3.27.23 AJO_AR_V1

Welcome everybody to the AJ Osborne show where we focus on our core tenets, impact, freedom, and progress. Join me and others as we grow through education and discussion. The drivers of success is something that everyone seems to obsess about. It makes sense. We all want to understand what are the drivers that lead people to success. Everybody wants to see what is your morning routine and then how does that make you successful. That’s some of the most viral content. When we look at overall the drivers of success, there tends to be very hard to actually find correlated drivers. Why? What does that mean? Well, we find success in all sorts of different areas of the economy, but also the meaning of success itself is perceived differently to different people. So to understand some of these things and that we’re going to get into, we first need to frame what being successful means. There are lots of areas that I personally believe that success is defined at. First and foremost, to me, success has to do with my family. I strongly believe that no measure of success outside the home will overcompensate for failure in the home. I have four children, so that in a sense I believe should be my first priority is being successful in being a father and a husband. Now outside that, we have success, I believe, is being a person, a human being. Now this is really three different categories. This may be things like health, spirituality. This also may be things like service or being a good member of the human race, being a good person, treating others respectfully, helping, doing something more for other people, that you’re not always self-focused. And then we have economically. This is a finance podcast. We are primarily going to talk about success economically, but I have to make sure it’s understood that some of the drivers behind success, economically speaking, aren’t always good. Okay, everybody? So some of the drivers have actually been found to maybe be bad things. And when you look at success in all areas, I believe they’re deeply correlated. And a successful economic outcome, that means you fail at being a good human being, or you fail in the home. I automatically will disqualify success economically. I don’t think that’s a successful life. So let me get that out of the way immediately. Now I believe though, that most people that I know that are successful economically, are successful in the other areas. They are good human beings, and they have good families. That tends to be a general true statement when I look at my relationships with people that I know personally are very, very successful. Obviously, there are outliers, and we read about things on the newspaper and everything. But in general, the people that I know tend to be successful in all three things. And I think that is due to the fact that they are high achievers. I’ve been reading a book called The Triple Package. I just finished it, and a great book. But it has to do with cultural successes. What essentially two professors at Yale were analyzing or looking at was what drives some cultures to be successful more than others. And they outlined in the United States, that being the foundation, the structure of the economy and politics are the same, within the United States, there are certain groups of people that are much higher economically successful and successful in other areas than other groups. And these cultures were a handful of them to mention here, we had immigrants. Immigrants are one of the most successful cultures, particularly like second generation immigrants, very, very successful. They had Asian Americans, they had Jewish people, they had LDS people or Mormons, I am LDS. They had a couple other types of cultures, but you get what we’re saying. And they looked at the degree overall. Now in the book, and what they’re saying is very important. It does not mean that everybody that is a part of those groups or cultures are successful, what it’s saying is that the medium, right? So on average, you have more people within those groups that hit high achievements politically, economically, and are high achievers. This was a very interesting topic that I think lots of times, especially in today’s society, you can’t touch because they say we are so obsessed with individualism. And that there’s, you know, we say that you can’t look at people in group settings. You can’t look at those types of things. That’s totally ridiculous. We want to know what makes certain groups of people successful or not successful, because we want to implement those things in our life. And when you looked at all these, these cultural groups, which I believe the number that they outlined was eight of them. But when you looked at all of them, there was three main factors that they all had that were driving people within these cultures to be successful. And they’re not what you think. The main three things were group superiority. And what they did is they took those three things. They also attributed those three things back to when the United States had its boom time. And they found that in general, people in the United States had those same things after the war. So group superiority was one of them. Now that just means in general, that those people believe that they are great people, right? They believe that they are hard working, they believe