Keep Your Main Thing Your Main Thing

Count money, man, money, man.

I'm trying to talk, trying to talk to my mom, a beast, but...

What's up gang?

Welcome back to another episode of The Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day and keep your main thing, the main thing.

Keep your main thing, the main thing.

I got an old Chinese proverb quote for you all that I love and those close to me have heard

me recite a million times.

Even still, I've had to remind my own self of this a million times.

So even if you think that you got it, you got to really hear this one clearly.

Because I try to pride myself on being coachable and seeking out wisdom.

And I've sought out wisdom from others.

And this was given to me and I still didn't 100% execute to the T.

And so I wanted to give you the man or woman who chases two rabbits at the same time catches

none.

Catch your main rabbit.

And so the man or woman that chases two rabbits at the same time, so you picture, man,

we let two rabbits out of a cage and we got to go catch them.

And one person's running around trying to catch two rabbits.

You got to go catch one rabbit.

Because if you try to catch two rabbits at the same time, you catch none.

In building, I see many people focus on too many things in and outside of their businesses

in order to become great at the rate that they wish to become great.

And you'll see, there's a lot of confusing things that get thrown at young people, certain

quotes that people run with such as, you know, you need 17 streams of income or you need

six streams of income or you need, you know, whatever.

And I think it's as cool as it is as it is to hear and as much as that sounds cool to have

happening.

And I don't, it's not that I completely disagree.

I think that people can get themselves too spread out too soon.

And then when, in reality, your one big stream of income is what over time can create

other streams of income.

And I think young people want to rush that process so they just start trying to open up

seven streams of income and they chase a bunch of rabbits and they end up finding themselves

down the road.

They caught none of them.

Because they didn't go all in on one thing that would bring the main stream of income consistently.

So I just want to encourage you to focus on your main thing.

What are the main activities that impact your outcome and income the most?

So what are the main things?

What are the main activities that impact your income and outcome?

Okay.

The most.

One or two things in your business or in your life in whatever you're chasing right

now.

What are the one or two things that you could focus on that would make the biggest difference

in you getting better?

And then what is your main business?

And if you haven't gotten it yet, that's okay.

But if you got it.

Let me just give you some examples.

It all depends on what type of business you're in if you're in business at all, you know,

how you're paid.

But just let me give you an example.

I myself ran into, I have a couple of friends of mine that blessed me with the opportunity

to ask them questions that have reached the status of billionaire.

And so I get an opportunity to sit down and pick their brains.

One is in his 60s, one is in his 70s.

So the gentleman in his 70s, I remember sitting down with them and I was all excited.

I was just starting to stack some big money and had some money set to the side.

I was in my late 20s.

But this is over a decade ago, well over a decade ago.

If I could think back, probably was maybe 27 or so at the time.

And I was thinking about opening up a cigar and wine bar because I was passionate about,

you know, I liked cigars and I was just starting to get into wine.

And I thought it would be cool, you know, to own a place like that.

And I was giving them some other ideas.

He was in real estate.

So I was asking him, you know, what does he think I should do with the real estate?

And he asked me to actually bring my investments and what my returns that I was getting on my investments

in the market.

And so at that time, I remember that year, I got like 14, 15% returns in the market,

you know, which is decently high.

And I'm showing up that day and I'm thinking that we're going to get all this quality time

and this guy's just going to tell me, here's how you take a million dollars and easily,

you know, invest it into these things and you're going to have 10.

That's what I was expecting to hear from the billionaire.

And so the first thing he did is he opened up.

It was, I mean, it was the setting in the beginning was exactly what I expected.

But the conversation was not exactly what I expected.

So the setting in the beginning was so cool.

I went to his office and in his personal office, he had a ventilation system and he opened

up a box of cigars, handed me a cigar and we started, he lit a cigar and we started

smoking cigars at like noon in the day.

And I'm like, wow, you know, I walked in and this guy in his own office, he had a ventilation

system to re could, he could just start smoking cigars.

And I'm thinking like, all right, this is exactly, I wanted something different.

I expected to hear something different and everything to be different.

This is going away.

I thought it was going to go.

And he first thing he does, he digs into the investments and he tells me that the 15%

is too much.

I thought he was going to be proud of me.

He said, it's too much.

He said in my opinion, if you can make that much at 15%, that means you could lose a whole

life.

So then, so he went over that and then he said, now in your own business, are you capped

out?

Are you in a position where you're completely capped out?

You can't make any more money.

You can't get any bigger in your own business.

I said, no.

He said, OK.

And then he said, now let me ask you, if you were to open up this cigar and wine shop that

you're talking about, how much money do you think it's going to take to really get this

thing going?

And we came up with a million dollars because where I wanted it located and the way I wanted

it to look.

