Transcript
Use with ChatGPT / Claude Auto-scroll A
The speaker reflects on his early success and introduces the concept of finding an unfair advantage. He shares the story of feeling outmatched at Z Fellows and realizing he needed to play his own game.
So, this month I collected the most cash I've ever collected in my entire life, and I was kind of reflecting like, "How did I get in this position?"I'm 20 years old.I would say I'm not great at many things.I can't swing a golf club.I can't dance.I can't even legally drink yet, but I've been able to like build this life of my dreams basically and get in rooms with some pretty insane people and make a lot of money.And how was I able to do that?I think it comes down to this idea of finding your unfair advantage.And so, I'll tell you a story.When I was 16 years old, working for this tech startup called Z Fellows, and I was running their social media, and I was doing a good job, and so they flew me out to SF, and I spent a
week with the cohort of Z Fellow students.And so, Z Fellows is basically this venture fund where they give you $10,000, and they they give you a week, and you spend that week trying to build your startup.And I got in these pretty insane rooms with people.One guy was building like a a robot arm that cooked things.Another girl was like she was building an AI personal shopper.And another kid was like he was both a crypto millionaire and a magician.And so, I felt like really out of my depths.I I felt like they were running mental circles around me.And after talking with them, I remember having this distinct feeling that I do not want to compete with these guys at all.And I realized that I couldn't beat them at their game.I had to play my own.I had to find my unfair advantage.
And so, in this video I want to walk through why an unfair advantage is so important, how to find your unfair advantage, and then how to exploit it.
He explains why following passion, money, or even ikigai can be limiting, and argues instead for following natural aptitude. He shows how skill, fulfillment, consistency, and mastery build toward success.
And so, the first step to finding your unfair advantage to me is to stop trying to find your passion.I feel like everyone these days like talks about, "Oh, you got to find your passion."Like Steve Jobs has said that, but I think follow your passion is one of the worst pieces of career advice you can give a young ambitious person.And I'll tell you why.The problem with finding your passion is that while yes, passion is important, and yes, you should want to be passionate about the things you do, passion alone is not enough.Like I was passionate about basketball.Actually, I was obsessed with basketball.It was my first love.I would go down to my basement.I would wrap my basketball with a plastic bag and I would basically dribble for hours trying to practice, practice, practice.And I got pretty good at it, but it just didn't stop the fact that I was a skinny, scrawny, short Asian kid that was just being out-athleticized by everyone else.
And on the other hand, people will say, "Oh, okay, but you should just follow the money, right?Follow the career that is the hottest right now."And yes, you want to make sure that what you're doing is lucrative, but the problem with that is you end up in this trap where the better you do in your job, the more work you get.And so, if you don't like what you do, but you're making a lot of money, then you're kind of in this trap of like, "Okay, sure you're winning the money game, but are you winning the fulfillment game?"Then the other aspect, the third route that people tell people is, "Oh, you should find your ikigai, right?"And so, ikigai is this concept that was popularized as this Japanese concept where you want to find the intersection between what you love, what you're good at, what you can get paid for, and what the world needs.
And so, that intersection, that is your ikigai or your reason for being.While I love that concept, the problem with that is it's so hard to even find that.Like, how do you know what the world needs?How do you know what you love?Like, if you're just starting out on your journey, how do you know what the world will need in the next 10 years?You don't.And so, it kind of like paralyzes you with all these like different choices, and so you end up doing nothing.And so, the better path to me is to follow your natural aptitude.And what I mean by that is in anything that you're doing, there's probably one thing that you're better than than everything else, and one thing that you're probably better than most people at.And the reason you want to follow your natural aptitude is because the better you are at something, the faster you will progress.
The faster you will progress, the more you will enjoy it.The more you will enjoy it, the more you'll stick with it.And the longer you stick with it, that's when the money and the success and the fame, that's when all that happens.Said differently, skill produces fulfillment, fulfillment produces consistency, consistency produces mastery, and mastery produces money and fulfillment.
The speaker identifies writing as his own unfair advantage and gives clues for spotting personal strengths. He encourages experimentation through trying different projects to learn what fits and what does not.
And so, for me, my unfair advantage, the thing that I was naturally better than that most people was writing.And so, there were a few clues that kind of led me to realizing that writing was my unfair advantage.I think I wrote faster than most people.I remembered quotes better than most people.I could summarize what people said in 5 minutes and just say it in a pithy sentence.And honestly, I enjoy it.You know, for the last 6 years I've written a weekly newsletter every single Sunday.And I had a friend tell me like, "Why are you signing yourself up for like weekly homework?"But to me it didn't feel like homework.It felt like a reward.Like I get to write about what I'm learning.I get to express myself.I get to build an audience of people who like the same things I like.
