Brutally Honest Advice to My Younger Poorer Self

Video

Summary

• You can outperform 99% of people by focusing on working hard over time rather than seeking immediate rewards.
• Hard work is about pushing past the point of stress and doubt and recognizing that sleepless nights and uncertainty are part of the entrepreneurial journey.
• Working harder reveals your true capabilities, which are far greater than you initially might think.
• The combination of work ethic and time is incredibly powerful in wealth generation.
• Focusing deeply on a few things is essential; spreading yourself too thin prevents greatness due to limited time and resources.
• Continuous effort without shortcuts or excuses is crucial for success.
• It's acceptable to work on the weekends to progress towards your goals; your work hours should be productive and have a clear output.
• Shift your perspective on work by planning in "hundreds"—hours, days, minutes—to foster more significant effort.
• Producing quantity can lead to quality; multiple iterations can foster improvement, but there is value in investing substantial time in the initial creation to minimize later revisions.
• Transition from an hourly job mindset: self-employment demands being paid for outcomes, not mere presence.
• Embrace delays in gratification; this mindset leads to more significant achievements, like a plane requiring a longer runway for take off.
• Entrepreneurship is filled with uncertainty and struggle; this feeling is normal and indicates you're on the right track.
• Accept that your work has to create the person you want to become—use personal growth as your daily reward.
• Avoid the cultural narrative of quick and easy success; real achievements take hard work, time, and are never guaranteed.
• Building a reputation takes time; patience pays off with greater trust and affinity established over time.
• Service businesses can offer quicker paths to success for beginners compared to product-based or highly regulated industries.
• Sometimes, laying a solid foundation can enable faster, larger-scale success later, comparing adequate preparation to sharpening an axe versus immediate action.
• Choose goals and prioritize your actions based on where you can reap the biggest rewards, even if it takes longer.
• Progress can be hampered by switching focus for the sake of speed; consistent pursuit of a single goal often leads to greater success.
• Success is the best revenge against critics; as you expand, detractors become irrelevant.
• Being critiqued or copied by others means you're doing something worth noticing; don't be distracted by attempts to detract you from your goals.
• Build and rely on skills as your "income insurance"—they ensure you can always generate revenue in some form.
• The modern concept of weekends is relatively new; what you need is meaningful work that doesn't necessitate a break.
• Employ a long-term view of work-life balance; some periods will be heavier in work, while others less so.
• By working effectively on weekends, you can progress much faster compared to those who take them entirely off.
• Friendship is valuable when it includes genuine support for your success and inspires you to become better.
• People's initial support of your entrepreneurial venture can stem from seeing you as less competition; their mindset may change as you become successful.
• Acting on advice from successful individuals accelerates your progress compared to learning solely from personal experience.
• Giving value without expectation can lead to opportunities; providing value for free initially can build reputation and credibility, leading to paid work.
• Starting with charitable work can transition into a paid business model once you've proven your value to initial clients.

How To Take Action

I would suggest focusing on hard work and patience. If you’re starting a business, be prepared for sleepless nights and doubts. Remember, it's normal to feel uncertain, but that’s part of the journey. You have to push beyond stress to discover your true potential. Think of hard work plus time as a powerful duo for creating wealth.

Pick a few things that matter most and go deep instead of going wide. You’ve got limited time and trying to do everything will hold you back. Consistent effort is key, so don't look for shortcuts.

Working weekends can be okay. It means you're using every opportunity to get ahead. Plan your work in "hundreds"—of minutes, hours, or days—to push yourself to do more. And remember, sometimes producing a lot of work helps you improve, but investing time upfront can minimize revisions later.

Change the way you see work. You’re not getting paid by the hour but for outcomes. Learn from successful people, as their advice can speed up your progress.

Giving value with no expectation of a return might lead to opportunities. Start by providing something for free, then build up your reputation and credibility. Once you’ve shown your worth, you can start charging for it.

If you’re setting up a service business, you might find a quicker path to success. A solid foundation, although it takes time, can lead to bigger and faster wins later.

