What would you say is the number one reason why people fail? Not necessarily（必然） why they make it, the complete opposite. Right, lack（缺乏） of brains, lack（缺乏） of effort（努力）. Lack of brains, lack of effort. Yeah, they just, they don't do the work, they don't learn, you know. When you walk in the room, when you start a business and you start to talk about somebody, you're never in a vacuum（真空） with no competition, you know.
Unless（除非） you're just extremely lucky. And if there's going to be competition, that means somebody else knows your business as well as you do when you get started. And if you walk into a competitive（竞争的） environment and they still know more about the business than you do and more about your customers, you're going to lose. But most people don't consider that, they don't do the work, they don't learn more about their industry. They don't know even about their business, I mean. And so you've got to put in the effort to know more about your industry than anybody else.
And that's the brains part and that's the effort part as well. Because look, if you're competing with me, you better know what you're doing, otherwise（另外） I'm going to kick（ 踢） your ass（屁股）, you know. And you're not going to outwork（外包活） me. And so, you know, the combination（结合） is usually what kills businesses early on more than anything. You know, I started my first business when I was 12. I was buying and selling baseball cards, buying and selling stamps.
Anything I could do to make money, I was hustling and trying to do so. And I had these little sales and it was great. I made money and I learned as much about business when I was 9, 10 and 12 as I learned any other time. You know, I talk about the one thing in business you can control is effort, going out there and sales, curing（医治） all. So I think you've got to get that first customer first. And then when you get that first, what did you learn?
Reiterate, get that next customer. And then hopefully, as you learn more and more through the process, then the next one, the next one, the next one becomes buying faster. And you've just got to buy your time until it starts to click（点击） and then grow with it quickly. You know, if you're trying to release（释放） a product that needs to be ubiquitous（普遍存在的）, you've got to go as fast as you can. And you know, sometimes being young and trying things are so naive（天真的） and you don't know any better. All you do is learn.
And if you fail, it doesn't matter. And so whether（ 是否） I was 9, 10, 12, 16, 21, the failures（失败） were irrelevant（不相干的）. You know, so I don't think there's a default（默认(值)） template for success, but I think there's things that you can do to put yourself in the best position to succeed. You know, the thing I learned at Indiana（印地安那州） that was more important than anything else, I learned how to learn. And learning became far more important to me. Because the one certainty（必然） in business is that it's always going to be changing.
If you're not always learning, to this minute, if I'm not continuously learning, if I'm not just absorbing（吸收） as much as I can absorb（吸收）, someone else is going to kick my ass, right? So you're talking about paranoia（[心]妄想狂）. The greatest source of your paranoia should be knowledge. If someone else knows more than you do, and if you're not learning, if you don't know how to learn, if you don't have a thirst for learning and acquiring（获得） information, you're SOL. I always say, you know, for every one of my businesses, I say, "What would I do to kick my own ass?" So whatever business you have, there's somebody trying to put you out of business. There's somebody trying to take a bite（ 咬） out of your business, and it's better for you to figure（ 认为） out how they're going to do it rather than they do it.
And so, yeah, that's being paranoid, and so you have to be paranoid. You have to anticipate（预期） other people's next moves（动）, and you can't ever downplay the competition. I was at a business plan competition this morning at a college, and they were kind（种类） of being dismissive of the competition, and so you can't ever do that. You know, they're out there trying to take you down, and they're not just going to sit still, and if you're good, really, really good, you're going to inspire（激发） them to work even harder, faster, better, and so you have to be, you know, very self（自己）-aware（知道的） of what you're good at, and what other people are good at, and, you know, a healthy dose（剂量） of paranoia（[心]妄想狂） makes a big difference. It's very helpful. Do you think, like, let's just say we put 10 guys here, you interview them, okay（好）?
You could, within（在……之内） a 5-10 minute interview, say, "This dude's not going to make it as an entrepreneur（<法>企业家）," because you pretty much know that. Yeah, I mean, I can typically tell, right? I can tell by their passion（激情）, I can tell by their focus, I can tell by their preparation（准备）. You know, there's a whole realm（领域） of things in any business. Here's the business you're in, and here's a thousand things that influence（影响） whether（ 是否） or not you're going to be successful. And really, to me, through my experience in business, I can put myself in his position and say, "Okay, here are 900 of the thousand things he has to be aware of," and then go through and ask.
And by how many of those or her issues（问题） they've been able to address（写名字地址） already, that kind of gives me a sense of how hard they're willing（愿意的） to work, you know? And I can tell by the questions they ask me, so all I have to do is say, "Okay, what do you want to know?" And, you know, when they start saying, "What should I do?" They ask you. Yeah, and that's fine, right? And I want them to ask questions, but, you know, people like to say, you know, the only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask, and that's not right, right? Because the questions you ask tell me, tell whoever（无论谁）, more about you than anything else you do. Because, in particular, it tells me about your preparation.
If you ask me questions about just basic（基本的） things that you should have known and you should have down to a science, that's going to disqualify（取消…的资格） you almost more than anything. You've got to know your own skillset, right? And you've got to know how that fits within your company's life cycle. You know, you're talking, you know, alluding（暗指） to earlier about entrepreneurs（<法>企业家） being born（承担） or built, you know? And I think they're knew I was wired to be excited about business. How or why?
I don't know, but, you know, and there are certain guys that have the genetics（[-s]遗传学） to jump out of the gym, right? There are certain guys, you know, that, you know, when they golf, they have the muscle（肌肉） memory and the discipline（学科）. You know, Dirk, the Vicki may not be the most talented（ 天才的） guy in the NBA, but his discipline and his focus to do what's necessary to be successful, he's willing to do and combine（使结合） it with being seven feet tall and being skilled（有技能的）, you know, it makes him an amazing basketball player. So it's understanding what your skill set（设置） is, finding the right place to use those skills and then going for it. You know, will that make you 250 grand（宏伟的）? It depends if you pick the right industry.
But whatever industry you pick, if you outwork everybody, if you try to be a little smarter（聪明的） than everybody, if you try to be a better salesperson（售货员） than everybody, if you try to be better prepared than everybody, you've got your best chance because if you don't do it and somebody else does, you know, I have the same work like someone's trying to take it all away from you. You know, actually work like someone's spending 24 hours working 24 hours to take it all away from you. And that's kind of the way I look at it.