Why Hard Work Isn't Enough (And What Actually Works)

Anyone who has told you hard work is why they've made it in life is either lying to you or has not done the math. I mean, I did not work harder than the guy next to me, and some of you have worked harder than me and everybody else around, and you're still feeling stuck. So that's not it. So was it luck? Maybe. I mean, I do believe in luck. Problem is, I don't know if I have it or not. Even though there are instances, there are evidence, I can't rely on it. So I kind of stopped waiting for it, which leaves me with one thing, which is intent. Doing it on purpose instead of hoping it happens to you. So I went back and did the math for real, and it was not hard work. No, I mean, I worked hard. Everyone I know works hard. That's not a differentiator. That's a job requirement. Looks, confidence, rich family, more opportunities than the next guy. No, no, no, no, no, no, and no. Here's what I actually was. A shy kid who could not hold a conversation, not an A-grade student, carrying around more anger than I knew what to do with. Not exactly a highlight reel. What I did have was I said yes to things before I would've thought them through enough to say no. One of my co-founders who said, hey, you wanna become a coach? And I said, yes. I got my first leadership role without asking. And I said, yes. One of the co-founders of my school, School of SDR, said if I wanted to become a coach and I said, yes. Then he later said, you wanna open a tech company with me? I said, yes. He said, do you wanna move to the US for 6 months, pack your bags, leave everything behind? I said, yes. So I want to be clear, yes is not a personality. It's a habit. habits have a bill that comes due later. Some of that bill got paid because of the choices my partner and I made, choices like not having a kid and having the ability to travel whenever we want. So saying yes was a cheap part, and here's the invoice for all those yeses. I was willing to take the risk, willing to look like an idiot in front of people whose opinion I cared about at one point of time. I knew some of it would not work, and I did it anyway, like a guy who reads terms and conditions and clicks. Agree regardless. Here's what that actually looked like. I was at a company once where the investors had opinion about what I should post online. And my own founder who went to Ivy League, no sales experience, never hired an SDR, never hired a salesperson in his life, never written a cold email in his life, sat me down personally to teach me how to do all 3. And I sat there like a TED Talk I did not buy a ticket to. Now, then there were bosses who wanted to teach me how to run an SDR team, how to run a sales team. That one still stings. I sucked it up. And if you're doing the same thing right now, congratulations, you're apparently also falling upwards. Now, there were stretches where I genuinely did not know why I had not quit. I just could not listen to one more person who had no idea what they were doing explain to me what I was doing wrong. So I stayed anyway, and I'm pretty sure some of you are in the same boat as me. While all of that was happening, I started doing things nobody else was doing, mostly because everyone else was busy having a meeting about whether to do them. I would just go do it the next day and let them keep meeting. It wasn't pretty, but I learned. I absorbed a lot. I put the phone down. I spent weekends. I did work 6 days a week instead of 5 days a week, which normally everybody would work. I put the phone down, picked up actual books. One of the books took me like 2 years to finish, which for a guy who is constantly on phone is basically a personality transplant. Somewhere in there, I made a promise to myself about the life I wanted. Sounds like a fridge magnet, but it's still true. I'm living most of that life now. I have a fantastic life. And I'm not here to boast about it, but I'm here to tell you that you can have it if you just watch the video till the end. There's a better version of me, I believe, which is still coming, and I'm patient for him. I'm content and I'm still hungry. Turns out you're allowed to do both at once. Nobody will tell you that. Nobody ever tells you that. I still get scared, and I think I know why am I still doing it. I could keep telling the story. Turns out I was not the one who explained it best. My wife did. My wife had a better read on all of this than I did. So I asked her one day, hey, what do you think? Why do you think that we were successful? Why do you think I was successful? She said, I tried more things than anyone around me, including things I had zero shot at, where I had no idea it could work, and I went anyway. I don't think so I was brave. I was just too impatient to ask permission first. And that is one skill I believe which has paid me off the most. I moved to a city once. Everybody told me not to. Turns out they were right about the city. It was brutal. I think they were wrong about the move because the bosses I had there were some of the best of my career, and that changed the whole trajectory of my career. I think the weather was worse, but the education was the best, and I'll take that trade every time. Same deal with other things I've tried, like my podcast. There was a guy who gave me the idea, who pitched me the idea of podcast. We started the next day. After a few weeks, he kind of quit because of some differences. And after a week when he quit, I got a huge sponsorship. And this is proof that in business, showing up is a competitive advantage, really not a participation trophy. And that is the whole edge. If I'm being honest, I just stay in the game slightly longer than the next guy gives up. Some of you already understand that because you invest in stocks. I do not, but I still get the same concept. The same concept applies in life and business. And here's the part that should annoy you, and it annoys the hell out of a lot of people I work with. I don't think so that I've ever had an original idea in my life. School of SDR, a company which I run, was not my idea. What I did was take one cohort and I continuously kept improving. And today we are running a 40th cohort. Like I've been running this for 40 months, 4-0, and last month For one of the cohorts, we had 19 students in less than 15 days. I did not even invent that idea. Somebody again pitched me that other idea of another cohort of the training program, and I just executed it really well. Another thing really worked for me is that if I have an idea and I want to execute it, I will refuse to let it fail on my watch, which honestly should be good news for you