And so for other people, your natural aptitude may be, "Hey, you're naturally more charismatic than others."Or hey, "You're actually really good at selling people on ideas."Like you when you're really opinionated about something, you can make other people believe the same thing you believe.Or hey, "You're really analytical and when you watch TV shows, you tend to yell out at the the characters on the screen because they're doing something wrong and you know you should be doing something better."These are all clues for the unfair advantage that you have.And if you can't immediately identify what your unfair advantage is, that is fine.I I don't expect you to immediately.Two pro tips there is, number one, ask your friends and family, "Where have you seen me at my best?What do you think comes easy to me that others find difficult?"And then the second pro tip is, "Where does your mind wander when you're doing nothing?
Where does your mind wander when you're in the shower?"Because the thing you often think about when you're not working is probably the thing you should be working on.If you're still unsure, that's completely normal.That means the next task is not to choose, but to experiment.Become a mad scientist.When you're young, your biggest advantage is that you can afford to be wrong more often.Like if you have nothing going for you, then your greatest advantage is that you have nothing going for you.You can take a lot of risk because you have very little obligations.You have a ton of time, energy, and drive.And so you can afford make these mistakes because you can rebound more quickly and do something else.And so the best pieces of advice I can give you is if you don't know what to do, do something.
Like for example, when I was 15 years old and I Googled how to make money online, I tried everything.I tried a music promotion YouTube channel.I tried Instagram theme pages.I tried a newsletter.I even tried a clothing brand.I thought I'd be the next Gymshark.And all of those things didn't pan out.But through each of those experiments, I learned something and more importantly, I learned what I didn't like.For the YouTube music promotion channel, I realized, "Hey, I'm actually not that passionate about music."For the Instagram theme pages, I realized, "Hey, you know, this is fun, but like if it's not the one thing I'm obsessed with, I really can't juggle multiple things."For the clothing brand, I realized, "Hey, I really don't like physically packing things in my garage.I'd rather do something digital."And so each experiment, while others would have labeled it as a failure, I saw it as a win because it steered me closer to the thing that I was good at, which was copywriting.
He outlines three practical experiments: talking to people, shadowing professionals, and actually doing the work. The goal is to gather real evidence about what you enjoy and where you excel.
And so as a mad scientist, there's really three experiments that you can do that will help you get closer to where you want to go.And so level one is to talk to people who are doing things that you're interested in.And so when I was 16, when I was in high school, I got on Twitter and I would DM people asking to like hop on a free Zoom call.I would pester them with questions like, "What are you working on?Do you like it?What do you not like about what you're doing?Do you see yourself doing this for the next 10 years?If you could do anything else, what would you do?"The other reason why I like talking to people is it immediately puts you in this position where you're actually getting data on what you like and don't like because if you just theorize like, "Oh, would I like being
accountant?Would I like working in finance?Would I like joining a tech startup?"It's like you won't know.And so one of the easiest ways to do that is to talk to people who are doing the thing you want to do and see like, "Hey, what are their energy levels?Like is this Is this how I see myself in the next few years?"Level two is shadowing.And this is not talked about enough, but I think shadowing has fundamentally changed my career.When I first got into copywriting, I worked at three ghostwriting agencies or three copywriting agencies.And I basically got like a internship at this agency and I got to see all the different clients they had.I got to experiment with all the different writing styles.And I basically got to do the thing before I was doing the thing to see if I liked the thing.
And what I love about working at agencies specifically is typically, if you work at a great agency, they're at the edge of their craft.If you work at a copywriting agency, they're probably the best copywriters in the space.If you work at a video editing agency, they're probably the best at video editing.And so, rather than trying to learn your skill on your own through trial and error, you can go find the best at your craft and then go work for them and learn from them.And then the second point is, not only do you get better at your craft, well, when you go start your own service business, you have a peek into their ops and operations of how do they do sales calls?How do they onboard clients?How do they track fulfillment?How do they deliver analytics and reports?So, then when you do your own thing, you have a mental model of what good looks like.
And then level three is actually doing the thing.And I know that's a unsexy answer, but how do you know you like a thing unless you do it?And so, if you think that you want to be a copywriter, go write 10 tweets a day for the next 30 days.And by the end of the 30 days, ask yourself, would I still do this thing even if I couldn't get paid?Or would I still do this thing even if I couldn't tell other people that I was working on it?But the main point here is that, again, doing anything is better than doing nothing.
He explains how combining multiple decent skills can create a unique edge, using Scott Adams and his own career as examples. He closes by urging viewers to lean into existing advantages, build specific knowledge, and focus on meta skills like writing and speaking.
