Enjoy Getting Punched in the Face
Turning pain into motivation
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Suffering is the Path to Success
“TAKE PAIN! TAKE PAIN! TAKE PAIN!”
That’s the daily mantra of one of the world’s most successful traders, Paul Tudor Jones. Why? Because PTJ knows that pain is the precursor to all great success. It’s true of investing, business, parenthood, fitness, everything. One’s capacity for success in anything is directly linked to one’s capacity to suffer.
Our ability to endure pain is like a muscle. We’re endowed with a certain natural power to endure, but it’s also something we can optimize for by choosing where to embrace pain. I’ve learned, often painfully, as an investor and now an entrepreneur with Intelligent Alpha that three ingredients make pain more bearable, and they happen to rhyme:
Mission
Conviction
Recognition
Mission: Find a Big, Contrarian Idea
Most submit to pain because they accept missions that are too small. People chase small, conventional ideas to make a little money or make something a little better because small, conventional ideas are comfortable, they’re obvious. they’re easy. Who gives a shit. Not investors. Not employees. And eventually not even the entrepreneur. Small, conventional ideas are destined to be abandoned.
Big, contrarian ideas survive pain, but there aren’t that many of them. Big ideas that do exist are hidden. If the big ideas were obvious, someone would have done them already. So big, contrarian ideas require a long process of curiosity and discovery to find. Curiosity is the kernel of all extraordinary outcomes because it leads to the few big ideas that matter.
We’re lucky to run into just a few truly big ideas in a lifetime. When we find a big idea, it should be so obviously important that it takes about two seconds of thought to chase the idea. More than two seconds of thought, and the idea probably isn’t big enough. Finding big ideas meant for you is like finding a unicorn. You can’t help but know when a big idea hits you.
When you’re not chasing a big idea, your time is best spent in curious discovery while fending off the many mediocre ideas that try to fool you along the way.
Conviction: The Big Test
Conviction is not earned through careful analysis and testing. Conviction coincides with discovery. Ambitious people are wired to believe in big, contrarian ideas because we know they cause revolutions that change the world. When a big idea grabs us, we can’t help but believe it. You don’t need to find conviction in your big idea, conviction finds you.
Once a big idea grabs you with conviction, the world will test it for you. Every setback as an investor or entrepreneur is the world asking how much you really believe in your idea. It’s testing how much you want it. The market won’t cede the riches of success to the weak handed. It’s built specifically to parse out the weak and reserve reward for the strong willing to take the pain of their conviction.
Conviction finds you, but what you need to find is integrity. Your big idea might be wrong. Maybe that’s what the world is telling you. The careful balance between stubborn conviction and intellectual honesty is the art of taking pain.
Recognition: Enjoy Getting Punched in the Face
If you have conviction in a big, contrarian idea, then recognition is your best friend. Know that pain is coming, and welcome it as a necessary friend.
A friend who’s launching a new company was recently sharing some doubts and frustrations that come with starting any business. I told him what I tell all the entrepreneurs we fund. Pain is a requirement to work on something important. It’s the world testing your conviction. Find joy in the pain, and keep going.
Mike Tyson has a legendary quote that, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
When you get punched in the face, remind yourself that’s the cost of success. Then get back to work. Somehow knowing the pain is coming makes absorbing the hits a little easier.
Take pain!
Disclaimer. The Deload is a collection of my personal thoughts and ideas. My views here do not constitute investment advice. Content on the site is for educational purposes. The site does not represent the views of my firms, Intelligent Alpha or Deepwater Asset Management. I may reference companies in which Deepwater has an investment. See Intelligent Alpha’s full disclosures here. See Deepwater’s full disclosures here.