry and getting through that, making more money did make my life better. Like, I had more ability to deal with inconveniences, hassles, health issues from family members that I had to foot the bill for. Like, all these things. Like, money can provide value. And so I'll say this thing that a mentor told me, he said, money does not buy happiness, but it can help you avoid pain. And so I think there's nothing wrong with making money. Obviously, I like doing it, but I just hate the people who espouse that you have to feel a certain way to win, or that winning when you're angry or sad or in pain or ashamed is somehow wrong. And so I just, like, you have to meet success where you're at, and the first step you have to take out of anger, and the next step you have to take out of sadness, and the next one you have to take out of shame and use that to propel yourself forward. All that matters is you take the step. And one of the things that I always like is for a very long time, I didn't consider myself a good person. I mean, I still probably don't, but in terms of, like, I always identified with the villain and the oppressor in most scenarios, which is bad, but anyways. But there's a point to this, is that I never thought that I deserved the good life. I never thought. I didn't think I deserved the happy ending, I'll put it that way. And so the thing that got me through that was the idea, and this felt like, honestly, like, gaming the system. So, like, from the evil side was that I could still get the good guys ending if I just did the thing that they do to get the ending. So I didn't have to do it with pure intentions, I didn't have to do it as a great guy. But if I just still did the things, I could still get the getting. And I think for me that that realization has been why my ruthless focus on like, well, what did you do? And to everyone who listens to my stuff, like, it's like, great. Throw the emotions out, throw the spiritual energy vibrations out. What do you do? Patience is just figuring out what to do in the meantime. Like, courage is acting as though you weren't afraid. Like, what do you do? And then eliminating everything else and then just doing that and then doing whatever mental tricks you have to do, which is like there were slaves who work seven days a week. So can I like. And then alternatively catastrophizing the alternative path, which is that if I do not do anything, this is what will happen eventually. That pain in the future will be my pain today. And then actively thinking about what that pain would be like and then seeing if that can make you more uncomfortable than the comfort that you're in. And I think Tony Robbins says this, he says change happens when the pain of staying the same. Sorry, when the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same. And so if you're comfortable in staying the same, the point is to make yourself more in pain to get yourself to move. And so I think there's a skill in being able to future pace and think through what pain you're going to go through. Like, if you're like, man, okay, I have gained five pounds a year and it has been four years, so I'm 20 pounds up. Well, if four years from now I'm another 20 pounds heavier. And imagining the snide comments at the holiday party or the if you're a girl, the guy who says, man, she'd be really cute if she lost 40 pounds. Or like, even like, I'm going girls perspective here. A guy who says something that's like, I would be with her, but she's just, she's just too fat. She's just not cute enough. And you're like, wow, that's so politically incorrect. Deal with it. It's fucking life. But the thing is, your thoughts don't need to be politically correct. They're your thoughts, they're no one else's thoughts. And so whatever you have to do to get yourself there. For me, the idea that a girl that I would want to be with would be like, I just don't think he's ambitious enough. I don't think he's successful enough. Those ideas killed me. And so I never wanted to be denied entry to somewhere because I didn't have these things. Now do I believe that people should be denied entry? No. But I also realize that's the way the world is. And so I think you can balance both beliefs. Like, I'd love things to be different, but I accept the fact that they're not.

Does this feel like a good argument for getting rid of other broke friends? Because I bet other broke friends reduce the pain of staying the same.

A friend who supports you is someone who deliberately decreases the possibility of failure. And so if you look at your friends and you ask yourself, does this person increase or decrease the possibility of failure with my goal? It's very easy to answer that question, yes or no. It's increase or decrease. There's no in between. Do they increase or they decrease my possibility that I get to my goal? If the answer is decrease, then get rid of them. Because imagine that you have a hundred percent chance of hitting your goal and you have three friends that have a 30% decrease. Like you might now have a. Have a fucking, you know, whatever. A third times three is whatever 27% chance of hitting your goal now because you have three terrible friends.

