If you're ambitious, but not sure what

to do, I want to share six principles,

really just actions that have helped me

get to where I want. These are the same

six things that allowed me to go from

having only 1,000 bucks to my name and

sleeping on a gym floor to now having a

portfolio of companies that last year

did north of 250 million a year. And the

reason I'm making this video is because

I'm on a mission to get the next

generation of men and women to make

their first 100,000 dollars. And there's

a lot of reasons for that, but I think

that if you can participate in the

economy, you will believe in capitalism,

and I think that will set up the next

generation for much bigger and better

things. So, let's just start with

principle number one, which is build

capacity.

And so, what to do when you're not sure

what to do is you build capacity. So,

for example, if you don't know what

you're going to do tomorrow, you should

go and bed on time today

uh when you're not sure what you're

going to do. Still, it might as well be

rested. That's building capacity. Um you

can get in shape when you don't have

dates lined up. Like, you don't have one

lined up, but it can help you when the

opportunity strikes.

Uh you can save money when you're not

sure where you're going to invest

because at least you'll have the money

so that when the investment comes,

you'll have the opportunity to take

action. It's just the thing about

opportunities is that they present

themselves to everyone, and only people

with capacity can both recognize and

capitalize on them. So, don't be in the

bleachers when the fat pitch comes. You

want to be at the plate. You want to

have already practiced your swing, and

you want to be ready to go.

And I'll give you a case study that

actually can drive this point home. So,

there was a study they did at Princeton

grad school. It was called like the good

good Samaritan study, where they had

seminary students who saw themselves as

moral people, right? They were studying

to become priests. And they asked them

to uh write a paper on being a good

Samaritan, and then to present it. All

right? And so, what was interesting

about this is that in the study, they

separated them into three groups. And

so, on the way to give the presentation,

there was this very narrow hallway into

the auditorium. And in the narrow

hallway, they put someone who had fallen

and clearly needed help. Group one was

people who were 10 minutes late. Uh

group two was people who were on time.

And group three was people who were

early. All right? Now, guess what

correlation, how people rated themselves

in their essay, had to do with the

likelihood that they would stop and help

the person.

You're right. zero. All right?

You know what did have the highest

correlation with the likelihood that

they stopped and helped the person?

How late they were. And so, and let me

tell you how big of a difference it was.

The difference between the people who

were 10 minutes early and 10 minutes

late was a 6x difference in who stopped

to actually help the person. And the

reason I see this is so important is

that right now, there are opportunities

that come to you right now that you

cannot even recognize because you do not

have capacity to do anything about it.

And so, here are some of the ways that I

recommend building capacity starting

with number two, money.

So, if you don't know what to invest in,

save money. Money buys time and time

buys optionality. And so, let's go

tactical. So, how do I go about actually

saving money? So, I'm going to walk

through each category very quickly. So,

food, that means you just don't eat out

for anything. It's very straightforward.

If you're hungry, you deal with it,

right? You only buy from discount

grocery stores. It's not that hard.

Clothing,

whatever you have right now is all you

need for the next 2 years, zero

exceptions, right? Reuse what you have,

trade or at the very worst, you can go

to Goodwill. All right? From a housing

perspective, live as cheaply as you can,

ideally with your own family or worst

case with another family that's also

trying to save money. Um and if you're

like younger and you're like none of us

have families, then that's fine. Then

all six of you bunk up in one place,

split bedrooms if you have to. Um and

that's what ultimately in the early part

of my career, it was like three or four

hundred bucks a month for me to just

keep the lights on. Not hard when you're

splitting one bedroom in a six-bedroom

house. Now, all of this stuff, we have

the last cost which is time cost. So,

think about your time like a financial

asset. Stop doom scrolling and wasting

the two to four-hour window you have

outside of work, so your 5:00 to 9:00

a.m. and then your 5:00 p.m. to 9:00

p.m. Those 8 hours a day, those are the

hours where you're going to have to get

ahead because you have to you have to

basically live for today to pay for

today, but you have to plan and prepare

for tomorrow, which is what those other

8 hours are for. Number three on this

stack here is add skills and practice

them. The second part is just as

important as the first. So, now you've

got some money, right? It should be

saved up. Where do you spend that money?

So, I recommend spending all excess cash

on acquiring skills until you have so

much that you can't possibly spend on

any more skills. So, increase your

capacity to earn, which increases the

value of your highest cash producing

asset, you know that is you, right? And

what's relevant to today is that skills

are inflation-proof. Whether we're

trading in Bitcoin or seashells in the

future, if you've got value to give,

people will exchange for it. So, if

you're ever worried about all this

technology, what am I going to do? The

only thing and the only logical step you

can do is double down on skills and make

yourself more valuable. Now, understand

that learning will never hurt you. All

right, it's always additive. And even in

things that are bad, and listen, I paid

for all that stuff that I just said, and

not all of it was good. The thing is is

that I believe that winners win no

matter what. And so, how can you have

something that's bad and then you think

that you get better from it? Well, if I

learn all the things not to do, then I

learned. And if it changes my behavior

in a way that makes me more likely to

succeed, then I got better. And so, if

you if you look at the world that way,

then everything serves you rather than

you serving it. And so, I'll give you a

basic analogy from a skills perspective,

from a stacking angle. I like this

example cuz a lot of people know who he

is. So, Jay-Z's a rapper, right? And now

he's a businessman. I mean, a

businessman. Little little little If you

know, you know. Anyways,

um

in the beginning, maybe he had rhythm,

right? Maybe that's what he was

naturally born with or inclined with,

right? And then he learned how to

rap. And then he learned how to write

lyrics. And then he learned how to

market. Or rather, he probably learned

how to sell first. And then he learned

how to market. And with each of these,

he became more and more successful. And

then he learned how to get other artists

and market them. So, he learned how to

make a label. And then, he learned how

to get

Beyoncé. Okay.

