#vs the group i play in where both me and the sniper will take any excuse

[annelidist]

how experienced a lancer player someone is can roughly be gauged by how often they overcharge

#running it for some newer players and ive noticed they barely do it at all #vs the group i play in where both me and the sniper will take any excuse #lancer rpg #bones.txt

[wiypt-writes]

Rock ‘n’ Roll People In A Disco World

Part 1- Disco Down

Intro: It's range day. SWAT vs LAPD Special Crimes branch. You and your finance decide to have a bit of fun with the interdepartmental competition.

Pairing: Paul Diskant x Reader

Warnings: Bad language, Smut (NSFW, 18+)

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar the reader and any other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

A/N: So yeah, I started another series. Bad WIYBUPT. But there aint enough Disco out there so I thought I’d rectify that situation. This is also another entry for @imanuglywombat​ ‘s  “Is That Even A Sex Position” weekly challenge. This position is called “Juicy Ass”. See here for more information.

Rock ‘n’ Roll People Masterlist // Main Masterlist

It was early in the morning, the first warm rays of the LA sunshine had barely begun warming the pavement when the two of you had started your day. Paul was already pouring you both coffee to go as you met him in the kitchen, dressed in your Swat training tee, utility pants and standard issue uniform boots, hair French braided back. You smirked at the dapper young detective before you, slacks, dress shoes, button down and tie. 

It'd been a gruelling last few weeks for you both. You were working a SWAT case with your unit and Paul was busy working an LAPD Vice officer's homicide. He would trudge in late at night, either from the precinct or more recently from a night out with Vice following some leads. You were always already asleep and he didn't want to wake you. He'd kiss you softly, shower, kiss you again and crawl into bed, hugging you close.

Now, you were both getting ready to head out, finally having slept in the same bed together for the first time in weeks. Given your nature, the two of you were playfully squabbling over the upcoming late afternoon's task, a joint fire arms training session between your unit, LAPD SWAT and Paul's unit. The joint time spent at the range always turned into pool of who'd win and, usually, was too close to call rounding off with each team going head to head in a final duel. 

And things were getting competitive in the Diskant home. 

"If I can make it," Paul grumbled, "we should sweeten the deal."

"You'll make it.” You popped a shoulder. “Paul Diskant doesn't miss a day at the range, nor friendly competition. So, name your terms?" You smirked mischievously over the rim of your mug, watching him adjust his tie. 

"Winner gets a favor." Paul devilishly replied. 

"What kind of favor?" You played along and the look on his face already made your insides squirm as he raised a brow and curled his lips further in his smirk. "Paul!"

"Y/N!" Paul mimicked, cutting the distance between you, big hands on your hips, thumbs rubbing along your shirt. "Baby, it's been days. This Vice case has me pulled away longer than I have been since I was a beat cop."

You rolled your eyes and wrapped your arm around his shoulder, fingers grazing the point where the short hairs of his buzz-cut met his neck. 

“Fine." You kissed him deeply, the taste of coffee on both your tongues but something that was just him too. "We'll call it a bonus." “Bonus...” he nodded. “I can run with that.”

“You couldn’t run a fucking bath, Disco.” "Oh Sweetheart, you're on." The challenge in his voice and mischief in his eyes lit a fire under you. You kissed him again and moved away, a swift smack from his hand to your ass made you yip but you kept walking. 

****

The drive into the station was quiet, you reading over your training schedule for the day and Paul driving. The only sound that filled the vehicle was the sound of him humming along to the radio, thumb tapping along to the beat of the song on his steering wheel, before you heard him let out a loud sigh.  

"I have some stuff to chase down this morning but if nothing pans out, I should be at the range with the rest of my unit."

"Well, then I'll hope it doesn't pan out, just so I can kick your ass with my Glock," you chuckled as he let out a groan.

