In this motivational self‑improvement talk, the speaker argues that most people waste large portions of their lives on passive entertainment—especially smartphones and social media—while a small minority continuously invest in education. He cites statistics showing average daily screen time (≈4.1 hours) and declining attention spans, contrasted with CEOs who read about 60 books a year. The core message is to deliberately swap entertainment for learning to become an outlier. He shares personal habits for reducing phone addiction, such as keeping the device out of sight, tracking screen‑time, and limiting usage to two‑plus hours daily. He describes micro‑learning tactics: highlighting Kindle books, revisiting notes during idle moments (e.g., at the doctor’s office), and embedding audio learning into routine activities like showering, commuting, and exercising. The speaker emphasizes a mindset shift toward long‑term knowledge acquisition over short‑term dopamine hits, encouraging viewers to plan for the next three‑to‑five years by consistently doing the opposite of the majority. The talk concludes with a call to action to adopt these habits, positioning the viewer to “get ahead of 99% of people.”
Chapters
We're going to talk about how to get light years ahead of everyone else in a super short period of time. The reason why this is important is because, you know, I don't like to think like I'm in competition with everybody else in the world. But if you're on the marketplace in some sort of way, if you're trying to improve yourself, if you're trying to grow a business, if you're trying to do something like that, you do have some competition that's out there in the world. And so I want to teach you how you can improve exponentially in a short period of time compared to most people in. And when you look out into the world and you walk down the street, you see what's going on. What do you notice of most people? Like, I notice a lot of things, but one thing that I notice is becoming super, super obvious. That obviousness, if that's a word, is that humans are becoming more and more addicted to technology. They're becoming more and more addicted to their phones. And I don't mean in a productive way. Sure, they are using it that way, but most people are usually just trying to entertain themselves or just trying to fill up the next seven minutes before they have to go into their next meeting. I was reading an article a couple weeks ago. It was about a guy who got out of jail, and he was in jail for 30 years. And they said, what do you notice that's different about the world? He's like, everyone's only just looking at their phones all the time. I was like, man, that must be really weird to go from 30 years ago when, you know, cell phones didn't really exist, especially like they do now, to now. You get out and everyone's just looking at their phones all the time. What I want you to kind of figure out is how you can get as much knowledge into your brain when most people are usually trying to just trying to get as much entertainment into their brain. The average person watches Netflix for 3.2 hours per day. The average person is on their phone for 4.1 hours per day in two hours. And 25 minutes of those four hours is on social media. And so when you look at this, what I've come to see is that the human attention span over the past 20 years statistically has gone down 33%. The attention span of a human has gone down 33%. So you want to become a superhuman. Why don't you trade entertainment for education and for taking action? When most people are looking at cat videos and trying to you know, whatever challenge is coming up now. People trying to watch somebody chug an Entire Sprite on TikTok. You are, are going to become smarter. You are going to fill your brain with knowledge. You are reading a book that can further your knowledge and make you smarter. You're taking action in your business while your competition is probably sitting on their couch watching somebody chug a sprite. What I want you to understand is this. When you talk about knowledge and the difference in the way people are Getting knowledge nowadays, 33% of high school graduates will never read another book. And after graduation, 33%. Here's an even crazier statistic. 42% of college graduates, yes, more than high school graduates. 42% of college graduates never read another book after graduating. And 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year. 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year. But here's another weird statistic. If you look at the average CEO, the average CEO reads 60 books per year. That's more than one a week. So you can see the average versus the outlier. Do you want to be in the average in life, or do you want to be the outlier in life? If you want to get ahead of everyone in anything, learn and learn. While they are being entertained, while they're letting their brains fry away on their phones, you are using your brain to grow and to get better, and you have to take a step back and kind of see what's going on. What I'm seeing people do is the exact opposite of what I want to do. I've always kind of thought this way. I've looked at what people do, and I've gone, yeah, no, I don't want to do that. I'm looking at people and they're on their phones all the time. I'm going, yep, that's not what I want to do. That's not what I want to live my life like. Like looking at a screen, you know? And it's not like. It's not like I never turn my TV on or. I don't own. I only own a landline phone. You know, I don't. I'm not talking about that. I use all of the same things, but I try to be more intentional. Those things are designed to make you addicted. Can you make sure that you're one of the few that's not addicted? If you want to get ahead in life, you have to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing that's going to meet you ahead Way quicker than doing what everyone else is doing and trying to get further ahead. Everyone is becoming more and more addicted to their phones, and it was very apparent to me. So we just got back from Italy, those things, because I know those things make me more distracted and less focused. In fact, I notice when I look at my phone, I actually feel more anxious throughout that day. So I'm consciously trying to remove myself from that. And if I spend 4.1 hours a day on my phone and I live another 50 years, 4.1 hours is average. And I live another 50 years. Let's say you. Let's take your life. Let's say that you're right at the average 4.1 hours a day on your phone and you live for another 50 years. That would be 3,041 days of the remaining 50 years on your phone. That's almost eight and a half years on your phone. Like, what a waste of our lives, staring at a screen. And so what I've been recently doing that's been helping me a lot that I think will help you as well, is to take your phone whenever you're home and put it in your drawer in the kitchen when it's not around. I don't think about it as much when it's in eyesight. I reach for it all of the time. It's just I am as addicted as every other person. So I'm trying to get myself away from the addiction the same way that if, like, someone's addicted to alcohol, it's a lot easier to, you know, not drink alcohol when there's no alcohol in the house. But if there's alcohol in the house, they know that it is, and it's out, and it's on the kitchen table. It's going to be really hard not to go there. So I check my phone when I need to use it in the kitchen, put it back when I'm done. And so I've gotten my screen time. I've