Like, negative experience.

Yeah, yeah. It's like getting in video games. It's like you've got somebody who's casting like a slow spell on you and you're like moving so slow and you're like, weak. And like all your, all your hits have like half power. Like, a lot of people need to shed friendships. But the thing is it's more that they call them friends, but they're not really friends. They're just there. And they're there because they've always been there, but not because they should be there, but because they're going to help you get to where you want to go. They're just there. They exist. They're not going anywhere. They don't have goals and they're at a different part in their journey. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you're going to start the path of drinking glass and starting to double time, you've got to live your life and you got to live tomorrow's life and the next day's life and start dragging that towards you, they're going to be upset about it. And so one of the sayings I recently had that I like a lot, which is there Are no social obligations, only social consequences. And the people who want to deliver those consequences often do it by talking to you less and by avoiding you more. They try to spend less time with you and talk to you less to punish you for the fact that you missed the party, you missed the going out, you didn't show up to their wedding, you didn't show up to their dogs christening or whatever. But the crazy thing is, is that if you felt obligated to go, then it means you didn't want to go. And that means that if you didn't want to go and the punishment of not going is that you don't have to go more in the future because they avoid you, they don't invite you anymore, then to me, that's a win win. You save time today and you save time tomorrow. And I don't understand why people are not willing to deal with that, like just looking at what happens rather than whatever emotional noise they make with their face at you, like moving past that gray, you expelled air at me. Understood. Got it. But the outcome is you will no longer invite me, which is what I want. Great. I feel like we won here. And so thinking second and third order outcomes from what happens when I, quote, break up with this friend or what happens when I offend this friend, a lot of times it's you closer to your goal. And I've always been okay with that. And like, if someone, like the moment I have seen somebody as decreasing like that I hit my goal, I am happy to tell them that, like, I think you are not good for me. I don't think you help me hit what I want to hit. And they'd be like, well, then they'll try and downgrade your goals and say you shouldn't believe this way. And then they'll cast their beliefs on you. And for me, it's like, that's amazing that you believe that. I don't believe that. And I don't really want to believe what you believe because then I would have your life and I certainly don't want that. And so, like, again, I make these tweets about this, but it's like, if you don't like their life, don't listen to what they say. Don't take their advice if you don't like what you see. And so if everyone around you has a life you don't want, then don't listen to any of their advice. Again, hopefully you're listening to this and you're watching if there's some element of my life or Whatever that you find awesome, cool, then maybe some element of what I can share is helpful for you. But you have to put blinders on because there is a period of time where you and I mean, I've said this, but you're not going to be successful enough for the next tier of friends. But you're too different from the friends that you used to have. And so that middle path is very lonely. But the good thing about loneliness is you've got time. And right now, time is what you need because you got to learn stuff, you got to get the skills, so you can start trading that for more and more money, and then you can take the money and trade that for more money. But in the beginning, you just have time and that's what you have to spend. And so if you are broke or you are poor and wish to no longer be broke and poor, the first is owning the fact that everything that has to do with your life is your fault. And a lot of people will reject that. And you're right. Stay poor. You're totally right. You'll never be successful. You're totally right. I believe you. The next step is being willing to use what you have rather than what you think you should have or what you wish you had. The circumstances, the connections, the money, whatever, the passion, the purpose, the meaning behind the work, you can wish for all that stuff, but you don't have it. So you have to use what you have, which could be anger, could be shame, could be pain, whatever. And then as soon as you start taking action, everyone around you will collapse and try to pull you down. And so the only way to protect yourself against that is to increase your own approval of self and decrease how much their opinion of you matters. Which means that you have to be proud of you for taking the step and actively look at their lives and think, do I want what they have? If the answer is no, then do not listen to what they say. And then when you do that, you keep walking, you keep taking steps, no matter how painful it is, and you never stop. And if you do that, you will get there. That's it. Cool.