"Baby, you know, watching you handle that Glock and riffle makes me horny as fuck right? Nothing like a woman that can shoot," Paul admitted. He took your left hand away from the file and pressed his lips to the top of it. He knew why you did it, but he still hated not seeing your diamond flashing on your finger all day. 

"Oh yeah?" You turned your standard issued sunglass covered eyes to him, "is that why you wanted to marry me?" 

Paul chortled, “one reason among the many."

He pulled into the carport and parked in his designated spot. You exited the vehicle and gathered your bag from the popped trunk. 

"See you at the range, don't be late, or I'll have to listen to Rodriguez bitch as she drives me home." You gave him a teasing kiss and slung your bag over your shoulder, walking away. 

"Hey, Y/N?" He called after you. You stopped and turned around to look at him, lifting your sunglasses to the top of your head. "Don’t waste too much energy today, huh? You’re gonna need all the strength you have tonight, Baby."

You chuckled to yourself, "Just show up, we'll talk energy later," you rolled your eyes and walked off, flipping him the bird over your shoulder. 

The scorching sun boiled across the training facility tucked between the hills of the valley, away from the hustle of the city and just far enough out of reach for civilians. Abandoned buildings and, green fields and a simulated neighborhood made up the grand, multi-million dollar facility. You and your team had been at it all morning, moving through the buildings in full tactical gear and safety equipment. Together you cleared buildings, fired upon fake assailants and suspects. You and your partner, Alma Rodriguez, even hit the weights and boxing bags to keep loose after a hand to hand session against Everett and Evans. To keep your trigger fingers hot and ready, you played a round of long range sniper poker, you of course beating the team with a straight flush, bullets hitting their targets dead center. 

It was the last hours of daylight by the time Special Branch showed up and you couldn't help but smirk as you watched Paul set up his gear from across the field. Long gone were his slacks and tie, and now, he was dressed in a tight black tee with the edges of his two bicep tattoos peeking out from the hem, and uniform issue pants and boots, his wrap arounds shielding those beautiful blues you loved getting lost in. 

You smirked as the two of you locked glances, his smile forming across plump lips. A cocky flick of his head was sent in your direction and you laughed, pulling a hundred dollar bill from your pocket and slapping it flat against the table. 

The competition started, pairing SWAT members against Specials, two by two until both your captains were the final two. 

"Shooters on the line," the facility command officer called. Each shooter stepped up, readying their rifles. Your team lined up behind your boss, Paul and his desk buddies watching from their side. "Stand by... Ready..." The whistle sounded and the first shots at their prospective targets were fired. 

Firing judges followed behind each shooter, judging accuracy, safety and protocol. Three rifle shots fired down range and the shooters tossed their weapons to the side, tucking and rolling one roll with their hand on their pistol all while watchful eyes looked on. Your boss didn't roll, but Paul's did and the snickering started from Special Branch. It didn't deter your focus as you watched your boss, Captain Rogers, finish the round. Three shots fired at metal targets, each one going down in accuracy, then a clip reload and three more shots fired at a close range target before the commanding judge asked both men to put their weapons on safe and holster them. He approached each target for accuracy and declared Paul's boss, Captain Wilson, the winner of the round. That brought the two teams to a tie. 

The Detectives cheered and razzed SWAT but both captains settled their groups down. The field judge confirmed the tie in the competition and groans sounded from both teams. 

"I'll tell you what, I'll toss in an extra two hundred bucks to pit Y/L/N against your pick," Rogers held two one hundred dollar bills up, handing them over to the field judge for safe keeping. 

"Alright, I see your two and raise two," Captain Wilson held out his bills, "for Diskant to take that challenge."

"Oooooooh", both teams razzed the real life couple. 

You couldn’t help the smirk on your face as one of Paul’s colleagues piped up that this could back fire spectacularly as would Paul really want to risk pissing off the woman who controlled his sex life.

“That’s exactly why he wants to win,” you jibed back, causing him to roll his eyes and scoff, “because his sex life is on the line if he doesn’t.”