Remember that success is the best answer to critics. People copying you means you’re doing something noticeable. Rely on your skills as your "income insurance," because they ensure you’ll always be able to generate revenue.

Lastly, create a network of genuine supporters. True friendships are those where people cheer you on and inspire you to be better. They're the ones who will stick with you even when things get tough.

Quotes by Alex Hormozi

"You can beat 99% of people simply by continuing to work without needing your immediate reward"

– Alex Hormozi

"The harder you work, the more you realize what you used to think was hard work isn't even close to what you're capable of"

– Alex Hormozi

"It's okay to work on weekends"

– Alex Hormozi

"If you count in hundreds, it just automatically forces you to do a significantly larger amount of effort"

– Alex Hormozi

"Success is the only revenge"

– Alex Hormozi

Full Transcript

this is my most brutally honest advice to my younger self you can beat 99% of people simply by continuing to work without needing your immediate reward this bit is advice to my younger s on how I work harder you're going to lose sleep you'll doubt whether it'll work you'll stress to make ends meet you won't finish your to-do list you'll wonder if you made the right call and have no way to know for years but that's what hard feels like the other great reason for working harder is that the harder you work the more you realize what you used to think was hard work isn't even close to what you're capable of because if you want to know what the most dangerous money-making combo in the world it's work ethic and time because once you real realiz just how much more work it takes to get from good to Great you realize you can only be gr at a few things and you're forced to ignore the rest the amount of work it takes to be good negates the ability to be great at more than one or two things cuz there's just only so much time it just takes work shitloads and shitloads of work and every time I dress it up or cut a corner I get brutally reminded by life that the work just needs doing so yes this is your friendly reminder that it's okay to work on weekends I used to think that if I worked on something for a day it was a lot I was like dude I worked on this for a whole day that was like a huge amount of work work and I would say that to someone to show them how hard I worked and then it became like I worked on this for a week and then a month and I would say now that I can work on the same project for a year or two years and that's what like to the books has been huge projects for me my quickest shorthand on the shift in work is that I started counting in hundreds hundreds of minutes hundreds of hours hundreds of days towards a specific goal if you count in hundreds it just automatically forces you to do a significantly larger amount of effort just sheer volume of work I think one of my favorite Parables about work is that there was an art class they SP split the class into two groups and one group they said make the absolute best pot and turn in one pot and the other group they said make as many pots as you possibly can at the end of the semester the team that had to make as many pots as soonly possible not only made more pots but also ended up making better pots than the one that spent all of their time trying to make one I think a lot of people need that permission to have a lot of shitty first drafts in order to start working harder on anything but that's not how I operate because for me I would rather spend a lot more time on my first draft so I don't have to make so many more edits if if you do it the right way you realize how many hours you're going to have to put into something and usually most people that I feel like haven't done that level of effort confront the work and then they get scared about it I have to find a different way this can't actually be how people do this that is how you do it the work just needs doing and no one's going to do it for you I started with a normal hourly job and I think a lot of people do a lot of early job thoughts or lessons are that when you show up to work you are working because you're getting paid to be there when you start working for yourself you're not getting paid to be there you're only getting on what you do I've gone on vacations with other entrepreneurs they're like man we had a crazy workday I was like I was with you homie like that was not a work these are off days for me like these aren't like real work days because work occurred it to me is not a work day unless I have a clear output for what I have done or move forward work didn't happen the longer you can delay when you need to be rewarded for the work that you do the greater the outcome is it's kind of like a plane taking off the longer the runway the bigger the plane and so a lot of people can barely even get a bottle rocket off the ground because they have such a short attention span and such a need for immediate reward if you feel like you're behind where you should be by now if you feel like you're losing if you're not sure it's going to work there's nothing wrong with you that is entrepreneurship you're on the right path you're doing the right things you're seeing the Milestones along the way but the Milestones aren't parades it's uncertainty it's a Sleepless nice it's not knowing if you can make payroll it's not even being sure that the 5 years you put into this idea is actually going to turn into something that you'll get credit for eventually the biggest shift that I had internally during those harder times was that I am the output of my work all of this effort is to create who I want to become I get to use that as my reward every day rather than the approval of strangers sitting in uncertainty is the feeling of Entrepreneurship