Justin's brain | Do I want it the most?

I've been listening to David Senra's podcast lately. He keeps quoting Joshua Kushner:

"If you have to pick between the person who's the smartest, the person with the most experience, or the person who wants it more, you always pick the person who wants it more."

That idea really resonates with me. If you're going after a big goal, like building a product or starting a business, you can't afford to build something average. Why? Because customers don't look for mediocre products; they look for "the best."

So you need to be honest with yourself: can you be in the top 5% in your category? Are you going to be the person who wants it the most?

And then the follow-up question: if you make it, is it going to be worth it? You could be the top restaurant in your town and find out the prize for winning is a business that puts you deeply in debt.

In this episode, I talk about power laws, figuring out what you truly want, why AI is making some rare skills average overnight, and what my friend Ruben Gamez says most marketers are getting wrong about AI. Plus a note from future me: wanting it the most doesn't mean killing yourself working too hard. It means focusing on the stuff that actually moves the needle.

Chapters:

(00:00) - The Power of Wanting It Most
(00:59) - Aiming for the Top 5 Percent
(02:56) - Defining What You Truly Want
(04:28) - Adapting to Changing Skills and AI
(06:01) - Focusing on What Actually Matters

Mentioned in this episode:

Creators and Guests

Host

Justin Jackson

Co-founder of Transistor.fm

What is Justin's brain?

Hi, I'm Justin Jackson. Here, I'm sharing brief thoughts on building a better life, bootstrapping, improving society, growing older in tech, being a dad...

Justin Jackson: 00:00

I've been listening to the podcaster David Senra a lot more lately, and he keeps quoting Joshua Kushner with this line.

David Senra: 00:09

Joshua's point was just like, if you have to pick the person that is the smartest, or the person that has the most experience or the person that wants it more, you always pick the person that wants it more.

Justin Jackson: 00:17

And that idea about being the person who wants it the most just really resonates with me. So I'm in the podcast market. Average in the podcast market is maybe 100 downloads per episodes or 100 views per YouTube video. That's what the average person gets. But if you're going into something with a goal, like I'm going to earn a living from this, or I'm even going to do better than that, you have to start thinking about what would it mean for me to be the person who wants it the most in this category?

Justin Jackson: 00:59

Do I personally have what it takes to be in the top 5%? And it's hard to think about that. Cause most people, when they start out, they don't know. Like when me and my business partner, Jon started out, we didn't know if we could be in the top 5% in our category. But I think I intuitively understood that that's what it would take because the power laws are at play, right?

Justin Jackson: 01:24

Like the business that gets most of the attention in a given category generally captures a huge percentage of that market. Google search was a good example of this. 91% of searches happened on Google. Bing is the next runner-up. They only have four and a half percent.

Justin Jackson: 01:43

So if these power laws are in place, where the gulf between the top and the middle can be massive, and where 90% of all the good stuff you want is at the top, you got to ask this question. Am I going to be the person who wants it the most in this category? Can I be that person? And then I think the follow-up question is, if I make it, is it going to be worth it? You know, you could be the top restaurant in your town.

Justin Jackson: 02:16

But maybe what you get, if you get to that number one spot isn't actually that great. Maybe it's just a business that puts you deeply in debt. Like that's that's your prize for winning. And so if we're going to play these games, you know, you wanna have the top podcast on Apple Podcasts in a given category, let's say in health and fitness. What would it take for you to achieve that?

Justin Jackson: 02:44

And do you think you've got it in you to do that? And then you should probably evaluate: would it... Will it be worth it? Like, do some research. What do you get if you're the top podcast in health and fitness?

Justin Jackson: 02:56

You might not get much. You know, and maybe that is really the question. Like, if I win at this game, do I want the life that comes with winning? Maybe you do have to start this whole process off by asking yourself, what do I want? What what do I truly want?

Justin Jackson: 03:14

For a lot of people, maybe it's more simple than we think. I just want, you know, creative work, purposeful work, work that gives me a certain amount of financial stability, work with margin, margin for my finances, where I'm not always feeling behind on bills, work that gives me margin for my time and my energy. And you might not be able to get all of it. But to start there and then go, okay, now, given what I want, what category, what thing do I want to go after? The challenge is that if you want a life that gives you above average rewards, you're going to have to pursue above average work.

Justin Jackson: 03:57

Generally, in the economy, what gets rewarded are the things that are rare, that are valuable, that are hard to accomplish. And what it takes to be at the top of a category, you know, with these rare valuable skills, it can change overnight. We're seeing this with AI right now. There are skills like motion graphics for videos that used to be this highly specialized skill that was difficult and rare. You you had to find someone who's really good at it, a professional.

Justin Jackson: 04:28

And now for certain applications, you know, AI makes that really cheap and easy and average and normal. Okay. So if the skills that are rare today can become average tomorrow, what's the point? What's left? I think it's still about the person who wants it the most.

Justin Jackson: 04:45

The person who keeps showing up, keeps learning the new tools, keeps pushing after everyone else gets bored. Here's a good example. My friend Ruben Gamez is an incredible marketer. He's definitely in the top tier. And he's like, everyone's using AI in the wrong way.

Justin Jackson: 05:00

Everyone wants to jump to automation and skip the manual grindy work that makes it effective. They don't know their customers and the buying process well enough. And they're doing all the same things everyone else is doing. And if everyone else is doing it, it's going to be harder to make it work. This is an example of somebody who wants it more.

Justin Jackson: 05:20

The people who want it more are willing to do the hard stuff. The hard stuff that everybody else is avoiding. The hard work it takes down in the trenches to make something happen. Alright. It's Justin from the future.

Justin Jackson: 05:35

I'm just editing this video right now. And I keep thinking about how I would give this advice to my kids. And I... The worry is that some of you are gonna ask this question. What does it take to be the best in this category?

Justin Jackson: 05:47

What does it take to, you know, want it more than anyone else? And my worry is you're gonna go out and just kill yourselves working way too hard. That's not the point. I mean, you are gonna have to work hard, but you're not gonna have to kill yourself to do this. The...

Justin Jackson: 06:01

When I talk about wanting it more than anyone else or being the best in a category, I'm really talking about focusing on the stuff that matters. So for example, if you're gonna open a restaurant, there's all sorts of things you could kill yourself doing, like getting the perfect logo and getting the perfect website and the perfect Instagram account. And, you know, some of those details matter, but what really matters, what really moves the needle with a restaurant is creating an experience that's so good that people will come back again and again, and that they'll tell their friends about. So that's what I want you to focus on. Focus on the stuff that moves the needle in your category.

Justin Jackson: 06:42

Alright. Back to the edit. When what used to be hard gets easy to automate, you go and find the new stuff that's hard. So figure out what you actually want. Find the thing that's worth winning at.

Justin Jackson: 06:56

Look at this game you're about to play. Look at this opportunity you're about to pursue. This is the next thing you're going to do with your life. So be honest with yourself. Are you going to be the person who wants it the most?

Justin Jackson: 07:31

Justin's brain. Brain brain brain.