More laughter rang out across the area as Paul merely shrugged, a smile flickering across his face as you heard Rogers speak loudly to Wilson from behind you.

“Between us, two hundred on my girl to blow your man outta the water."

Paul leaned down, to whisper into your ear, a smirk plying on his lips, "something's gonna get blown."

"What was that?" You coyly played. 

“Sure you wanna do this?” He asked, turning to look at you, his brow arched. “I mean you could just forfeit now and save yourself the embarrassment.”

You held his gaze for a moment before you made a show of dragging your eyes down his body, your gaze lingering on his crotch as if you were contemplating his offer, before you raised your head, your tongue poking out from between your lips a little.

“Did you forget to zip up?" You asked. Paul gave a start, his head jerking down to look at his ‘piece’ so to speak, and at that moment the whistle was blown to start.

The first shots were fired, Paul's just seconds behind yours. Tucking behind the mailboxes for your next shot, you nailed your target and moved forward to fire your final rifle round, using a metal barrel as your cover. You laid your riffle to rest, took a few steps, tucked your chin and rolled, planting your feet and rising up to draw your personal firearm. Poised for your next quick shot behind a mock window frame, you fired at the target and moved on, Paul's form in your peripheral, matching you shot for shot. Coming around the frame you fired a walking shot at your next target and then took your place at the final marker, firing away before the expected reload and emptying your clip into the standing paper target with his hostage. 

"Safety on... Holsters." The range judge called after he blew his whistle. You and Paul followed his commands and waited as he examined your individual targets. It was close, you knew it. Paul was an excellent shot. 

You watched as the judge looked over Paul's target first, poking his finger through two holes in the face before moving on to yours. You nailed your target, all three shots hitting the suspect. One dead shot to the center of his head, the other in the chest and the last in the torso. 

"Here's your winner," the judge declared, pointing at your target. 

Cheers began to ring out and you heard Paul groan loudly, turning to you. "You cheated.”

"I guess the favor's on you," You quipped as behind him you saw Captain Rogers holding his hand out, ready to receive the cash prize from Wilson.  

“You still cheated.”

“I did no such thing!” You scoffed.

“You distracted me.” He folded his arms across his chest, a sullen pout on his handsome face.

“Well, you should know better than to take your eye off the target, Disco,” you smirked and he narrowed his eyes playfully. “On second thought, I think I will let Rodriguez take me home. Burgers and beer on you. Don't forget the extra pickles."

He smirked, his lips brushing yours as he spoke, "come on, ride back with me, I'll make it worth your while."

"Erm, unless I'm mistaken you just lost so..." You popped a shoulder, your eyes not leaving his as you began walking backwards away from him. "I'm in charge."

“I want a divorce.” He shot back and you laughed, shaking your head.

“We’re not married yet, hot shot.” You winked.

“Details.” He waved his hand and you snorted, before you turned and jogged to catch up with your colleagues.

*****

As per your instructions, Paul didn’t forget the extra pickles and later that evening the pair of you were sat on the sofa in your comfy clothes, food and beer in hand as you lounged back watching a film on the Television. You stole a glance at your fiancé for a moment, his sharp profile illuminated in the soft light of the lamp to his right. He really was incredibly handsome, and you often wondered daily how the hell you’d gotten so lucky, as he could have had his pick of women, they tended to fall at his feet wherever you went. But he’d chosen you. Not only that, he’d pursued you. It had taken him a good few weeks after you’d both met on a case when he was in Uniform to finally accept his offer of a date. The dates had continued, and six months later you’d moved in together, and a year or so after that, he’d gotten down on one knee in the middle of your apartment and asked you to be his wife.

Which, reminded you of something you’d heard before.

With a smirk you turned your attention back to the film, took another bite of your burger before you spoke, your tone light and airy.

"So... strippers huh?"

Paul hastily swallowed his food and turned to look at you. "What?"

"Nothing, just typical."

"No, what?" He chuckled.

