“This is what hard feels like...” 🔥🔥🔥🔥 a lesson that impacted my life early on. Ep 48

In a candid monologue, the host reflects on his transformative experience pledging a fraternity in college, drawing parallels between the grueling process and the challenges faced by entrepreneurs. He shares insights on how enduring hardship fosters stronger bonds and a greater appreciation for achievements, emphasizing the psychological aspect of valuing what we work hard for. Drawing from his own journey, including becoming fraternity president, he encourages embracing the difficulties of business ownership and personal growth, highlighting the common error of underestimating the effort required for success. The host argues that true effort and persistence are often lacking in business and personal endeavors, using anecdotes from his life to illustrate the importance of genuinely striving for excellence and innovation. He concludes by urging listeners to reflect on their own commitment to their goals and the need to actively pursue improvement.

• The speaker shares a personal story from their college days.
• They joined a fraternity at 19, which was a significant period of change for them.
• Despite negative stereotypes, the speaker had a transformative experience during the pledging process.

"I want to tell you a story that I woke up with on my mind, and so I figured I would share it with you. It was actually from back in the days of college, and when I was 1919 years old, I was a fresh to him, and one of the most impactful experiences in my life that I don't talk about a lot, but was one of probably the periods of time where I underwent the most change as a person was when I was 19 and I decided to join a fraternity."

The quote sets the stage for the story, indicating the speaker's intention to share a significant personal experience from college that involved joining a fraternity and undergoing substantial personal change.

• The pledging process is designed to educate and indoctrinate new members.
• Psychological principles suggest that the difficulty of joining a group increases its perceived value.
• Shared misery during the initiation process leads to bonding and a greater appreciation for membership.

"The idea is, the harder the processes that you have to go through to get into a group, and this is psychological, the more you value the membership, right. Which is just totally true, just from a psychological basis."

This quote explains the psychological reasoning behind challenging initiation processes, highlighting the correlation between the difficulty of joining and the value placed on membership.

• Hazing was part of the speaker's pledging experience at a southern school.
• The speaker acknowledges the controversial nature of hazing but notes its prevalence and psychological underpinnings.

"I went to the school in the south, and hazing was definitely a part of my pledging process."

The quote confirms that hazing was a component of the speaker's experience while pledging for the fraternity, suggesting it is a common practice, especially in the southern region.

• Pledging often starts with enthusiasm but quickly becomes challenging.
• A typical reaction is a pledge class revolt within two weeks.
• The revolt is against the harsh new reality and a shift in belief systems.

"Within two weeks, and it almost happened every single time, within two weeks, there's usually a pledge cost revolt."

This quote describes a pattern observed by the speaker where new pledges collectively rebel against the initiation process, indicating a common response to the sudden and intense change in their circumstances.

• The pledging experience involves sleep deprivation, hazing, and isolation.
• Pledges are restricted from socializing outside the fraternity and subjected to mandatory activities.
• The shared hardships among pledges foster closer bonds.

"You're barely sleeping. You're getting hazed all the time. You're getting yelled at for nothing. You can't talk to girls. We couldn't talk to anyone who wasn't in the fraternity."

The quote lists the various hardships pledges faced, which contribute to the intense and often negative experience of pledging, yet also serve to strengthen the bonds between them.

• The speaker eventually became the fraternity president.
• They had to address future pledge classes and convey the same messages they once received.

"And then later, I ended up being. Becoming president in the fraternity and having to give this kind of speech that I received when I was a freshman."

The quote reveals the speaker's progression from a new pledge to a leadership position within the fraternity, implying a full-circle moment where they delivered speeches to new members similar to those they heard as a freshman.## Introduction to Nick Barney

• Nick Barney visited the freshman campus and engaged with the students in the dorm room.
• He was described as super friendly and cool but also deceptive for luring the students into a challenging situation.

"His name was Nick. Barney. And Nick was a super friendly, super cool going guy. And we were like, you're the devil. You spooled us. You tricked us into coming here."

This quote introduces Nick Barney as a charismatic individual who the speaker and others initially trusted but later felt deceived by after facing a difficult situation.

• Nick Barney addressed the students' preconceptions about the difficulty of pledging.
• He emphasized the reality of their hard experiences, asking rhetorical questions to make them acknowledge the difficulty they were facing.

"And he's like, what you're experiencing right now, he's like, this is what hard feels like."

Nick Barney is making the students confront the truth about the difficulty of their experience, emphasizing that their current feelings are what genuine hardship feels like.

• The speaker had a moment of realization when Nick Barney explained the concept of hardship.
• This led to a significant change in the speaker's perspective on facing difficulties.

"And I remember this. It was like this, like, for me, I was like, mind blown."

The speaker expresses a profound moment of realization and learning, indicating that Nick Barney's words had a deep impact on their understanding of facing challenges.

• The speaker draws parallels between the hardship of pledging and the challenges faced by business owners.
• They discuss the contrast between the glamorous image of entrepreneurship and the reality of its challenges.

"And the reason I think it's so significant is that a lot of times we as business owners look at the parties and the girls, figuratively speaking, not actually."

The speaker is highlighting the misconception that entrepreneurship is solely about the perceived glamorous lifestyle, which contrasts with the actual hard work and challenges involved.

• The speaker suggests that recognizing and accepting difficulty is crucial for personal and professional growth.
• They emphasize that feeling inadequate is a natural part of the process of achieving greater goals.

"And that shouldn't be like a bast your ego. It should just be reality. Right. I'm inadequate right now for what I want to do. Right. And so you have to force yourself to learn."

This quote underscores the importance of acknowledging one's current limitations, not as a blow to self-esteem, but as a factual basis for learning and improvement.

• The speaker doesn't run ads or sell products, relying on word-of-mouth to spread the podcast's message.
• They ask listeners to help more entrepreneurs by rating, reviewing, and sharing the podcast.

