The core message is that personal transformation is entirely within your control. No one will save you, and no external force—luck, fate, or other people—can override your responsibility to act. Every failure or success, every decision or setback, is yours alone. The speaker emphasizes self-reliance, discipline, and the power of daily routines as the foundation of growth. They argue that meaningful progress begins not with grand visions, but with small, immediate actions—especially in the first 20 hours of learning a new skill, where the most significant gains occur. Dreams without action remain mere fantasies; only through relentless effort, unshakable focus, and daily commitment can one achieve real change. Identity shapes behavior: if you believe you're a capable, determined learner, you will act like one. Conversely, self-limiting beliefs create self-fulfilling realities. The speaker urges immediate action, rejecting delays, procrastination, and the illusion of needing perfect conditions. True freedom comes not from waiting for the right moment, but from starting now—despite fear or doubt. Life is not a waiting game; it is a journey of daily effort, discipline, and self-honesty. The only question that matters is “What do you want?” and then, relentlessly, going after it. If you don’t act, you’ll never learn, grow, or fulfill your potential. You are not just responsible for your life—you are the author of it.
If you don't make it it's on you and that's it. There's nobody else to blame.
Everything is your fault. Everything. The good stuff in your life. That's on you. You did that.
It's on you. Your conscious ability to be awake and to be articulate and to and to be
clued in and to keep nature at bay and culture straight and your own malevolence under check.
And to combat the unknown and to transform it into something that's good. That's what you are.
In my goal when I was sitting there not going to school, being bullied, having no self esteem,
my goal was the only person that's going to turn this person around is me. You know what I can
turn around is put myself through the worst things possible a human being can ever endure. And
that would be the only way that I can build this brain to handle anything that comes in front of
it, callously in my mind, through pain and suffering. You have an idea. It's on you and only you
to go execute it. And if it fails, go do it again and go do a different idea. And it's on you.
If you as talented as you say you are, you as gifted as you say you are, you should be able to
line up with anybody and go out there and wear. So after today, it's on you after today. Ain't no
more excuses after today. Ain't no more wiggle room after today. You got to get after it now.
You got to get after it. You got to get up on your own. You got to be able to make big decisions
on your own. You're going to lose weight on your own. There are a myriad of targets you have to
hit by yourself. If you want your life to turn around, it's your job to do it. If you want to pay
off your bills, it's your job to do it. If you want to change where you're at in life,
it is your job to change it. Your algorithm is exposing you. My algorithm is trading cards,
comic books, the New York Chets, sunshine, rabos, happy people, random acts of kindness.
If your if your feed is politician scaring you all day, that's on you. Nobody is coming.
Nobody's coming to save you. Nobody's coming to help you. Nobody's coming to give you a cheat code.
Nobody's coming to show you a shortcut. You got to figure this out on your own. There are
some things in life. Nobody's going to show up. It's all on you. I'm talking about the you versus you
obligations. And while nobody throws you a party when you abide by them,
no one's going to arrest you when you break them either. It's on you. It's on you.
You are this person right now. You're the person who's learned from those failures,
and you can choose to be the hero of your own movie right now. But everything rises and falls
on you. What would you tomorrow want you today to do? Pretty bulletproof. But difficult,
right? Very difficult to do because it gives you pretty much no way to hide. There's
essentially no way to hide at all. And when you do make bad decisions, it's on you.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. Right? You have to get active in your
own rescue, as the stoic say, as do the Buddhists. It's your responsibility. It's on you.
Blow your own nose as Epictetus says, right? No one's coming to save you. There is no magical
solution. There's just hard work. It's time and patience. But most of all your own effort,
focusing on the response, focusing on what's in your control, remembering that you are mortal,
choosing not to rust out, but to wear out, get to work, get moving. You can watch videos like
this all day. You can read all the books in the world. But at some point, you got to put it down,
you got to get up from the computer, and you got to go to work. You got to do what you know you have
to do. That's how you get better. That's how you improve. If you've decided, I got
well, then the game's over anyway. The fuck are we doing here? If you've decided, I can't.
