How to Stay Focused For The Rest of 2024: Finding The Middle.

As we are halfway through 2024, I’ve been thinking more and more about what to share with you on LinkedIn and it’s obvious to me that the best piece of advice I can give you as we are halfway through the year is this:

Nothing in business is black and white. All the magic is in the grey aka the middle. Be patient, knowing that nothing is the worst thing that ever happened. Be eager, understanding that nothing is the best thing that ever happened. When you can balance these two, things get real fun.

My first “AHA” of The Middle: 

In 1998, I just started full-time at my dad’s liquor store. I want you to zoom in and look at those crazy eyes 👀 !!

This kid right here “knew.” He knew he was going to work hard and go all in on his talents and ambitions. He knew friends and family would judge him for working for his dad’s liquor store at 22. He knew that the world was about to change because of this internet thing. He knew that to achieve his dreams, he had to attack each day with tremendous eagerness and, at the same time, deploy an ungodly amount of patience to achieve what he wanted. 

At first glance, this might seem like a contradiction, but it’s really not. 

What many people are misinterpreting is that it’s not about either-or…it’s about both. Macro patience and micro speed — in my opinion, that’s the winning combination. Unfortunately for a lot of people, their messed up relationship with time leads to a lot of rushed decisions, bad priorities, and unhappiness.

PATIENCE IS A LOST ART

It makes me sad to see that patience truly is a lost art. Part of it is because this is a trait that comes so naturally to me. For whatever reason — DNA, circumstance, or maybe seeing my immigrant parents work forever — I was gifted with both extreme patience and extreme ambition. As I got older, I came to realize that this wasn’t as common in others as I thought. 

One of the reasons I talk about patience so often is because I know the happiness it has brought to my life, and I want that for all of you as well. It’s why I approach my huge goals — like building VeeFriends IP for the next 45 years or buying the New York Jets — as a fun, exciting game instead of a crushing need or pressure. 

At the end of the day, patience allows me to focus on playing the game while the score takes care of itself.

EAGERNESS BUILDS CONFIDENCE

Now… you might not feel great about the score taking care of itself if you don’t deploy eager intent daily. For me, on a day-to-day basis, I’m moving unbelievably fast because I’m eager to get things done. When you’re not spending any time worrying, you’re spending time executing. Great focus is eagerness shown through speed. You’re not spending the 15 minutes a day bickering. You’re not spending four hours a day wondering if that person’s trying to ruin you…

It’s just input and output. It’s very binary. You can’t expect 30 years of results from 30 minutes of work.

On your day-to-day, you have to be fast. You have to be quick with your clients. They email you, you email them back … your day-to-day, has to be predicated on the thesis of SPEED but your vision … what you want to achieve in life, you’re not going to build it in one year, yet so many people don’t understand. In the day-to-day they’re slow, and in the macro, they want their business to be huge tomorrow. 

I am still enormously patient. At the most macro, I think in 20, 30, 40 year terms. I think a lot of people’s behavior is predicated on the micro… They want to get this … They need to get that…I think I need to buy the New York Jets. I need to be an all-time iconic entrepreneur. I need to impact as many people as possible so that I’m giving as much as I’m taking during that 50-year period.

IMPATIENCE AND INSECURITY

In general, I think that impatience comes from insecurity. People are insecure about other people’s opinions about where they are in life, what they’re doing, how they’re living, and how much stuff they have, so they want to rush to a level of success others will approve of. 

They’re also often insecure about how much time they have left. So many young people think they need to have their lives all figured out or become millionaires by the time they hit 30, and if they don’t, they beat themselves up for being “behind.” I really want to help change the way we interact with time. 

Yes, it’s true that you’re gonna die; anyone who consumes my content has heard me say that a hundred times. On the other hand, unless you’re gonna die soon, you should really only be playing long-term. For example, I know that I’m gonna be a businessman for the rest of my life. That self-awareness allows me to act fast in the micro, or my day-to-day execution, but be patient in my macro, long-term goals. In other words, when you have the self-awareness to know who you are and what you want, you’re not insecure about the time it takes to get there. This is why it’s so important to explore the middle to ground yourself in what you want to achieve. And if you don’t know what to achieve? Be eager to taste things – you have so much time to try anything you like!

I hope you enjoyed this edition of LinkedIn 360!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

I will be releasing my first-ever kid’s book through VeeFriends on July 16th, which discusses exactly what we talked about today. The book is called Meet Me in the Middle, a unique two-in-one flip-book format that encourages young readers to see how different the world looks from another point of view.

Start the book from the front and readers will learn about Eager Eagle’s day. Flip it over and readers will see the same story from Patient Pig’s perspective. It’s a fun story about how real success comes from seeing how the other side does it.

If you have kids or have friends/family who would enjoy this book, it would mean a whole lot if you could share it their way: https://veefriends.com/book 

• Grab your tickets to join me at Barnes & Noble at Union Square in New. York City on July 17th to Celebrate my first children's book, MEET ME IN THE MIDDLE!

• Grab your tickets to join me at Wine Library in Springfield, New Jersey on July 18th to celebrate my first children's book, MEET ME IN THE MIDDLE!

• Pre-order a copy of my first children's book, MEET ME IN THE MIDDLE!

• Check out my new video: What Our Family Business Taught Us l VeeCon 2023 Opening Keynote

• Purchase a copy of my new book, Day Trading Attention: How to Actually Build Brand and Sales in the New Social Media World. Out right now!