"And the only ask that I can ever have of you guys is that you help me spread the word so we can help more entrepreneurs make more money, feed their families, make better products, and have better experiences for their employees and customers."

The speaker is requesting listeners to support the podcast by sharing it, with the aim of assisting other entrepreneurs in succeeding and improving their businesses and the lives of those they impact.## Importance of Customer Reviews

• Customer reviews are highly valued by the speaker and are perceived as potentially world-changing for others.
• Reviews are requested as a simple task that holds significant meaning for the speaker.

So the single thing that I ask you to do is you can just leave a review. It'll take you 10 seconds or one type of the thumb. It means the absolute world to me.

The quote emphasizes the speaker's appreciation for customer reviews and the minimal effort required to leave one.

• The speaker discusses the importance of not viewing employees merely as workers but as integral parts of a business.
• There is a rejection of the idea that employees should be left to manage parts of the business without oversight.

You have to learn to be a leader. You have to learn to love employees. I'm like, no, man, they just work for me. No, but you can't think that way.

This quote highlights the need for a shift in mindset from seeing employees as mere workers to recognizing them as valuable team members.

• The speaker conveys the unrealistic expectation that entrepreneurs can fully delegate core competencies and disengage.
• Marketing agencies often sell the dream of complete delegation, but the speaker believes it is a fallacy.

I think Tarpon said the entrepreneur's wet dream was if you think that you're going to be able to truly give a part of your business to someone, that's a core competency and then just never look at it again.

This quote reflects the speaker's view on the misconception that entrepreneurs can entirely hand off aspects of their business without continuing involvement.

• The speaker expresses a belief that many people do not try hard enough in business.
• The idea that showing up is only half the battle is challenged by the speaker, who observes that many fail to take action even when they show up.

So I have this fundamental belief that people don't try hard. And a lot of people will show up because people are like, half the battle showing up, but a lot of people feel like for showing up because they've learned that they're like, half the battle showing up, boom. And then they show up, and then they don't do shit.

The quote conveys the speaker's opinion that merely showing up is insufficient without putting in the necessary effort to succeed in business.

• The speaker narrates a personal experience with local dry cleaners to illustrate the impact of poor customer service on business success.
• Business hours, service offerings, and quality of work are highlighted as factors influencing customer retention and satisfaction.

And so I went to go get some dry cleaning, like some shirts pressed, and first place I went to was like, oh, yeah, our website's wrong. We're not open right now.

This quote demonstrates how inaccuracies and unavailability can lead to negative customer experiences and lost business opportunities.

• The speaker critiques the approach to marketing and lead generation, suggesting that insufficient effort is often made.
• There is an implication that businesses struggling with lead generation may not be investing enough time into creating diverse and effective advertisements.

People are like, man, I'm really struggling generating leads. I'm like, how many ads have you made, right? Might be like, well, I mean, six. And I'm like, okay, cool. How many of them are unique? Three.

The quote questions the dedication of businesses to their marketing efforts, implying that a lack of diverse and numerous advertisements may contribute to their struggles.## Personal Transformation Through Intense Training

• The speaker underwent a significant physical transformation by gaining 35 pounds of muscle in six weeks.
• They worked out for approximately 3 hours a day, performing the same exercises each session.
• The routine included daily leg presses, bench presses, squats, arm exercises, and shoulder workouts.
• The underlying philosophy was to push the muscles to their limits daily, leading to growth or failure.

I put, like 35 pounds on in six weeks. And I was like, I'm going to try and gain as much muscle as I humanly can in a shorter period of time as possible.

This quote explains the speaker's ambitious goal to gain a significant amount of muscle mass in a brief time frame, which they achieved through an intense and repetitive workout regimen.

• The speaker draws a comparison between the effort in the gym and the effort in business.
• Many people aim to improve in both areas but don't take the necessary actions to see real progress.
• The speaker emphasizes the importance of confronting inadequacies and persisting despite them in order to improve.

So many of us train at the gym because we're trying to gain more muscle, but we don't actually try to gain more muscle. Like, a lot of us are trying to get better at business, but we're not actually trying to do things to get better at business, right?

This quote highlights the discrepancy between people's intentions and their actions, suggesting that while many have goals, they often fail to engage in the behaviors required to achieve them.

• The speaker offers straightforward advice to gym owners about the value of quality service over marketing.
• A high-quality service naturally attracts customers through word-of-mouth, reducing the need for paid marketing.
• This principle is also applied to restaurants, where the success largely depends on the quality of the food.

In theory, you should not need to pay for marketing because your service should be so good that people tell their friends about it and they bring them real talk.

The quote advises that exceptional service quality can be more effective than marketing in attracting customers, suggesting that businesses should focus on delivering value to create organic growth.

• The speaker believes that innovation arises from a willingness to confront problems and put forth effort to solve them.
• They share their strategy for creating successful advertisements for gyms, which involves extensive testing in challenging markets to identify the most effective ads.
• The process exemplifies a hands-on, trial-and-error approach to finding solutions.

We innovate stuff by literally just looking at a problem being like, let's try.

This quote encapsulates the speaker's philosophy that innovation is often the result of simply attempting to address a problem with effort and determination.

• The speaker expresses gratitude for the audience's attention, recognizing it as a valuable asset.
• They aim to reciprocate the audience's attention by providing meaningful value through their message.
• The hope is that the message will resonate with at least one person who needs it.

I appreciate you guys. Thank you for giving me your attention this morning. I know it's your most valuable asset, and I appreciate you honoring me with that. So I want to honor you back with value.

This quote shows the speaker's appreciation for the audience's time and attention and indicates their intent to offer value in exchange, highlighting the speaker's commitment to serving the audience.