Become desperate; become dangerous; Hernan conquers Mexico

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Become desperate and become a truly dangerous man. I'm going to be talking about desperateness, urgency. Become desperate and become a truly capable and dangerous man. And you might be thinking, oh, an Instagram model desperate for views. And that's not the case. Or you might be thinking, oh, that cringey guy that we all know on Snapchat that posts awful guitar sing-along songs of him singing. And I'm not talking about that desperateness either. I'm talking about something different, which I will. I'll get to it. Which I will display in one of the most iconic stories you've ever heard. The format, like always, I'll relate to you guys with a personal story. Then I'll bring in some timeless, profound wisdom by one of the greatest minds ever to write books, Robert Greene. And finally, I'll leave you with a little bit of a take-home, hard-hitting message, some words that you can ponder over day and night. So, like always, I'll relate to you guys on a personal level with a story. And then I'll introduce some timeless, profound wisdom written by someone way, way smarter than me, eons smarter than me, light years smarter than me. Okay, this guy is Robert Greene. You may know him from The 48 Laws of Power. And then finally, I'll leave you with a little bit of a take-home, little hard-hitting message that you can just ponder over day and night. So, let's get started. So, this is an excerpt by—let me move my computer to a better reading position here. These kids are screaming outside. I don't know if you can hear that. But the kids just got out. It's like 3. Alright, so, create a sense of urgency and desperation. The death ground strategy. So, you might be asking, desperate for what? You were just talking about not this type of desperateness, it's something different. Desperateness for your life. So, it's hard for us to imagine that in our everyday lives we're not desperate to survive. So, I had to ponder that. I had to ask myself, well, a lot of people who achieve great things, they did so because someone doubted them or they wanted to prove someone wrong. Or a teacher or a coach when they were a kid said that you'll never be anything, you'll never amount to something. And so, they basically did everything they could to prove that person wrong. And in doing so, became successful or got wealthy. Something along those lines. And for those of you who don't have that as part of your story, this is going to be for you. And if you do have that, it's going to be even better for you. It's going to make you understand how to apply that in an even better way. So, for me, I never had anything that I was really fighting against. For the most part, people liked me, people believed in me, and nothing too great was expected of me. I knew that I was going to be a college graduate. And besides that, I was pretty much just a normal guy. And so, I needed something pushing me, prodding me to grow and to become something way better than I am now. And I didn't have that before. And so, what I found was that you can either live this current life and be happy with it, or you can create a brand new ideal in your mind. And every day that you aren't experiencing that ideal, you must forge yourself into that person through a mental simulation, through thinking. How would I act if I had that, if I was that person? And it's pretty difficult. It's like this mental game that you have to play. And it's 24-7. Because as soon as you let up, as soon as you let the old self creep back up, the old habits, you go right back down. Because there's no external thing actually threatening your life. It's only threatening the life that you could have, not the one that you currently have. So, I'm actually going to read this little section at the beginning of the chapter about creating a sense of urgency and desperation. The Death Ground Strategy from The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene. You are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. And he writes, you are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Since nothing seems urgent to you, you are only half involved in what you do. The only way to change is through action and outside pressure. Put yourself in situations where you have too much at stake to waste time or resources. If you cannot afford to lose, you won't. Cut your ties to the past. Enter into unknown territory where you must depend on your wits and energy to see you through. Place yourself on death ground where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive. Now that's inspiring. That's what I'm talking about. What a great way to jump right into the story about how do you do that? What's the best example in all of history of someone who had their back against the wall who had to fight like hell to get out alive? And this is truly, I cannot believe this is a real story, guys. This is actual history. So there it goes. Nineteen year old Hernan Cortes heard about a little place called Mexico. And he heard that it was full of gold and treasures, the finest, the finest treasures. They thought it was a literal empire of gold and just waiting to be conquered. And he thought to himself, nineteen years