you're not doing it wrong like that's what it feels like it's kind of this weird dichotomy of feeling like you never have enough time but then you also have all the time in the world the biggest reason that a lot of entrepreneurs don't succeed is because they're in a rush the rush is what creates poor decisions and so they consistently hop from thing to thing to thing because they think this thing will get them there faster by hopping consistently they guarantee that they'll never get there and I think we have a culture that rewards speed because everybody wants things fast and easy in $100 Milli offers the book I talk about value you have a dream outcome and then you have basically everything that discounts or multiplies it a discount would be risk associated with it I want this thing but I want it to be guaranteed I want it to be easy and I want it to be fast and Entrepreneurship is literally the opposite of that the dream outcome's there but it is not guaranteed incredibly hard and takes forever the problem is that that it's so compelling to sell people on that and there's so many more ad dollars that go into it's fast it's easy and it's guaranteed that it's really tough to shift the landscape of the language around entrepreneurship because there's just so much money to be made by making that promise the concept of the the billionaire who like starts back over and they're like could he do it again it's like well of course the problem with the show is is that they give you 90 days the premise is wrong and I get why they do it is because they have to cater to people who think that way which is most people can you build a million dollar business in 90 days but it's like but he could build a much bigger business in 2 years and that billionaire would probably never build the business that he builds on the show so it actually reinforces the wrong perspective from a brand Foundation perspective it's how can I build a reputation over a long period of time not necessarily with the intent to transact but simply to build a reputation associating myself with these positive things that takes time for one lots of people to find out about you and two for a lot of people to develop a strong affinity and make multiple associations with you so that it's stronger the classic example of that is somebody who makes content for 5 years and then launches a product and the product's immediately a billion dollar thing well it's not that they made a billion dollars in a year it's that they spent 5 years letting the roots go down for the bamboo tree and then eventually it shoots up right on the other hand you've got kind of product based Foundation software you might take a long time to code and like write a huge code based that could go after some big problem it can be regulatory stuff because if you want to get into like banking for example there's lots of barriers to entry even if you're starting an e-commerce brand you would be talking to different manufacturers you'd be going through prototypes you'd be trying things out you'd be testing it in beta groups to get feedback and then you'd probably have some sort of capital investment to capitalize your first inventory run all of those things are the foundations the reason I like service businesses for people who are starting out is that you don't have to do either of those things but if you had one or two or both of those things then you can create something bigger faster on a longer time Horizon it's actually the classic example of how long do you sharpen the axe if someone is doing a business that they have no leverage because they built no Foundation they basically just take whatever ax is given to them and they just start hacking away at the tree except in the game of business the tree might be mile wide and the axe that you have could be a lightsaber if you spend enough time sharpening it even if it took one guy a year of going from dull axe to lightsaber he would still catch up at year two and then from year 2 to 10 doesn't even get close to the other guy but the problem is that everybody listens to everyone else who's judging them on their time rizon like you quit your job on a employee time rizon your family is like have you started making money yet and you're like it's been 2 weeks they're like well yeah this is when you would normally get a paycheck your measuring stick has to change when you get into a different game sometimes the f fastest way to get to a million a year isn't the fastest way to get to $10 million a year and to the same degree the fastest way to get to 10 isn't the fastest way to go to 100 if we're measuring effort in terms of stress and hours per day running a local restaurant takes the same amount of work as building an application that could be a billion dollar application and it might take you a few years for a restaurant to build a reputation in the area get locals coming in hire and train good talent like it takes a lot of work to do all that stuff and to the same degree hiring really good development engineers and creating a prototype like the actual work and stress is almost identical it's almost like you have three slot machines that you're going up to and they all cost the same cost but one of them has a billion dollar payout one has a $10 million payout and one has $100,000 payout and everyone just lines up for the $100,000 payout the third variable if we're going to like make this in terms of Dimensions the next one is how long are we measuring the payout for the slot machine we assume that slot machines pay out immediately but if one slot machine pays out now one pays out in a year and one pays out in 5 years what if the odds were the same but you only got one coin which one would you do people will say they would do the billion dollar one but based on their behavior they're just