September 5, 2024 • 8 mins
Forget everything you've been told about talent and success. In this episode, we unveil two crucial secrets that can change your perspective and put you on the path to achieving your goals.
First, discover why talent alone isn't the determining factor for success. Instead, it's the effort you put in and the value you create that truly matters. Learn how starting and doing can set you apart and lead you to success.
Second, understand that success is a personal definition. By setting the right goals and focusing on continuous effort, you can always be successful. Hear stories and examples that illustrate these principles, and get inspired to take your first step towards your dreams.
Join us as we delve into the mindset and actions that can transform your life. Share your thoughts, fears, and plans in the comments, and let's support each other in our journeys to success.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, I want you to forget absolutely everything that you've been told
or that you believe about talent and success, because there's two secrets I
want to teach you about today.
The first is that talent isn't the thing that's going to determine how successful you are. It's not.
The thing that is the key to success is effort. It's doing something,
(00:20):
creating something, creating value where there wasn't value before.
If you're willing to start and do something, you will be successful.
And the second thing I want everyone to know is that the success isn't defined.
Success is up to you to define. If you set the wrong success goal,
yeah, you may not achieve it.
(00:40):
But if success to you is moving forward, is having new opportunities,
is trying things and learning things, then you will always be successful and
you'll continue creating and that success will grow and grow and grow.
Because it really is the effort.
There was a woman named Angela Duckworth, and she wanted to quantify the difference
between talent and effort, and what it really was that equaled success.
(01:03):
And what she found was that effort was actually worth twice as much as talent.
And that's particularly good news for anybody that has absolutely no talent,
because you can still put in the effort and succeed.
But I know that's not you. I know that's really no one. We all have talent.
There's things that every single one of us is good at or great at. that.
People may have told you that you're not the best, or maybe you saw others succeeding
(01:26):
and you felt that you were less than, but I'm sorry about that. It's not true.
There's a story that I've been telling for years, and I want to share with you
today because to me, it really illustrated how few people want to try,
and how a lot of people believe that that effort is overwhelming,
that they have to kill themselves, or sacrifice, or give up their personal lives
just to get ahead, and you don't have.
(01:48):
When I was hiring about 10, 15 years ago, I didn't like the people that we were
hiring. They would come on board and they wouldn't do much.
So I decided to make a change to the job ads that my company was posting for a few different roles.
And all that I did was add a paragraph at the end that said,
if you want to get to the top of the list, if you want to make it in for an
interview, just make something.
(02:08):
Do something. Demonstrate that you understand us and that you can create something
without a lot of direction.
And we had about 300 people across those roles that applied.
But of those 300 people, three of them, just three, did anything.
Not a single other person even tried.
And I don't know what prevented them. I don't believe they were lazy.
(02:30):
Maybe they didn't even read it, and that's a whole other problem.
But I think a lot of people just thought, well, it's going to be too hard.
I don't know what to make.
Or I don't want to put in all this work when I'm not guaranteed that I'm going to get the job.
But all that it took for the three that did get hired, and I hired all three of them, them.
All that it took for them to stand out, to be different, to be unique,
(02:51):
to be valuable, was to make something. And they didn't make anything big.
There was a woman who was a blogger, so she wrote a blog post.
Probably took her an hour or two.
There was another woman that was interested in animated videos,
so she made an animated video.
And the third was a gentleman that really loved sports, and he took our product
and used it to analyze some sports data. That was a hobby of his anyway.
(03:13):
So he just created something, all All three of them, they just created something
that they knew and they created something without knowing what it was going
to do for them. They didn't know they would all be hired.
They didn't know they were the only ones that were going to do something.
They probably assumed that everybody was, but they just thought,
Hey, it's an opportunity to make something, to try something.
And by doing that, by starting, by doing, by creating value,
(03:35):
they were head and shoulders above absolutely everybody else.
And that's it. That's the key to getting ahead. There's a famous quote.
I don't remember who said it. I'll find it out. I'll put it in the video here.