"I just heard one of the guys before commenting about how the wedding is getting closer so the stag do needs planning. The words Vegas and strippers were mentioned. Several times"

"Fucking Adler, man," he shook his head, dropping his empty burger container into the paper bag on the table in front of you.

“So you are going to Vegas, then?” You shoved another fry in your mouth to stop the smirk from spreading at the teasing.

"Uh, yeah," his reply was nonchalant, but he rubbed at his neck in that way he always did when he was a little nervous or uncomfortable. His big tell.

"Right. And there will be strippers?”

“Yes, there PROBABLY will be strippers." He side eyed you a little as he reached for his beer, the faint flush of red visible on the back of his neck as you took the final bite of your food.

“How probably?”

"There MAYBE be a night at the club." He leaned back, bottle in hand.

"Dicks." You gave a dramatic sigh, dropping your now empty food container into the bag with his. You made a show of scrunching down the top of the bag, dropping it to the floor by the side of the sofa, ready to be taken to the trash, before you leaned back, shaking your head.

"What?" he turned to you, beer paused halfway to his mouth.

"Oh, no, I was just saying, at my hen do there will be dicks. Lots of dicks."

“What the fuck?” He spluttered and you shrugged, not looking at him, feigning concentration on the television.

“I can't have strippers too? Tut, tut Disco, that's very old fashioned."

There was a pause, and you waited for his reaction, knowing it could go one of two ways. Out and out petulant protesting, or some sort of childish, half witty come back.

"You know, my dick is by far the most important." He chose the latter.

"You mean you are the most important dick?"

“Yeah.” He conceded. “Hey, least I’m important in some way.”

At that you laughed and moved a little closer to him. He shifted, allowing you to snuggle under his arm, pressing a kiss to your head.

“You know what else is important?” You asked, your hand gently tracing shapes on his white tee.

“What?”

“That you don’t forget that you owe me a favor, Detective Diskant." “That I do.” He agreed, and you felt him nod.

“So, there’s a pile of ironing that needs doing and the bed sheets need changing tomorrow. Can you manage?”

At that he let out a loud guffaw, his chest rumbling against your cheek. "Seriously, Baby?" He glanced down at you as you tipped your head up to look at him. "Absolutely," you winked

“I am at your complete mercy to satisfy you in any way you want... and you ask me to do chores?” He rolled his eyes. “You’re losing your sense of adventure, Sweetheart.” "Oh I have a sense of adventure, but a bet is a bet and we've pulled three doubles between the two of us so shits gotta get done, and you lost, therefore, you... are... my... bitch.” Your words were punctuated by soft jabs to his chest with your index finger and Paul groaned, throwing his head back against the sofa as he scrunched his eyes closed.

“Fuck my life.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” You looked at him and he opened his eyes. “Fuck my wife?”

“We’re not married yet.” He smirked, arching an eyebrow at you as he played back your words from earlier.

“Details,” you played along and he laughed as you shifted a little more so your face was level with his. “Now shut up and kiss me.”

With a cheeky grin he leaned over, pressing his lips to yours, his hand sliding to the back of your neck as the kiss grew deeper, his tongue slowly sliding against yours. You let out a soft moan, shifting a little, your hand cupping his face and then he pulled back. You pouted at the loss of contact and opened your eyes to shoot him a glare, to find him smirking a little.

"Double or nothing, I bet I can make you cum in less than two minutes.”

“Two minutes?” You arched a brow, biting your lip a little as you squirmed at the frankly filthy look in his eyes. “Now?”

“Yup.”

“Bring it on.” You threw down the gauntlet. “But that doesn’t include the time it takes me to get you naked.” He grinned, shifting a little so he was side on, facing you.

“Fine.” You rolled your eyes. “Or the foreplay.”

“Jesus Christ, Paul, just get on with it. You said two minutes. Clock starts the second you start, your challenge not mine. He grabbed your beer bottle and placed it along with his on the table with a bang. “You saying you don’t want me to love on you a little bit before I bang you into next week?” His voice was low as he hovered over you a little, his face inches from yours. "I'm saying I'm fucking desperate, that's what I'm saying."