standing at the at the the fast token machine not being able to break it the fact that you don't know if it's going to work is exactly what makes it worth doing it's why entrepreneurship isn't for the faint of heart you have to embrace uncertainty what makes entrepreneurship isn't the work itself it's actually just not knowing if the work will work we're afraid of wasted effort but if it makes you better then no effort is wasted and as as long as you can make that connection you're not going to burn out you're just doing what it takes the biggest metal lesson of my entire life was when I lost everything the first time I had sold all the gyms and then that was my Nest Egg for my 5 years of work even though it was not as much as I had hoped but it was still something and then I put that all into the next thing and then lost it all but after losing it all I was able to immediately go out and make $100,000 the next month with nothing maxing out a credit card to do it that moment was when I was like oh like I thought that the gyms were the thing that I had built but it was my skills is the thing that I had built I consider skills income Insurance you just know that you will be able to make money people want to invest in the stock market because they want to have a retirement if you invest in skills that is your retirement because you will always be able to trade them for money and whether the money is in Bitcoin cells or dollars you'll always be able to trade something of value and I'm sure this is going to piss off the exact same people that we think it's going to piss off you don't need a weekend like the concept is barely 100 years old it's a modern invention right what you really need is work that you don't need a weekend from instead of thinking about work life balance as like a 7-Day Work Week think about work life balance as like on like a 7-year time Horizon and so like there are seasons of work and there are seasons of less work my goal would always be that I just never have something I want to retire from in some ways you could say I retired from owning gyms for a while but I haven't retired from work I don't think anyone who wants to live a long life should retire from work all the people that I know who are really old they pretty much die when they stop working I've seen the people who stay alive the longest have reasons to stay alive and work is a good one the problem is that everyone's idea like the masses who are listening to this their idea of what work is is not what I'm talking about theirs is like the soul sucking work at a job you hate for a boss that doesn't appreciate you for a company that doesn't do good in the world I completely understand why you would not be motivated to do that and you would want to get away from that as soon as possible you'd be amazed at how much faster you can get to your goals when you don't go backwards 104 days a year contrary to what the mediocre masses will tell you weekends can also be for work we had a contractor once who said I quit my job so that I wouldn't have to work weekends and he was upset that he had worked a weekend you do not have an accurate estimation of reality if you think that starting a business is going to mean that the first business you ever start you're not going to work weekends right now if I started a business I could take weekends if I wanted to but I think it's cuz there's a level of skill you have to get to to get there a buddy of mine was talking to me about how he had an employee who was asking for like 6 weeks of paid vacation they had like not a lot of experience was like I need this time he's like well I tell you what he's like what if I give you 110 days a year off paid would that work they were like yeah he's like cool that's weekends and federal holidays if you just don't go backwards on weekends you can move ahead so much faster if you go out drinking or you do your cheat days on the weekend then you can undo all of the work that you're doing in the rest of the days of the year and be neutral or even negative at the end of the year depending on how bad off track you go during those 104 days from a business perspective you might get inquiries over the weekend if you don't work your leads over the weekend you start in a deficit you might lose those sales if you generate income during the week and then you don't on weekends it's 104 days a year that you're not generating income out of 365 you're also going into a deficit that you have to then make up for in the first two days so let's say that the two-day negative has to get offset by two days of positive then you're really only working three days now you compare that to somebody who's either not losing Steam on the weekends or actually getting ahead on the weekends that person isn't moving ahead like twice as fast they're moving ahead like seven times as fast and so I think that's the piece that a lot of people are missing is they'll look at somebody who's further ahead be like well this person works like this it's like well if you work the same amount as them they're actually going to keep getting further ahead so you have to work as much as them to match probably a little bit more because they're more skilled at working than you are and then even more to get ahead success is the only Revenge as you expand they shrink into irrelevance as you get louder no one can hear them you don't beat them you cast a shadow so big no one can see them to begin with because at the end of the day there's no greater waste of time than justifying your actions to people who have a life that you don't want and there's no amount of pain you can inflict on a hater that will be more painful than their own life last part was from Leila like there is no retaliation there's no retribution there's no actual Revenge so I have beaten a lot of business