Because I was unlucky. My mom, this, my dad, this, my country, this, my gender, that,
my income level, this. Well, that's over. Doesn't matter what I think you think, anyone else thinks,
it's over. I just refuse to talk to another human being and believe that to be true,
because there's been billions of examples of the alternative.
One of the things I love about writing or just being a creative person is that it's on you.
So it's just, you know, I've got an idea. I want to go do it. I've got to kind of like set a path
way of how I'm going to create this thing that I have a notion that I want to go to to execute and
bring it to the world. You either put yourself into position to deserve it, to be around people
that want to help to take care of you. Luck came by. You were able to capitalize on it,
because like we talked about earlier, it looks like a bus and other ones coming. But will you have
the fare to get on? And maybe that's it. Maybe you just got really lucky, but you had the fare to get
on the bus and that's on you. So you should be very proud of the things that you have in your life.
So a long story short when I realized was no one was here to help me. In the feeling I had every
morning, I started saving my hair when I was 16 years old. In the feeling I had every morning,
I looked in the mirror, was horrible. And I didn't want to feel like that anymore. And how I felt
was a kid going nowhere, a kid that was scared. And most kids will accept that and look for help.
But the best thing that happened to me, no one helped me. No one felt sorry for me.
No one looked at me and said like this day and age, they'll take you in and they'll tell you
by stop picking on this person. Back then, they didn't care. I had wasted way too much time,
blaming Chris or thinking life was unfair and it was unfair or beating myself up about the
stupid decisions that we had both made, feeling shitty about myself because I couldn't get out of
bed or I knew I was isolating, I was letting my health go, I was drinking too much. Like I was in
that self-sabotaging loop for years. And then finally, it's like, okay, and, and, okay, you can
continue to lay in bed and rot away, you can continue to beat the shit out of yourself. You can
continue to tell yourself that it's too late, screwed up, you're never going to get out of debt,
you're never going to figure this out, you're 41, your career is over, you know, you're going to have
to get rid of this, you can do all that, Mel. Or you can change. Like if you want to, if you want
things in your life to get better, prove it and the person you're proving it to is yourself.
I, one of my self-reliances at the top of my value system and I don't think it is
contradictory to faith. I actually think that free will and faith, again, are here. As a believer,
I believe that it's all been written at the same time, I believe God's going, I need your hands
on the wheel, man. You're steering this, okay? Don't just rely on faith. I have too many people
doing that, man. I've had my agnostic ears where I was not, believe it all, fully in self-reliance.
It's on me, everything. And I think it was such a valuable few years because I did need to call
myself on some shit. I did need to say the buck stops here with me. I did need to become a
quick becoming such a repeat offender. You know, I was sinning, which means to miss the mark,
miss have bad aim. Literally, we were, it comes from an archery term, through sin means to miss
the mark. When you think about it like that, becomes more practical, especially for us, agnostics and
stuff. I was missing the mark and it was time for me. I didn't want to keep forgiving myself on
Sunday. And then repeat and do the same shit again. And I could be forgiven. I was like, "Now, man,
forgive me, Father. I know what I'm doing and I'm keep doing it. Cut the shit, my God, hey."
Quick, give it yourself that out, that parachute, even though you may have it,
even though Word says, "Grace of God will forgive you." Yeah, you need to, I need to do
strong arm myself. Put the damn hands on the wheel. Look in the mirror and go down you, because it is.
At some point in life, you just, you have to tell yourself enough is enough. And listen to me,
you deserve better. Who in what has your attention? Because where focus goes, energy flows.
The problem is, you put too much energy into Netflix. You put too much energy into distractions.
You put too much energy into entertainment. You put too much energy into things that are not
feeding your purpose and destiny. Can you walk away from everything? Imagine who you could be
in 30 days. There's no shortcut, no hack. There is no other way around. If success is what you're
chasing in this life, real, legacy level success, you must unapologetically be obsessed with the
process. So what you have to decide is, are you going to keep being the 99% or are you ready to be
a part of the long process? Because it doesn't make a difference when you come from high school dropout.
It doesn't make a difference when you come from GED. It doesn't make a difference when you come
from sleeping in the band to build it. It doesn't make a difference when you come from.
You know what makes a difference?
What makes a difference is when you be common.
99% or 1%.
