I visited an old friend from high school the other day. We hadn’t talked in a while, so we were just catching up over a game of pool.
As the conversation went on, he started to notice how successful I was…and how successful he wasn’t. Not that I look down on him or anything, but I could definitely tell he was a bit jealous.
He kept asking me: “Dude, what’s your secret?” as if I had one. He kept trying to figure out the “one thing,” that I’d done that’d made me successful. So, I looked him dead in the eye, and asked him: “Do you want to hear the truth?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I do.” I took a long pause, and simply told him: “Your ideas don’t mean shit.”
The Poor Man’s Mindset
“How did you do it, man? How do you get rich?” he asked. It was kind of funny hearing him ask this, because it seemed like such a ridiculous question to me, but then I remembered that I used to think like that.
You see, there’s a big difference between how the successful and the unsuccessful think. The unsuccessful have what’s known as an “event-oriented,” mindset whereas the successful have what’s known as a “process-oriented,” mindset.
My buddy, who’s a cool dude, but albeit isn’t very successful, didn’t get it. He asked me if I’d read any good books lately, trying to figure out if he could crack the puzzle. I told him yeah, I’d been reading a book called Millionaire Fastlane, and that I highly recommend it.
“What’s it about?” he asked. I told him that it’s about how the traditional path to wealth is a complete lie—you don’t get wealthy by steadily working a day job for 40 years and investing in your IRA. You get wealthy by working your ass off for 2-5 years and creating passive income, and then you can coast.
“And the book talks about how to do that?” he asked. “Yeah, it does.” I said. “It can’t be that easy. Everyone would be doing it,” he replied…and that’s when it hit me.
The thing is, success is that easy. You just have to read every day, work every day, follow the principles of success, hit the gym, and do what you KNOW you should fucking do. Most people just don’t do it.
Event-Oriented Mindset
When Elon Musk sold his first company for $1.5 billion dollars, he was immediately catapulted into the world’s eye. The public wondered where this billionaire came from, as he’d seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
“How did he get so wealthy?” they asked. “He must have gotten lucky!” some said. “It’s from that company he made. He struck gold.”
This is how the masses think. They believe that it’s some single event, some “one secret,” or some “magic trick,” that gets you wealthy. In reality, this is complete horse shit.
Success is built over years of grinding away at your craft, but most people don’t want to believe this. Why? Because if they accepted it, they’d have no excuse for their bullshit life. You sink or swim based off of your own merits, not based off of “one simple trick.”
So what do the masses do, instead? They accept an event-oriented mindset. They view success as this magical event, that just flies out of fucking nowhere. This is why the media always shows the “one hit wonders,” and NBA stars who get contracts seemingly out of nowhere.
What the media DOESN’T show, however, is all of those late nights Elon Musk spent in the library, studying to get his PhD. They don’t show all of the times Kobe Bryant woke up at 3am to start training, or the thousands of times Jimmy Page messed up a guitar solo until he got it right.
Switch to Process Orientation
My buddy wasn’t stupid—in fact, he was pretty smart. We routinely discuss complex issues relating to politics, economics, culture, and psychology, so it certainly wasn’t that he was dull.
It was simply that he had the “mindset of the masses.” He believed that success consisted of finding some “secret gold mine,” and just magically becoming wealthy overnight. In other words, he had an event-oriented mindset. This is not what you want—instead, you want to switch over to a process-oriented mindset.
When you have a process-oriented mindset, you understand that success is all of those times you push out an extra rep in your workout. You understand that success is all those times you stay out late practicing game, for just 30 minutes more than you thought you could.
Success is when you put in the effort, day in and day out, to improve yourself by 1%—and slowly, but ever so surely, you get where you want to be. This is known as the slight edge effect.
It won’t be noticeable at first, though; it wasn’t for my buddy. But now, years after we’ve met, it’s become abundantly clear who has better habits. While it didn’t seem that obvious at first, the years have amplified my habits of reading, working out, self-improving, and entrepreneurship.