people in the field people that I saw as competitors like where it was very clear we're going head-to-head for a market what's really weird is that when you actually win when someone actually goes out of business it's like not cool you don't like spit on their corpse you're just like oh there is a Tipping Point at some point where you start to gain an advantage you start to separate from them but then like they start flailing and acting erratic and trying to get ahead and then that further you know they go down that vicious cycle because you their hater in their mind or their competition the biggest mistake in my career I made because of a competitor that mistake cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million actual money not like like oh this is an opportunity that I like I actually lost like $25 million on this and I just swore to myself that I would never let somebody else dictate my behavior winners focus on winning losers focus on winners so the same thing goes with competitors winners focus on customers competitors focus on winners they're always trying to copy you but because they're trying to copy you they're not looking at their customers they're looking at you and so they're completely distracted they're not looking at the data source that matters most first off if anyone ever copies you you've already won because they need you you don't need them you should be afraid when people stop copying you because it means you've got nothing and so I see people copying what I'm doing as a positive sign that I'm on the right path rather than a distraction that merits all of my attention getting redirected to trying to destroy someone if you walk like downtown in any City well that building is a $400 million building and that building is $400 million that's how much money a billionaire has everything else that's there is still up for grabs there's so much out there it's super hard to comprehend when we had 5,000 plus gyms in gym launch I think we had 45 gyms in Atlanta they would be like well there's another gym down the street I'm like there's also 1,500 gyms in Atlanta so the 45 that are all gym launch gyms are just going to do do better than the other 1,455 the pie is so much bigger than people think it is if you feel like you are the output of your life at the end of your life who you are is the thing that is the thing that you became then competition is good for you like if you look back at that that person would you want that person to have no challenges like if you were at the end of your life and you looked back would You' be like I'm glad I overcame no adversity I'm glad no one ever put me to the test I'm glad I never got to see what I was truly capable of I'm glad I never had to risk it all when the chips were down you would never say that we just don't like going through it in the short term but we do want the outcome of it if you just accept that that's the price tag for the person you want to be then you just pay it willingly my two simple lenses for friendship number one do they genuinely root for you when you win number two do they make you better finding people who do even one of those two things is rare both is even rarer which is why they get the highest title of friend one of the highest Roi trads in life that you can make is all the fake friends that you have for one real friend that has your back even when all seems lost bonus points if it's your spouse the rear people in your life who root for you to hit your goals are more valuable than the goals that themselves consider yourself lucky if you find even one human who believes in you more than you do and never let them go when you start out people are happy for you that you're doing something but I this is going to be really [ __ ] up but I actually think that people are happy that you quit your job because it counts you out of the race because the likelihood that you win is so low and so they're happy because you're actually taking a step back you literally take a step back in income take a step back in status because you're not doing as well like I went from a white collar job to being a personal trainer like it was a big step back so any of my peer group were like oh yeah so good that you're doing that if I had immediately jumped and started a tech startup and raised $100 million they probably immediately wouldn't have been happy for me I think the reason that you get that Underdog rooting in the beginning is because you actually take a step down in status and so their relative standing actually increases so they encourage you but then as you come up your success reminds them of the dreams that they didn't pursue to begin with it also reminds them that you started with probably the same resources and that's why it's so hard to go home for a lot of people because everyone who you grew up with in middle school and high school you become a glaring example of what they could have done but didn't it's what you make them think about themselves astonishingly more people know what they should do than claim to know what they should do there's usually a voice on some level acting is a hypothetical punishment they haven't actually experienced yet for taking an action that they haven't done yet because we fear this hypothetical punishment we don't take the real action a lot of people just stay stuck there there was one specific voice that I was like really afraid of for selling gym launch because I thought 46 million wasn't enough that that person would be impressed and then what I thought about was like this person is going to prevent me from like this person's opinion I like what do I care he can do his own life what if he does sell his company for more money than me does that mean I suck no it just means that like I decided to do something he decided to do something I'm