Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I'm your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 209 today, and we're talking about playing the long game Now. We have chatted about this topic probably a good year ago or so. It might've been less, might've been more, but it's a topic to me which is very dear in the sense of, like I am a long-term thinker. I think about things over a long period of time. Not just only that, but I think about how I'm going to achieve things and I'm willing to do that for a short-term versus a long-term payoff. And short-term for me is probably two to five years. Long-term to me is probably, you know, five years, 10 years and beyond, and I want to dive into this of how there is this power that we can really really unleash when we start to have some long-term thinking and why, when we apply, obviously, the power of consistency with that, even though it may look a little bit boring, it's going to help you come out for the win. Now, if you are new here, I appreciate you being here. We've had quite a few new followers join the channel and the podcast over the last couple of months and I'm really grateful. So if this is something that you enjoy, if this is something that you look forward to each week, make sure you do hit subscribe. You can continue the conversation. You can leave a comment down below and we can continue the conversation after these episodes. But my focus for you today is we live in a world that is obsessed with speed. We want results now, we want fast money, we want fast success all these different things. But what if I told you that the real winners in all this is the ones that actually just are willing to take their time and achieve long-term success, and it isn't the ones that are chasing these quick wins on a continuous basis? Of course, it's always great to find a quick win to achieve productivity in the moment, but the ones that are really winning are the ones that are playing the long game and the ones who stay consistent and the ones that show up every day and the ones that put in the ramps, and I want to encourage you and I really want to help you see that this can be you as well.

Now, the crazy part of all this is, by the time people look successful, everyone assumes they've made it overnight. It's such a cliche. People ask how did you do it? It's like 10 years of hard work. But the reality is it wasn't speed, it was grit, and I want to talk about that today. I want to talk about why long-term thinking is actually going to be your most ultimate advantage in ensuring that you're going to see the results that you want to see and able to be able to see that success that you've always wanted and, of course, truly stand out and make a dint in the areas of life that you want to make a dint in. So if that sounds like something that you want to listen, to understand, get a better understanding about, then this is the episode for you. We're going to roll the intro and we're going to dive straight in. All right. So why long-term success looks like an overnight win?

Now, this is probably one of the most cliche things that we see over the internet, over the world, in society, there's a lot of people that when we see people all of a sudden pop out of nowhere and they're making headlines, or they're making big deals, or they're making big sales, or they're achieving huge success or whatever it may be, that's all defined subjectively. I think people just assume that it's happened overnight, but most of the time they've been working their butt off, if not for 10, 20, 30 years. Right, it sometimes takes a very long time to get the success that we want and unfortunately, there's a lot of disappointment in the world that I have because a lot of people don't start paying attention until they see that this success has happened. Now we define what success looks like for us, but we always, we always, and we tend to define what success looks like looks for others, right? Some good examples of this is let's say, there's an artist who suddenly blows up because you know their painting has sold for a million dollars or something, and people like, who is this guy? Like he's just come out of nowhere and he's just blown the water, that's, he hasn't come out of nowhere. He's probably been painting for 10 years. Right, that's the cliche A business that comes out of nowhere and all of a sudden they're a disruptor to someone else's business. But they've just been working away. They've been grinding away in silence for the last 10 years, five years or two years or however long it may be.

Sometimes we see athletes that just pop out of nowhere and you know, naturally talented. But they've actually been training relentlessly for decades. Yeah, they're naturally talented. People will say, oh, you know, he's just got genes that no one else has. But no, he's probably still been working since he was a kid, or she was a kid, to enable to, I guess, entrap and you know, and get into those results and tap into the results actually out on the course, out on the field or wherever it may be. But unfortunately, people only and I'm generalizing here, we tend to only see the moment we succeed or the moment you succeed, and not the years and years of invisible work. The moment you break through, the world finally notices you, but you have no idea, or they have no idea, how long it has taken you to get there. And that's okay, this is not a bad thing, and I think sometimes just doing it in your own silence is what's going to make and have such a bigger impact For myself.

I document my journey here on the YouTube. I've been doing that for a long time and there's a lot of people that enjoy, that can relate to that journey and are encouraged and motivated and inspired by that journey. But then there's a lot of people that because maybe right now I'm not meeting their level of success. I feel like I'm successful. I mean, I could never have dreamed of doing this back when I started. But here we are. So for me I'm very successful. But to other people, a success is a certain money number, a certain time number, I don't know. It's really defined by ourselves individually and I don't meet their criteria for that. So therefore, they don't think it's realistic, they don't think it's good enough. Which is fine, that's between you and you, and this is my life and my idea. But the reality of it is I could be doing this silently or I could be doing it out here, sharing it with other people. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day, as long as you're moving forwards.

