In today’s chapter, we’re going to discuss Simple Not Easy. The three parts to this are: it is simple to make more money, but it’s not easy. Number two, in life. And number three, you must be in the middle, the realist.
It Is Simple, But Not Easy
All right, but what does all that mean? That was not very descriptive at all, so let’s dive into it. It’s simple to make more money, but it’s not easy. You’re going to meet people who tell you it’s impossible to do X, “just get a job and find security”. Your pessimists. You’re going to meet people who try to sell you the dream that you can accomplish anything overnight in three easy steps. Your snake oil salesman. And then, you’re also going to meet people who tell you everything in life is possible if you put in the effort and the work for it, and that’s your realist.
Now, when it comes to simple, not easy, your pessimistic person is never going to see it. They will never see it. They’re always going to tell you it’s impossible. You’ll never be able to do that. It’s too hard. They are always going to have an excuse why it can’t be done. Your snake oil salesman, and I know each and every one of us have seen this: 30-minute abs. 30-minute abs. Sounds good. It’s the snake oil salesman. “It’s easy. All you have to do… You can accomplish anything you want in life. It’s easy. Just do this, this, and this. And buy my program.” They’ve been around since the olden days, that’s why we call them snake oil salesmen. They will sell you whatever little potion they have and it’s going to fix any problem you have, but we know it’s not true.
They’re on two ends of the pendulum. We have the pessimists that nothing is possible, and then you have the snake oil salesman that there’s a magic pill and all you have to do is take this magic pill and everything’s going to be perfect and it’s going to happen overnight. Now, the realist, the realist knows it’s possible. He might not know it’s possible in the beginning. He has faith that it’s possible. We talked about that earlier, to have faith. And he trusts the process that if he does something every day, then eventually, it’s going to become routine, and eventually, it’s going to become easier to do.
So if you are extremely overweight, you might not see that being in shape is a probable possibility for you, but you know it’s possible because you see people that are in shape so it’s a possible thing. But, you have to have faith and trust the process. That if you walk every day, then eventually, it’s going to get easier. At first, it’s going to be miserable. Nothing that you start is ever easy, unless you’ve already done it before. If something’s brand new, you’ve never done it before, unless you’re a natural. Nothing’s easy.
In life, you hear the pessimists, ignore them. At all costs, ignore them. When you hear the snake oil salesman telling you or selling you a lottery ticket, ignore them as well. You have to be in the middle with all of this. You have to be in the middle. Nothing is going to be easy. It’s very simple, right? I can tell you, if you want to lose weight, eat less calories than you burn. Very simple, but there’s a lot more to it than just that. And it’s not easy.
The basis of cooking. What is cooking? Taking something that’s uncooked, and making it cooked. That’s it. Very simple, not necessarily easy. If you want to make it good and you want to be the best, it takes a lot of work, right? But, the basis of it is very simple. It’s just not easy. Becoming a billionaire. Simple. The math is simple. If you have a product selling for X and you sell it X amount of times, as long as those numbers equal a billion, you can make a billion. Very simple numbers, not easy.
Let’s look at Amazon. The concept of Amazon is very simple. You have the people over here that have products to sell. You have your customers over here… You have the customers on your right that have a product to sell, you have your people on the left are the consumers that are wanting to buy it. All Amazon did was become the middleman. He organized all the transactions so it makes it easier for the customer to buy the products that the company has to sell. That’s it, no more, it’s very simple. But in order to build that, it’s not easy. In order to build all the structures and all the distribution networks, it is very difficult. So simple, but not easy.
You Must Be In The Middle
The realist: it is simple, but not easy. The hardest part is consistency. Again, we went over this before in a different chapter, but it works in this chapter as well it’s perfect. “I don’t fear the man who can punch a bag a thousand times in one day. I fear the man who can punch the bag once a day for a thousand days.” Now, that is not easy, but it’s very simple. “Look, man, Erik just punch this bag once a day for 1000 days. I can do that.” Can you? Do you know how many days a thousand days is? We’re talking about almost three years consistently punching the bag once. Think about that. Simple, not easy. Write two books or complete two classes in 10 days. Simple, I got the process down, I know exactly what to do, but It’s not easy.
In life, you have to understand it’s not going to be easy. Now, the snake oil salesman is always trying to cut the corners. He’s going to give you some magic elixir that’s going to solve all your problems, like a depression pill. But the problem with that, it doesn’t solve your problem. It just puts a bandaid on it. So if you ever stop that magic elixir, then what happens? Your problem comes back, right? You’re depressed again. Well, it’s not that you were depressed again. You were never not depressed. You were just taking something to hide the depression. You’re taking a feel-good pill, which does not work. Why? Because, it’s not real. It’s the snake oil salesman selling you something, making you addicted to something to make sure that you feel good. If you have to be addicted to something to feel good, addicted to a substance to feel good, there’s nothing different than any other drug. You might think it’s different, but it’s not. It’s the same. In order for you to feel happy, you need a happy pill.
So, be careful with the snake oil salesmen. Because if you can do something really, really fast, are you really doing it fast? Because if you stop whatever that you’re doing, are you going to be able to maintain it? Because if you can’t maintain it, then you’re trying to take the easy way out, but that never works. Simple, but easy. It doesn’t go that way. It’s simple, but it’s hard. Does that make sense? So in everything that you do in life, learning a new language, very simple, but it’s not easy. But once you start doing it and you get into it, it can become easier. So in the beginning, trying to write a 20-page paper, very difficult in the beginning. But if you do it 10 times, that 11th time is much easier. Does that make sense?
Everything can become easy and simple. It can become that, but it does not originate like that. So, you have to be very careful when you see somebody be able to do something easy, because don’t forget, like we’ve talked about this before, we forget the story. So if you see that I’m able to do something that you’re like, “Oh man, that’s crazy. That’s amazing,” well, there’s a story behind it. I’ve been trained to be able to do certain things since what? 25, 26 years now. I’ve been trained a certain way. So, you need to remember, don’t forget the entire story. Listen to the realist. Don’t listen to the pessimists. Don’t listen to the snake oil salesman. Listen to the realist. It’s simple, it’s just not easy. But after a thousand days of practice, it becomes easy.