And he said, OK, so let's say you put a million dollars into this thing.

Now, he said, what do you expect to make out of this place?

What do you think is a normal return to end up making?

I said, I don't know, maybe 150, 100 grand, 200 grand, once it gets rolling, he said, OK.

And how long do you think after you open it up, you expect it to turn up a profit like

that because it usually takes some time?

So we said, I don't know, maybe two, three years to start spitting off a profit.

And then he said, well, on a scale of one to 10, how well do you know cigars?

And I said, you know, he said like 10 is somebody that knows cigars at a high level.

At the time, I told him like a six, five or six, said, OK.

Then he said, now wine.

And now that I look back on, I probably gave myself too much credit back then because

I probably would, if 10 is a black belt, like a Samoye, the people that just, you know,

your friends or people that just really know wine at a whole another level, if that's

a 10, I'm probably at a six, you know, right now, but I told him five or six back then,

with probably back then, I probably was more of a three or four.

I said, five or six.

So he said, OK.

Now he said, now imagine if you put that million dollars into your own business, how well

do you know your own business?

I said, 10.

So he said, OK, if you put a million dollars into your own business right now, how much

do you think you would get in return?

And I'm like, ding, light bulb goes off and I'm like, whoa, I'm start thinking offices

that I could open up and things that staff that I could hire and you know, what I think

we could do with that.

And I'm like, double plus.

And he's like, OK.

So then he said, now one other question is, when you first open up this cigar and wine

bar, don't think that you're not going to have to be there because to get it going,

probably people are going to come because of you.

So how many hours a week do you think you're going to have to put into the cigar and

wine shop?

I said 20 hours, 30 hours a week.

So he said, OK, now what if you put that extra 20, 30 hours a week?

Because obviously if you got 20, 30 hours to spend over here, you would have 20 to 30

hours to spend in your own business.

But if you took that extra 20, 30 hours a week and put it into your own business and

the million dollars, how much money do you think you would get back then?

And it made so much sense to me, so much sense to me that I'm like, man, I just got to

go give that 20 hours instead of giving it over here to make a hundred grand.

I'll give that 20 hours to some of my best up and coming talent in the business that

I don't get enough time with and I'll give them that time.

And at million dollars, I'll put into this or that resource.

And that was the point where we went from four or five offices, I think, at the time to

just having the focus of expansion and putting everything back into the business.

And then over time, he said, well, come back and see me on this subject when you hit a

max limit of you know that you can't grow anymore.

If you put all the money into your own business, it's not going to kick you back out, you

know, the returns.

And don't come back and talk to me and ask me about that until you've maxed yourself out

in your own business.

He's like, people think that because I'm in the real estate business and I've made a lot

of money here, that they need to get into the real estate business.

He said, that would be like me trying to get into the insurance business like you.

And so I think oftentimes what happens is people see other people in that area.

You'll see somebody and they say, oh, there's a, that person's a stock trader and they

make a lot of money.

So now I need to put my money into that.

Or this person's in real estate and I know they make a lot of money.

So I need to go jump and put my money into the real estate like them.

That's their own business.

And so if your business is yellow highlighters, you would make probably more money in putting

your money back into the yellow highlighter business and putting it into the real estate

business.

If your main business is the sandpaper business, unless you've maxed yourself out in that

business, if you put 50 grand back into the sandpaper business into the, to the right

area, you should be able to double that money easier than putting your 50 grand into

the stock.

Well, what stock should I buy or what real estate should I buy in doubling that because

a good return is 10%.

And at 10%, it would take you seven years to double your money.

But if you put your money back into your own business that you know, if you're in the pillow

business and you put 50 grand into the pillow business in some way, you should be able

to kick a hundred grand back out easier than trusting in somebody else.

And that was the other thing the guy told me is, is he said, I only try to get about 7%

on my money.

He said, I get 7% on my money because I take all my risk in my own business.

So I put all my money into the real estate business.

So this billionaire told me he said, it wasn't, I only paid myself a couple hundred grand

for like 20 years.

So the billionaire said from like 25 to 45, all he did was, was pay himself a couple hundred

grand and everything else he put back into the business, everything else he put back

into the business.

And so now people see him at 70 and they're like, oh man, you know, this is the life.

But what they don't see is he made a bunch of money for 20 years that he didn't give a

ton to himself.

He just kept putting it back into his own business and he wasn't from taking risky moves outside

of his own business.

It was taking, he said, all I needed to do was beat inflation and have some money set

to the side was my strategy.

And I'm taking the risk and betting on myself.

I'm already taking enough risk owning your business or being an entrepreneur, being 10,

99 or being, that is already a risk.

So that's enough risk is what he was telling me.

And then over here, let's not get too risky.

He's like, I only make 7%, 10% over here.

