Four life-changing realizations

Here are four realizations that changed the way I operate my life; things I internalized that were so profound they became a part of me.

If we persevere, if we are relentless, we will never lose.

Perseverance or Grit is the single most defining quality of success.

This realization may not sound like much, but it took getting kicked out of high school, failing at 15 job interviews later on, and almost being bankrupt to truly internalize that if I keep going, I will never fail.

For most people, these things grit and perseverance are words on paper.

But if you just keep going in the face of failure, this can become a part of your soul too. Like leveling up in a video game, you can always use it once you have that power.

Master high Leverage activities.

I needed multiple angles to internalize the true power of leverage.

I had to watch the code I wrote bring in hundreds of thousands of new customers to shop in a single weekend at the eCommerce startup I was a part of to understand that code is leverage. It took seeing blog posts I wrote bring in lots of engineering recruits to internalize that writing is leverage.

It took having employees manage. It took having capital deployed, and on and on.

People told me about leverage, I knew it was real, but it didn't become what I sought out until I witnessed it from all those angles.

Now all I do is try to master high leverage activities.

The world is run by people.

When I was ten years old, I messed something up pretty bad, and I talked my way out of trouble. In that process, I realized that people control everything in this world, potentially even my fate.

The world is not run by machines, by bureaucracy, or any of that. No matter what the rules are, you will succeed if you can communicate, collaborate, and empathize with people.

If we internalize this, we will get our dream job, get promoted, raise capital, attract people to help us, and be able to help others.

It sounds dead simple yet, few have figured this out as they walk around shitting on other people.

Compounding is genuinely the most powerful force in the world.

That I should focus far more on Compounding is a fairly recent realization of mine. It took me so long to internalize and make this a part of my operating habits and thinking because it's one of those things that takes the longest time to observe in one's life.

I saw things compound, such as knowledge, early on and knew that was important, but I needed to see it from other angles like relationships to internalize it. Seeing great relationships get better with time. Witnessing relationships open new doors for me and myself being able to open more doors for others. I needed to see real estate and other investments compound too. Only then did I seek it out.