#1368 - Hard Work Beats Talent…

For episode number 1368 , happy Thursday . Hard Work Beats Talent . I'm sure you've heard this phrase on fortune cookies and internet memes far and wide throughout your lifetime , but I came across a YouTube channel recently And I don't know . I watch YouTube more than anything .

Yeah , tanner and I watch a show on Netflix together , but if I'm hanging out by myself , i'm watching YouTube . It's just kind of what I consume now . And I came across this individual . His name is Matt Armstrong , he lives in the UK London , something like that And one of his videos popped up where the title of the video was I found an abandoned Lamborghini .

I bought it and now I'm going to fix it up And I was like interesting , hmm , interesting . I've been feeling more into cars based on the fact that I got a new car and I just said you know what I'm eating something . I'm going to watch this And I just love the dude's personality .

He is maybe the most positive human I've ever seen in my entire life even more positive than you believe it or not . Now again , it's on YouTube . It's edited , so who knows if he really is that positive , but it was quite inspiring . So I watched a bunch of it . I watched an entire series of him rebuilding this car And I was like this guy's really good .

I mean , they've rebuilt the engine and a Lamborghini . For those of you don't know , lamborghini is like a $250,000 car And anytime you get work done on it is like thousands and thousands of dollars , and rebuilding an engine is a whole thing that most people do not know how to do . So I watched this entire thing and I just love this dude .

I'm in , he's my buddy now , virtually , and he doesn't know it yet . But we are buddies , we're going to be buddies one day And I end up finding the origin story of how he got into this . And he started out as somebody who just loved cars and he would work on cars on the side .

But he has no formal training , so if something broke he'd try to fix it , he'd YouTube it , he'd Google it , but he was a professional BMX rider and it was not providing him enough money to live really .

So he went and got a job at an Indian restaurant and he went from working one night a week to two nights a week to three nights a week , to four nights a week , to five nights a week to six nights in a week to seven nights . Every single day he was working . So he would work a day job .

Then he would go and work a night job at the Indian restaurant . He was also riding his bike and he started a YouTube channel where he would just like work on cars . And again , he had no idea what he was doing . No clue . He knew how to video edit because he had learned that , but he didn't know what he was doing , so he just kept grinding .

I think he did this every day for two years . He worked seven days a week every day for two years . Eventually he got enough money to buy property and he bought a house and he was able to renovate the house and flip it and make some money And he just kept going and kept going and kept going and kept going .

The thing that really , really jumped off the page for me is the fact that he is working on really nice cars . He has a really nice garage and he has a very large YouTube channel and he has no talent when it comes to working on cars . He didn't go to school for it . He's not a professional mechanic .

He literally says in the video I don't know what the hell I'm doing , so I'm going to figure it out . And there are many times where I have seen him put together something incorrectly , have to take everything out and replace everything and say , all right , i did it wrong this time , i'll get it right this time . And he's just a super positive human being .

Now more than ever , it's very interesting because of the internet and because of YouTube and social media and the opportunities that are out there . If you work really hard , you can rely on that way more than talent , even more than before , even more than . There's another YouTube channel I found and Alan's going to say , like Kev , what are you doing ?

Are you doing any work ? This guy his name is Steve . He has a channel where he literally camps in weird places , so he camped in . I don't know if there's other places that have roundabouts . You know we have roundabouts in Massachusetts . Yeah , a roundabout , instead of having like four stop signs , it's just a circle You drive your car in .

You can kind of go off on the exit you want . It's mayhem , but he camped in the middle of one . There was like a bunch of trees , so we just like camped there overnight and recorded a YouTube video .

It has like five million views or something , but he works incredibly hard to post every week and to find new places and go through the comments and build a community And it's just I don't know .

It just inspires me that there are a lot of people who are far less talented than you , who are far more successful just because they've been working really , really , really hard for a long period of time .

