How to get what you want (faster)

Low agency people seek advice on their ideas.

High agency people seek feedback on their attempts.

“How do I start?” → “Can you help me tweak what I’m doing?”

Hot take: if you’re young, you’re way better off learning a high income skill and freelancing or apprenticing under an entrepreneur than trying to start your own VC-backed tech startup.

The goal of apprenticeship is not to make a ton of money and get a prestigious title, but rather to transform the way you think and operate.

I spent the last 5 years apprenticing under the top online entrepreneurs and operators…. developed a skill set, taste, and specific knowledge.

Now I feel like I can take over the world.

Never underestimate the power of apprenticeship.

The ceiling of your potential is determined by the size of uncertainty you're willing to tolerate.

I've built my career off this simple idea:

"One of the best investments you can make is borrowing years of experience from someone who's already solved the problem you're trying to solve."

Tim Ferriss on dreaming big:

“Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre.

The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming.

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too.

Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason.

Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel.

If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort.

The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits.

There is just less competition for bigger goals.”

How to get what you want faster

There's an old parable about a man caught in a flood. The water rises fast, so he climbs onto his roof and starts praying. "God, please save me. I have faith in you. I know you will deliver me."

A few minutes later, a guy in a rowboat paddles up to his house. "Hey! Get in, the water's still rising!" The man shakes his head. "No thank you. God will save me."

The water keeps rising. Now it's up to his waist. A motorboat comes by, and the driver yells, "Sir, you need to get in right now. This is getting dangerous." The man waves him off. "I appreciate it, but God will save me. I have faith."

The water is at his chest now. A helicopter flies overhead, lowers a ladder, and someone shouts through a megaphone, "Grab the ladder! We're here to help!" The man looks up and shouts back, "No! God will save me!"

He drowns. When he gets to heaven, he's furious. "God, I prayed to you. I had complete faith. Why didn't you save me?" And God says, "You idiot. I sent you a rowboat, a motorboat, and a helicopter. What more did you want?"

This isn't a parable about religion. It's about the dangerous belief that if you just wait long enough, life will hand you what you want. It won't. Nobody's coming to tap you on the shoulder and say, "Hey, it's your turn now." If you want something, you have to go get it.

In the early 1990s, a 17-year-old musician named Derek Sivers was about to start at Berklee College of Music when he stumbled across an ad for a local recording studio in Chicago. He could have ignored it. Instead, he called the number, and the guy who picked up, a Berklee alum named Kimo Williams, made him an offer: "I have a theory that with the right training, I can help you graduate in two years. Come by tomorrow at 9 AM. No charge."

Derek showed up the next morning, early but waiting outside until exactly 8:59 before ringing the bell. Over the course of five lessons, Kimo crammed six semesters of Berklee's harmony curriculum into a few hours.

When Derek arrived at Berklee, he tested out of six semesters of classes and graduated in two and a half years instead of four. He was twenty years old.

Years later, Derek wrote: "The system is designed so anyone can keep up. But if you're more driven than most people, you can do way more than anyone expects. There is no speed limit."

The timelines that society has given you are completely made up. They’re designed to accommodate the average person moving at the average pace.

I'm not saying you have to sacrifice durability for growth, or that you should be reckless, or that you shouldn't enjoy the journey. But what I'd encourage you to do is ask yourself, "How can I achieve this faster?"

Most people accept the standard pace as the default pace and just settle into mediocrity. They say, "I've tried," when they've tried once from one angle and gave up when it didn't work.

Have you tried multiple times from every angle? Are you really trying? Are you moving mountains? You should be trying to turbo the problem from every direction.

A useful mental exercise that I like to walk myself through:

If you had to make a million dollars this next year, do you think you could do it?

Now what if your entire family died if you didn't? Do you think you'd approach the problem differently? Of course you would. You'd work harder, think more creatively, move with more urgency, try things you'd never normally try. So why does it take something that extreme to light a fire under your ass?

The most successful people I know don't "trust life's timing." They don't accept the standard pace as the pace they have to go at. They don't let life happen to them. They happen to life. They figure out what they want, and then they stop at nothing until they get it.

It's an intense, relentless, all-consuming pursuit until the mission is accomplished. They accept nothing short of complete success, because why would they have it any other way?

Pro Tip: If you want things to move faster, give yourself less time.

Parkinson's Law states that says work expands to fill the time allotted to it. If you give yourself two weeks to finish something, it'll take two weeks. If you give yourself two hours, it’ll take two hours.

And if you're pushing back on that, here's a question for you: does it defy the laws of physics to go faster? No? Then what are you waiting for?

Until next week,

Jay “What would it take?” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things & Work With The Best

Ps. Tomorrow is the last day to register for my 30-day writing cohort.

We’ll write and publish 30 LinkedIn posts together.

If you’ve been wanting to build your personal brand on LinkedIn, now’s your chance to learn with me.

You can grab your copy here.

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