It's on you and it's on me.
Who are you?
Yes, who are you?
Where are you going?
I want you to think about that.
And wherever you're going, I want you to see it
in your mind's eye, complete it, see it.
Where are you in your life?
When you look in the mirror, do you see the person
you thought you would be at this point in your life?
This life that you're seeking, it's uncommon.
It's different.
And sometimes it's lonely.
They looked at the most successful men and women of the world.
And one of the things they all had in common was a routine.
They are obsessed with their routine.
They don't have a gap of wasted time they were taking.
You know, I realized the reason why I'm so successful
and the reason why I don't get in trouble,
like I used to when I was younger is because when I was younger,
man, my schedule has so many gaps in it.
The devil had, like, OK, he might pray at 6,
but my man is watching TV.
He playing video games by 8/30.
It's not that I'm sweeter than nobody.
The devil can't get to me because all my time is taking up.
All right, let's be honest.
How many of y'all get up and you just get your day started?
You don't have it written down.
You don't have a strategy.
You don't have a real plan.
You kind of just get up and say, I'm about to tackle today.
Raise your hand for me.
Raise your hand.
We don't stop.
No more that.
Like, you don't go to war without a plan.
I need you to be strategic.
I here look at-- I want to go to the NBA.
Not like that.
You just run up and down the court.
Not like that.
You're not going-- no strategy.
I want to go to the NFL.
You ain't even in school.
Nope, you're not going to the NFL.
I want to make millions.
You're not even doing what millionaires do.
And if those of you you messed up, why?
Because you don't understand bake, act, eat, rest.
We're talking about a schedule.
I realized that my strength is in my routine.
Why?
Because I'm not as strong as I thought I was.
I'm not as intelligent as I thought I was.
I don't want it as bad as I thought I wanted it.
It's in my routine.
It's what I do every day repeatedly.
Discipline is found in our daily routine, our daily rituals.
You may use discipline on occasion,
but you're not disciplined.
And there's a difference between having discipline
and being disciplined.
When you have discipline, you're selective.
When you have discipline, you're conditional.
It depends on how you feel.
When you are disciplined, how you do anything
is how you do everything.
And everything you do, you show up at 1,000%.
That he and I have your successes in your routine.
You're not as deep as you think you are.
You've got to find a routine.
I'm getting up at 3 and stick with it.
I'm getting up at 5 and stick with it.
Yeah, out of 365 days, you have a bad day or two.
But I'm trying to tell you, the strength is in the routine.
Find a routine and stick with it.
The wise man wants to conquer yourself.
This is wrapped up in dedication.
We have to get dedicated.
Conquer yourself.
Once you've unlocked those daily routines,
those daily rituals that you stay committed to,
the game's going to change.
And the only way you're going to get dedicated
is if you eliminate all distractions.
Can you disappear for just 30 days?
And you've got to be so dedicated that every distraction
gets blocked out.
You have to learn how to turn your phone off, turn the technology off.
When the speech is over, when the moment is done,
you've got to learn how to eliminate all distractions.
Different scares people.
And at any time anybody's told me I'm crazy,
I've always thanked them for that.
Because it gave me the ability to see and do things
that other people can't do, and acknowledge things
that other people won't acknowledge.
If you're obsessed with taking your business,
your sport, whatever it is, to another level, stand up.
You must be able to deal with pain.
And the more understanding you have of what's causing you
the pain and how you've dealt with it
is going to determine how successful you will be
in whatever you choose in life.
It's on you.
Your failure and your success is on you.
I think the thing that people misunderstand about success
is they're looking for the easiest way to get there.
Look at the most successful people in the world.
They're the most coachable.
They have the least amount of doubt.
The least amount of doubt.
You usually have doubt because of what somebody else
is going to think of you.
So if people that aren't going to see your vision,
people don't see Jeff Bezos' vision, people don't see Yvonne Moss,
people don't see Kobe and Jordan's vision.
And that's OK, but you've got to be willing to see it
in yourself.
Everyone's going to hit adversity.
It's how you deal with that adversity.
And the key word is you, not letting somebody else
deal with that adversity.
You have to deal with that adversity.
And how you deal with it.
Are you going to fight through it?