"Then I won't need two minutes.” He grinned, pressing further into you, causing you to lay back on the sofa.

“God, you’re so full of it.” You narrowed your eyes.

“You’re gonna be full of it soon.” He smirked, his lips pressing to yours. "Stop... Talking... And... Do... It," you demanded between his dizzying, little pecks. His lips curled into a smile against yours as his hands gently trailed up the outside of your smooth thighs, thumbs grazing under the hem of your cut offs. The assault from his lips already soaking you.

It wouldn't take much, you both were fully aware of it. Nearly a week apart or just missing each other had you two desperately seeking release. The question was, who would cave first. He said two minutes and you knew he could hold off until you were good and worked over. His fingers slipped between your denim shorts and he gave a low groan as he felt your damp panties. His kiss grew hungrier and he was quickly on your flies, your shorts were down your leg in a matter of seconds, tossed over the back of the sofa, panties with them. 

He moved to a kneel, one hand gently hooking your right leg up to rest against the back of the couch, knocking the other to the side, your foot falling automatically to the floor, toes pressing onto the soft carpet, leg bent at the knee. You don't even register how fast he moved downwards, and part of you wondered if he lost on purpose. A flat long swipe tasted at your folds.

"Jesus," it felt glorious and your back arched off the sofa in delight. There was a wee bit of scruff causing a tease of friction against your inner thighs and although you weren't timing him, you knew it couldn't have been more than sixty seconds when his tongue dipped into your hole causing you to cry out. 

"Fuck, Paul..."

He gave a little chuckle, mouth vibrating against your nub which he grazed with his teeth. You bit your lip as your insides began to tremble, you were so desperately trying to hold off just to get that last win over him, but it was useless. That rumble had you in the throes of it and you were gone, your legs shaking as you came, your walls clamping around nothing as you gasped, your body shuddering with pleasure.

The smirk and glisten that was evident on his lips as he sat up and caged you in, had you clawing at his shorts. "I win."

"Yeah, okay, you smug little shit,” your voice was breathy as you recovered from your high, your hands pulling at the drawstring in the middle of his abs. “Dare I ask how you want me?”

His baby blues, already dark with desire, flashed and he pressed his lips to yours, his mouth dominating and you could taste yourself on him. You groaned as his hands slid up, cupping your face and he pulled back.

“Hands on the floor, feet on the coffee table, knees bent.”

You blinked, “what?”

“Hands on the floor, feet on the coffee table, knees bent.” He repeated.

Okay, so this was new…

With a final, suspicious look at him as he moved back, you stood, jumping and emitting a little squeak as he slapped your ass as you went. Taking a deep breath you turned, placed your hands on the floor and rested the tops of your feet on the coffee table, your knees bent.

“So you can do as you’re told.” Paul smirked, standing up off the sofa.

“When I want to.” You peeked up at him as best you could to see him sliding his shorts down his legs, stepping out of them before he moved round and threw his leg over your shins. His hands slid up the outside of your thighs, coming to rest on your waist as he pulled you back a little, his erection pressing into your behind as he ground against you, giving a little hiss.

“Fuck, baby you look so good from back here.” He moaned, bending over slightly to press a kiss to your spin and you shivered, your arms wobbling a little and you began to worry just how much of this you could take.

“Paul, seriously, just…”

“Patience.” He cut you off as he gave your ass a soft slap making you emit a noise that was half way between a squeal and a laugh as he positioned himself behind you, and you immediately missed the warmth of his chest where it had been pressed to your back moments ago.

You felt the tip of his dick as it poked at your entrance, and he had no problem slipping inside your already soaked folds. But the angle and the pressure of your body closed off as he slipped inside you set your nerves on fire. You both moaned out together as he slid home, his balls to your clit.