Unfortunately, they’ve also amplified his habits of smoking weed all the time, binge-watching Netflix, and half-assing everything you do. Unless you want to end up like him, you need to understand one crucial difference that separates the successful from the unsuccessful.
The Key
When my friend told me that there’s no way the book I was reading actually had the keys to success, I laughed. he said that there was no way it was that simple, otherwise everyone would do it.
That’s the fucking thing, though. Nobody does it. Nobody orders a salad instead of a burger, nobody reads books on marketing instead of watching Game of Thrones, nobody starts a business instead of accepting a salary, and nobody fucking executes.
This is the single biggest factor that separates the rich from the poor, the shredded from the overweight, the players from the nerds, and the successful from the unsuccessful: execution.
Execution is when you need to do something, and you just fucking do it. You don’t think about it, you don’t read 100 books on how to do it…you just fucking do it. In the age of information, “analysis paralysis,” is a MASSIVE problem that I see every day.
It’s why I’ve developed the Law of Use, or the Law of 3:1—it’s meant for those guys who don’t take action, which is 99% of men. If you’re first getting started in ANYTHING, you don’t need to learn more. You need to fucking execute.
Jon’s Execution
I’m not at all a perfect executioner. I don’t always take action. Sometimes I’m lazy, sometimes I procrastinate, and sometimes I just flat out don’t do things—but for the most part, I aim to execute, and I do.
This is why I can get more done in one week than others can in practically their whole lives. It’s because I fucking execute. I figure out what I have to do, and I just fucking do it.
Over a year ago, I wrote my best-selling book, The 7 Strategies to Develop Your Masculinity—I’ve gotten countless emails from men, thanking me for writing it, claiming that it’s changed their lives completely.
Just this one book has nets me thousands of dollars each month, and I’ve only updated it once. I literally don’t even have to touch it, I just wake up every day and see how much I made while I was sleeping.
So what’s my point here? My point is, it took me two fucking weeks to write it. TWO. FUCKING. WEEKS.
Do you know how I got it done so fast? It’s because I didn’t procrastinate. Here’s what I did:
- Day 1: Brainstorm a list of things men want, that I can help them with. Decide which one fits best.
- Day 2: Write the Outline Draft
- Day 3: Write an Intricate Outline w/ Sections
- Day 4: Write strategies 1-3, Find graphic designer to create cover
- Day 5: Write strategies 4-7
- Day 6: Edit grammar, structure, wording
- Day 7: Create rough draft #1
- Day 8: Edit fonts, sizes, colors
- Day 9: Create rough draft #2
- Day 10: Edit pictures, charts, diagrams
- Day 11: Create Final Draft
- Day 12: Set up sales page
- Day 13: Integrate payment processor
- Day 14: Launch
In just two weeks, I accomplished more than most men will ever accomplish in their life times—and I’m not even that great at execution. I’ve met guys who completely blow me out of the water when it comes to execution.
There’s guys who can do in a fucking week what it takes me 2 years to do. There’s guys that accomplish more in one single day than you’ve probably accomplished in the past year. There’s brilliant executioners out there, but do you know what the great thing is?
It doesn’t matter where you’re at—you can execute, too. So fucking start.
Go Forth and Execute
What is it that you’ve been meaning to do, but have never gotten around to doing? Make a list of three things that you’ve been putting off, and execute.
If you’ve been putting off learning game, then go learn game. Read my tips for newbies on how to seduce women. If you’ve been trying to lose weight, go buy a gym membership or buy some sweatpants or something.
If you’ve always wanted to learn Russian, go download Rosetta Stone—it doesn’t matter WHAT you do, just that you DO something! Take action, even if you have no clue what you’re doing. It’s better to fail forward than to stand still.
If you guys have any questions, comments, or concerns, leave them in the Disqus section down below. And, as always, I’ll see you next time.
Ideas nowadays even a computer have.
Execution is the bridge to the heavens.
Literally.
Thanks, man – I aim to be as honest as possible on here. Yes, I am. I’ve thought about getting a personal assistant just to help w/ editing and whatnot, but that remains to be seen.
It’s amazing how actually easy it is to become a high value man by just putting some effort into your life.
Exactly.