Now this moves us on to point number two, which is the truth about why most people don't win, don't make it or don't actually see the success or the results that they want to see. And this is why long-term thinking is such. I guess we could call it a cheat code of sorts. This is why long-term thinking is such. I guess we could call it a cheat code of sorts. Most people don't have the patience to see it through.

Look, I might be talking to you directly. How many times have you started something? You think it's going to be big, it's going to be great, it's going to change my life. We're going to make lots of money, I'm going to lose lots of weight, all these different things. You get excited, it's amazing, but then maybe it's gotten hard and you've decided to this isn't worth it. I'm going to go a different direction. The frank terms of this is you quit when it gets hard. Sometimes we expect these instant results and when we don't get those, we stop when it doesn't happen fast enough. Now, this, this is okay Sometimes.

The reason why I believe this happens is because the thing that you're pursuing, the thing that you're chasing, isn't really what you want to be doing in the first place. I digress. But the other thing is, the reason why people will not be able to do this is because we look for shortcuts. We look for quick ways of instead embracing the process. We look for ways that we're able to just kind of, you know, one, two, three, skip a few, 99, 100. It doesn't work like that, and this is why long-term thinkers or long-term players are always going to win, because they're playing a different game. We're playing on a field which is beyond the norm, right, but it also means that it comes at a cost. It comes at a sacrifice as well, because you are going to have to be willing to invest the time, the money, the effort, the emotional parts that come with that, the hardships that come with that. But in the long run, I believe when you look back in hindsight, you'll see that it's like this was worth it completely. You don't want the hindsight to be you look back and think I wish I did this. You don't want the hindsight to be you look back and think I wish I did this, because that will be very frustrating.

Success isn't about being the best. It's about lasting longer than everyone else. And that is how you are successful, because if you're able to continue to thrive in a market we're talking business here If you're able to thrive in a market as long as possible, you're going to outwin your competitors, because maybe they can't thrive in the same markets. So that's why long-term thinking is very, very important. So I guess the contrast to this is the slow path is actually the fastest path, which is where the long-term thinking comes into play.

Now, when we talk about long-term thinking, this is like in 10 years. This is where I want to be. You can think about it all you want, but you still got to go do the work, right? I just want to clarify that For me. I'm happy to do the work over a long period of time if it's going to get me to where I want to be, but the if the if is still dependent on me. It's not about like if it just magically happens, but if I'm able to actually get myself there. So how do we get ourselves there? It's by taking the slow path. So most people think speed equals success.

But really, really, success comes from the consistency, the ability to show up when motivation fades, when it's a tough day, when you don't feel like it, and it's also the compounding growth of that consistency. So small efforts stacking over a period of time and then a long period of time for exponential results. And the other component of this is delayed gratification, resisting quick wins for bigger long-term gains. Now, if you don't know this, a very, very I think we've probably spoken about it here before is the 1% every day rule. So after one year, if you're doing 1% better every day, you won't be 365% better. You're actually going to be like 38,. Yeah, 3,800% better, or 3,800% better every, due to the compounding growth, because you're doing 1% on 1%, 1% on 1%, 1% on 1%, and it just continues to compound.

Now does that seem slow? For me, one year is not slow, but maybe for you sure. But imagine what you're able to achieve after five years. Well, everyone else has quit, so for me, I've been doing my business, been doing the podcast for five years. Where I put my time and effort has purely been majority. 80% of my time and effort goes into my business and that has seen the most results the podcast I haven't been putting the same amount of time that I put into my business, into the podcast, because that hasn't been my priority. However, what I have found is because I continue to put effort into the business over a long period of time, I learn, I understand and we're able to grow quicker. But at the same time, because I'm still consistent with the podcast, we continuously grow. It's not like we've stopped, it's not like it's slowed down, it's not like it's getting worse. It's actually only getting better because we're continuously putting in the reps, just at a slower rate. The business we've been doing it for five years. We've been putting in reps. We're still doing it for five years. I wouldn't say that's fast, but we still continue to see better and better and better results over a period of time and even if that percentage is very small, it's still growth. And if you're not willing to invest in the time and the growth over that time, then you can't expect to see really great results.

We see businesses, we see companies, we see people, we see athletes, we see all these different elements of people's lives or entities or whatever over a long period of time, and they are absolutely dominating because they've been in their field or they've been doing the thing for such a very, very long time. A good point around all of this is and it actually comes from a book called Blue Ocean Strategy and it's basically talking about building a blue ocean for your business or for your life, but it also talks about why playing the long game helps you stand out. You see, most people are living in this red ocean, which means you're fighting for some quick wins and trends and attention. You're competing against everyone, right, the competition is brutal because everyone is doing the same thing. But for long-term thinkers, no, they're creating blue oceans, clean, rich oceans which they have, spaces where they dominate because no one else is stuck around long enough to actually be able to dominate in that area. Good examples of this again cliches, generalizations, but most content creators quit within a year.