You felt how thick he was against your walls. A little twitch and flutter from his shaft as you both remained still, you silently begging and waiting for him to move. His fingertips gently dug into your hips as he slowly pulled back and moved forward again.

"Fuck, baby, so fucking tight, like this," Paul ground out as he pumped slowly in and out of you. He was taking his time, slow thrusts and long pulls back. In truth, it was agony, but a beautiful torture. And a torture that he continued again, and again, and again. Over and over, in no rush whatsoever, a sharp contrast to where he’d brought you off before on the couch as fast as he could.

Your arms were shaking from baring the position but you wanted more. And as the bubbles of pleasure slowly simmered through your core and deep into your belly, you moaned out your demand. "Harder."

"Oh, fuck," Paul quivered inside you but picked up his pace, his hips slamming into yours, your insides squeezing him tightly as his hands gripped at your hips, blunt nails biting against your skin. With every thrust forward you were jolted, your palms sliding on the rough surface of the rug underneath you, and you curled your fingertips into the deep, cream coloured shag in an attempt to prevent yourself from face planting straight onto the floor.

"Yeah, just like that," you panted, your elbows locking as you pushed yourself up slightly, "oh fuck, Paul!" You could tell by his breathing and how he felt inside you that he was ready to cum but he could always hold off until you had yours. "So close," you managed to pant out, letting him know you weren’t far.

He slowed his pace, bending his body down your spine again, and pressed his lips to the back of your neck, "just," he thrusted, "let", again, "go". 

His words flipped the switch inside your body and you felt yourself going, the blood already rushing to your head from the position you were in, and the pressure was pounding in your ears as you came, hard. "Oh my God!" You cried out as your walls clamped down around him, milking his hot seed to explode inside you. 

"That’s my girl, fuck!" He roared at the feel of you around him, and his hips grew sloppy as he came, grunting, pulling you back onto him as he let go of his thick payload. 

With your chests heaving, bodies stilled, his fingers still around your hips, his thumbs drew lazy circles on your back. You felt his blue gaze on you and you couldn't see it, but you knew he was smirking. 

“Paul.” You managed to swallow, “baby, my arms.”

“Oh, shit, yeah.” He moved gently to pull out of you, curling his arm around your waist in the nick of time as your elbows gave way and the pair of you tumbled rather ungracefully to the rug by the table in a tangle of limbs, your giggles ringing around the room, drowning out the sound of the television.

“You okay?” He asked gently, as you moved so you were lay on your back looking up at him as he lay on his side, propped on his left elbow. He tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear with his right hand as you nodded, leaning up to kiss him deeply.

“I’m not even gonna ask where you saw or read about that.” You chuckled and he grinned, glancing around the room cheekily before he looked down at you.

“Boys talk, sweetheart.” He shrugged. “But admit it, that was better than making me fold sheets.”

You chuckled as he pressed his lips to yours again, your fingers gently twisting his silver chain between them as you looked at him and arched your eyebrow. “If I admit it will you do it again? Only not tonight, don’t think my arms could take another round.”

Paul let out a laugh which rumbled in his chest and he pressed his lips to yours again. “Maybe we can make a game out of it, see how many other surfaces I can use to I prop your feet on and fuck you from behind.”

You scoffed, slapping at his arm as he grinned down at you cheekily, and you bit your lip.

“I can run with that.” Your hands moved so they slipped round his back, gently tracing shapes over the muscles, making them twitch a little and he sighed as your nails reached that spot on his neck that always turned him to putty in your hands.

“Stop, you know what that does to me.” He looked down at you.

“I do.” You agreed, continuing nonetheless.

“Seriously, you want more?”

“Well, like you said.” Your fingers curled round the nape of his neck, pulling his face down so it was inches from yours. “It’s been a while since we got time together, best make the most of it.”

“Oooh, you’re a bad, bad woman future Mrs Disco…” he smirked, kissing you deeply. “And I’m so down for that.”