And I would put you and I well , i would put you and I into this , but I do think you are gifted with your brain and other things , but you and I have just worked really , really , really hard . I wasn't a talented speaker . I'm still not . I mean , i'm the best I've ever been and I'm getting better .

I wasn't a talented podcast or I wasn't a talented business owner , but you and I dedicated ourselves to working hard every single day for the last six years And here we are And it's very important that we never forget that .

So I want this episode to be as much an inspirational episode , a motivational episode , as a potential opportunity to look in the mirror and say , look , am I saying because of circumstances , i can't be successful ? This dude has a YouTube channel where he goes in camps in weird places and he has millions of subscribers , but it would never happen .

It's not because he's talented necessarily . It's not high quality video . He's not a great speaker . He's got a good personality . He seems like a good dude , but he's not super talented . But he did work really hard and hard work beats talent and epic monologue there . Nicely done .

In that episode , we talked about discipline and design . That really might as well be work hard and smart . Discipline is work hard , design is work smart , and you can't do one without the other . That's why it's a bad saying , and so what I would say is this The person who works hard will always beat the person who doesn't .

The person who works smart will always beat the person who works hard , but no one can stop the person who does both Work hard , learn , grow , work smarter , then work harder , then work smarter , then work harder , then work smarter , and the byproduct is going to be growth , whether it's that YouTube channel , whether it's fixing cars .

And one thing I want to share is Wilkev . That was very clear to me when you talked about his origin story And when you said , in particular , you gave me a little challenge , a little shield bump there , like he's more positive than you . He's extremely optimistic , i can tell .

Even though he was losing so much , he was willing to work really hard because he probably believed it would be worth it . He probably was very optimistic . He probably had a lot of self-belief . Seems that way . Seems like he has a lot of self-belief , and I think that's the last episode about being able to figure it out .

I mean , you know well , that's a bold statement Hey , i'm going to fix this Lamborghini . It's like not having ever worked on a car like that before .

They didn't mess it up , they did a lot of work , but they literally had to break the engine apart like five times And he's like , ah , damn Well , okay , we're going to do it again . And he's like laughing about it . It's just like the level of positivity he has .

But here's the interesting thing It's because he's not jaded by the fact that he's really good at something . And if it doesn't go right , he packs his bag and goes home . It's because he's a real . He identifies , I'm sure , as a really hard worker .

There's an interesting distinction there , something that doesn't necessarily mean you're a really hard worker and that can be to your detriment in the long run .

And if you listen to the beginning of this show , episode six , i think , is the first one , because for some reason the first five episodes- on SoundCloud .

Now , again , i'm sure there's a time and a place for it , but I try to do stuff the most intelligent way . Sometimes that's a lot of hard work , other times it's like yeah , you know , i'm just going to take the easy way out . Now I don't think I do that anymore because that changed a lot .

I mean , when you're a business owner , there is no the yeah , you know the smart way work more . That's usually the smart way is usually work more . So I don't know .

I drove 12 hours after , working an eight hour day like stuff that people and I went to the gym after stuff that most people would do .

We have a Six Flags in Massachusetts And we were literally working on a building where we could see Six Flags And my boss called after like seven hours . He said hey , i need you guys to go to New York tonight . And we were like we don't have any stuff , like we have to come all the way home and then drive to New York .

And he's like well , the job's yours if you guys want to do it . And we're like , yeah , we'll do it . So we worked an eight hour day . We drove to the job two hours . We worked an eight hour day , drove another two hours back to the job , back to our office .

I drove an hour home to pack a bag , then I drove an hour back to the office And then I drove six hours to New York , slept for like four hours and then worked the next day . But I wanted to win . It's so weird man .

If people are looking for people who say you know what , i'm not sure , but I'll give it a shot , or like , yeah , whatever , whatever it takes , i'm in , i'll do it . I've always known that that's what people were looking for . So , if I could , if I could represent hard work , i knew I'd get more opportunities . So I knew it would be worth it .

