🌀Au Contraire: Sitting at a bar with two rich guys...

You are sitting at a bar in the remote Bohemian island called Long Island. Few know about this island since it is accessible only by private aircraft and boat. You have a person on either side of you. Both are wearing Patek Phillippe watches, so you’ve had a few drinks and figure fuck it… let’s see how these guys made their money. You ask the guy on your right what he does for a living, and he replies “Nothing, I don’t do shit. I just won the lottery.”

And then you ask him, “how much did you win?”  And he replies, “I won $51 fucking million dollars.”

“Holy shit. What are you going to do it with it? And  he replies, “I am going buy whatever the fuck I want and live it up brother.”

You suddenly realize the only thing you can learn from this guy is that he knows how to buy a lottery ticket at a gas station. So you turn to your left side and ask the other guy, “What is the story with your watch, why did you buy it?”

The guy pauses, and slowly puts down his drink, and he replies, “Well, I just got it. I actually made myself buy it so it would remind me of what I have done and who I have become. I am actually a little embarrassed that you noticed it.”

In the back of your mind, you are thinking bullshit, this guy is wearing this watch so he will know that I know he is successful, so you proceed with a few more questions.

You ask the guy, so what do you do? And the guy replies much like the other guy, “I don’t do shit.”

Now you are really wondering how fucked up the universe is, so you say “Nothing, you don’t do anything?” And he replies, “Not anymore, I sold my company. I actually bought this watch the day after closing. Just as a reminder to what I have built and the time that it took. It reminds me that my next venture will take some time, but it will be worth it.”

Now things are getting interesting, and you ask him “What was the name of your business?” He replies, oh just a plumbing business, Jenkins Plumbing. The guy excuses himself to grab a call, and you proceed to google “Jenkins Plumbing company sold for,” and find an article written that private equity has just acquired his company for $53 million dollars.

Fuck, this guy really made it, I wonder what that feels like.

So when the guy sits back down, you ask him what is the best piece of advise he could give a budding entrepreneur.

He leans in, and says “Do you know what the difference between me and the guy on the other side of you is?”

I reply, “Well you can do it again and statistically he has a better chance of sleeping with Farrah Fawcett.”

And he says “But there is more to it than that. You see I have learned that the biggest secret to my success is not who I know, it’s not how smart I am, and it’s not luck. You have to know who you are fighting against.”

I reply, “Who am I fighting against?”

He replies, “There is an invisible mysterious force that holds all of us down. You can’t see it, but it is there all the time.”

You say, “Come on man, what the fuck are you talking about?”

He says, “No, this is serious. You need to understand the enemy, because if you don’t… you won’t know what you are fighting against or even when you have won. You see getting money is not winning. It is usually just the result of winning.

Now you are thinking this guy is just selling you a line of horse turds, so you ask “What is winning?”

And he replies, “Winning is overcoming this little devil in your head called resistance. You can be winning and not be making money, but you cannot get discouraged because the money is coming. But you need to train your brain to get satisfaction from overcoming resistance and not the result from overcoming resistance.”

You reply, “Ok man, so what the fuck is resistance?”

The guy thinks for a second and replies, “Let me ask you a question, what is the one thing you need to do right now to inch your company forward?”

You think awe fuck, this guy is crawling into my head and you reply, “I need to hire another sales guy.”

And he replies, “Well, why haven’t you?”

And you say, “I have to do a lot of work, put a job ad at up, interview people, hire the best one I can find, and then spend the time training him, and not only that I really need to create a video training course so I don’t have to train one again.”

And he replies, “if you had another sales rep trained and a training program to train the next 5 training reps, how much more money could you make?”

You think for a minute, “Just one could bring in another $250,000. I started doing the math in my head on 4 more…”

And the guy replied, “The thing you are battling is resistance, you know what you need to do, you already know what the result will be, but you are not doing it. Learning how to overcome the resistance is the trick to getting what you want. Like for example, putting up a job ad isn’t going to make you $250,000. But putting up a job ad is a win, because you beat the resistance. You beat the force inside your head telling you to do busy work or take that call or just not get the shit done. But if you can train your brain to feel satisfaction not on the result but overcoming the resistance, you will be much happier and accomplish a lot more”

He goes on “You see the guy on your right. He doesn’t know what the satisfaction of overcoming resistance feels like. When he looks at his Patek Phillippe, he may even feel shame because he hasn’t earned it, whereas when I look at my watch it reminds me of all the resistance I have overcome. Do you understand what I am saying”

You reply, “So you are saying you actually derive satisfaction out of overcoming resistance rather than making money?

He thinks for a minute and says, “Imagine you build that job ad, you train the sales rep and build your training program, and he starts selling… when do you think you will feel good? Forget the money for a second. When do you think you will feel good?

You think for a second and you imagine what a relief it would be to have this accomplished. And you reply, “It will feel amazing to have just completed this. The feeling of having it done, and the feeling of having it in place for the future.”

And he replies, “So it isn’t really the money that is satisfying?”

You reply, “No, it is overcoming the resistance. The result of overcoming resistance will be the additional sales… and that will feel great too but the reason it will feel great is because I overcame the resistance.”

The guy pays his tab leaves a $100 tip, and says “Resistance is a motherfucker, but beating it is the best feeling in the world. Good luck sonny.”

~Blue

P.S. What resistance is kicking you in the gonads right now?