****

It was late in the evening, the two of you having carried your sex-capades from the lounge to the bedroom, both of you spent and spooning in the aftermath of bliss when Paul's cell rang out. 

He grumbled and shifted slightly, turning to grab the offending item form the night stand before he answered, "Diskant."

You strained your ears to listen to who was on the other end but it wasn't audible.

"Yeah, okay, got it. I'll call you back," he replied and hung up. Then he quickly made an outgoing call. "Hey, so I just talked to Scribble. Freemont and Coates, or whoever they are, want to meet us." There was a brief pause, "tonight." Another pause and he closed his phone. 

He sighed, turning to you, "I got to go."

"Okay," you sat up, an uneasiness filling your veins. 

"I'll be back," he slipped out of bed, dressing quickly in black jeans, a black button down and hat. He clipped his badge from the nightstand to his belt after slipping into his uniform boots. Then leaned over and gave you a long, deep kiss. "I love you."

"I love you. Come home to me," you kissed him and pulled back, your fingers pressing the medallion of safe keeping against his chest. Paul touched his forehead to yours before he pressed his lips to your own in a soft kiss and headed out. You heard the door click as he left your apartment, and you gave a sigh, settling down into the bed, pulling his pillow to your naked chest as you closed your eyes. Whilst you knew that this was the job, hell, you’d done it yourself for long enough, it still never made it easier and for some inexplicable reason, tonight it made you even more twitchy than normal. But, that was more than likely down to the fact you’d managed to enjoy some quality time together tonight, and it had been so good.

Before long you drifted off to sleep, and you had no idea what time it was when the cordless rang, shrilling through the apartment, raising you from your slumber, but as you blinked yourself awake, it was still pitch black outside. 

"Hello," you croaked. 

"Y/N," you recognized the voice immediately, given your own happenings with IA. 

"Captain Biggs," you replied, suddenly fully awake as you sat up in bed, the covers clutched to your chest.

"It's Paul,” his voice was low and serious and instantly you felt a cold, icy dread floor your system from your head to your toes as he passed, taking a breath, “a unit is on its way for you."

***** Part 2

#rock n roll people in a disco world #paul diskant #uglywombatsexpositionchallenge #paul diskant x reader #paul diskant x you #street kings #street kings fan fic #reader insert #chris evans #chris evans characters

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: “Gravity”

Good lord, folks. Buckle your seat-belts because we’ve got a lot to get through this episode. I think this is my longest recap to date, so settle in.

Episode Eleven’s “Gravity” starts out simple enough, focusing on the two fights we’d set up during “Out in the Open.” First up, Ironwood vs. Watts. Overall this fight does a really excellent job of showcasing their different fighting styles. Right from the start Watts is pointing his gun forward to take a clear shot at Ironwood, whereas Ironwood points his backwards to use as a surge of momentum.

He’s going to do this frequently throughout the battle, constantly using his gun to maneuver in the air, slow falls, regain his balance, and change directions, a much more complicated series of choices than the one-off shots we see Ruby use with her sniper rifle. This is partly because Ironwood seems to have a much larger supply of bullets---some sort of energy/dust ammo---than Watts does. His steampunk-esque gun holds only nineteen bullets, requiring him to keep track throughout the fight. Which is always a fun trope but sorry, Watts, you can’t compare to the king.

Thus, with limited weaponry available to him, Watts is forced to get creative with the arena itself. We see him manipulating gravity, shooting up columns of water and fire, and making use of his own pathways between platforms, all in an effort to throw Ironwood off and catch up unawares. However, Ironwood is, frankly, the much better fighter. He was right last week to assume he could handle Watts even though he sent three off to tackle Tyrian. He’s able to recover much more quickly and learns from any mistakes, as evidenced by his ability to hit Watts dead on while in the air the second time he takes out the gravity. When they come together in hand-to-hand Ironwood easily dominates, no doubt thanks not just to his military training and huntsmen lifestyle, but also in large part to his prosthetics which I would assume grant him more speed and power. Throughout the course of the fight we see Watts consistently take more damage to his aura and he’s unable to sense when Ironwood is sneaking up on him. After that little maneuver, Watts (presumably) grows reckless and lets off his last three or four shots in a random barrage. All of them miss.