only ascribing value to this person's SP just cuz I know who they are there's 100, times more people who I don't know who beating me than the ones that I do so why would I listen to this one person unless someone is ahead of you take their hate as envy and then disregard it Envy is when you want something that someone else has jealousy is when you fear losing something that you have so if you've got your girl and some guy comes up you get jealous if someone has a girl that you wish you had you experience Envy so Envy is about something you don't have jealousy about fear of losing something you do if people are further behind you then they're envious of you if someone's ahead of you then they're afraid that you're going to take what they have mind you in either of those scenarios it doesn't matter I see hate as feedback nothing more nothing less and I think feedback is worth taking into consideration and what level of validity there is so if someone says hey you copied my entire business and you've never met them well you know that that's not true I had this guy come up to me saw me on the street randomly he was like hey man I need to apologize to you for what I've like really really hated you for a long time why he's like because you stole the closer framework from me and I was like dude I don't know who the [ __ ] you are he was like let's be honest like what's the likelihood that we both came up with the same acronym and I was like hi you take an acronym that's for a closer and then you fit the words I actually went back I found my first document that had closer on it and I screenshotted the date and it was before he had started selling he squashed it and I was like you're copying me [ __ ] I said it jokingly cuz I don't give a [ __ ] the hates feedback if I'm getting data from the environment it's data it's not good or bad it just is if everybody ahead of you is afraid that you're going to beat them that's probably decent data if everybody behind you is envious of where you're at that's probably decent data to know if people are all trying to sue you at the same time for something then maybe there's something there that you shouldn't have done that you did it's the second layer of judgment is the one that everyone gets in trouble with this thing happened now I'm going to ascribe meaning to it what does the hate mean doesn't mean anything it's just feedback and then you take the data and do whatever you want with it sadness comes from a lack of options which is why it feels like hopelessness anxiety comes from many options but a lack of priorities which is why it feels like paralysis looking everywhere but moving nowhere solve sadness with knowledge and anxiety with a decision understanding this changed my life let's say somebody gets really depressed cuz they get laid off why are they sad because they have a perceived lack of options if I have five job offers on my table am I sad that I got laid off because my job offers are better than one that I just left no now if I had 100 options on the table I might have anxiety because I have too many options and I don't know which one to do it's a perceived lack of options with sadness you don't know what to do because you don't know anything to do with anxiety you don't know which to do disappointment is when an expectation was UNM you neither change your expectations or change reality the stoic frame for that is that you imagine all the things that could have gone worse I mean there's a lot of frames but that's one of them the other one is that you imagine that that thing happens a thousand times in a row what would you feel on the thousandth time probably nothing why because you'd already adjusted your expectations and if you already adjusted your expectations then you can adjust them now Buddhist monks fundamentally basically do that they just change nothing externally and only change internally which is fine but to a certain degree like I want to benefit humanity and I don't know how beneficial that is and to be fair me saying that I want to do that also creates an expectation of myself which I could be let down for so like I do create a possibility that I am let down by saying I want to help people and if I don't help them then I would be disappointed you can shoot big as long as you don't make missing mean that you suck I think that being has been the best goal for me to pursue because it's the one that's 100% under my control if I have something that is disappointing that occurs what type of person do I want to be in this instance and then what would that man do and as closely as I can map my actual Behavior to that person's the more joy I will experience because I'm present in doing the things that I think I should be doing and I can still give myself kudos for how well I handled a shitty situation and then end up deriving Joy from something that otherwise might have been bad I remember seeing this quote once I was like if you follow your own advice you'd already be way further than you currently are and I thought about that and I was like yeah I don't think I need to follow anyone else's advice I think I should be doing the things I already know I should be doing then you just have like kind of the emotional component of feeling like you want to maybe release something or whatever and me being able to talk to my future version of myself in a dialogue format allows me to get Grace from a future version of self and also get approval from a future version of self so somebody that I esteem higher than myself is future may who's hopefully better and his judgment on my current situation and his advice it tends to be really good advice the best advice I've gotten has been from future no one's afraid of failing they're afraid of what other people will think of them when they fail but if they're afraid of