400 trillion to one, the odds of becoming a human being. This is the reason I'm happy 24/7, 365, for the rest of my life. Kindness is the ultimate strength in our society. When the intent of what you do is selfish, you will lose. The market doesn't care. What you need to do is make one person happy, you. Then you can make everybody else happy. There's a lot more to do with showing up to the funeral than it has to do with the bank account. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for you.
I really think mindset is everything. 400 trillion to one. When you understand that math, how can't you live your life? That's how rare it is to be a human being. And what are you waiting for? Like, you've been given this ridiculous triple miracle. Like, you're literally more likely to win the lotto 10 times in your life than actually have a life. So, I ask you, my friends, with this one life, you going to sit on your couch and dwell? You're going to be upset about that thing that happened last week that you up? I'm asking you, I'm promising you, please take this swing. There's nothing you'll ever accomplish that's more remarkable than that you have a chance to accomplish something.
It always feels like there's a little bit more chips on the shoulder, which is what I have. But I want to remind everybody, just cuz you didn't grow up with a trust fund, just cuz you don't live in Silicon Valley, the market doesn't care. If you're good enough, you will win. If you have ambition, your actions have to match that. And too many people are just like not putting in the work. Their mouth is way ahead of their actions. Like really, you're going to be the greatest NBA player of all time? Why? Cuz you think you got a little handle on the weekends? You need to shoot 15,000 free throws before school every day. Because if anybody ever did it, then you can, too.
Stop making excuses. Stop complaining. Nobody's listening. The market doesn't care. What you need to do is make one person happy, you. Then you can make everybody else happy. So people struggle with patience because mainly most people are insecure. They worry about what other people think about them. So they're rat racing quick to get paper so they can buy something to impress people they don't even like. And I'm trying to change that narrative. When I was 32, I was stocking shelves in a liquor store. So you can imagine when 26-year-olds come up to me and they're like, 'I'm finished.' I'm like, mother you haven't started.
It's not by being a perfectionist you're afraid to fail. 100%. And it's a cute version. You don't have the humility to admit that you're scared. So you created this real pretty package called perfection. Boy do I get triggered when people say I'm a perfectionist. And it's funny, not anger, deep empathy. I'm like wow you're deeply scared and you've manipulated yourself and others to hide that you're scared. If you love something and you're good at it, it's going to be a big win. I think the nuance on that is if you love something and you're not good at it, it might be worth doing cuz being happy is more important than making money. But you have to be honest with yourself that you're only going to make $40,000 a year being a painter cuz nobody's going to buy your painting. What makes you happy?
And I very much think that my success is a product of some level of skill. But I do think I win because I outwork people. I really do believe that. And I'm not sure that if my dad didn't set that example that I'd even have the ability to think one could work that hard. The fact that I've been working 19 hours a day every day for the last 20 years is easy for me. It's the only gear I knew, right? I was poor. I sucked at school. It was the only gear I had. And so I would tell people to bet on their strengths. You need to bet on your strengths and don't give a about what you suck at and to put themselves in a position to win with their strengths because that is absolutely the straightest line to success.
You know what you have? You have time. Like every person's got something. And what you definitely have at this age is you have time. That's your asset. Your time and what you do with it is what you've got. Now, you got school and you got some other you got to take care of, but there's a lot of time. The only thing that I think maps for every 16-year-old entrepreneur is patience. The biggest mistake a 16-year-old entrepreneur makes is they want things to happen too soon. You have so much time. I mean, it's insane to me to think about how much time you actually have. If you doubled your age, you would still be 8 years younger than me.
When I get emails, which I get 50 of them a day for entrepreneurs of like, hey, like I know you always talk about patience like, 'I've been doing this. It's not working traction. Should I give up and do something else?' Inevitably, I'll email back and be like, 'How long have you been doing it?' 'Oh, 4 months.' And I'm like, 'You, you know, you want this to be your life and you're giving up after 4 months? Are you out of your mind?' It's a long game. I was told between 7 years old and 18 years old that I lost. I knew inside that this was not the game that I was going to play. I was patient. I ate crow in that 12-year period while the market and the machine told me I wasn't going to win. I knew what my outcome was.