old, he said, I want to conquer Mexico. One day I'll conquer Mexico and settle it and it'll be mine. And so he spent ten years in the army, just working his way up through the ranks, ten years. Until he was the secretary to the king of Spain or whatever that guy was. So he spent ten years slowly rising up the ranks until he was secretary to the Spanish governor of Cuba. Because Cuba is right off the coast of Mexico. Because Cuba is right off the coast of Mexico. So he finally becomes the secretary. He finally has a position of leadership. And he can kind of vie for the funding of a trip to Cuba. And so he does that. And they're kind of skeptical and they set everything up. They got him eleven ships. And then the king kind of started pulling out, or the governor started pulling out. He said, I don't know if I want to do this. And Hernan heard about that and he said, oh well, we're leaving. I don't want this guy to change his mind on me. So he left in the middle of the night, a little bit against the king's wishes, and arrived in the new world. So March 1519, he landed. And it was 500 Spanish conquistadors versus half a million Aztecs. And these Aztecs guys, they weren't just normal people. They would eat the flesh of their prisoners and wear their skins as trophies. They were ruthless. And now, they found themselves in a forbidden land, full of diseases with lack of basic necessities. And they were insanely, insanely outnumbered. And some begged for mercy to go home. They wanted to relax with their wives and children in a peaceful, safe environment. Others plotted to steal a ship and just go back to Cuba, right? So, Cortes caught wind of this and had the two conspirators hanged. And then, once he found that others were planning to leave because of the insanity of the entire thing, he had five of the ships sunk by drilling small holes in them. And he told the guys that worms must have been worms. Worms ate through the hole and then the ship sunk. So, salvage everything you can and then come back. But then, once Cortes sunk the other six... But then, once Cortes sunk the other six ships, they kind of caught on. And they were like, maybe this wasn't worms. And, of course, they knew it was Hernan Cortes, this crazy... This guy was just out of his mind to them, right? So... When this happened, he said, He said, you can either hang me and... You can either hang me being... So, they had a meeting and everybody was pissed. They were like, they wanted to kill him. They were mutinous. They said, what have you done? You've stranded us here on an island full of just absolutely crazed Aztecs. And he goes, yeah, you can either hang me, which is basically hanging your only chance at getting out of here alive, or we can fight. So, now, they were left with one choice. It was only by conquering the Aztecs and becoming lords of Mexico could they stand a chance at getting out alive. And... Now I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. I'll bet you're dying to know what happened. This, whatever you're doing now, may be your last act on Earth. It may very well be your last battle. There's no power which could guarantee that you're going to live one more minute. Acts have power, he said, especially when the person acting knows that those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever one is doing may very well be one's last act on Earth. I recommend that you reconsider your life and bring your acts into that light. Focus your attention on the link between you and your death, without remorse or sadness or worrying. Focus your attention on the fact that you don't have time, and let your acts flow accordingly. Let each of your acts be your last battle on Earth. Only under those conditions will your acts have the rightful power. Otherwise, they will be, for as long as you live, the acts of a timid man. Is it so terrible to be a timid man? No. It isn't if you are going to be immortal, but if you are going to die there, it is not time for timidity. Simply because timidity makes you cling to something that exists only in your thoughts. It soothes you while everything is at a lull. But then the awesome, mysterious world will open its mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will realize that your sure ways were not sure at all. Being timid prevents us from examining and exploiting our lot as men. The Lessons of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda Those ships in the harbor, they were more than just transportation. They represented the freedom to live. And all the men, they felt like they still had something. So guys, another little reading here from the 33 Strategies of War. The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Sutetomo, 1659. I'm not sure that's how you say that. He said, the way the samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate. So that's my challenge to you. That's my hard-hitting words that I want you to think about day and night, is become insane and desperate. And how your desperateness combined with a goal. There's no other way for you to live but to get there. And you're desperate. You're thinking about it 24-7. Scheming, planning, devising solutions, Scheming, planning, devising solutions, Compopulating methods, right? Simply become insane and desperate.