been really working hard on my screen time app. I pay attention to it more than I ever have, down to about two hours per day. And I run my entire business on my phone. You know, I have 45 people in my company in almost every single one of them is not in Austin where I live. And I had friends over at my house a few months ago, and one of my friends was like, let's compare screen time. And so we compared screen time, and I looked at it, and mine was like two and a half hours at that point. And the average of my friends is about Five to six hours. One of my friends, eight and a half hours a day he spends on his phone. He's always on social media, he's always playing video games. And I love the guy to death, but he is the most stressed out out of all of my friends. Not because of real life, but because he's constantly involved in this thing. And so another way that I've replaced education for entertainment, and this is what I would recommend for people, is to. If you're buying books and you're trying to improve and you're trying to get better, I prefer a physical book. But this is a hack that I found that really helps me out. I'll download it on Kindle and I'll read books on my iPad. And when I find a part of the book that I like, all I'll do is I'll just highlight the book. So I'll just highlight it, I'll put some notes in it as well. That's one of the benefits of Kindle, is you can highlight it, you can notate whatever it is that you want to. Then what's really cool about it is that if I go to the doctor's office. So like two weeks ago, I was at the doctor's office, and while I was waiting there, instead of me just going on social media, I didn't have social media on my phone anyways. Instead of me going on social media at the doctor's office, all I did was I went back to my Kindle, looked at all of the old books that I have read before in the past, and I looked back and I was like, which one do I want to reread today? Clicked on one of them, and in Kindle, you can actually look at just your notes. And so I clicked on my notes and all I did was just sit there and reread all of the highlighted parts from a book that I read four years ago. And this is one of the benefits. I love physical books. I prefer them, but I also just want to entertain. I also want to want to educate myself whenever I can. And so it was basically in those 15 minutes I was waiting at the doctor's office, I was rereading the most important parts of a book that I read four years ago instead of being on social media. This is a little tiny way where you can start to have education seep its way into your life so you can keep learning. So think about that. How can you take action and do things that move the needle in your life instead of just being entertained? How can you trade your entertainment for education, some sort of way, like, where else? And I want you to think about this and write it down if you want to. Where else can you fit small bits of micro education into your life? So, like, for instance, one of the things that I like to do is when I'm showering and getting ready, I'll listen to something on YouTube. I'll find someone that I respect. I'll listen to them on YouTube so I can get as much knowledge as I can into my brain. And this is probably 95% of days. Some days I'm like, you know what? I'm listening to music. That's okay. No big deal. Sometimes I'm like, I don't want to listen to anything. It's just complete silence. But majority of days, like today, while I was taking a shower, while I was getting ready, getting dressed, all of that, brushing my teeth, all I did listen to somebody that I respect on YouTube. That's great. I learned while I was doing that whenever you get into your car, listen, you could definitely listen to music if you want to. I love music. I recommend that you do. But for the next six months, try it out. Just trade out your music when you're driving. Listen to a podcast, listen to a book, listen to YouTube from someone that you respect. When you're working out, instead of listening to music, how can you listen to something where you're learning? How can you constantly be learning? You know, hours of our life are spent in silence or spent listening to music. And I recommend silence. I really do. I recommend music. I love music. I moved to Austin because I thought I wanted to be a musician, right? But what if for the next six months, just a short period of time, you decided, I'm going to learn instead? Maybe you're like, you know what? I'm going to start my online business. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to find people. Whatever industry your online business is in, you're going to find people on YouTube. And instead of listening to music, you're going to replace it with education. And you're going to learn in the time that you normally would be just showering and getting ready. You're going to learn in the time that you would be driving. You're going to learn in the time that you would be working out. You're going to learn in the time that you are sitting in a doctor's office. I'm not saying, and I don't want you to think this. I'm not saying. Don't be like, never be entertained ever again. I'm saying, can you lower it? Sure, watching cat videos is entertaining, but you know what's better? Watching the sunset in Greece, because you took action and created amazing life. Would you rather watch cat videos now, or would you rather delay your entertainment and watch the sunrise or sunset in Greece? Hopefully you're choosing Greece right now. The problem with that is that you get dopamine immediately when you watch a cat video. You don't get the dopamine from the Greek sunset for another year or two years, whatever it might be. So if you can distance yourself and start looking at humanity and saying, you know, people are great, I love people, people mean the best, but I'm going to do the exact opposite of everybody else. And you just learn more and learn more and learn more. Considering that most people don't read books, most people are not trying to improve themselves and most people are not learning. 80% of US households didn't buy a book last year. You're going to become more like a superhuman. And what I mean is, you're going to. Your education is going to go up, your focus is going to go up when most people's focus is going down, and you're going to set yourself apart massively from every other person out there. People are talking about wearing goggles in the metaverse and all those things. Personally, I'm not going to take part of it. I. I don't care. I really like the universe that I currently live in. I'd rather travel to an amazing place and see it and taste their food and understand their culture than sit on my couch. I'd rather eat pasta in Italy versus watch play virtual tennis with someone that's in another city. That's the way that I look at it. And the way I see the world is going. I'm planning ahead for the next three, four, five years. And I'm going, yeah, I'm really going to double down right now because I'm going to set myself apart from everybody else. And I'm not resisting it by saying, oh, back in my day, you know, I'm watching what's coming in the future. I'm planning how I can make myself more valuable for myself, for my family, for other people, for the marketplace. And then I'm just going to do the exact opposite of what most other people do. And if you do that, that is how you're going to be able to set yourself apart from 99% of other people. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. 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