And so, one of my favorite quotes of all time is from the poet Rumi.He said, "As you start to walk the way, the way appears."But there's another mistake that other people make when they're thinking about their unfair advantage, which is thinking that it only has to be one thing.Let me explain.Find your and.You don't need to become just world-class at one thing.You can actually become pretty good at many different things and combine them to become world-class.And so, a while ago, there's this guy named Scott Adams who was a business comic.He said this thing that like really stuck with me.He said, "There's only two ways to get to the top.Number one is to be the top 1% in your craft, and number two is to be the top 10% of two or more things and combine them."
And so, for Scott Adams' example, he was like, "I'm not the funniest person in the world.Like I don't think I'm as funny as comedians.But I'm funnier than the average person."And then he was like, "I don't think I'm the best writer on the planet, but I'm better than most people at writing."And then he said, "I am not the most savvy business person, but I know business more than most people."And so, on its own, just out of those three skills, he would just be a an But in combination, those three things of being funnier than most people, of knowing how to write, of understanding business, he was ableto carve out a niche that no one else could compete with, and that's when he started Dilbert, his column.And so, for me, in my example, I also don't think I'm the best writer in the world.
I think I'm better than most people, but if you put me in a room with a bunch of poets and and fiction writers, I would not stand a chance.But, if you put me in a room and our goal was to write on Twitter, and you had to combine writing with also understanding of social media marketing and a little bit of understanding of business, I would crushthem.And I actually just made an Instagram story on my Instagram, and I said I was looking at some of my client wins, and it was just a bunch of like million impressions, million impressions, 10 million impressions, whatever.And I said, "I'm just here to remind you that I am the best social media copywriter in the space.No one comes close."And I cannot tell you how freeing that feeling is, how much confidence you gain when you're able to say that, "Hey, I am not great at all these things, but I am the damn best at the this combination
of things."And this is why I'm such a huge proponent of identifying your unfair advantage.Because once you have it, it's your unfair advantage.Like, that's how you win.The side point that I'll make here is that you should use what you have.And so, there's no virtue in deliberately ignoring an advantage that you know you already have.Right?It's like if someone hands you a lawn mower and you say, "No, thank you.I'm going to use these scissors."It's like, use what you have.Like, if you are pretty or if you're hot, like, use that.If you are smart and you're nerdy, use that.Lean into it.If you're really charismatic, get on camera and tell your story.I truly believe life is way too short to feel guilty about the advantages that we have or don't have.And the cool part about being a human being is that no matter what situation you're in, no matter what position you are on the chessboard, there is always an advantage.
And so, for my example, when I started creating content online, I was 15, 16 years old.There is virtually no reason why someone should listen to a 15 or 16-year-old.But, rather than trying to posture as an expert and pretending to be something I wasn't, I leaned into that.I said, "Hey, I'm 15 years old.I don't know anything.But, I'm going to document my process of figuring things out.I'm going to document my process of learning copywriting.I'm going to document my process of building a business.I'm going to document my process of growing up in public.And by doing that, I was able to build a lot of momentum online and a lot of people who wanted to help me because they're like, "Wow, I see this young kid and he's hustling and he has drive.Like, how can I how can I help him get to his goals faster?"
And so, no matter where you're at, like there's always something you can do to lean into the advantages you already have.And what I'll say about that is the reason why I think an unfair advantage is so important is because in the age of social media, in the age of infinite leverage, where one decision can have an outsized impacton your life, you want to get to a point where you have earned insights.This is what Naval calls specific knowledge or things that other people can't teach, right?Cuz if you can teach it in a classroom, then you can outsource it.If you can teach it in a classroom, AI can do it.And so, you want to find these pockets of knowledge, of insights that no one else has so that you can exploit on a long time horizon.Because that's who will win the AI age.
If anyone can just use AI to write something or design a video or whatever, then it's like the only remaining alpha is the person who's prompting the AI to do the specific things that other people can't even seebecause they're not aware of.And so, the reason why you want to get very clear on your unfair advantage is that you can spend the rest of your time exploiting that unfair advantage, compounding earned insights so that when you layer on AI, whenyou layer on a team, when you layer on leverage, you're able to scale massively.Finding my unfair advantage has truly changed my life and I think it's worth reflecting and experimenting until you can find that.And the last point here I'll make and then I'll get out of your way is if you don't know what your unfair advantage is, pick a meta skill.
Get good at writing, get good at speaking, get good at thinking.Because no matter what you do, those meta skills will help you and benefit you no matter what you do.And so, on that note, I created a free 43-minute copywriting video.It's somewhere that you can go find, but I truly believe like if you have nothing going for you and you want to learn something, please learn copywriting.It changed my life.I know it'll change your life and I'll see you in the next one.