I believed it would be worth it . I think . I think for a lot of people , hard work isn't worth it because it doesn't give you more of what you want . We've said this many times before . You said this entrepreneurship is like a pie eating contest . except what is it ? I don't want to butcher it , i will show it to K Stenner .

And it's like a pie eating contest where the reward is more pie And I think that's true for entrepreneurship as well until way later , you know , way later it becomes you know about being resourceful and leadership more than you know grinding , but you need both , depending on how high you're shooting . Okay , let's bring this back . You wanted .

you always say that like I wanted to win . It's like I don't even know if I know what that means sometimes , because everyone wants to win .

He's helped my life a lot . His books , i mean , yeah , but he has really burnt himself to the ground in many ways . I mean the dude can barely talk , you know his voice is deeply raspy And I respect the work ethic man , i do , i really do .

But there's got to be an optimal stopping problem there , you know , and I don't think he particularly thought of himself as very talented , although I do think he was naturally a strong communicator . I don't think he thought of himself as particularly intelligent . And just for those who don't know Tony Robbins , he's 60 now And he is definitely beaten up .

I mean you can just see it , he's . There's a joke in the US about when you become a US president you age , you know , 15 years and four in one term because of the stress . And so T-Rob's has definitely revved his engine , for lack of better phrasing for a very long time overly . You know , redlining another car analogy to bring it back to the cars .

But to bring this back to hard work , i don't know when I started identifying as a hard worker , but I would ask the listeners do you identify as that ? I think that that's a drastically underutilized thing . I don't think I mean , i joke around . I'm kitchen man , like I'm dish man , I I'm always being playful with that . We were joking earlier .

You know , i like CEO man , like I , i like to self identify as the thing which helps me behave in ways that the thing . And you got to be careful because obviously that's limiting . But like , do you identify as a hard worker ?

If you don't , it's very important to start building that because you know , as a business owner , if you're not a hard worker , you are in some serious trouble , like with the economy . And I just want to be honest because I want to help people . I have I told that one story about the subway that I'll never go to anymore .

It's they just hired someone who's extremely lazy and I'm never going to go back , you know ? and and if that business owner knew how how many customers they're losing , because I can't spend 45 minutes waiting for you for a sub . I know that that sounds entitled , but my time is more important than that important , but I just Hard work over talent hands down .

I'm gonna use Brandon as an example . Brandon , i told Brandon , brandon's the director of book club . We're in book club and I said this to Brandon . I said Brandon , i coach him and his girlfriend Hannah , and they're amazing And it's like they're humble and Such a huge fan , huge fan . They have a dream to have a horse ranch one day .

And we are literally Helping them get to that goal , that dream , and they are literally saving the dollars now to eventually have , and they will have a Horse ranch , like a multi-million dollar horse ranch , assuming they stay on the path . So , assuming they stay on the path , mathematically speaking they will have a million dollar horse ranch . It's awesome .

Okay , that's their dream . Now It's not gonna happen in five minutes or five days , but it can happen in five years . Okay . Now I told Brandon . I said brother , because he came to me , he's like dude , i need help , like what do I do about this ? It's like brother , grit is not the issue . Hard work is not the issue with you .

With most people , i got to be quite frank . Hard work is probably the problem . Like , if you can't do like three solid hours of difficult work , you're in serious trouble , and I need to make that clear because I care . Okay , because I care Kevin can work so hard . That's why he's gotten here . It's not luck .

Okay with Brandon , hard work is not the issue and Hard work is not the issue and grit is not the issue , and I talk about how he's . I think I said 333 days in a row . I think it's actually less than that . I screwed up the number , but he's 250 plus days of a mile a day , every single day , and he hasn't missed once . He , he has hard work .

Hard work is not the problem for him . He always identified and he wouldn't mind me sharing this He always identified as a not very smart blue-collar worker . That's the issue . He needs to change that identity . You are smart . You need to .