Or are you going to curl up and just roll over in the corner?
People talk about this all the time.
Losing Bill's character.
How much character do you need?
Your dreams and thoughts met at least so big
that they better scare you.
They better scare you.
But you're not thinking big enough that you don't want it.
It has to be something that nobody else has thought about
before or done before.
The process it takes to be number one and stay number one.
You have no idea.
Very few people understand what winning and success
does to an individual's mental health.
And everybody wants to sit in your seat
until they have to sit in your seat.
But it takes a special individual.
And there's very few people that can do that.
A friend of mine years ago taught me
when I was like coming up, and I was deciding if I was
going to do this.
And he said, I've not hit the cob.
And I think that means if not now, then when.
So whatever you want to do, I've not hit the cob.
Do it.
Stop talking about it.
Stop thinking about it.
Stop telling people what you're going to do.
And just freaking do it.
Get up and do it.
Take one step.
Don't look at thousands cars ahead.
Look one.
Take one step.
That's all you need to do.
If I have one legacy, if I create more bold people
in this world, I would be happy because we've
got too many timid hairs out there.
We need more bold lions.
Dart your business, write that book.
Do it.
Just do it, please.
I've tried to eliminate as much time
between, I think I should do this thing in the beginning
doing it.
And I think you get this positive reinforcement cycle.
I call it pulling the thread.
It's like, I just need to start pulling the thread.
And then all of a sudden, what feels really unknown
becomes very tangible.
And you're like, oh, I understand the six problems
that I have to solve to do this big thing.
But now I know the problems.
And then it feels like you can wrap your arms around it.
And then you can start taking it one bite at a time.
Let's say that I want to start a business.
In your mind, you're like, well, I don't really
have the finances.
Or I don't know if I'm ready.
Let me pick it back up at the top of the year.
I'm going to think about it next year.
January, see where I'm at, we'll reevaluate.
The only thing that changed in that year's time
is how you felt about it.
You still have no idea the outcome of that decision
once it's made.
You make a decision.
You still have to wait to find out the outcome of that decision.
There's no way to predict that.
And the only thing that you're delaying
is your progress, your growth, by putting off the decision.
Do it without commentary.
Do it without drama.
Simply show up and do the thing.
Focus on the practice, not hoping and wishing
for the outcome that you need to be reassured by.
But the practice, the best you can do it.
Because if you-- what could be better than the best
you could do it, nothing.
So do that, learn from what works, and then do it again.
The concept of living life is just so simple.
You could take the words, live your life,
and expand on that into a million-page essay,
and just do it, but just getting out there
and living and experiencing life,
and doing the things that are difficult and challenging
and causing you to grow.
And the person that I envy the most
and I enjoy being around the most
is just that old wise man who has all these crazy stories,
who's lived his all this life.
And it's just happy to sit on the part bench
and talk to random people about what he's done.
If that's the person I respect, how do I become that person?
It's not from doing nothing.
from doing something.
What is it today that you've been wanting but to be honest with you, you haven't yet gotten?
I will almost guarantee you the reason that your want and desire is far from being fulfilled
by achieving it is because you haven't taken action necessary.
So today, don't think about it, don't talk about it, don't wish for it.
Go for it, dive, move, start, act.
What's one thing I'm doing wrong, that I know I'm doing wrong, that I could fix, that
I would fix, it's like you meditate on that, you'll get an answer, and it won't be one
you want, but it'll be the necessary one.
A lot of people sit back and they dream about being a sports figure or dream about being
a seal or a dream about being an astronaut and all it is is a motherfucking dream.
They don't put the work behind the dream, that dream has become their fucking master.
When you become the master of your fucking dream is when you say I want to go be a Navy
seal and you say okay, I'm going to lose 106 pounds in less than three fucking months.
The dream was the one thing I thought about and the dream was not gone.
Now when it comes in, the dream goes away and the fucking laundry list, the fucking details
and tasks come up, God do this, God do this, God do this, God do this, that's when you
become the master of your dream, so a lot of people out there dreaming.
When all that fear that's in your head, all the what ifs and the scenarios that you create
inside your own mind that are way worse than anything that is actually going to happen,
they all disappear when you go, so just take action and start moving forward.