that we have a culture and as a group, we need to be better. Okay, very common thread amongst cultural success. The next thing was at odds with the first thing. That was deep, deep insecurities. This was very interesting, because individually, almost those two things are bad, because with everything that is good, it also produces bad. Group superiority can lead to horrible, horrible things, right? Group superiority can lead to racism, it can lead to people like the Nazis in Germany, that believe that they were superior or better, right? You’re not talking about group superiority on that level. And when we think about group superiority, it is more of we have the ability to, we can be better, not necessarily that we are better, right than that individual, that they are worse of a person than we are. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Now when you look at the deep insecurities with those cultures, it is a deep insecurity on their position within society. Very interesting that they felt a need to prove themselves, that there were society has stigmas around them or something that was placed. And then the third, and what I believe is the most powerful one of all three is impulse control. All of those groups were raised in homes that impulse control was one of the most defining factor of how they were raised. They believe that you study hard, right? You work hard, play later. You don’t need this today, right? You don’t need to buy this, you need to do more. That impulse control is a prized thing. In a world of individualism, and I should do what I want and express myself on my own and anything goes, these cultures fly in the face of that. They do not believe in those things. They believe that you mean something better, you should be something better, and that you need to control yourself and set yourself apart and that you are part of a whole. And you need to and can incrementally improve yourself and you need to control yourself in order to get there. And then it’s important that you do that because you need to show other people and you need to show the world that we are more or can be more. This drives mass amounts of those individuals to achieve at a much greater rate than the rest of society. Fascinating book, you guys should all check it out. Now once again, we’re not saying necessarily that every one of those things is always a good thing. That’s not what we’re talking about here. But in general, I think that those principles are good. I hold to all of those principles. I deeply feel a need to be better, to be more. I deeply feel a hunger in that I am maybe not achieving my full potential, but I also have a very firm belief that I can be more, that I can do more. And I do not believe that individually everyone is the same in the world. I believe that we all come into the world the same, but I believe that individual choices will dictate the outcome of one’s life and that we’re in charge of that. These are beliefs that create responsibility. They create accountability and they are driven into people. Leadership investing are deeply rooted with things that evolve around this. Putting off today, investing for tomorrow, controlling your emotions, controlling yourself and utilizing yourself and your actions and your time to do more. These drivers of success, it’s important to know and understand, are deep rooted and they express outwards over long periods of time, but they are not inherently not adaptable. So what they show, because it’s cultural, meaning that it’s in a group of people, that people within that group, all sorts of different people can achieve that. And meaning that everyone can, which is another thing that I hold very near and dear. I do not believe that I’m better than anyone. In fact, most of the time I believe that I’m actually lower. I need to do more to try to be more. That comes a lot from growing up in a school system where I was dyslexic and ADHD and my parents told me, you know, you’re good, you can do more, but you do have to work harder. And I was told by everybody, you’re just going to have to work harder and you’re going to have to do more. And that was a prized thing for someone that grew up in Idaho to a family that were a father who grew up in extreme poverty and a mother that was a farmer. Work harder, right? Do more. And those are all things that anybody can adapt, meaning that you can work on, improve and grow impulse control. You may feel like I don’t have it, but what the studies show and what we understand is it is a learned trait. That’s what I liked about the book. That’s what I like about this understanding of what is success in general. These are learned traits. You can actually learn them. You may not be as given. Some people may be more susceptible to things like pain and things or endurance and tolerance for painful things, meaning I’m going to put off things, I’m going to work hard today, even if I don’t want to. At the end of the day, these are all things that we can bring into our lives. The belief that I can be more and I need to be more. I think that that is a standard. But we do see in today’s society that these are things that are absolutely fought against, meaning that society tells you you are perfect how you are. You don’t need to change. Just be yourself and everyone else needs to adapt around that. I think that’s