But the quote is just simply, the secret to getting ahead is starting.
Look at the successes that you're familiar with. They could be founders and
startups. They could be politicians, musicians.
(03:58):
There was always a first step. That's the one universal truth for everyone who
you envy, who you want to emulate, the people that you aspire to be.
Take a look at them all. And there's one common thing they all did.
They have different degrees of talent, they have different degrees of effort
they're willing to put in, but they did start, they got on the stage,
(04:18):
they took a risk, they took a leap of faith.
So if you want to succeed, you just have to try. That's all that it takes.
And talking about doing is not the same.
There's an experience that I've had over and over again as a founder.
I had so many people that saw what we were doing. That's how we had a business.
(04:38):
That's how we started something from nothing and wanted to pitch an idea for
an app, a product, a business.
And I used to hate those conversations. Not because their ideas were bad.
Some of them were great. Some were bad. I don't even know. No one can tell you
if your ideas are good or bad.
I used to pitch people on the idea for the business I started.
And so many people said, not a good idea. And yet it succeeded.
What I didn't like about the conversations was that I knew that basically none
(05:01):
of them were going to do anything about it.
I think in all the conversations, which has got to be in the hundreds,
maybe one took a step to try to build the thing that they thought was such a great idea.
The majority of them just wanted to talk about it. They wanted someone else
to run with the idea and hopefully bring them along.
And that's not how success works. Success takes some effort.
(05:23):
And again, it's not crazy amount of effort. I'm not telling you to quit your jobs.
I'm not saying to give up your evenings and your weekends and to slave overnight
just to get little things done, even though you don't know what the return is
going to be. I'm just saying, get started.
Focus on the act of doing it. I like to use finance as a great example.
I'm sure you've seen videos and had people talk to you about compounding interest.
(05:44):
The reality is in investing and in finances, the majority of value that you're
ever going to see from the money you invest, from the company shares that you
buy, from whatever it is that you're going to do,
the major part of that value is going to be returned in the last five years.
So if it goes on for 20, you may have been successful all the way along,
but the last five years is probably where you're going to see the majority of growth of value.
(06:08):
And so if you set out to invest and you expect that kind of a return in the
first year, you're probably going to quit, give up, pull your money out.
The same goes for your ideas. If you want to start a YouTube channel and you
post a few videos and you expect to go viral, you're going to quit because you didn't.
If you start a business and you expect to be a billion dollar unicorn in the
first couple of years, an IPO, you're probably not going to achieve that and you'll give up.
(06:32):
But if you set your own parameters for success.
If you say success is going to be working with great people,
solving cool problems, working with cool technology, being able to write a song,
being able to be on stage.
If that's what success is to you, performing more, doing more,
then you'll be successful right away.
And it'll motivate you to continue putting in the effort, trying things.
(06:56):
Your talent will grow because your experience will grow.
Your effort will continue and the results will compound.
Success, the big success that maybe you want, it'll come down the road.
You just can't focus on it today.
And that is what the secret to success is. Take it from me. Take it from anyone
that you've seen succeed.
(07:16):
And they'll tell you that they're not that great. Well, some of them will tell
you that they're the best. But most of us that have done anything that is impressive.
First of all, we're not going to think whatever we did is that impressive because
we're still trying to make things and do things. And whatever we did in the
past is just in the past. I don't look back that way.
But if you talk to me and you ask me, what is it that made you get to where
(07:37):
you are? What is it that gave you all these opportunities?" I'm just going to say, I tried.
I was the one willing to raise my hand and say, I volunteer.
I was the one who saw a problem and said, hey, I think I can fix that this afternoon.
Why don't I just make that thing or fix that thing or write that thing?
It's really that easy. And I encourage all of you to just stop thinking about it in terms of talent.
Who's more talented? Do you have enough talent? And just start thinking of it
(08:00):
in terms of what you can do today to move forward. If you do that, you will succeed.
