One of the clearest signs of high intelligence is staying cool and calm and giving NO reaction to weird and nasty things when people purposely try to provoke you.
Loaned two lads some money, and to this day I haven't recovered it. Honestly, the reason I lent it was because I knew they come from wealthy families, so I was sure I’d get my money back.
The last time I saw this guy on Snapchat, I couldn’t understand why someone living in such a big mansion, driving with escorts, could still owe me money. So, yes, I believe you might have rich parents and still be broke. Just that, no matter how broke you are, your needs are covered.
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THE RELENTLESS PURSUIT
attack your goals with ferocity
love deeply
play hard
be present
get uncomfortable
chase what pulls at you
take your shot
don’t waste this one precious, beautiful life
pursue your life relentlessly
Underrated career advice: Choose to work in a place with high talent density early in your career.
You tend to rise or fall to the level of the people around you. When you work with exceptional people, you absorb their standards, pace, frameworks, and instincts almost through osmosis.
High-talent environments compress learning cycles and force you to grow faster than you would on your own. They change your opportunity set and rewire your brain. The compounding effect of a few years in that environment can change the trajectory of your life.
Early in your career, there’s probably nothing more valuable than choosing the room with the highest talent per square foot.
Bro to bro- do not try entrepreneurship if you don't have a high tolerance for uncertainty. For long periods of time, you genuinely won’t know if you’re early, wrong, unlucky, or just stupid. You need to be cheap before you can afford not to be. Because raising money and burning it is easy. Building something people are willing to pay for is hard. You need high self esteem and a low ego and you've to be comfortable being wrong, looking stupid and changing your mind. Most importantly, learn how to lose without becoming a loser. Because you’re going to lose a lot- money, people, deals & time. Just don’t lose your ability to think clearly. And btw, don’t go looking for motivation. It is useless after a while. What you really need is stamina. Both physical & mental.
People who spend long periods of time at home & slowly lose the desire to go outside often think they're just resting. But psychologically, many of them are experiencing something called MENTAL RUMINATION. It's a state where the brain starts slowing down while the number of thoughts inside keeps increasing & the motivation to do anything slowly disappears. The mind gets stuck in the past, worries about the future and burns itself out. This isn't laziness, it's a nervous system stuck in survival mode. And the longer it lasts, the more distant normal life begins to feel. And the difficult part is that you usually can't escape it through one massive burst of motivation. And sometimes,recovery starts with just one small step.
Before you get frustrated trying to make someone understand your perspective, remember that people can only understand ideas within the limits of their cognitive abilities, experiences, biases, knowledge, and willingness to understand...
An older guy once told me “you’ll reach a point in life when you accept that you’ll never achieve your dreams”
I check in with myself from time to time to make sure I never start believing that loser bs
This is why most people put in effort, but never make it.
It might sound corny, but I have learnt a lot about life from observing Lagos hold-up.
If you leave early, you will jam hold-up. If you say, “Okay, I will avoid this hold-up,” and take an alternative route, you will meet other people on that alternative route trying to avoid the hold-up like you: and then you end up in another hold-up.
You did everything right - woke up early, drove fast, and still didn’t escape the hold-up.
It is so in life too: you could do everything right and still not move ahead.
A lot of people assume the reason this happens is because they were unlucky. But let us circle back to the hold-up example.
You need to get to work early, and so you woke up early; but everyone has the same thought, so you get stuck.
Now, what do you think the solution is?
…it is simple. To escape the hold-up, you simply don’t go early.
If you leave the house by 10am, you will beat the traffic because everyone else has left. But then, you would be late for the office.
Which tells you that sometimes the problem is not you: it is just the game you are playing.
And sometimes the best play is to exit the game completely.
Here is what I mean:
If hypothetically the hold-up is a big deal, and you can’t deal with it - to escape it, you simply have to quit the job, so you can then be able to leave the house by 10am when the road is free.
This is just a hypothetical example that will help you understand the idea of “rigged games.”
People are stuck in hold-up, putting in effort, in a game that is rigged.
One example is the man who is trying to make money through betting platforms, so he loses way more than he makes - he is a victim of the game.
Then there is the owner of the betting company, who doesn’t bet on games but makes significantly more.
For example, the owner of Bet9ja started ValueJet because he had so much cash in dollars that he wasn’t allowed to take out of Nigeria; so he bought jets with it.
The betting man is trying to beat traffic.
While the Bet9ja owner exited the traffic entirely and played another game (owning the platform).
If you see this game in life, you will NEVER unsee it.
It is everywhere.
People do things because everyone else is doing it, and so they end up in the same traffic as everyone else; and hope for a way out.
The best game to play is to play games where you are most likely to win. If you bet your life with Messi on who is likely to score a free kick, he will most likely win. The best play is to compete with him at a game YOU are great in.
…so if the game is the money game, trying to compete at a game of effort, where you are great with strategy, is futile.
It is why i start by busineses around what i am great at.
If anyone else competes with me in those arena, I will have them for breakfast. But whenever i try to copy others at what they are great at, they beat me.
Rather than put effort into beating the traffic, find ways to exit the hold-up completely.
And the way to do this is to lean into the things you are naturally great at.