ludicrous. I think that is ridiculous. I think that is stupid. The reason being is because you don’t live isolated. We live within a society and the world. We do need to be better. I believe in progress and I believe that we don’t just accept who we are at any time because if that was the case, we would never walk. We would never talk. We everybody would stop learning. We wouldn’t change our belief systems when we found better alternatives. I believe deeply in progress and the process of it. Now when we look at individual things like morning routines that people say drive success, lots of times those things are easier things. They’re quick things. They’re not necessarily tied to outcome, but it has been shown that that’s not true, meaning that successful people all don’t have the same morning routines at all. I mean, Jeff Bezos was famous that he only showed up to work at nine. He didn’t get up early and he didn’t go for a run. He didn’t do it. No, he spent time with his kids at home, went into work at nine. Like you just a normal average morning routine, but what he was focused on, what he was trying to become and what he was doing right was different. And I think we get really hard on ourselves a lot of times over things that aren’t important because we believe that those things are the factor or attributor to success. Most importantly, what I’ve really learned and studied is that success is an ongoing thing that you have to be very, very patient with. This is hard. I’m not a patient person at all. But success is a manifestation in the long run of day to day actions. And those actions are applied both mental, physical energy, meaning effort and time towards that goal or that outcome. Even when that outcome is not present, it is the number one most highest indicator of success. We’ve all heard of the marshmallow test, right? Where you put a marshmallow in front of a bunch of kids and you say, if you don’t eat this, I’ll give you another one. And you come back at 20 minutes, the kids that ate it don’t get another one. The kids that didn’t eat it get another one, right? That is one of the most defining factors of success. Can you wait and put off today for tomorrow? That is very, very hard, especially in today’s society. Everything is so immediate. We have changed our thinking of outcomes and gratification. This even makes it hard for me and my business and my company in dealing and working with others. I’m very long term thinking. And I do not believe that short term results trump long term results. Our investing strategy, right, and our short term strategy is a four to six year outcome time frame in the short term. OK, now we look at every we look at most people that want deliverables to be done at the most in a year. Right. Financial deliverables. They’re mad that they’re not a millionaire in a year. Right. It’s frankly ridiculous. And as an entrepreneur and as an investor, that’s ludicrous to really believe that that should happen in that way, because it goes against everything associated with building businesses, scalable systems, analyzing, failing, fixing things and reinvesting to get an ultimate outcome. Most of the time, short term successes and recognizing short term successes are just milestones in a progress that they actually may not be economically. You may have to work for a long time at something because growth requires more fuel. It requires more capital and more time and energy. So you always got to be reinvesting and putting off today for tomorrow. This is something that I’ve always done. I’ve never not done this ever in my life. I have always put off and to a large, large extent today’s happiness for tomorrow. I have an idea. The future AJ is amazing. Right. And I never want to take anything away from him. And future AJ is always better. So it’s like I’m just going to work today to benefit future AJ. Obviously that can be taken at extremes. And it’s something that I had to bear back. And I had to really figure out that that may be good in investing, but that’s not really good when you’re talking about children, life experiences, right? Building relationships. No, the now is most important in those aspects. So these are things that some people lend more to the now. Some people lend more to the future. And really compartmentalizing those things is difficult for people to do. I need to live in the now in the moment with my relationships, the people that I know and I love, and my overall experiences. Sit back, watch the sunset, right? And enjoy it for what it is. And be present. So important to be successful in the areas that are not economical. Right. I do not believe, though, that you should forfeit your future short term for economic gratification. OK. So it’s a balancing act. There’s no one proven way, but there are things that lead to successful outcomes. And you need to be OK with waiting. You need to be OK with working. And expectations have to change. You can’t give up. You have to continue working, even when it may seem like this is just never going to happen. And you need to know when to fail or when you need to know when failure means you end. But those are two different things. OK. Looking at failing, failing forward is different from looking objectively at something you’re doing and saying, this won’t work. You need to be able to look objectively if something’s not