I'd love to hear about the first
steps that you're planning on taking in the comments share your
ideas what are you afraid of why haven't you taken the first step
what would it take to get you to put in a little more effort what are your fears
what are the risks we can help each other we can share our stories our experiences
(08:23):
our advice and together we can all do more and do amazing things because we
can be successful and we can be as successful as we want, so long as we try,
and so long as we keep the right parameters of success in mind.
Music.
All right, I want you to forget absolutely everything that you've been told
or that you believe about talent and success, because there's two secrets I
want to teach you about today.
The first is that talent isn't the thing that's going to determine how successful you are. It's not.
The thing that is the key to success is effort. It's doing something,
(00:20):
creating something, creating value where there wasn't value before.
If you're willing to start and do something, you will be successful.
And the second thing I want everyone to know is that the success isn't defined.
Success is up to you to define. If you set the wrong success goal,
yeah, you may not achieve it.
(00:40):
But if success to you is moving forward, is having new opportunities,
is trying things and learning things, then you will always be successful and
you'll continue creating and that success will grow and grow and grow.
Because it really is the effort.
There was a woman named Angela Duckworth, and she wanted to quantify the difference
between talent and effort, and what it really was that equaled success.
(01:03):
And what she found was that effort was actually worth twice as much as talent.
And that's particularly good news for anybody that has absolutely no talent,
because you can still put in the effort and succeed.
But I know that's not you. I know that's really no one. We all have talent.
There's things that every single one of us is good at or great at. that.
People may have told you that you're not the best, or maybe you saw others succeeding
(01:26):
and you felt that you were less than, but I'm sorry about that. It's not true.
There's a story that I've been telling for years, and I want to share with you
today because to me, it really illustrated how few people want to try,
and how a lot of people believe that that effort is overwhelming,
that they have to kill themselves, or sacrifice, or give up their personal lives
just to get ahead, and you don't have.
(01:48):
When I was hiring about 10, 15 years ago, I didn't like the people that we were
hiring. They would come on board and they wouldn't do much.
So I decided to make a change to the job ads that my company was posting for a few different roles.
And all that I did was add a paragraph at the end that said,
if you want to get to the top of the list, if you want to make it in for an
interview, just make something.
(02:08):
Do something. Demonstrate that you understand us and that you can create something
without a lot of direction.
And we had about 300 people across those roles that applied.
But of those 300 people, three of them, just three, did anything.
Not a single other person even tried.
And I don't know what prevented them. I don't believe they were lazy.
(02:30):
Maybe they didn't even read it, and that's a whole other problem.
But I think a lot of people just thought, well, it's going to be too hard.
I don't know what to make.
Or I don't want to put in all this work when I'm not guaranteed that I'm going to get the job.
But all that it took for the three that did get hired, and I hired all three of them, them.
All that it took for them to stand out, to be different, to be unique,
(02:51):
to be valuable, was to make something. And they didn't make anything big.
There was a woman who was a blogger, so she wrote a blog post.
Probably took her an hour or two.
There was another woman that was interested in animated videos,
so she made an animated video.
And the third was a gentleman that really loved sports, and he took our product
and used it to analyze some sports data. That was a hobby of his anyway.
(03:13):
So he just created something, all All three of them, they just created something
that they knew and they created something without knowing what it was going
to do for them. They didn't know they would all be hired.
They didn't know they were the only ones that were going to do something.
They probably assumed that everybody was, but they just thought,
Hey, it's an opportunity to make something, to try something.
And by doing that, by starting, by doing, by creating value,
(03:35):
they were head and shoulders above absolutely everybody else.
And that's it. That's the key to getting ahead. There's a famous quote.
I don't remember who said it. I'll find it out. I'll put it in the video here.
But the quote is just simply, the secret to getting ahead is starting.
Look at the successes that you're familiar with. They could be founders and
startups. They could be politicians, musicians.
(03:58):
There was always a first step. That's the one universal truth for everyone who
you envy, who you want to emulate, the people that you aspire to be.
Take a look at them all. And there's one common thing they all did.
