You need lifers on your team if you want to build a real business.
Back in 2022 we were hiring someone and my first ever contractor (a guy who's been with me since 2017) looked at the candidate and said "he's not a lifer."
I asked him what that meant.
"He'll come in, give it his all, but he's not going to be here for life. It's transient."
That one word stuck with me. Transient.
And he ended up being completely right.
Since then I've noticed the pattern everywhere & I’ve noticed it almost always comes down to their life situation.
Someone at 25 with no responsibilities, no mortgage, no kids, they have a higher risk tolerance which is a good thing but it also means they'll bounce the second something shinier shows up. Even if staying would've been the better move for them long term.
Someone at 45 with a family and a life they've built around stability, they think different. They're not looking for the next thing, they're looking to go deep on the right thing.
Neither is wrong but once you start seeing it, it changes how you hire, who you partner with, and who you invest your time in.
Dwyane Wade favorite memory of Kobe Bryant is when Kobe called him for Pick & Roll help during his 2009 finals matchup vs Celtics 🥹
“It was during the 09 championship run against Boston. I’m sitting in prime 112 in Miami, out of the playoffs watching on TV. I get a call from this unknown number and it keeps calling me. Eventually I answer, and it’s Kobe on the phone. I run outside immediately. He says ‘Hey, Boston is guarding me this way on the P&R. What should I do?’ He said ‘You’re the best at P&Rs in this game. I watched your series vs them. How should I attack them when they blitz me, when they hedge, when they playing soft?’ This is one of the greatest players to ever play and he’s reaching out to me, a younger player. Asking me how do I attack these P&Rs. I’m watching the next game and I’m hoping he do one of the things I said. To watch him dominate that series after that, I felt like he let me be apart of that championship”
Old clips of IShowSpeed doubting his future resurfaced the internet after Speed hit 50 million subscribers on his 21st birthday becoming the first ever black content creator to achieve it.
In one of the clips Speed says “if YouTube doesn’t work out, imma go back to being a regular kid” and Today, IShowSpeed is a global icon and self made millionaire, a record breaking pioneer that transcended internet culture into mainstream fame and a cultural force inspiring millions worldwide.
Congratulations on chasing your dreams without giving up! @ishowspeedsui 🎉
Christopher Nolan shot Batman Begins (2005) entirely on 35mm film, refusing digital cameras.
He told American Cinematographer magazine, “Film is the best way to capture the texture and gravity of light.” He has refused digital ever since.
The goal is as much revenue with as little people on your team as possible
People boasting about the size of their team is not a flex, it’s a sign of naivety
It’s equal to the guy who hit his first $100k profit going out a signing a lease for a penthouse
From the outside it looks like you’re doing well but you’re just shackling chains around yourself
Just like lifestyle inflation is what takes most people down personally
OPEX inflation is the biggest killer of businesses’s
The less you take yourself seriously, the "luckier" you will get in life. Get rid of your pride and fear of embarrassment. Put yourself in situations where you will grow regardless of whether you feel like it or not. No one is watching, no one cares. You're gonna live your life, die, and be vaguely remembered for one or two generations if you had a loving family, that's about it.
There is no such thing as being "too ambitious."
It's really clear to anyone who had any past success in any field that you either go way beyond your initial expectations, or you fail completely, there is rarely any in between.
We live in a society that rewards people who are already winning, and where "the best" takes it all, and where the "merely excellent" is effectively "invisible."
Most people who ended up with "average" lives actually worked really hard; and people who aimed for an "average life" right from the beginning actually often ended up with way more sufferings than they wanted; and the people with "extraordinary" lives actually often took "crazy" or unconventional risks to get there, or they were very disciplined for very long periods of time.
People who managed to "escape the competition" didn't get there with average standards and with "work-life balance" in mind; they were, ironically, actually often extremely competitive.
I’m increasingly convinced that the willingness to change your mind is the ultimate sign of intelligence. The most impressive people I know change their minds often in response to new information. It’s like a software update. The goal isn't to be right. It's to find the truth.
They say “most businesses fail, most marriages fail, most investments fail” but then you look at the average person who represents “most” of those attempts, and you realize how little humility they have in business, how little intellectual and emotional connection they have in marriage, and how little long-term conviction they have in investing.
Life is actually more stressful when your goals aren’t challenging enough.
You are wasting your time, and you know it.
Peace of mind is just the art of playing life on the right difficulty level.
find audacity. there is nothing that will help you more in this life than audacity. find it, let it push you to do things, to silence the noise, to go back to school, to leave the country, to start a business, to do things. to fight for your life.