The Hidden Hours: Success Beyond the Spotlight | Ep 9

Arjun: 00:00:00

Anything worth having in this life or anything worth pursuing is going to come at an immense cost.

Where you lose friends, sometimes people even lose family along the way because their pursuit of this dream or this vision is so strong and so powerful that they're willing to let everything else go by the wayside while they run after it. Quick question for you. Are you afraid of the dark? Not just as a child growing up, but now even as an adult.

Because if you are afraid of the dark, you're going to have to accept and realize that you must spend a lot of time in it, probably more than you're comfortable with, in order to be great.

There are a lot of expressions that tie to this, like, if you want to be a success in public, you're going to have to be a relentless worker in private. Or what we do in the dark shines in the light and people don't grasp this on the outside.

We look at athletes, we look at successful people, we look at entrepreneurs and founders and think, oh, they just landed there. They had a great idea, they did some work, and everything just turned out so beautifully perfect and profitable.

But nobody really takes into account or even has an understanding of how many dark days and moments. How many times were things touch and go?

How many times did that concept or dream actually die and have to get resuscitated in order to come back into life, into the form that we know it, as in the form of some finished product. Mr. Beast was creating content for 10 years that was just outright shit before finally one video hit.

And now his career is on a totally different trajectory. Steph Curry has shot over 1 million shots in private, in practice, but less than 1% of the shots that he has made have actually shown up in a game.

Now just think of that.

The greatest shooter, arguably of our time and probably in history, by the time it's all said and done, has shot less than 1% of his shots in an actual game versus what he does in the dark, in the gym, in private. Kentucky Fried Chicken is one of the best known and successful franchises and brands around the world.

But many people do not know that Colonel Sanders, who was the original creator of the Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe, actually pedaled that recipe by car and slept in his car most every night to hundreds of restaurants, all to be rejected by every single one of them, until one person felt sorry that this poor guy is sleeping in his car and let me give his recipe a chance or just cook it for him out of pity. The rest was clearly history.

And I think this brings to light Something that we all struggle with, but young people in particular, which is that in this era of social media and what we see in terms of glamour and glitz, it's very easy to fixate and think, oh, you just had it so easy, or it just worked out for you. And that must be the sum of the entire story.

But no successful brand, no successful athlete, no successful team champion, entrepreneur, or individual got to where they're at without immense struggle and very, very dark days or moments along the way.

In fact, sometimes even contemplating quitting or leaving, because it's all the effort that is spent there that ultimately brings to light the finished product. And again, this is something we all take for granted.

The other disservice that social media does for us is that it paints this picture or the idea that life and success is just this montage of great moments, when in actuality, it's the complete opposite.

Now, very rarely you'll come across a profile or an account or something in your social media feed where somebody's actually talking about the dark moments or the missteps or where they felt dramatically short, even being very, very critical of themselves and calling themselves potentially a failure or a loser. Again, it's super rare and we don't get to see it, but this is the truth.

And if more people actually represented and were vulnerable enough to share this, it would actually be doing a bigger service to all of the audience that's around the world that watches and absorbs this type of content and understanding that there's so much work to do that successful is often delayed gratification. It's not going to come easy.

It never will, and it's not supposed to, because anything worth having in this life or anything worth pursuing is going to come at an immense cost.

Where you lose friends, sometimes people even lose family along the way because their pursuit of this dream or this vision is so strong and so powerful that they're willing to let everything else go by the wayside while they run after it. But that's what entrepreneurship is. That's what work in this modern day is. It's major, major sacrifice. And it's not for the faint of heart.

So, look, nobody respects anybody who's had it easy or who just inherited something or felt entitled to and landed at a certain position of success. We all love the story and love to follow people that had to go through immense struggle.

It's why we get drawn into films that document such journeys of somebody who went through such dark periods and finally emerged as the victor, finally emerged as successful or reach whatever pinnacle that was in life. Muhammad Ali had a great saying. I hated training, he said. I hated training all throughout.

But I knew that if I suffered now, I would get to enjoy the rest of my life as a champion.

And those are about as powerful words that resonate and tie back to our theme here of being in the dark and what you have to do in the dark to be able to enjoy the light on the other side. Because, again, nobody wants to do it. There has to be a calling or a reason why you do it.

Steph Curry has to really want to be the greatest shooter of all time. He has to be obsessed with his craft.

He has to be so committed to wanting to shoot the lights out every time he goes, which is why he's put in over a million shots and not everybody else has, which is why they're not on his level.

And that type of thinking is what separates these doers, these victors, these champions, these overachievers, if you will, from people who just don't want to actually make that sacrifice because they are afraid of the dark. And that's why I asked you guys at the beginning of this, are you afraid of the dark?

So we look back at this podcast and the entire essence of what LFG energy is, it's about overcoming. It's about creating that separation.

It's about doing all the work behind the scenes when no one's watching, so that when you are on the grandest of stages in life, that you actually are able to perform, execute, and succeed. And again, it's not for everybody.

But this podcast and the people that we want to affect and impact are those that are seeking to make that jump, that want to go from someone who's aspiring to actually achieving. I'll just share with you that it is right now, 5:15 on a Monday evening, I'm here in an office with just my podcast crew and colleagues.

The office is pretty much empty because everyone is off watching the national championship, which is about to air in about 45 minutes now. I just got back from a long trip over the weekend in a completely different time zone. Both my daughters were up sick the entire night.

I've had to hop on multiple webinars and take breaks from recording our podcast here on day one. But it doesn't matter, because this is the dark for me.

What you guys will see when you actually get to view or listen to this podcast is when it finally reaches the light. But I am actually inspired and moved by that. I'm driven by that.

I'm fueled by doing this work because I rarely ever get to spend time out there in the light and enjoy it. I prefer to actually grind here in the dark and continue to create output. And let's Go Energy basically speaks to that. Let's Go Energy is about that.

It's basically saying that I will go in private and do whatever is required of me in order to put out something great that's going to help and lift others. So I hope you were affected by this podcast and it changes your way of thinking, and we'll see you guys on the next episode.