because it means you do not need a good idea either. Ideas are free now. Ask any AI tool for 100 ideas and it'll hand them over before you finish your coffee. But what it won't do for you is show up for you on day 400 when the idea is getting boring and nobody's watching. And one of the biggest learnings I had was by inviting the best of the best people on my podcast. And one of the things which CEO of Zuri said to me, and I would not mind even getting that tattoo on my head if I have to, that ideas are a commodity, execution is not. I further believe execution is a relationship and most people kind of ghost it after the third date. My wife's action point was consistency, and I hate how right she is. I do gym 5 days a week. I don't care if a holiday or someone's wedding. Same with work. I work 6 days a week and not because anyone is making me. And turns out the secret was never a secret. It was just boring. And nobody wants to hear that answer, that do the unglamorous thing on the days you don't feel like it because it does not fit on a poster. And that's not just my story. And I watch it play out with almost everyone I have trained personally and honestly with almost everyone I know who's successful today. I train salespeople for a living, but this part is not really about sales. It's about what you do when nobody is applauding yet. Here's a pattern. Most people who want something badly already know what the boring looks like. The reps, the practice, the unglamorous stuff really nobody claps for. And most people do not do it, not because they're lazy, because it feels optional right up until the day it is not. I mean, I get it. If you're already grinding 6 days, 5 days a week doing more of the thing you have been avoiding, it feels unfair. So you tell yourself, I'll catch up later. And that's the moment it starts because desperation repels. Think about it. You are at a party and somebody's chasing you around the room, too eager, too needy. What do you do? You back away. The person who's not chasing anything, that's Who you end up chasing. Same thing with career, a pitch, an audition, anything you actually want in life. So the moment you're desperate, it shows, and the room backs away exactly when you need it the most. Let me tell you about a scenario of a student I trained. He had a full-time job, 8, 9 hours a day, and used to spend 2, 3 hours in driving to the office every day. He used to get up at 6, in the office by 7, 8, out at 9 or 10, 11 after our training. Brutal schedule. I respected the hell out of the guy. First 3 weeks with me, he did not practice. He did not put in any reps. He was supposed to practice endless number of calls, submit assignments on time. And week 4, I tell the group that anyone under a certain percentage, which is the standard for our cohort, does not meet that number, they will not be put up for interviews. And suddenly he's a different person. He's now practicing more than everybody else, grinding, doing in one week the work he should have spread across 4. It worked enough to get him in front of 2 companies because he scored a certain percentage, which we needed. First interviewer said, first company said he was superficial. There was no depth. And the second one ran an AI interview and he got caught. Mid-answer, he pulled up ChatGPT to feed himself the answer. The system flagged it instantly. I called him and he did not even deny it. Said, yeah, I did it. I was desperate. Now that's a whole thing right there. The habits you build when nobody is watching show up exactly when it matters and whether you're ready for it or not. He actually had gotten away with cutting corners in a room that moves fast and forgives easily. He did not get that room. He got one that actually takes time, compares notes, and has Heard every version of this before. Most rooms that actually decide something are like that. So 2 weeks later, I offer him a mock interview to fix it, and he shows up and says, wait, I thought this was just to check in on my research, not an actual mock. We pulled up the recording when I said that. It's right there in his own words, agreeing to a mock interview. Now he backs down. We spend 30 minutes with me convincing a grown man that he has a problem. I give him 48 hours to prepare for round 2. Real talk, if you can't prepare for a mock call within 48 hours' notice, you're never going to prepare for the real thing either. Now, that's not a scheduling problem. That tells me everything. You're cutting corners in practice. You're going to cut corners when it counts. Cheat once, you cheat again. And eventually, the room that catches you is the one that matters. That's what actually separates people, not talent. Whether you do the unglamorous rep on day 14 when nobody's watching or wait for day 40 and try to fake your way there. So it does not matter if you're selling coding training for something or building a business nobody asked you to build. Same rule, same lesson as mine, just with someone else living it in real time. Hard work was never the differentiator. Doing the work Boring things on purpose before you need to is— so people ask me about money a lot, and here's the one test I use. If I'm making money, is somebody actually better off because of it? If I'm selling a service that works, you get better. And if you don't use what I gave you, that's not entirely on me either. You can buy the best home gym in the world. If it sits in the corner collecting dust, that's not a bad product and it's not a bad seller. There are easier ways to make money more than the way I do it. I know people who make more than me doing things that would not meet my standard. We all know somebody like that. I made peace with that trade a long time ago. My mom used to say something to me, which literally translates to, do good, don't keep score. I think all of that compounds. You just don't see it in the years. And then one day it's just there because— and here's the thing about this year, it wasn't one big break. Everything I've built has been compounding for 10 years. I did not understand compounding when I started. I know tons of people who understand compounding when it comes to their money and other things, but they don't understand the same thing about the skills and how they're building their life. What I did understand is that I'm loyal to my thoughts and I'm loyal to my people. Turns out that that's most of what compounding actually is. Along the way, plenty of managers wanted the version of me that agreed with them, not the version that told them the truth. Most were good, genuinely good, encouraging. Some were not. The ones who could not let go of control, who