And you may now be in your 20s and 30s and the marketplace might be telling you that you're going to lose, but it is about staying the course and putting in the work and positioning yourself in the right position to go out and win. Positivity always wins at the end. Man, this is so basic. When I look at what's going on in like the social realms, like negativity always wins the short game and positivity always wins the long game. The only way you're going to get the thing that's been running through your mind, the only way you're going to get on that plane that you think you want to be on when you were sitting downstairs eating French fries with your homie and chopping it up and saying what we're going to be in 7 years is if you outwork everybody.
Figure out what you're good at, bring value to the people you're trying to sell, and just rinse and repeat forever till the end. You're going to look for that miracle algorithm that's going to change your outcome, and you're going to continue to search and play the short game while I keep putting in the work, the hours, the long-term value. You play the short game, I'll keep playing the long game. I can be kind of like aggressive and competitive and show that side, but my absolute strength and foundation to my success, and often other people's that I admire from afar, are predicated on their empathy and perspective and gratitude and warmth. And I think I'm winning on that. And I think I'm going to make it popular and I think a lot of people are going to feel the benefits of good.
It's incredible to watch people feel crippled by the thought that somebody's getting over on them. It is devastating for me to see that people struggle with the idea that kindness is the strength, not the weakness. So many of you are being told to be less kind and less of a pushover and charge more and stand up for yourself and it's ludicrous talk. Kindness is the ultimate strength in our society. When the intent of what you do is selfish, you will lose. I branded it kind candor to myself and I scale it in my companies. We're about kind candor. We're going to tell you, but we're going to do it in a very humane, very 360, very thoughtful way. And the intent is that this candor allows us to fix it, not set it up to fire you.
Eight kids at a playground play and somebody gets hurt. Almost always, all seven or six other kids continue to play, but one comes over and comforts that child. They haven't even lived life enough to know about anything. They're just doing it cuz they're doing it. There is no reason they're doing it. It's in them. And this is why I'm passionate about empathy and kindness and compassion and sympathy cuz it's good. It's really good. I really think mindset is everything. And so you've got to really decide, are you going to be positive about things or negative about things? Am I thrilled that I have the ability to do things about it to make what I'm worried about better or am I crippled by it? I always choose positivity.
I look at other people around me, this is not just about me, that are winning, and they choose positivity. I look at the people around me that are not winning, that are not progressing, that are not advancing. They're choosing negativity. It's stunningly binary. It's stunningly black and white. It's stunningly A or B. This is really up to you. There's a lot more to do with showing up to the funeral than it has to do with the bank account. And you know what's funny is if you actually live your life like the funeral, you end up making stuff for the bank account by accident. You end up meeting somebody who, you know, it's so crazy when I think about like how I invested in Twitter and made all that money. It was more about giving a about my funeral, like doing the right thing by a bunch of people, which led to going to South by Southwest, which led to me meeting the Twitter guys.
I've made enough money. I'm good. I'm great. If I don't make a single dollar again, great. I don't need to buy the Jets. I need to try to buy the Jets. That's a distinction. I want legacy. See, I want you to show up to my funeral because you watched a Facebook live stream when I was in San Diego and I ranted and I finally kicked your ass into gear and you realized no more reading, no more consuming, time to do. Anytime something sucks, like remember it doesn't matter in the macro. There are only so few things that you will think about on your deathbed. There are only so few things that will matter to you as you continue to glide and guide through your life. So understand whatever the you're upset about right now fundamentally doesn't matter. It just doesn't.
There are so many people that have a business that makes them 200,000 a year they want to grow and then when it goes to 280,000 they went from extremely happy to miserable on that small of a delta. You know, please, please, in a success world, please understand that success is happiness, not net dollars. I love doing business and I love nice. I'm addicted to nice. So, I want to leave a legacy where people feel compelled to come to my funeral one day or tell their daughter a story or whatever the social network of the day is or however we communicate to say something nice. I want to do that. I want to live that life.
400 trillion to one. I just want everybody to hear this. This is the reason I'm happy 24/7, 365, for the rest of my life. 400 trillion to one. The odds of becoming a human being. You might not like the human being situation you ended up in. But let me tell you this, your mom might have grabbed another glass of wine and you never would have been. I want you to know it now of how much you mean to me and how thankful I am and how much I learned from the way that you and mom navigated and how I do think my hard work and my hustle is my separation from the marketplace and I know that's a learned behavior by watching how you did it and I thank you from the bottom of my heart and so I thought it was a good time to say hey I love you.
