What do you think? Should we start? I think we should.

The Bad News

First, let me share some bad news about success. The bad news is that success isn't just up to you. Success requires cooperation—and I mean it's fundamentally attached to cooperation. You need other people to become successful. You need other people to cooperate with you.

Even if you're a solopreneur with a one-person business, you still need others to cooperate with you. Other people need to buy your product, help you make that product, watch your videos. Even as an employee, you need someone to employ you, to give you the job. You need to communicate with others, work together on projects. Success is always about cooperation.

That's bad news because it's not just about you—and we always think it's just about us.

To reach cooperation, we need to master one skill. The higher level you achieve in this skill, the better cooperation you'll get, and therefore better success. The most successful people on the planet have mastered this skill, and it's an endless journey of learning.

This skill is human communication—the highest-paying skill we have on the planet.

Think about Elon Musk. He has amazing communication skills, even though it might not seem like it at first glance. He's able to show other people his dreams, articulate his vision. Look at any successful person—they all have strong communication abilities.

Communication doesn't guarantee success (you can be an amazing communicator but not super successful), but cooperation definitely leads to success. If you can make other people cooperate with you, that's 100% the mark of a successful person. Communication skills help you get better cooperation, therefore making you more successful.

That's the bad news: you need other people. You can't do this by yourself.

The Good News

Are you ready for the good news? Almost everything else other than success is about you.

Happiness, growth, feeling satisfaction—all of these are emotions you feel in your body. It's all about what you focus on, how you project yourself in the world, how you walk through the world, what your beliefs are about the world.

Imagine one person walking through life thinking "life is a dance" versus another person thinking "life is war" or "what do other people want from me?" These completely different approaches lead to different physics, different focus, different language, and therefore different emotions.

Inner peace is an emotion you can feel right now if you want to. If you allow yourself to breathe like someone who has inner peace, if you let your eyebrows relax, your shoulders relax, you will feel that inner peace. You can decide to feel it today—it's your decision.

When someone cuts us off while driving and we get angry, they didn't make us angry. We decided to get angry from their behavior. Not every human being would react the same way. It's a matter of decision and perspective.

Success might be limited, but your life is a rainbow bigger than just that. Most of the other aspects of life, you have 100% control over: who you talk to, what you put in your ears and brain, what you eat, what you say, and ultimately how you feel.

You can't directly control emotions, but you can control your body, your breathing, and therefore influence certain emotions. You can control what you focus on, your language, and lead yourself to better emotions.

You don't need other people's cooperation to feel certain things. You can feel accomplished, satisfied right now. That's great news.

Two Concepts for Success

But I promised you two concepts for success, and these took me a while to realize.

Concept #1: Create Systems

Every year in my real estate business, I need to file annual tax reports. When I started, I had only one LLC—it was manageable. Now I have nine LLCs, and it's not so simple anymore. The 2024 tax reports we just worked on took tremendous effort.

These exact types of repetitive efforts caused me to let go of previous businesses before I started real estate. What I hadn't realized then, but do now, is that the creative process of being an entrepreneur is creating systems.

If something is repetitive—whether I need to do it every year, week, or month—this is exactly what I need to be creative about, capture, and delegate to someone else. Whether it's automation or people I need to hire, I need to capture what needs to be done and exactly how to do it in a zero-mistake way to delegate effectively.

When you delegate to someone or something else, it has to be 100% clear what you're asking for. I used to get frustrated with employees, thinking "I told you what to do, why haven't you done it?" I would fire them because I felt they weren't doing their job. But now I realize it was actually me—I hadn't done my part. I didn't give them clear instructions.

Systems are all about clear instructions—exactly what to do, step by step.

Now I have a system for creating systems: I capture myself on video doing tasks with commentary on what I'm doing, transcribe it, use AI to write the SOP, edit the SOP, then give it to my employees. It works great.

While I can't delegate everything I do (about 20% I still handle because I haven't created those processes yet), the 80% that I can clearly define and know how to do—these I delegate.

Systems are businesses. Think about systems all day long.

Concept #2: Constant Improvement (Not Results)

Let's talk about those quotation marks I put around "success."

Think about Pablo Picasso. When you ask someone about him, they'll say he's amazing—but why? Because of his paintings. They don't know Picasso as a person; they know his results, his achievements. Each painting is worth millions of dollars. Society measures him by his results, his creations, because that's all society has of him.

Picasso achieved tremendous cooperation, but when I think about myself, I don't measure myself based on results. Society will judge me based on how many properties I sold, how much money I made, deals I created, followers, likes, views—all results. You'll judge me on this because that's all you have.

But I have far bigger context about myself. I know me since day one, last year, ten years ago, twenty-eight years ago when I was born. I know myself way better than any results.

I can measure views and likes, but I cannot let those results define who I am in my eyes. When I let results define me, where does it lead? Dissatisfaction.

Why? Because when I let results define me, I start focusing on other people and their results. I compare their results to mine, but I don't know their whole context—what they've been through, how many failures they've had. I only see their results.

But with me, I know everything. I know the whole story, the whole context. How can I compare that to others' results? Comparison is the thief of joy. Gratitude is joy; comparing steals it away.

Point number two for success is constant improvement.

I don't judge myself based on results, but I do judge myself based on improvement. Not results—not likes, views, money, numbers. Those are indicators for my business, which are important, but most importantly are my personal improvements.

My videos aren't perfect, but they're better than they used to be. My business isn't perfect, but it's better than it used to be. I'm not the perfect CEO or founder, but I'm better than I used to be.

If I continue to improve and improve and improve, what's going to happen in five years? Ten years? Twenty years?

Constant improvement instead of measuring results—that's the key. Not constant improvement of results, but improvement period. I have all the context. I don't need results to know I'm improving. I don't need results to know my videos are better because I remember my previous videos. I remember how I used to run my business, how I felt, how I walked through the world.

I know I'm better today than I used to be. That's all that matters—not the results, but the way I feel, the way I operate, my systems. Everything is better today than it used to be.

Two Points for You Today

1. Create systems—the creative process of being a businessperson
2. Constant improvement—focus on getting better, not just results

I hope you found this valuable. Have a good one.

really, have a good one.