The Toughest – and Most Valuable! – Lesson to Learn

Andy Snyder|February 12, 2020

Someday the cure to cancer will look super simple.

It will be obvious.

Someday your life’s biggest regret will be easy to spot…

The trick to saving your marriage… your job… or a friendship will be obnoxiously clear.

And you’ll wonder why you were ever so silly to avoid the clear path to riches – opting for the rough and tough way instead.

We’ve all been there.

We’ve all uttered those six simple words… “Why didn’t I think of that?”

But you know faulting yourself for your shortcomings is a fallacy. Using hindsight to spot the errors of our ways is no saner than a dog chasing their own tail or barking at their reflection in the mirror.

The Best We Have… for Now

Sure, distant generations will read about us and our battles with cancer and laugh. They’ll think we were crazy for pouring poison into our bodies, praying it would attack the killer cells.

But right now… that’s all we’ve got.

We’re using our best knowledge to make the best decisions possible.

To think any of us is doing any different is just plain ignorant.

It’s one of the toughest lessons to learn. Sadly, many folks march all the way to their grave and never pick up on it.

In fact, we’d argue it’s a rare gift if we’re ever so lucky to understand the idea.

It’s why we’ve made Connections a vital part of our mission.

The cure for cancer… the trick to saving our marriage… the key to getting rich… nobody will ever figure it out entirely on their own.

That bears repeating.

Nobody will figure it out on their own.

Instead, we all build our Know-How on the backs of others.

It’s the antithesis of so much of the world’s self-help garbage. But with enough backs… anything can get done.

Sure, it takes time. But it also takes something much more precious.

It takes the guts to admit none of us gets where we’re going all by ourselves.

Giving Credit

Last Friday, we were interviewed on a business-focused podcast.

We were asked our No. 1 lesson for starting a new enterprise. Did we have some sort of trick? A magic formula? Or an advantage none of our competition had?

What we told the host is exactly what we’ve told you.

We may be a sole proprietor… but it takes more than one soul to run a business.

Our success – we freely and proudly admit – was based on the work of others. We looked around, studied the greats, did what worked, avoided what didn’t… and the path to success became obvious.

We didn’t invent anything. We merely took advantage of our richest asset – the experience of others.

It’s what any scientist would do.

Nobody would be so ignorant to set out to cure cancer without first learning what’s been tried and what shows hope.

But why is it then that so many of us not only refuse to give credit its due… but also don’t add to it?

And Now… the Controversy

We say that “trick” is the single most important thing a person can learn. Dare we say it at the risk of ruffling the oily feathers of the ignorant, but learning from others and accepting that some folks simply know more… is what makes a man a man.

Take a conversation we had recently.

It was about our trading strategy.

By all stretches of the imagination, what we do works.

In December, we won a slew of awards. We’ve added on to the gains. On Monday, in fact, we took another triple-digit gain… that took less than 24 hours to unfold. The gains have come in the midst of a winning streak that has provided one money-doubling opportunity after another.

It’s true that we get great pleasure out of doing foolish things (it keeps us young), but we’re not so foolish that we don’t know we could do even better.

So when a person in the industry whom we hold in great esteem whispered in our ear recently to tell us how we could tweak our strategy and magnify the gains… you bet we listened.

More on that sordid affair – and the crazy results – in a few days.

In the meantime, if you’re serious about doing better, getting richer or just wanting to be better than the next guy… do this.

Think of just one good thing in your life that you’re proud of.

What or who did it take to get you there?

We’d bet that it involves a Connection… but we’d just be taking your money.

There’s no other way to get where you’re going.

Don’t rely on others. No, no.

But be wise enough to build on what others have done.

None of us has much time. It’s the only way to get where we’re going before the clock runs out.

Anything else will just look silly.