You need to change the narrative , the story you've told yourself about yourself , about not being smart enough , and , honestly , here's how you get smarter Just go learn , start reading books , start start taking courses .

We're gonna get LinkedIn learning for the team , like there's no reason why he can't come up on that front and when he does , watch out World because he's already got the hard work . When someone is a hard worker and they are humble , you can . You can polish that diamond .

I would much rather have someone humble and hard-working than someone brilliant any day of the week . Brilliant people tend to have these huge egos that are just annoying .

A Lot , a lot of the tools that we create are created to help hard work be easier . There's a reason because hard work so valuable like think of any construct piece of construction equipment It makes hard work easier , because hard work is that valuable where it has to get done . And it's that's . That's how I think of it , that's all .

I and I was gonna use Brandon to see you beat me to it , but I really , i really think that this is an interesting thing . Somebody who identifies as a hard worker often does not identify as super intelligent . But imagine if you could take your hard work and say well , i'm a hard worker , i can work hard at this .

Just because it's not physical in the real world does not mean it's not hard work . There's a lot of internal hard work . Learning is hard work . Facing difficult mirrors is hard work . Relationships can be hard work . Overcoming limiting beliefs is hard work . All of that is hard work .

But the ultimate thought here is I just don't want you , if you're watching or listening , to use that as a circumstance of lack of success , whatever that means to you , or a circumstance to not try . Yeah , no , i'm just not super talented Cool , most people aren't . That's the interesting thing . Most people aren't .

Maybe Taylor Swift was super talented , cool , awesome . Maybe your favorite actor or actress is super talented , but there's a lot of other things in the world that you can be doing that aren't necessarily that . And here's the interesting thing too . I would say , statistically , most people aren't that talented .

So the people who are looking for people are usually looking for hard workers , because they're looking for somebody who can work hard , because they understand that talent is a very rare thing and it's easily replaceable . So , yeah , i would second what Alan said . Any time we're talking about having somebody come on the team , i don't care what . I don't know .

Did you go to school ? I don't know , i don't even care . That's the last question I'm going to ask . Are you humble and are you willing to work hard ? Cool , there's a spot here for you . If not , then this probably isn't the place , and that's okay . That's okay . Maybe you can start your own thing .

You feel like you're super talented and maybe starting your own thing is the play for you .

And it's an exhaustive study of all the geniuses in history not all of them , but a lot of them , steve Jobs being one of them And essentially he comes up with the 14 character traits of genius and obsessive passionate , these different things , self-belief , but anyways , what he talks about in the book that is relevant to this episode of Hard Work vs Talent is

basically very few humans or prodigies . There's the Mozart's and there's the occasional prodigy , and what he says is that , statistically speaking , these extremely talented prodigies end up letting most people down because they flake out early , or maybe they were forced to sing when they didn't want to , or forced to play piano or whatever it is .

And what actually genius is ? more so Darwin and all these different geniuses of history . What he's found from studying them is that it's actually the consistent compound effect of obsessive passion over time , aka Hard Work .

And so again , whether you're a genius or a prodigy or not , or talented or not , at the end of the day I'm certain of this you're more capable than you probably think I mean very few people are not capable of great things . I don't think anyone is in their own unique way . I tell the story and I want to share this because it's so important .

I remember I used to . I was really single , i was really alone , i was really miserable and I used to go to Panera because they had bottomless coffee and I would just work , hard Work . I would work for hours and hours and hours And I just hated my life .

But I was a broke entrepreneur and I was committed , committed to be successful , committing to helping people , committed to improve , committed to growth , committed and committed to caffeine as well . So I met Panera and it was just this

, really . There's two Paneras that I used to frequent . One was in Milbury , one was in Worcester , doesn't matter , i used to get kicked out at night , this one Panera in particular . It was like 10 o'clock and they're like you have to leave , we have to close up , can we go ? I was like every night . Really , what's the deal ? I don't have any friends .