shot down every idea because the idea was not theirs. And there's a price for standing up in a room like that. Say a company's wrong out loud enough times that someone eventually says, who the hell does he think he is? We are a billion-dollar company. We have been running the— we've been running the company for longer than you have been born, blah, blah, blah. So I'll tell you exactly who I am. I am the voice. You are the brand. Take the brand away and you're nobody. You're making money off the difference. Fine, that's a deal. But somebody has to be accountable for it. And that's all I ever asked for. And it's the only fight I have ever picked up on purpose. I practically raised myself from the time I was 10, 11 years old. I had a tough childhood. I'm not going to get into the details. Some of the people know about this, but it does not change the point. The only reason I bring it up is nobody who has built anything had it easy. I'm grateful it happened the way it did. I have no remorse. If anything, I'm the most content I've ever been. And before I let you go, I want to talk to 2 specific people. If neither one is you right now, stick around anyway. Give it a few years and one of them will be. First person, you are in your, probably in your 20s and you've got a habit of checking everyone else's scoreboard before you have finished your own game. Somebody your age got funded. Somebody your age got promoted. Somebody your age is posting a life that looks edited because it is. You're watching someone's highlight reel and grading it against your rough draft. That's not a fair fight. It was never supposed to be won. Second person, you are in your 30s or let's say 40s, and there's a voice in your head that started saying you're too late, late to the money, late to whatever version of made it you had in your head at 22. Now, someone younger than me read something this somewhere, actually he's my brother, and he told it to me straight. He said life balances after 35. And at that moment, I was in the comparison loop myself, so I did not believe him at first. Then I looked around at my own life and I reached 35 and he's right. The people who were ahead at 25, 29 are not necessarily ahead at 38. The board resets more than people admit. You're not late, you're just still playing. Here's the part that is not about timing at all. It's about who is actually in your corner while you play. If your manager does not care about you, that is information, not a verdict. If your company does not care about you, same thing. Painful, but it's just data. Here's what you do with that data. You care about yourself. Care about yourself enough to work hard when nobody's clapping. Care about yourself enough to walk away when the room stops being good for you. And care about yourself enough to get help when you need it. Actual help from someone whose job is to help you, not from a group chat that means well and knows nothing. I did that last one for 2 years, once a week, sitting across from a therapist. I want to be honest with you about what that looked like, because nobody tells you the real version. I almost cried nearly every single week because of the traumas I've had since childhood. A grown man who trains people for a living, who supposedly got this figured out, falling apart on a Tuesday afternoon in front of a stranger I was paying to listen to. Some of you have an image of me that does not have room for that sentence. Make room. It's the most honest thing in this whole script. What I got for 2 years of almost crying was this. I got free. Not free of problems, but free of the bondages and the shackles I'd built for myself brick by brick without ever noticing I was the one laying them. Some of you are doing that right now, building your own cage. One, it's fine, and one, I'll deal with that later. at a time and calling it resilience because admitting it hurts feels like losing. Some of you are way talented and stuck anyway, and it's not because you lack the talent. It's because somebody else's opinion of you got more weight in your head than your own did. I learned that early, and it might be the only thing, and it might be one thing that I got right before I got anyone else right. Take care of yourself first. Everything I told you about saying yes, about staying in the game, about outworking people, none of it survives if you don't do this part. And to the ones who are comfortable, I see you because I was you. You have got the job that pays fine, the life that looks fine, and the routine that doesn't ask too much of you. And you're dying a little every day inside it. Not dramatically, quietly. The kind of dying where you still show up, still smile in the meeting, still say, I'm good, when someone asks, but you can't bring yourself to make the one big, scary, decisive move, the conversation, the resignation, the phone call to a therapist, the ending of the thing that is comfortable and wrong for you. So instead, you let yourself die in small daily installments. Which somehow feels safer than dying once and getting it over with. I know it's hard. I'm not going to stand here and tell you it's not because I have been exactly there more than once. But you don't get the version of yourself I told you about across these last 5 parts, the one who's content and still hungry, the most at peace he has ever been without eventually taking the step you have been scared to take. Now, I took mine when I quit a stable job with 2 months of runway sitting in the bank, not 2 years, 2 months. People whose opinion I respected told me that I was reckless. I did it anyway because staying safe mattered less to me than who I would become if I did not jump. And I made back my old salary before a month was even over. I took it again, and the therapist's door I almost did not walk through. Yours might be smaller. It might be bigger. It's still yours to take. So hard work did not make me successful. It did not make anyone successful. It is intent, staying in the game longer, execution, or something probably my mom said when I was a kid, just do good without worrying about the result. And so did 2 years of sitting in a room once a week, finally paying an invoice I had been avoiding since I was a kid. Somewhere back at the start of all this, I said yes to a few things before I had thought them through enough to say no. Turns out that's the one invoice I would pay again twice. Turns out the second one, the one where I finally said yes to myself, was the one that actually set the price for everything else. Now, it is your life. It is your story. I hope it inspired you in some way to take some action. I wish you all the best.