A Mindset That Helps Me Play The Long Game

When I was younger and first started trying to make money online, I came across your typical make money online gurus.

The type that would tell you to start a dropshipping store and next month you’ll be making a million dollars.

Of course, that never happened.

In fact, I never tried dropshipping for more than a month and ended up calling it a scam.

Now obviously, dropshipping isn’t a scam. Dropshipping is a legitimate business (with a few scammy players).

But if it’s not a scam, why did I not get results?

Well, it’s actually because of an incredibly simple and incredibly obvious concept.

The long game.

You see, the results you get today come from work you did a year ago.

For example:

Your physique is the result of the work you did in the gym last year.

Your knowledge is the result of the books you read and the courses you took last year.

Your business is the result of the product you built last year.

Subconsciously, you already know this.

You already understand that if you work out today, you won’t see results tomorrow.

That if you read a book today, you won’t see results tomorrow.

That if you build a product today, you won’t see results tomorrow.

But humans are terrible at understanding both time and compounding and therefore the long game.

It means you end up doing something for a week, and if you’re lucky, a month before you get fed up with your lack of results.

It’s why I quit dropshipping.

It’s why you’ve quit 100 different habits, businesses or hobbies.

We do something today and because we’ve felt the pain of doing that thing today, we think we’ve earned the right to get results and when we don’t see them, we presume it’s not working and we quit.

Yet you, yourself, know this is flawed.

You know, at least subconsciously, that if you work out today, you’re not going to see the results tomorrow.

You know it takes 100s of times of showing up.

So why do you still play short-term games?

Well, it’s simply because humans, like I said, are terrible at understanding time and compounding.

You see, the result that you want, whatever it is, is an output and every output requires input (your actions).

But it’s not as simple as “input → output”

It’s more along the lines of “input → chain of action → output”

You perform an action, a series of other actions occur and after enough repetitions of your input, the initial action, you get the output.

Results are an output that compounds from 100s of repetitions of an input.

One of the reasons it takes 100s of repetitions is the concept of skill exposure.

Let’s say you’re building a business that relies on cold outreach to sign clients.

The very first time you do the cold outreach, you’ll be crap at it and so your potential output from your input is terrible.

But after 100s of repetitions, you’ve been exposed to the skill enough times that you improve and your potential output from your input is much better.

Another reason it takes 100s of repetitions is the concept of marginal gains.

If you lift weights and train hard, you break down your muscle fibres.

With the right sleep and nutrition, those muscle fibres grow back bigger - but only a tiny, tiny, tiny amount.

It’s a marginal gain.

Over time, these marginal gains add up and one day you look like Arnold.

With both of these concepts, it’s obvious why the long game is the only game worth playing, and why playing the long game is the only way to get results.

And yes, most people fail to play the long game because of a lack of understanding around time and compounding.

But really that’s a belief about when you should get results.

You believe you should get results soon, despite knowing you won’t.

And “until you make the unconscious, conscious - it will rule your life and you will call it fate”.

So with that, the fix is rather simple.

It’s one I implemented whenever I started taking entrepreneurship seriously and it’s one I learned from winning a British Weightlifting Championship.

If you want to play the long game (because it’s the only game where you get real results) you need to shift your mindset around when you will get results.

Here’s what helped me:

The work you do today will create the results you get next year.

And yes, this is incredibly simple.

So simple and so obvious that it’s almost painful.

But yet, if you’re starting out in the gym, if you’re building a business, implementing a new strategy, or building a new skill - understand that the work you do today won’t get you results tomorrow. The work you do today, will create the results you get next year.

With this mindset, you will play the long game.

With this mindset, you will put in the work and commit.

With this mindset, you will get results.

But without it, you’ll continue to quit everything you try - every skill, every business strategy, every gym goal.

Play the long game.

— Ross

PS: If you want to learn how to build and engrain mindsets like this into your psyche, so you can actually implement them, click here and get MasteryOS.

I’m in the process of upgrading the program and with that, the price will be increasing - but if you purchase today, you will get free access to the upgraded curriculum upon release.

Click here.