So hey , but anyways , just being playful , panera is my friend . Panera is my friend , and bottomless coffee is also my friend because it's only $3.50 for basically 10 cups of coffee . Now so what was my point of all that ? Hold on Hard work , hard work .

It's a famous school . I know some geniuses , brilliant people that are lazy and that are squandering their potential , and I had that really cool , visceral moment of watching that person at Panera and say they are maximizing their potential more than some of my old friends . And it did . It bothered me . It's supposed to bother me .

I think my purpose is helping people unlock their potential unlocking my own , you know . I think it's my purpose , but that inspired me so much . Like this person is out here doing it Right . They probably make decent money too , you know . I know it's more than minimum wage , great worker .

So hopefully that can inspire some other people too , and I think that's important . Hard work over talent every day of the week . You know , do you need some talent ? Do you need some expertise ? Do you need some knowledge ? Do you need some skills ? Yes , 100% . But if you're hardworking , you can go develop most of those things , no matter where you start .

Even this person who had limited means made something of it , and to me that matters more than anything . You were handed on a silver platter by biology or by getting luckier , by your parents .

If I didn't watch his video about how this all started , i would assume he was a high level mechanic And I might have had the must be nice syndrome of like look at all your cars , look at the cars you get to work on . You got millions of views . You're like the happiest dude . You look like you're in a . You got a cute dog .

You look like you're in a great relationship . It's like no , no , no . He worked seven days a week , 13 hours a day to get to where he is .

He makes a lot of mistakes . I would bet that he probably doesn't .

I'm always inspired when I see people doing what they love , that weren't necessarily great at it , just like they just kept doing it long enough , where it eventually something happened and you know , maybe somebody saw the video , or a lot of people saw the video or something happened where things aligned for them based on the fact that they've been working hard

enough . That's I love that . I'm all about that . Same Luck , no , yeah , man , nope . You know you can't control luck . You can't control hard work . Okay , we are going to go .

If you are into hard work and part of the hard work that you practice is hard work on yourself You want to become more physically , mentally , emotionally , spiritually successful relationships , finances , all of that happy jazz . Our 11th round of group coaching is starting on July 11th , so it's the middle of the summer .

A lot of people are not focused on improving . Imagine if you dedicate some time to yourself and after summer you are the what feels like best version of yourself , most consistent , most aligned , all of that happy jazz . We're only taking 10 people . Please click the link in the show notes If you're interested .

We also have a discount code , so just reach out to us . Alan at nextleveluniversecom , kevin at nextleveluniversecom , we'll give you a 30% off the entire purchase .

If you get 1% smarter per day , the math works out to being 38 times smarter by the end of the year . Okay , So it does . It compounds . Could you get 1% smarter per day ? Of course . So book club that is what it's built around . We don't read fiction books , We don't read books for fun .

We read books that will help you get better , And when you get better , your life will get better . So , Lisa Feldman Barrett , how emotions are made . We are about halfway done with this book . Join us anytime . The discussions are super powerful .

I had one person on book club literally say I do self improvement all the time And I want to thank you , Alan , because this it's not often anymore . At the beginning of my journey it was breakthrough , breakthrough , breakthrough , breakthrough .

These days it's not as many breakthroughs , but since coaching with you and book club , it's been breakthrough like really blown my mind . So take her word for it , Not mine . Join us in book club . You can participate as much as you want or as little as you want . Please join us .

The link to the landing page will be in the show notes Tomorrow for episode number 1369, .

So when you are listening to this episode and you see a new episode drop tomorrow , there will be a title I just don't know what it is And then after that , there's going to be another episode that drops I also don't know what that is , but I will And then it will have a name And then when you go to see it , there'll be a name .

We'll all said Thank you so much . I appreciate that . As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you And at NLU , we do not have fans , we have family . We will talk to you all tomorrow .