working and you need to change or get rid of that thing. You need to be able to quit quickly. Most people, though, just quit. And I look at quitting as in you quit strategies, not goals. So I’m working on a strategy that I may be doing over and over and again, but the outcome of the strategy, maybe not the outcome or the goal, but I should be seeing measurable items of progress. And I need to measure those progress lines to understand that even if the outcome hasn’t been achieved, will this work? Is it eventually going to work? Is it picking up speed? Are we gaining traction? This can be very hard if you haven’t experienced those things. Every business fails. Every single one. The ones that succeed are just the ones that failed a lot and then changed and got lots of things right. So we tried lots of things within our business that don’t work out. We have to adjust. We have to move forward. We have to do it quickly. And in failing, we succeed. This is a art. It’s a skill. It’s something that you have to learn and experience, but you have to do it quickly and learn quickly. Once again, these drivers of success seem at odd with each other. Insecurity versus superiority. Failing in order to succeed, you have to fail. In order to succeed, you can’t quit. It’s at odds with each other. Don’t quit. Fail fast. Don’t quit it. Right. But that is what I think is the perplexing challenge of this journey. And it is one that is above all carried forth in faith, meaning that you have to have faith that you will be successful. You can’t undermine yourself to a point where you don’t longer believe because then you won’t have action or then you end up quitting. You have to be able to look at something and say, I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. I need to move forward. I need to learn through the process until we can find a definitive end or path to achieve that goal. How I got here today, where I’m at, where my business is at, where my family’s at, is surprising to me. It is nothing like I thought it would have been. The things that I thought were supposed to happen when I started didn’t end up happening. In fact, it went in a totally different direction. And we had to make hard, hard choices that were very difficult. We had to sell companies, businesses. I had to leave things that I knew and go into things that I didn’t. And we had to learn. Complacency is hands down the biggest killer to success. So when we’re thinking about the ultimate drivers of success, yes, analyze what you do in the morning. That can all be great, right? But you need to look way longer term and you need to develop these skills that are much more intrinsic and about how you go about the thing than the thing itself. That will allow the thing itself to change and you still be successful. But when you rely on success to be the thing and not how you go about it, you can’t be successful because that thing may not work. This is so true. I’ve seen this across the board. Successful people will be successful at most anything that they’re doing. Why? Because it’s how they go about it. It’s who they are and it’s who they become. Successful people when they start out are not the person who they end up. You are not Jeff Bezos. Neither was Jeff Bezos when he started. I am not future AJ, but I’m on my way, but I’m moving forward to make sure that future AJ is the person that I hope he will be. Long term thinking, work internally, develop those skills, don’t be content and self-control. Guys, it’s the basics and it’s the things that society today goes totally against and tells you to accept everything, accept everyone, accept who you are. You don’t need to change. Everything needs to adapt to you and live today for tomorrow we die. There’s a grain of truth, but overall this leads to very unhappy outcomes and people because they’re not where they think they should be, where they want to be, and they have to accept something that they shouldn’t. Talked about this a lot and it’s a complex subject for a lot of people because we want the cheat codes. We want the easy way. I do. I still do. I still want that cheat code, right? I’m not nearly to where I want to be. I’m not even close. I’m so, so far away, but I am so much further than I ever thought I would have been. And that’s, I think my essence of what I believe and how I look at life. When people say, what’s your number? When do you stop? I stop when I’m dead, I guess, because it’s the journey that I love. It’s the progress. It’s the fact that tomorrow can be better than today, even though today may be great or tonight it may be horrible. Tomorrow can be better. And I wake up to be better. If I have this end goal, it means I’m quitting. It means I’m working to quit. People that generally do that don’t get to their end goal, I find. And then people that get to their end goal, but what drives them is not that, tend to keep going on and being successful in every single part of their lives. All right. I hope that’s useful. I hope that that’s helpful. Check out the book. There’s a lot of books on success. This was very different than a lot of them were. I don’t agree with everything in the book, by the way. In fact, some things I know they just got flat wrong. But the essence of it, what they’re looking at and everything I do find to be true. So check it out and we’ll talk soon. Bye.