A More Complete Beast
Strategies for driving the needle forward on your life.
A More Complete Beast
Unmasking Success: A Journey Through Self-Perception and Objective Analysis
Is success really an illusion? Join me as I share my personal insights on this intriguing question, drawing from examples from popular singing shows like 'The Voice' and everyday life situations. I delve into the deceiving nature of self-perception and its impact on our perception of success. Tune in to understand why it's important to surround yourself with objective individuals who can help identify and analyze your blind spots. You'll hear anecdotes from my interactions with successful business tycoons and professional athletes, underscoring the value of surrounding yourself with winners.
Further, I'll dissect personal decisions and share the thought processes behind them to highlight the importance of objective analysis in critical life scenarios. This episode isn't just about success - it's about the journey towards achieving it and understanding the elements of luck and self-perception involved. Be prepared for a frank exploration of these topics and much more! Remember, success is not just about where you are but also about how you got there. So, brace yourself for an enlightening conversation that will challenge your perception of success and the journey to achieving it.
My wife and I were watching the Voice the other day. For those of you who don't know what the Voice is, more or less it's a blind audition singing show. You go on, all the judges are faced away from you. If you sing good enough, they press a button turn around, I want you on my team. You compete all the way to the finale and you win some cash. It's kind of like American Idol, and it used to really really bother me when somebody with talent, somebody with skill, would be on the stage and nobody would turn around for him. The fact of the matter is that once somebody's team fills up, they can no longer get more people on their team by definition, and it would bother me when it was just the luck of the draw. It's like, dude, if you were two people earlier, you would be on this show and you might actually win it. You were that good. There's an element of luck to being successful. For sure. There's an element of luck to get onto this show, and that used to really bother me. But a lot of oftentimes these people come back the next season. They get on. Everything is right in the universe.
Speaker 1:Now, what really bothers me is when somebody absolutely sucks and they're up there singing their ass off and they really think, like dude, I got it going on. That really bothers me. Here's the opposite side of this coin. This is what also bothers me. You see a girl that's a 10. She's with a dude that's a four. And you start to make up this scenario in your head like, oh what? This doesn't make any sense. Maybe it's just momentum. Maybe this dude's rich, maybe he's got a huge dick. You're starting to. You're trying anything you can to make this make sense in the universe, doing all types of math in your head. That also really bothers me, not for the reason you probably think, but both of those situations. What they have in common is that those people lie to themselves and they have people around them reinforcing that lie. In terms of the bad singer, they're listening to themselves, they're completely tone deaf. They're thinking, yeah, I got it going, I can win this show, I'll go on American Idol, I'll go on the Voice, I'll crush it. And their moms probably like, oh my God, honey, you sound so good. Their friends are like, yeah, go up on karaoke, you're going to crush it. Dad's telling them how good they are.
Speaker 1:This girl that's a 10. That's with a dude that's a four Probably looks in the mirror and sees everything wrong with herself. This is too small, this is too big, this doesn't look right. And maybe they were in a toxic relationship with some dude. That's like you're fucking disgusting, you're terrible, I hate you, you're never going to find anyone better than me. So then when that relationship ends, she goes out into the real world and she starts seeing these dudes at her fours. She thinks she's on that level and then if a dude that's a 10 shows her attention, I'm not good enough for this. This isn't going to work out. I'm intimidated by this.
Speaker 1:These people lie to themselves and they've surrounded themselves with liars. What's the point of this? This is a business podcast. What's the point of me telling you this? I've had, cumulatively, hundreds of millions of dollars of net worth sitting across from me in the chair, right across from me. I've interviewed these people. I've had hours of conversations with these people.
Speaker 1:One thing they all have in common, from the business tycoon to the professional athlete, is their objective with themselves, and they find individuals to analyze their blind spots and be objective about them. You can only go so far by yourself, even with ultimate objectivity. Then you need to surround yourself with what Wayne Norris calls eagles winners people on the same mission, people that want to succeed and they want to see you succeed. So sometimes they'll have the hard conversations that you don't want to hear, but you need to hear to get to the next level. That's why it bothers me so much when I watch the voice and somebody sucks. That's why it bothers me so much when I see a girl that's a 10, she's with a dude that's a 4 because she's lying to herself and she's surrounded by liars. You need to find eagles, even if that means you have to pay for it.
Speaker 1:Here's an example when all that COVID money funny money was being thrown around EIDL loan they tried to give me 500 grand at like a 1% interest rate. Never again in my life will I ever have that opportunity to get half a million bucks at a 1% interest rate. Never I had a lot of people take the money, take the money, take the money, take the money. So I thought who is the most objective about this situation? That knows more than I do? First person I asked was my wife. She does all my books at the business. She understands the balance sheet and the profit and loss. Next person I asked I paid my wife. She's on the payroll of my business. Next person I asked is my accountant, who I also pay a lot of money.
Speaker 1:What do you think about this? What do you think you can do with this? What are the ramifications of this? I hired a lawyer to look at the documents hundreds of dollars an hour. To basically put it in layman's terms, what is the potential downfall of this?
Speaker 1:I talked to my financial advisor, who I pay a pretty penny every single year. Then I talked to my mentor, who knows me better than anybody, and then I talked to somebody who actually took the money. So I talked to all these different people that had a different perspective. I aggregated that information and, instead of being paralyzed by analysis, I had to act, and I did. You know what I did. I didn't take it. They dumped the money in my account. I gave it right back. Nope, don't need it. I've talked to enough people that know more than me. I don't need it. That's just my example, right?
Speaker 1:Think about areas in your life that you're trying to improve. Maybe it's your health and fitness. Maybe it's your relationship. You got to pay for therapy with health and fitness. Maybe you need to pay for a trainer. Maybe that's going to hold you accountable For your business. Maybe you need a business coach, or maybe you need a good accountant or a financial advisor. Whatever you need to do to surround yourself with objectivity, do it. The cost you're going to pay to have the objective analysis around you pales in comparison to the cost you'll pay long term by being surrounded by lies.
Speaker 1:And look, I learned this from sitting across from these dudes that are worth way more money than me, have way more success than me. This isn't me talking, this is them talking through me. So if you think I'm full of shit, if you think I don't have any success, that's fine. I promise you, the people who I've sat across from have way more success than you, and they've been objective. They've surrounded themselves with eagles, and that's the lesson I want to leave with you for today.
Speaker 1:Look, guys, I'm not going to do a lot of this. I'm not going to do a lot of just me talking into the microphone, but every once in a while, I just want to have a conversation where it's me and you Things that I've picked up in this podcast. That will hopefully help you get to the next level. As always, guys, if you like the episode, do me a favor. Leave a five star review wherever you're listening to this. If somebody needs to hear this, share this episode with them. The only way this podcast continues to grow is if you continue to share the episodes. So do me a favor, share it, and that's it, guys. We're going to do this together. All right, I'll do this at the end of every episode. We're doing it together On three One, two, three, one, two, three.