You can get competent at nearly anything

in 20 hours.

The problem is most people spend a

decade delaying the first 20 hours.

More potential is wasted through

inaction than incompetence.

I saw a TED Talk years ago where a guy

talked about how he learned how to play

the guitar in 20 hours.

And that TED Talk changed my life not

because I learned to play the guitar,

but all of a sudden

complex tasks or seemingly complex tasks

felt incre much

much more attainable. I was like, "Okay,

I might not be the best website

developer in the world, but in 20 hours

I can have a website."

And that 20-hour mantra for me has just

been like 2 days. Two full days. Two

10-hour days fully focused. You can

pretty much go from zero to not hero,

but zero to confident. Um

and when you string

hundreds of those 20-hour days together,

I think you become incredibly dangerous.

We were talking earlier about Range, the

book.

I think

being cross-departmental, being cross um

what's the cross-disciplinary? Thank

you, disciplinary. Multidisciplinary

is is

is hard to calculate how valuable it is

because of the because the the first 20

hours of almost every discipline is

probably the biggest most meaningful

concepts from that discipline.

>> being able to ride a bike to being able

to ride a bike.

>> Yes. Being able to not read to read. Um

even if you can't read Shakespeare, but

you can read all of a sudden like 80%

>> of Shakespeare is now opened up to you.

It's just a a matter of time before you

get there.

>> Yeah. And even if you could never read

Shakespeare, the 80% of the books that

you can read as a result of a a

sixth-grade reading level is basically

more books than you have time to read.

Um and you will get the largest returns

from those first 20 hours. And so

there's a very strong argument for

trying to collapse the time between

uh wanting something and beginning those

first 20 hours. And because the the

80/20 of your of the skills you gain

that are

that have utility. Like that your

usefulness across a huge amount of

domains is multiplicative not additive.

So,

I I I I I've I've said this example

before, but like

you know, Jay-Z in the very beginning

it's like he might have had some rhythm

or something. And then all of a sudden

he, you know, learned how to rap. And

then he learned how to sell. Now, some

people say maybe he sold earlier than

that, but I'll just leave it there. He

learned how to sell. And then all of a

sudden he learned how to market. And

with each of these additional skills his

income didn't go up by like oh, 1 + 1 =

2. It went you know, one Well, one's a

bad number. So, two to the 10th power

all of a sudden becomes significantly

greater

um than what you can do. And so, when

when unsure about what step like when

you're not sure what to do,

build potential.

Because

when

the opportunity does come, you want to

be ready.

And so, it does make sense in the

beginning of your career to maximize

optionality. It's just that you have to

be willing to trade it in. And so, when

you're not sure what to do, the logical

thing to do is I don't know what I'm

going to do tomorrow, but I'm going to

get get a good night's sleep. I don't

know when I'm going to meet a mate, but

I'm going to start getting in shape now.

I don't know what I'm going to sell, but

I'm going to start building an audience

and making content. There's always an

argument for like you if you don't know

what to do, there's still plenty of

things to do.

And but the goal is not necessarily to

do those things forever. It's to do

those things to then use them as the

launchpad to get the thing you really

want.

>> The trap is opening up so much

optionality without the

concordant decisiveness that you end up

being trapped. Yeah.

You end up being stuck because you think

I've got all of these directions that I

could go in. I've spent all of this time

building up

uh

panoply

of routes that I could take my life

down.

And I do not have any ability to decide

on which of those to take.

>> Panoply.

>> Panoply. You like that?

>> Myriad, cornucopia, a plethora.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> [laughter]

>> Two people that are obsessed with

language

have a war with each other.

>> [laughter]

>> But one is British, so he wins.

You only need to get rich once, so you

might as well work as hard as you can to

get it done as fast as you can. The

fastest way to attract what you want in

life is to deserve it by doing so much

work it becomes unreasonable not to

achieve it.

Do so much work it would be unreasonable

that you fail. The seat at the table is

yours if you want it.

Do the hard work, build the skills no

one can ignore, adjust your mindset to

match where you want to go, then pull up

a chair and sit down.

You want to work with such relentless

obsession that when people see you

they're grateful they don't have to

compete against you.

The fastest shortcut is to stop looking

for shortcuts.

Do the work.

>> Are those all mine?

>> All one.

>> Violence is the answer.

There's There's two There's two quotes

on the

on the

in the first few pages of our sales

handbook at eternally acquisition.com.

One is volume negates luck

and violence is the answer.