Those who stay five plus years will win, will have better results, better success. Most businesses will chase trends or you see other people doing it, so you jump on the trend train and you think, oh, I'm going to be able to do this, but you can't. Those who stay true to a vision or build an industry, changing brand, or you have ambition and a passion, will see the success, not those that are just trying to mimic other people. And most people switch from a goal Sorry, most people switch from goals to goals, to goals, right, and we're jumping around those who commit to be becoming the best in their space, in what they offer, in the value, whether it's this, this and that or that, this and that, whatever it may be.

But if you know what your one focus is and your brand and your vision and your mission, this could be business, this could be personal, this could be for sports, this could be for health, this could be for fitness, all these different things. The longer you stay in the game, the fewer competitors you will have. So how to think long-term and how do we actually stay consistent? Well, the first thing we need to do is we need to stop chasing quick wins. If you're always looking for the next hack or the next shortcut, you're never going to be able to build something that lasts. I know this because before I started my business, I've had multiple businesses. I've had businesses which have, I mean, they've done okay, but I've had businesses which have flopped. I've had ideas which have flopped and then when you realize and you get into it, it's not as what you thought. It flops because you give up right.

So you need to think about what it is that you want. You need to think about what does this look like over a five-year plan? What does this look like over a 10-year plan? Most people overestimate what they can do in one year, but underestimate what you can do in five years. We want to go achieve million-dollar businesses in a year, but have you ever thought about achieving a million dollar business over five years, or even longer? It doesn't matter. I haven't put that down to a revenue perspective, but I continue to know that as we keep moving, the rate we move in the growth that I've seen over the last few years and we keep pushing that into where I want it to be, then it's going to be worth it for 10 years to pay off every single year in the 10th year. That's the way I look at it. But it's hard to fathom that now because you're not seeing those results. But as you continue to compound, as you continue to grow, you can start to really see these things obviously exponentially grow and compound.

We need to focus on systems and not just goals. You can have all the goals in the world, but if you have no system or no process to actually get through that, then it's going to be very hard to make the impact you want to make. Goals are endpoints. Systems are what get us there. Instead of I want to get fit, no focus, I want to train four times a week, no matter what. It's simple stuff, but it requires hardcore dedication.

The other thing you need to do is you need to track your progress. You need to track your progress even when it's small Momentum builds when you see the progress, even if it's tiny. That's why I use dashboards. That's why I track data. I see things because it gives me trend lines, it gives me averages. It gives me validation that what I'm doing is working. And if it's working well, then you will continue to push forward. And if it's not working, you can see why and you can see well, maybe it's just, maybe it's an outlier, maybe it's just a current trend, maybe it's just a season, but it gives you some level of understanding of what you're trying to achieve and where you're going and how it's working. Is it working? Is it not working? What do I need to do to potentially change?

Number five is you need to be willing to master the art of boring work. The process will feel slow, it will feel repetitive, it's a grind, but the boring work is what separates you from the rest. Right, because you're willing to do it. Nothing. No, none of these great success stories came from just someone waking up and everything changed. That has come after 10 years of doing lots of it and waking up and then, finally, something breaks in terms of you get a breaking point of success, of what we call an overnight success. People grinding away in running, people grinding away in painting, people grinding away in their business, people grinding away in losing weight, and sometimes it can be just trying to learn something. You're going at it. You're going at it. You step away, you come back, you just click and all of a sudden, everything snowballs. So you can't do this playing that you're betting that things will change. You have to have something to back up your bet, something that's putting the odds in your favor, whether it's your work, whether it's your investment, whether it's your commitment, whether it's other, I guess, factors that's going to help make that play out.

So my final thought is this Will you be one of the few who will stick it out, or are you going to be like everyone else? Long-term success isn't about talent you need to have talent but it isn't about the basis of talent, and it isn't about luck either. It's about having the patience. It's about having the discipline to play the long game, to stay in the game, to continue to work through the problems, to continue to work through the hurdles, to figure out how to pivot, to figure out how to adjust. Most people won't do it. Most people will quit when it gets hard and most people won't wait long enough for the results. That can be your advantage. That can be your winning point. So the real question I will leave you with is are you willing to commit to something long enough to let the success catch up to you, and when you do that, you're going to see some amazing things, and that's when the real magic will happen.

Appreciate you being here. If you want to continue the conversation, if you want to talk about it, if you enjoyed this, please drop down into the comments below, leave a comment. More than happy to chat more about this or hear from your stories. If you enjoyed this, please like, subscribe. But most of all, if you think someone else needs to hear this, please share it with them, send it to them, tell them why they need to listen to it, and that would mean the absolute world to me. We'll be back here next week again, and you have a wonderful day. Cheers.