They have different degrees of talent, they have different degrees of effort
they're willing to put in, but they did start, they got on the stage,
(04:18):
they took a risk, they took a leap of faith.
So if you want to succeed, you just have to try. That's all that it takes.
And talking about doing is not the same.
There's an experience that I've had over and over again as a founder.
I had so many people that saw what we were doing. That's how we had a business.
(04:38):
That's how we started something from nothing and wanted to pitch an idea for
an app, a product, a business.
And I used to hate those conversations. Not because their ideas were bad.
Some of them were great. Some were bad. I don't even know. No one can tell you
if your ideas are good or bad.
I used to pitch people on the idea for the business I started.
And so many people said, not a good idea. And yet it succeeded.
What I didn't like about the conversations was that I knew that basically none
(05:01):
of them were going to do anything about it.
I think in all the conversations, which has got to be in the hundreds,
maybe one took a step to try to build the thing that they thought was such a great idea.
The majority of them just wanted to talk about it. They wanted someone else
to run with the idea and hopefully bring them along.
And that's not how success works. Success takes some effort.
(05:23):
And again, it's not crazy amount of effort. I'm not telling you to quit your jobs.
I'm not saying to give up your evenings and your weekends and to slave overnight
just to get little things done, even though you don't know what the return is
going to be. I'm just saying, get started.
Focus on the act of doing it. I like to use finance as a great example.
I'm sure you've seen videos and had people talk to you about compounding interest.
(05:44):
The reality is in investing and in finances, the majority of value that you're
ever going to see from the money you invest, from the company shares that you
buy, from whatever it is that you're going to do,
the major part of that value is going to be returned in the last five years.
So if it goes on for 20, you may have been successful all the way along,
but the last five years is probably where you're going to see the majority of growth of value.
(06:08):
And so if you set out to invest and you expect that kind of a return in the
first year, you're probably going to quit, give up, pull your money out.
The same goes for your ideas. If you want to start a YouTube channel and you
post a few videos and you expect to go viral, you're going to quit because you didn't.
If you start a business and you expect to be a billion dollar unicorn in the
first couple of years, an IPO, you're probably not going to achieve that and you'll give up.
(06:32):
But if you set your own parameters for success.
If you say success is going to be working with great people,
solving cool problems, working with cool technology, being able to write a song,
being able to be on stage.
If that's what success is to you, performing more, doing more,
then you'll be successful right away.
And it'll motivate you to continue putting in the effort, trying things.
(06:56):
Your talent will grow because your experience will grow.
Your effort will continue and the results will compound.
Success, the big success that maybe you want, it'll come down the road.
You just can't focus on it today.
And that is what the secret to success is. Take it from me. Take it from anyone
that you've seen succeed.
(07:16):
And they'll tell you that they're not that great. Well, some of them will tell
you that they're the best. But most of us that have done anything that is impressive.
First of all, we're not going to think whatever we did is that impressive because
we're still trying to make things and do things. And whatever we did in the
past is just in the past. I don't look back that way.
But if you talk to me and you ask me, what is it that made you get to where
(07:37):
you are? What is it that gave you all these opportunities?" I'm just going to say, I tried.
I was the one willing to raise my hand and say, I volunteer.
I was the one who saw a problem and said, hey, I think I can fix that this afternoon.
Why don't I just make that thing or fix that thing or write that thing?
It's really that easy. And I encourage all of you to just stop thinking about it in terms of talent.
Who's more talented? Do you have enough talent? And just start thinking of it
(08:00):
in terms of what you can do today to move forward. If you do that, you will succeed.
I'd love to hear about the first
steps that you're planning on taking in the comments share your
ideas what are you afraid of why haven't you taken the first step
what would it take to get you to put in a little more effort what are your fears
what are the risks we can help each other we can share our stories our experiences
(08:23):
our advice and together we can all do more and do amazing things because we
can be successful and we can be as successful as we want, so long as we try,
and so long as we keep the right parameters of success in mind.
Music.
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