That is the moment that can last a million years is waiting to go, I'm pretty good at
it now, where oh yeah, I know what that is and I'm going and that's it.
Make that decision because one thing's for sure with my life, you're one decision away.
From changing, literally you are one decision away from changing, it's a decision away.
From one decision away from changing your life, like what would I do if I weren't afraid
and what would I do if I knew I couldn't fail and the idea that I will never wish for
fewer epic stories at the end of my life and I've never regretted failures, I've always
regretted things that I didn't try.
Most skills can be learned decently with about 20 hours of focused effort, 20 hours, like
the first 20 hours of you actually doing something you learn the most you're going to learn
about the thing.
If you just consider by percentage of learning from like you know nothing, to 20 hours
and you already have a really good understanding of the thing, the problem is that most people
will take years to start the first hour.
And so that habit that you're referencing is that my speed, at least now I've done better
at this stuff, is that like I tried to track the time from when I want to learn something
or when I want to start doing something to starting it as soon as I can because I just want
to start getting through those 20 hours as fast as I can.
Yes.
And so that's just been a very tangible because it seems like this amorphous thing but
there was a study that was done.
There was like in the first 20 hours you can learn almost any scale playing guitar, running
and add, like you will learn more in that first 20 hours than any other time.
So it's like then just get to that 20 hours of all the life.
Yes.
And that's been one of the one of the most one of the deepest lessons I've had because
it took me four years to learn how to build a website and it took me one day to actually
learn four years to delay and procrastinate and say, I'm not a tech guy, I'm not a tech
person.
This isn't my kind of thing.
I'm a gym guy.
I'm a local business owner.
I should pay somebody to do this.
I'm above this kind of thing.
Like all these stories, right?
And then one day I sat down on a Sunday morning and I was like, I'm going to learn this.
I didn't go go to it and you took it yet, you just learned it.
Step by step by step.
And you know what?
I set the whole day aside.
It took me four hours.
The nightmare is to reach our 60s, our 70s, our 80s or even our deathbed and to talk
about everything we should have done.
I should have done that.
I should have invested in this.
I should have made the relationship work.
I shouldn't have got a divorce.
We sit around and talk about all of our shoots.
We talk about all the things we wanted to do but never got it done.
That's the nightmare.
That's the nightmare that we all must avoid.
There are things that you have been called to do that you have never done.
And there are things that you have been called to do that no one on earth has ever done.
And so if there's anything that I can give you, if there's any piece of advice, if there's
any information I can pass on to you, it will be the question, what do you want?
Let this sink in because I don't think you're asking yourself this question enough.
And I want to ask you, what do you want?
What do you believe you were destined to do?
And then you got to spend every single solitary day for the rest of your life going after
that dream.
You just have to start.
If you don't start, you'll never learn.
Start then learn.
Don't learn then start.
Just get started and watch how the journey unfolds.
And I get asked all the time, man, what should I do?
Make do anything.
Just start.
If you are not planning your future, somebody else is going to be planning your future
for you.
So if you don't know what your purpose is, sometimes you can just start doing things that
will make you a better person and those things will give you purpose.
Life is what happens while we're making other plans.
It's a brilliant observation.
Oh, once I've got this done, once I get my degree, then life will begin.
Once I've just got to pass these exams and get to that thing and buy that house, and
then I've just got to pay this off, and then we can start.
Stop waiting for life to be easy.
Stop hoping for somebody to save you, face some hard facts, and you could have an incredible
life.
You can just do it anyway.
You can do it tired, you can do it with no self-belief, you can do what you don't want
to.
You can do it when you think it's not going to work.
You can just do things.
Do it sad, do it lonely, do it without a role model.
Because if you're waiting for somebody to come along and give you that helping hand,
sometimes you're going to be waiting too long.
Every morning I woke up, I had a real conversation with that dirty mirror.
In every day, the same answer came back to me.
Do you want to be on your deathbed?
No one that you could, but you didn't.
A lot of people wait for perfect conditions to start, but don't realize that starting
is the perfect condition.
Waiting to begin never got anyone anywhere.
Even if it's not your fault, it's still your responsibility.
Nobody.
