Everybody wants to be successful.

But virtually nobody understands that success is a path.

It's a process. It's not a finish line. It's not something that you do once and then you finish.

It is literally the systematic acquisition of skills.

And as Scott Adams said, every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.

And that's it. That's the secret. If you really want to do something in your life, if you really want to be great, if you want to smash it, if you want to be remembered,

the key is to acquire as many skills as you can because everything that you bring into your world gives you an exponentially greater chance of winning, of doing the thing that you want to do.

But you have to be totally focused and committed on gaining those skills.

And as the rock pointed out, success at anything will always come down to this. Focus and effort. And we control both.

Once you understand that that's what you have to do, you have to get control of yourself. You have to stay focused on something.

You have to learn the discipline and apply it on your path to success to acquire the skills that you want to acquire.

That it is going to demand a view that you work harder, you work smarter, and you work longer than anybody else. And that's the fucking secret.

There really is no grand mystery. If you want to be successful, if you want to do something other people can't do, then you have to become capable of the extraordinary.

You have to become capable of doing something that other people can't. And that is the best possible news I could give you.

Because it doesn't matter what you're born with. It doesn't even matter who you are. What matters is who you want to become.

And the price that you're willing to pay to get there. And let me tell you this. The price is known. And that price is the acquisition of skills.

That price is getting so good that people can't ignore you. That price is being able to beat anyone at the game that you've chosen to play.

Once you get to that point, once people stand back in awe when they watch what you're doing, then you will have won.

Then success will be yours. But it was in no uncertain terms the result of the path that you walked.

And as Angela Duckworth notes, enthusiasm is common, but endurance is rare.

So when you sneak out that first lead, when you get ahead of people and you think, hey, I've acquired this skill, I've done something.

People are looking at me like, I can't be stopped. Remember that right now, at this moment, someone is practicing, well, you're not doing the thing that you need to be doing.

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