I was kind of a doughy kid. I distinctly remember not wanting to take my shirt off and when I did have to take my shirt off I would suck in so that I didn’t have a little gut.
Then when I was 15 I decided to do something about my physique.
I didn’t know it, but this was the single greatest decision of my life.
That summer, I didn’t eat carbs, I started working out every day and I transformed my body. I went from having to suck in, to having 6 pack abs in a few months.
Now to be clear, I didn’t really build a lot of muscle, I just lost pretty much all the fat on my body. I distinctly remember chewing pizza for the taste and spitting it out, I was intense for a 15-year-old.
That September I started Grade 11 in high school and to my astonishment, girls actually knew of my existence. Some of them maybe even liked me.
That reward led me to fall in love with the gym and I haven’t missed a beat since. My physical fitness has been a priority in my life for the past 13 years.
Although getting in shape was great, and having girls like me was cool. What that whole experience really taught me was the power of delayed gratification.
I learned that I could set a goal, put my head down, and work on it for months, and boom I’d have what I set out to achieve.
I took this same mentality into business.
When I started 416 Coffee I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to sell coffee to businesses with little success. I tried to sell coffee online with little success. And then finally I had some breakthroughs and got the business moving in the right direction.
Now, we have multiple store locations, and a vibrant subscription business, and we are continuing to grow.
So everything worked out because we stayed persistent. Right?
Right.
I didn’t take a pay cheque from the business for the first 3 fucking years.
Am I an idiot? Well if you look at us now, no. I look like a determined persistent person.
But why didn’t I quit? Why didn’t I pivot? Why did I stay the course?
Because I had seen this before. I knew that the results would come if I just kept learning and improving, it was pattern recognition at that point.
It’s like getting into a fight when you’re a kid, even if you’re losing the fight at first eventually you’ll roll around and end up on top. And when you’re on top you can start dishing it out, get some shots off, have some fun.
So whatever fight you’re in right now, whether you’re starting your business, getting in the gym for the first time, or learning a new instrument, the key is to stay in the fight. It’s not going to be easy, but eventually, you will learn how to win the fight you’re in.
And then you can start enjoying yourself.
Misery is when you keep jumping into different fights.
You were trying to make it as a social media marketer but your buddy told you about drop shipping and now you’re doing that instead.
You were running to lose weight but your sister said yoga was better so now you’re doing that instead.
You never stick with anything long enough to develop mastery, you feel the slightest resistance and jump ship to the new hot thing.
Don’t do this.
I promise misery is constantly jumping to the hot new thing.
Stay the course. Mastery will bring results and happiness.
I promise.