You are it.
The life you want, you are it.
You can say something's not my fault and still say I'm going to own it, and I'm going
to work on dealing with this because it's mine to deal with.
It was like a truest realization that no one is coming.
So to become enough what your habits are, it's, hey, if you really are wanting to take
on this journey and become someone that is taking charge and learning about things,
it comes down to your mind's say.
It's about what you're consuming.
It's about what you're doing with your mind.
If you want to make a change, it starts with, what direction is my mind going?
Am I getting distracted all the time by social media and stuff like that?
Am I wanting to do things at a high level?
Am I taking the steps to actually learn about that?
Identity and values drive behavior.
So if you want to make a change, you have to change your vision of who you are.
You have to begin telling yourself a different narrative.
And the narrative you tell yourself about yourself is everything.
And if you tell yourself that you're a scared, undereducated kid from Tacoma whose family
has never accomplished anything, let me tell you what you will become.
A scared, undereducated kid from Tacoma who never accomplishes anything because that's
what you believe.
You tell yourself that story enough, and it will become real.
But on the flip side, you could tell yourself a story of, you're a learner.
You learn faster than most people.
You're willing to put in more work than most people.
You're willing to read more books than most people.
You're willing to spend an inhuman amount of time every day improving your mind simply
by getting new ideas into the system.
And once I switched my narrative to being the learner, it didn't matter where I started,
it only mattered where I was trying to go.
And as long as I had that clarity, then I could execute.
Because I believed I could do anything I set my mind to without limitation.
Everything, everybody knows, they learned.
And they are not more intelligent than you, so you can learn it too.
So the more I realized this is my journey, it was you.
So you put a figure out who the fuck you are on this journey, but you first had to figure
out you because a lot of people die with a lot of untap potential because you're trying
to be somebody that they're not.
So I was able to figure out my own potential by figuring out me.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Personal responsibility is absolute—no one saves you; success, failure, and self-worth are entirely your own choices and actions.
True growth comes from disciplined daily routines, not dreams or external validation, and consistency in small, focused actions creates long-term transformation.
You must act despite fear, doubt, and uncertainty; the moment you take action, you shift from passive dreaming to active ownership of your life and destiny.
Summary:
The core message is that personal transformation is entirely within your control. No one will save you, and no external force—luck, fate, or other people—can override your responsibility to act. Every failure or success, every decision or setback, is yours alone.
The speaker emphasizes self-reliance, discipline, and the power of daily routines as the foundation of growth. They argue that meaningful progress begins not with grand visions, but with small, immediate actions—especially in the first 20 hours of learning a new skill, where the most significant gains occur. Dreams without action remain mere fantasies; only through relentless effort, unshakable focus, and daily commitment can one achieve real change.
Identity shapes behavior: if you believe you're a capable, determined learner, you will act like one. Conversely, self-limiting beliefs create self-fulfilling realities. The speaker urges immediate action, rejecting delays, procrastination, and the illusion of needing perfect conditions.
True freedom comes not from waiting for the right moment, but from starting now—despite fear or doubt. Life is not a waiting game; it is a journey of daily effort, discipline, and self-honesty. ” and then, relentlessly, going after it.
If you don’t act, you’ll never learn, grow, or fulfill your potential. You are not just responsible for your life—you are the author of it.
FAQs
Yes, the transcription emphasizes that success, failure, and personal growth are all on you. No one else is responsible for your outcomes, and you must take ownership of your actions and decisions.
Routine is presented as a core source of strength and discipline. The speaker claims that consistent daily habits—like waking up early and sticking to a schedule—build resilience and lead to long-term success.
Yes, the speaker states that you are only one decision away from changing your life. Taking action, even small steps, can shift your trajectory and break the cycle of inaction or self-blame.
Because no one else is coming to save you. The speaker stresses that self-reliance is essential—whether facing failure, making decisions, or pursuing goals, the responsibility lies with you alone.
Your internal story about yourself shapes your reality. Believing you're capable and a learner leads to action, while believing you're limited leads to inaction and self-sabotage.
Yes, the speaker notes that the first 20 hours of focused effort yield the most learning. After that, progress slows, making early action critical to skill acquisition.
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