>> [laughter]

>> But, you can see here how with each of

these skills, that person who has all of

these skills, someone who just has

rhythm, not that valuable. Someone who

can just rap, a little bit more valuable

than someone who has rhythm. Someone who

can rap and write lyrics, more valuable.

Someone who can do that and then sell,

they can sell their way into, you know,

getting shows, they can sell people on

the street. All of a sudden, they can

sell their CDs. They can sell CDs,

Jesus. They can sell

And so, he has this, which makes all of

these other things more valuable. And

then, he learned how to promote, which

made all of these other skills more

valuable, cuz now he's not just selling

out one or two, you know, small venues,

he can promote and go national. But,

then there's still a limit to the amount

that he can do here. So, that's when he

starts recruiting other people to his

labels, to his brands. And this is what

continues to stack skills. I'll give you

a financial example of this. Maybe in

the beginning, you're somebody who's

really good at math. Okay, being good at

math is not that valuable of a skill.

Then, all of a sudden, you're like,

"Okay, well, I'll learn how to do

bookkeeping." All right, well, that's

more valuable than just math, but you

need math in order to have bookkeeping.

And then, you learn how accounting

works. Okay? And then, you learn how

taxes work. And all of a sudden, you can

start saving a business money. Now, do

you need to know

math in order to do taxes? Yes. Do you

know how to understand how accounting

works in order to do taxes? Yes. Right?

All of these things stack. Now, let's

say that you start learning about

insurance. And then, you start learning

about M&A. Right? All of these things,

you still need to know math, but these,

when taken together, become

significantly more valuable as a person.

About your second grade math teacher as

an idiot as soon as you learn calculus,

you needed arithmetic in order to learn

calculus. And so, wherever you're at in

this journey right now, it's not like,

"Oh my god, I can't Why can't I do

this?" It's like, you still have to move

through the steps. Now, how fast you do

that depends on how quickly you change

your behavior. And so, hopefully, this

video at least nudges you in that

direction to start changing what you do.

So, the fourth example of kind of

building capacity before you know what

to do is to build an audience without a

product. Right? So, what does that mean?

So, you don't need a product to start,

you need attention because attention

gives you leverage. And so, if you have

a group of people who know, like, and

trust you, even when you don't have a

product, you're basically building

potential energy, right? If you were the

number one most followed person on the

planet, the day you start whatever you

start, it's going to be a smashing,

probably hundred million dollars

success. Literally, if you were the most

person known person on the planet and

you charged any amount of money for

anything, you could then make basically

you'd pretty much be set for life. All

right? And so, from the building of a

quote audience, is you just talk about

the things that you're doing cuz right

now you're like, well, I don't have any

proof. Of course you don't have proof,

you haven't done anything yet. But what

you can do is do work and document the

work you do. And so, what you want to do

is like either you have epic proof or

epic effort. In the fitness world,

there's people who are like, okay, I'm

I'm six months out for my first fitness

competition. Doesn't matter where you

start, if you do something epic,

document all the volume of work you do

along the way and people will follow

you.

Now, a version of this, like the next

step here, would be build a wait list.

So, this is kind of step five. So, in

other words,

before you build the thing, build the

list of people who want the thing. So, a

person who pays with their time now is

more likely to pay with their money

later. And this is what an audience

does, you provide value to them with

your time, they pay back with their

time, they say they're willing to wait

for the thing. All of these things are

indicators that they're likely or more

likely to make a purchase with you. So,

number six is

you can build capacity by building your

network potential by meeting people. So,

think about two people, one person who

stays in and watches Netflix,

or somebody who goes out to a coffee

shop, or someone who goes to the gym. In

either of those scenarios, your luck

surface area expands. You're more likely

for sure in each of those scenarios. And

if you do this every single day, you

continue to expand that luck exposure.

And so, if you want to be successful in

something, in anything, spend time with

the people who are already doing it

because the fastest way to change your

life is to change the people who are

around you who affect your life. And so,

being willing to move to where the

opportunity is is one of the biggest

kind of hacks out there. I think Chamath

talked about this in a video, but like

if you want to be in finance, you got to

be in New York, right? If you want to be

in film, it's like you probably got to

be in Hollywood. If you want to be in

politics, you got to be in DC. Now, if

you don't want to be in those kind of

like more traditional paths, there's a

lot more places that you could be, but

the idea is like there are hubs, and if

you want to get into a space, the best

way to do it is get to the hub. And so,

if you're not sure what to do right now,

you should know exactly what to do,

which is that you build capacity and you

wait for the pitches that you can swing

at to come. And so, maybe you're getting

ball after ball after ball, but what do

you do to make sure that when the fat

pitch comes, you're ready? It's like you

practice your swing. You start doing

your sprints so that like you can

actually get around the bases faster,

right? You start working on coordination

drills. You start working on your hip

and your power. You start going to the

gym, right? All of these things will be

things that when that pitch comes,

you'll maximize the likelihood that you

smash it out of the park. But so many of

you are waiting for this fat pitch to

then begin and getting lapped by people

who already were prepared. And so, the

key word here, in order to build

capacity, you build by preparing.