Your Effort is Your Business Card
9 Apr 2025 · 10 min
Thomas Anglero discusses why effort matters more than talent or luck. He talks about raising kids to value hard work over entitlement, the difference between using tools and doing actual work, and why perseverance through criticism is how you build something real.
Chapters
Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero, and I'm inspired by a friend of mine named Dominic in the UK, where he left me a voicemail about the challenges he have to teach his son about effort, about what I call the grind, about the benefit of putting in the work that no one else sees when no one else is around, that you deserve, that you do, but society doesn't care about, right? Today, today we've been giving trophies out to kids and medals out to kids now going on decades. And look where the hell this put us. Look at the type of adults that we have.
Do you remember the day?
Do you remember watching— if you're too young to know, remember watching TV shows and movies of people who actually rolled up their sleeve and got dirty, worked in the coal mines, worked in the oil fields? A lot of people watch these things go, oh, I would never do that.
They didn't have a choice. They had to do it. They had to feed their families. They had to pay the bills. They had to do that investment. They had to do that work. They had to do that effort so that their children would have a tomorrow. That level of responsibility, that what I do that no one sees me or awards me for— I may get a small salary if I'm lucky—
it is not only for me, but it's for you, so you have a tomorrow.
Effort, the grind. You see somebody with a six-pack, do you know how much work they put in to get that six-pack? Do you see somebody on TV, on a movie, do you know how many casting calls they went on and they got rejected? How many emails, or even before the days of emails, how many phone calls that no one responded to and they got rejected? Today, what do you do? Do you use some AI program that automatically sends out thousands of emails and requests and you just sit back and go, I applied, I did the work.
The work is the sweat.
The work is the stuff that you do that no one sees you doing that makes you next level. That makes you the best, that makes you unique, that makes you innovative. The grind, the repetition. Using an AI program to send out 1,000 emails for you or to post 1,000 posts on social media. Ooh, I'm so cool. I'm using technology. That's not grind. That's an embarrassment. It works. It's a tool. It's like a hammer hammering in a nail. Back in the olden days, you put a nail into a piece of wood. Did you go, ooh, I'm so cool? All the carpenters around you and all your buddies look at you like you're an idiot. Dude, keep on hammering. And that's the way it is today. Just 'cause you use tech to circumvent sending out 1,000 posts on social media, everybody else is doing it too. What you do that not everybody else is doing, what you do that makes you unique, what you do when you're alone, what you do that makes you better is the grind, is the effort. Where are you sweating? How often are you sweating? When are you sweating? And what are you sweating for? And if you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, then you haven't grinded, you haven't put in damn effort. You've been riding this damn surfboard called life, and you've been lucky because you caught a wave. There are many people, and especially today with the decline in the economy, with all this talk of tariffs that will probably linger for a very, very, very long time— there's no more cute, there's no more trophies.
It's just the grind, man. It's just effort.
And the thing is, we have lost our focus. We have forgotten how to run a world based on people who put in effort and put in the work. We don't know how to do that. Do you know how to even lead people who actually put in the extra work? In the office space today, if a person works extra hours, the boss goes, "Ooh, they're putting extra hours.
I'm not going to pay them overtime.
They're working hard for me." That ain't it, because we got so spoiled. The way it works is that person who is taking the risk, that person who sees things before they happen, that innovative individual, that person that says, you know what, I'm scrawny, I'm skinny, but someday I'm going to be muscular and I'm going to be a world champion, I'm going to be Olympic star. But in that moment right there They don't have the muscle, they don't have the dexterity, they don't have the talent, but they got the mindset.
They're willing to put in the effort, they're willing to grind when nobody sees it so that someday that vision of themselves is true.
That day, that's that vision that they have of that idea, it's going to change the world, it's going to make things easier, it's going to solve homelessness, it's going to solve our food problem, it's going to solve our energy problem.
It comes from a thought, it comes from a belief in yourself and that you're willing to do when nobody's around, that you're willing to do as people laugh at you because people don't get where you're at. I remember the first days of Bitcoin, trying to explain cryptocurrency to people. People literally laugh at me. So many people laughed at me in my lifetime, it's ridiculous.
Now everybody, oh, Bitcoin up at $100,000.
No, it's not $100,000 now per Bitcoin, but it was. What's the next thing that people laugh at you today that in a few years from now it is the definition of the new society? Those are the people you should be hiring. Those are the people you should be surrounding yourself with. Those are the people you should be chilling with. Those are the people you should be reading their newsletters, their email, their posts, whatever is called in today and into the future. Those are people you should be following. But if you follow those people that everybody else follows, they are the successes of the past. You want to follow the success of the future.
You want to define— you want to follow the people who are defining effort of tomorrow. And those are the people who today are awkward, who are unusual, who talk up, right, everything the opposite of what society has defined. That is who you're supposed to be following. Those are the people you're supposed to be believing in and encouraging. But society today, we knock them down, we push them down, we destroy them. You want to be great?
Be hated.
Eat alone. Sit alone. Think alone. Cry alone.
Those are the steps to greatness. It has always been and it always will be. The greats grinded and put in the effort when no one was looking. Go forth and spread beauty and light. If you have kids, you encourage them to be different You give them a hug when they feel lonely, and then you tell them, keep on grinding. Papa Mama believes in you. You're awesome. You're incredible. If you're alone, you keep on grinding because I'm telling you, Thomas believes in you. I believe in you. If you're older and you've lived a full life and you feel like you've accomplished as much as you should, baby, it ain't too late. You just warmed up. It's time to put in the work. Don't let sickness, health, bad marriage, kids don't love you, loneliness, whatever, be an excuse. The moment for you to put in the work alone is now. I'm Thomas Anglero, grinding my butt off because I believe, I believe that podcasts like this that is awkward for everyone else People come up to me and say, Thomas, how do you do this podcast? I can never do this. The words you speak, I can never tell— to just be so open to the public.
That's the grind. That's the effort. That's the difference.
That's the love that I have for you. I love you. Until next time.