But also when other people lose their rear end, I don't usually lose my rear end either.

Okay.

That's just a little bit from that conversation.

And over time when I did not listen to that man's wisdom, when I started to get too cute

and say, I think I got this figured out billionaire might have not thought about these things.

Half the time I won, half the time I lost.

And usually just like the casino people only talk about their wins.

So they may have seen me win over here or your friends may actually get and they dabble

into other things.

And it's just like if they bet on a game or something, they tell you about their wins,

but they don't tell you about their losses.

And so the message and

what I have found so far coming up in 17 years in business

is that guy is right.

Don't be trying to catch a gazillion rabbits

at the same time, take a risk.

If you're taking a risk, bet on yourself,

usually putting your money into your own business

is gonna blow out, putting money in other places

until you get to a position

where you think that you're completely maxed out

in your situation.

Second thing is consistency.

You know, you gotta build one brick at a time.

You can't look at somebody else's chapter 10

and try to build chapter 10.

Just build one brick at a time.

Work out one week.

You know, it's like if you're inconsistent,

then you work out one week

and then you don't work out the next.

Are you show up at class for one week

and then you don't show up at class for the next?

What works is knowing what you need to do

and then doing it day in and day out,

week in and week out and not getting discouraged

by the results not coming as fast as you want.

Just keep showing up in the process consistently.

Keep putting into that process

and good things are gonna happen.

And then one of the other things

you're gonna have to manage

that'll cause you to wanna rush things is failure.

Is that it's not that we should aim to fail.

Okay, we don't wanna fail.

It's not that you wanna aim to fail,

but on your way to success, you're gonna have failure.

Not being real with yourself about failure

is what causes people to quit.

It's their relationship and unrealistic expectations.

Every time that they have failure, they quit.

Therefore, they end up quitting things a lot

because the only way to get greatness

is you have to go through some failure.

So don't waste your failure, learn from it,

but failing at some things on the journey and working on it

is how you reach your destination.

So don't quit.

And if you follow that process consistently,

you'll get yourself to a position

if you choose to just to diversify

or whatever, and check out what Warren Buffett says

about diversification too,

cause it'll surprise you.

I think that'll surprise you also.

But if you wanna get to a place just for some odd reason,

you just wanna diversify and stuff like that,

your resources, there's nothing wrong with that

in my opinion, I understand,

but what I have seen and been a part of

when you bet on others that you can't control,

you're gonna, you know, what I've seen is people

winning lose at a 50, 50 split or so.

And typically the best odds in your favor to win

is betting on yourself.

And if you wanna make an investment

that's gonna bring you the biggest return,

it's usually in your own business.

And the best way to create a cash cow

where there's a huge influx of money

or resources coming in that eventually over time,

you can invest into other things

is to keep your main thing the main thing

and go double down right now into the main thing

and keep them the main thing, the main thing for a long time

and don't let these people get you out of your game.

When you start making a bunch of money,

everybody's coming for it.

Everybody got a shark tank idea,

everybody wants you to invest into this

and invest into that.

And what happens just like the casino is,

we will publish this person won a million dollars

on the slots, but they didn't publish

the 4,000 people that lost their home

in the process of taking their paycheck every week

to the slots or to the casino.

And so you'll see people get publicized

that you know in your circle or people that you know,

this one, they bet on something

and they bet 100 grand and they made a million dollars

on the next glass, you know,

the window was gonna be made out of

or the next, you know, dog collar, you know, or whatever it is.

And so everybody thinks they're gonna get this,

you know, get rich quick, you know, pop out there

and what ends up happening most of the time

as you spin your wheels and lose a lot of money

and lose a lot of time until you get to a position

where those types of things I've started to look at

is gambling and so it's like, man,

sometimes when I go to the casino,

it's like, I'll take a certain amount of money out

and if I lose it, I lose it, it's not gonna,

you know, I'm not gonna lose my kids' college education

or something and so I plan on losing it

and so if I win great, but if not, that's great.

And so sometimes I've looked at, you know,

some of these riskier investments as like,

yo, yep, I'm just planning on,

I might as well just go throw this into casino on black

because I got a 50, 50 shot.

If I put a hundred grand down on black,

it's a 50, 50 shot that I'm gonna win or lose

and a lot of these things are 50, 50 shots on things.

And so my experience, keep the main thing,

the main thing, go double down on your main thing,

identify what are the main things that you could focus on

in your process, focus on those, double down on those,

don't rush the process, trust the process.

10 years is gonna blow by before you know it,

blink of an eye, if you keep doing the right things,

the right things are gonna come back on you, okay?

So don't get hustled out there, keep the main thing,

the main thing.

Appreciate your time, thanks for joining us

on another episode of The Grindcast,

get ready us a new day.