that imagine what those other people think of you when you're not even trying well the reality is they're not at all if they don't have what you want don't listen to what they say having what you want is a really easy evidence Point that's high likelihood basically it decreases the risk of whatever advice they're providing that's not a perfect frame cuz there are amazing Olympic coaches that never won the goal the fastest way to move forward in life is listen to people who can give you advice that can get you there faster so not having to suffer and experience and waste all that time and back step to learn the lesson to move forward and So the faster you can avoid those lessons and just keep moving forward the faster you move but the problem is we don't know who to trust and so I have made seven levels of how I weigh advice that have served me well at the lowest level number seven comments on social media which is basically comments from strangers who don't know me and don't have what I want number six people giving their two cents who do know me but don't have what I want number five someone who knows me and knows someone who went to where I'm trying to go number four someone who's been there number three someone who took someone else there number two someone who took someone just like me to exactly where I want to go and number one someone who has been there took someone else there just like me multiple times do I trust somebody who's taking someone else there because I am the someone else more than someone who's only taking themselves there cuz if someone's taking someone else there then I could slot in and there's a likely they could do it again if they've only taken themselves there and not taken anyone else there then they might not be a very good teacher which happens all the time Michael Jordan has an insane record playing basketball has a very poor record owning a basketball team I'm big on give give give until they ask right especially if you're starting out the best thing to do is give away step for free for multiple reasons one because you probably suck because you haven't done it yet and it's a gift if someone allows you to work for them because you have a chance at providing value and from there you can leverage that into testimonials referrals and potentially even a paying customer they might if you continue to provide this value for free eventually say hey I've got too many people providing for free I have too much Demand on my time at price of free and I can go to 20% of the price that I want to go to and if everyone says yes and you still have demand then you go to 40% of the price and then 60 and then 100 and then then 500% right and you keep going but what happens is a lot of people will Short change that and so I get DMS every day of people saying Hey I want to give you value in exchange for and it's just stop don't tell me what value you want to give me and what you want to trade that value for and usually it's them actually massively undervaluing my time as though them making it free to me is somehow more valuable than me paying for something like I have tons of money I don't have tons of time and so it's my much scarcer resource this kid was like yeah I have a lot of advice that I think I can give you on social media and I click over his profile he's got 100 followers and he said I'll do it in exchange for a testimonial and it was just like it was so blind to reality first off you have no evidence that you're good second off it's delusion and so the way to do it right is to go above and beyond do a ton of work and then just give it to the person not in exchange for or an expectation of but just give it to that person and then guess what will happen nothing cuz most times if someone's way ahead of you they might not want it or might not need it but you make your best approximate guess of what they might need do your best shot at it there's probably three things that can happen one most likely nothing happens they don't respond to you they don't care the second option is that they see how hard you worked on something and even though they don't need that thing everyone one level up needs people who work hard on things and then so you still prove how hard you work by how good the thing that you give is and so they might have an opportunity for you not even in in the main thing but on something else and then the third and probably the least least likely but probably the one you want the most is that they say wow that's amazing I would love for you to do that now to be fair most of the people on my team came from doing that you roll the dice and people roll the dice one time with their time and say I did this work for this one guy and he didn't immediately hire me on retainer but did you do it for 100 people if you give tremendous value to 100 people you'll be able to make more income than most jobs in America simply by providing a tremendous amount of value to 100 business owners one of them or five of them will respond back and say yes I would like more work from you or I can offer you a job I was afraid to charge people money but I did want them to like be invested and so I started a nonprofit called the free training project where I said if they donated $500,000 the charity of their choice I would train them for 12 weeks that's how I got my first customers but then after the 12 weeks some of them were like I still want to keep training with you and I was like hey I'm the charity now I am poor please help me that's literally it literally at the end of 12 weeks I was like I think I want to do this full-time CU I did it while I still have my job and then I was like I think I want to do this full time I hope you guys are okay with this I like if you could pay me instead I just kind of like everyone did no one had any problems with it