Rob Foglia

February 28, 2024

Years ago a real estate mentor of mine, Condo, gave me some great advice. He said that everything costs either time, money, or energy, so be careful of how much of each you spend. It was sage advice. The older I get, the more I see what Condo meant.

We tend to spend our energy everywhere and on everything. We get sucked into watching or reading about other people’s problems, which steals our mental energy. We stay up too late scrolling our phones, which drains our physical energy. Then, we wonder why it feels so hard to make progress on the hopes and dreams that we have.

Our society has conditioned us to spend a ton of energy on our job. A ton of it. Seemingly everywhere we look we see examples of grind culture, of that no-days-off mentality. It’s sold to us like that’s what gets us ahead. But, do we ever ask ourselves, ahead of what? What are we actually looking to get ahead in?

About 3 or 4 years ago, I was sitting on a video call for work. Our office leader was trying to get us to brainstorm up a competition to kickstart things during the pandemic. When he started pitching the idea of a competition where the office would get segregated into groups to compete against each other, I spoke out against the idea. I said that I had no interest in competing against others and that I just want to compete against myself. I want to improve myself, but not to get ahead of anyone. Just to better myself. My ideas were rejected. It was said that others would only be interested if they could get on a leaderboard, and the way to do that was in teams and to put the teams against each other. To see who could get ahead.

To me, the concept of getting ahead is why so many of my generation are starting to leave social media. What started out as a way to keep up with family and friends who may not be as geographically close as we would like has turned into people only posting accomplishments, awards, and sunny days. But as Stallone said in Rocky Balboa, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows…It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”

We don’t see how hard others get hit on social media. Thus, I don’t believe that we truly get to see how other people’s “winning is done.” Consciously or subconsciously, my generation seems to be picking up on this and quitting socials.

I sometimes wonder where we would be as a society if we all stopped competing against each other and just looked inward to compete against ourselves. After all, my dreams, your dreams, and everyone’s dreams are all different. As a musician, I only compare myself to the musician I was 5 minutes ago, 5 months ago, and 5 years ago. Not who someone else is now or where they came from. Or at least I try my best to do this.

When I decided to disband my real estate team about a year ago, I grabbed coffee with an industry buddy of mine. He wanted to talk with me about opportunities on his team, and with so much up in the air for me, I figured I’d hear him out. As we chatted, I told him all about my love for creating music, and how I see it as just the best thing ever other than my family. We continued chatting, and as we said our goodbyes, he started wishing me well, saying he hoped he’ll see me at the rock n roll hall of fame one day. While I appreciate the nice sentiment, it was clear that my message missed the mark in our talk.

Music is my passion. It’s a love of mine that I let leave me for too long as I pursued getting ahead in life. Now, my goal is to keep improving at what I love, to make an impact on the world, and to make enough money to support my household while doing so. I choose to pursue my passion with white hot intensity. To be better than the person I am today. I could care less about being in the rock n roll hall of fame or being the next “fill in the blank” famous musician. If I did, that would mean that I just want to get ahead of others. After all, being the best means passing others. But they’re running their race, and I’m running mine. If I cared about those things, then I wouldn’t be running my own race.

Which brings me back to Condo’s advice from the beginning: that everything costs either time, money, or energy. We all have a finite amount of energy. Even my amazing daughter, who some days seems to have enough energy to power a city, has a finite amount of energy before she runs out and needs a nap. The same goes for all of us.

If we are going after the wrong things, then we’re depleting the energy that we have. When we grind away at our job when it’s not our passion, we’re wasting our precious energy. If we’re focused on getting ahead of others, then we’re not as focused as we need to be on getting ourselves ahead of where we are today; in improving ourselves.

if we’re only focused on getting ahead, then we’re likely not focused on the things inside of what we do that bring us more energy and light. It means we’re not focused on the why behind the what.

My solution for this is simple: get clear on what sets your soul on fire. Get crystal clear on your priorities in life.

If you can state what it is that gets you going, and I mean really gets you going, then you’re off to a good start. Figure out what drives you and use that as fuel.

If you can shut out the outside factors and get after what it is that you deem to be success for you and for no one else, then you’re on the right path.

If you can keep in your head and your heart on the things that, while getting hit, will allow you to keep moving forward, you’ll discover how winning is done.

When you achieve the type of clarity I’m referring to, you can then abandon the grind or no-days-off ideals that are prevalent in our society. Because that grind culture takes you to someone else’s dream, not yours.

You have the power to state your dream. To create it and then live it. You can be a musician, writer, creator, salesperson, businessperson, spouse, parent, you name it, and do it to the best of your abilities while living the life you desire to live. But you’ve got to live your life. Not someone else’s. Stop trying to get ahead of anyone else and simply be a better version of yourself.

That’s how winning is done.

– Rob 🤟