And I would say that those are like

credos that that the team lives by.

And I

>> Violent team.

>> Mhm, they are. Um and violently

successful.

Um

I think

I think there's a lot of power

in

in knowing that you're doing

every single thing you possibly can to

win.

>> Mhm.

>> Because if you are if you can look at

yourself in the mirror and say, "I have

controlled the controllable."

I think there's some level

>> Entirely.

>> Entirely. The controllable, not the

uncontrollable. Those things can happen.

I could do my book launch and there can

be a lightning strike and there can be

no power in Vegas. That can happen.

But in the event that that happens, if

you if you leave it all in the field,

if you have nothing left in the tank,

I don't think there's a feeling

that's more satisfying as a man

than knowing

that you've given everything that you

had to give to an endeavor that you

deemed meaningful.

And so Layla and I have this thing that

we say a lot, but um

a man must have a quest.

And I just really really like that. It's

like you need to do something. You need

to go towards something. And your quest

could be the best being the best father.

It could be it could be being the best

or the best podcaster or the best

businessman or the best tire replacer or

the best sweeper.

Whatever it is, but like I think

I think being questless,

being aimless,

and never being able to use the violence

that you are capable of in the pursuit

of an endeavor that you find meaningful

is

where people find themselves lost and

without hope because

hopelessness comes from a perceived lack

of options.

We don't know what to do.

Anxiety comes from many options, but no

priorities.

And so there's many things to do, but we

don't know which one.

And so a quest

remedies both of those because you have

one path that you're clear on and

you know the only thing that you have

left to do is destroy everything in your

path to getting to where you want to go.

And I'm using strong language on purpose

rather than saying that you literally

need to destroy everyone, but more so

the ideas, the thoughts, the doubts, the

the perceived risks that aren't even

really risks.

Um

those are the things that we have to

march triumphantly be-

towards. And I think um

having someone in your corner

uh

who believes in that better version of

you

is one of the

the rarest gifts gifts that you can have

in life.

And

there's a line from 300 that I love. The

queen says to Leonidas, she she says um

"Come back with your shield or on it."

And I think that we all want a spouse or

a partner

who can who can reward us

for the good fight. Because what that

queen is saying in that moment is not

like I want you to win. She's like, "I

want you to die trying."

>> Mhm.

>> So, and I think that that's that's like

all we were I mean, to be fair, that's

literally all we will do is die trying.

All of us will die trying. And I think

um or rather all of us will die. Some of

us will die trying.

And I think that's that's about as

good of a life as I think anyone can

really ask for.

>> One of my least favorite groups of

people are those without a quest mocking

those who have one.

>> Wastes of space.

>> What causes doubt? This is another

reason why the lonely chapter thing

resonates so much that people who are in

it

have their certainty about wanting to

get out of it diminished by people who

can't see the fact that they're in it.

And you go, "Fuck, uh all of my friends

are saying, 'Well, why why are you

staying in cuz you want to go to the gym

in the morning? What does it matter if

you miss

What does it matter if you miss your

workout?'"

Doesn't matter if you It doesn't matter

if you miss your workout tomorrow, dude.

You go, "No, I really, really want this

thing."

And my wanting of this hard thing and

the efforts and sacrifices and tradeoffs

I'm having to make in order to get

there,

the doubt that already exists inside of

me is being multiplied by people who are

outside of it.

And

if I could give everybody a gift, it

would be the ability to turn down the

volume on people who don't understand

the goals that you're trying to achieve.

It shouldn't be your job to explain

yourself to people who don't understand

what you're trying to do.

And the confusion of this person gets it

and understands it,

and this person doesn't,

you shouldn't be listening to them at

equal measure.

I have a lot of live translation that I

think um I've wired into being able to

handle some things that were difficult,

um which is like I pretty much translate

all heat into you live your life against

my preferences.

And so whenever they're saying all of

these things of like, "No, you don't

have to go to the gym. We We're doing

this other thing." It's just saying,

"You're living your life in a way that's

against my preferences. You're valuing

things that I don't value." And you're

like, "You're right." And so it doesn't

mean like we don't need to have the same

values, at least in the short term.

Um

and I think just accepting that that is

okay and that you can still be friends

at least in the short term

is fine. And

what they're really trying to do is get

you to comply with their way of living

because maybe, not always,

when you live in accordance with your

new values and new preferences,

it brings into sharp contrast how they

are not living in accordance to theirs.

>> Yeah.

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