The Secret of My Success

Nobody wants to hear this, but if you want to be successful, then don’t have kids.

Okay. So I am not the most successful person in the world. Yes, I have two books, yes, I have a successful business, yes, I make good money, and yes, I do other fun things like have talk radio shows and DJ in clubs and get my MFA and teach at the university level. A lot of people wonder how I have time for all of this.

The answer is: I don’t have kids.

I work harder than you. Which is not to say that I am more hard-working than you. I simply have more hours in the day, because I don’t have kids, and I spend those hours working. While you are throwing a ball around in the backyard, or picking up your kids at school, or changing diapers, I am in my office, at my computer, working. I get up at 630am, I’m at work at 8, I work until 4, I come home and eat dinner and work until 10. I get 8 hours of sleep a night. I just spend all my time working.

Some people have kids and can pull this off, but they necessarily have help. Someone needs to take care of the kids, and it’s either a spouse or a nanny.

Every once in a while, I run into these dopes that tell me I am missing out on so much of life by not having kids. Fatherhood is great, etc. Well, I say, you’re missing out on so much money by having kids. There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.

But beyond that, where did I get my work ethic?  Was it from childhood?  No, it was not. My parents did not instill in me a strong work ethic. As a mid-wave Gen Xer, I was completely left to my own devices, to play Statis-Pro Baseball, to ride my bike at the reservoir, or to launch the hand shuttle in my bedroom. There was no one even telling me to do my homework on a regular basis. I got it done, intermittently. I had below-potential grades in high school and grades that were far below potential in college. I was a terrible student. I once had a professor tell me that I would never amount to anything, if you can believe that.

You know how you have these people who drop out of college and then go on to become billionaires?  That wasn’t exactly my path, but it was close. I never enjoyed school. But one thing I liked about adulthood was the potential for unlimited success. At age 23, I discovered finance, and then spent every waking moment learning about money. I was obsessed. And I think all successful people have an obsession of sorts, right?  You have this thing that you love that is all-consuming and you give up all other pursuits (sometimes including food and sleep) in pursuit of that thing. So I don’t really care what it is you want to do with your life, but you must be obsessed with it.

Quick story: a couple of years ago I thought I would try my hand at producing music. I bought Logic and some plug-ins and a keyboard and gave it a shot. I did produce one track with the help of my friend Mike, and it’s a great track, but the amount of creative energy I expended writing that music left me utterly spent. Also, I found fighting with the software to be tedious. It was fun, but it was hard, and I wasn’t obsessed with it. I knew that I would get better over time if I worked at it, but I didn’t have the obsession that it takes to be the best.

I have an obsession with writing. I am always trying to get better. Hell, I am going to school to get better. If you want to get better at writing, you should spend more time writing. I spend 14 hours a day writing. If you spent 14 hours a day writing, you would probably be pretty good at writing. If I spent 14 hours a day producing music, I would probably be pretty good at producing music. If I spent as much time as Brad Pitt thinking about how to be cool, I would probably be pretty cool. Recently I expressed an interest in learning how to paint. My wife bought me a bunch of art supplies for Christmas. If I want to get good at painting, I should probably spend 14 hours a day painting. Etc.

Not coincidentally, the Olympics are going on right now. You don’t get good at figure skating, bobsled, or biathlon by doing it part-time.

The second thing you need is raw talent. I was born a good writer, some people are born to be good musicians, and Brad Pitt was born cool. But you can compensate for a lack of raw talent, which gets us back to obsession.

One thing you will need is a big break.  You will need to get lucky.

I have gotten lucky a bunch of times in my career:

1.     When I was hired by Botta Trading, LLC

2.     When I was hired by Lehman Brothers

3.     When I was “noticed” by a literary agent for my first book

4.     When I was “noticed” by Mauldin Economics

5.     When I was “noticed” by Bloomberg Opinion

6.     When I was “noticed” by a radio consultant

Now what is the probability of being serially lucky in this fashion—getting a big break six times in a row?  Next to nothing. And yet it keeps happening to me over and over again. Which gets us to a big theory of mine:

Nothing happens to you inside your apartment.

There is the story of how Madonna got her big break, and maybe this is apocryphal, but here goes: she moved to New York City at 18 years old. Her plan?  To walk around the city until she got noticed. So she got dressed up in typical Madonna fashion, with her lace and her heels and her makeup, and walked the streets of New York, until she got noticed. And the rest is history. Alternatively, she could have sat in her apartment wishing that she would get noticed, but nothing happens to you inside your apartment.

I got hired by Botta Trading (a market-maker on the P. Coast Options Exchange) because I was down on the trading floor for an informational interview when someone randomly asked me if I was looking for a job. That’s how I got the job. And that break led to the next break, which led to the next break, and all of this was made possible because I left my apartment and went down to the trading floor. I put myself in a position where I was positively exposed to luck. My writing was noticed by a literary agent because I was writing it—if I wasn’t putting myself out there, with no discernible benefit, I never would have published my first book (or the second one, or the third one, which is currently in progress).

Success is cumulative. You get a little, it turns into more success, then more success, then even more success. Keep putting in the time and effort and it compounds over time.

Some people have been more successful at an early age than me. I’m turning 48 next month. And that’s fine. I never made any 30 under 30 lists or 40 under 40 lists. I’m not even going to make a 50 under 50 list. I got a late start—I didn’t begin my career until I was 27. But there is nothing more cumulative than success. If you never stop, and keep putting the work in, it gets better, and better, and better.

Why am I writing a newsletter for free?  Because it will lead to opportunities. What kind of opportunities, I have no idea.

The Secret To My Success: do one thing, do it well, do it relentlessly, have an obsession, and nothing happens to you in your apartment.

Go fuck yourself,

Jared

Music Recommendation: Mixing it up this week. Some metal from my high school days. Godflesh is what I would call grindcore. As soon as I heard this, I knew it was something special.

P.S. We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards will always be free. Feel free to forward to as many people as you like.