This emphasis on emotion continues when they land back onto the main stage with Watts shouting, “You never appreciated my genius, James! You just stood atop it and called yourself a giant.” Oh, did Ironwood actually do something horrendous in the past? Is there something juicy that would explain---though not excuse---Watts’ turn towards villainy? Nah. He quickly follows that up with, “You chose that fat imbecile over me!” referring to Pietro. So... nice one, Watts. Crazy arrogance, willful ignorance of Pietro’s own, clear genius (anyone who can create Penny is no slouch), as well as a bit of fat-shamming on top of it all. No sympathy from me.

This moment emphasizes how unhinged Watts is becoming though as the fight turns against him. Even when he manages to setup a head shot Ironwood reveals, “You’re smart, but you’re not the only one who can count,” referencing that Watt’s emotions got the better of him, leading to him wasting his last bullet before it could be of real use.

...except not. I’ve got to admit, I was very pleased when all of this---or at least this particular moment---was merely a plan to get Ironwood to let his guard down. Watts is way too smart a character to be done in by the “You got too emotional and that made you sloppy” trope. So kudos there (even if it remains to be seen whether that Pietro comment was really his motivation, or just another part of the plan). Instead, he uses Ironwood’s confidence in his victory to trap him with the rings that control the arena, essentially pinning Ironwood’s non-prosthetic arm through the energy shields he’s been using. We can immediately see that the parts that have touched Ironwood already have horribly burned the skin.

And that ends up being Watt’s downfall. Not stupidity on his own part, but his lack of understanding of Ironwood himself. He assumes that this truly is a trap for him, rather than another sacrifice. After all, what fool would ruin their one remaining arm to stop him? Watts himself wouldn’t. Don’t pull, he cautions Ironwood, not “unless you’re hoping to add more metal to that body of yours.” Watts goes so far as to turn his back on Ironwood who then makes the sacrifice we all knew he would. One burned, useless arm later and he’s free.

I would like everyone to keep this moment in mind. Namely the utter devastation of it. I’d go so far as to say it’s as bad at Yang losing her arm in Volume 3. Despite seeing it bandaged later, Watts at least thinks it will be a complete loss if Ironwood sacrifices it. He’ll need to “add more metal,” AKA replace his arm, so though he obviously still has it in the following scenes, we don’t know if it will ever be functional again. Just as important, Ironwood had to choose to do that to himself. That wasn’t a horrific, but ultimately clean cut done in a moment of surprise. That was a conscious decision, a slow pull through all that pain, and then having to finish your fight immediately afterward. It’s a very different kind of psychological trauma, no better or worse than having someone take your arm from you by force. Throughout this volume I’ve seen a lot of fans being critical not only of Ironwood’s main decisions, but just his overall attitude as well. Too strict, too stern, doesn’t smile enough, yells sometimes, etc. basically associating someone who isn’t all sunshine and smiles with someone who is “bad.” Ignoring for the moment that we can say the same thing about many of our group---notably Yang---I have little doubt that I’ll see similar posts after this episode. Writings in the vein of, “Ironwood is unhinged! I can’t believe he yelled and hit his desk like that!” So everyone just keep this moment in mind and ask yourself how calm you’d be if you’d sacrificed your arm like that all of half an hour ago. And then found Salem’s calling card on your desk. And then came to the realization that the allies you trusted have been lying to you from the start. And then Salem herself appears to mock you. And then your city is about to be overrun. Basic summary of the rest of the episode: holy shit. So yeah. If Yang is allowed to be angry and upset after losing her arm, or just angry in general like she is in the later half of “Gravity,” I think we owe it to Ironwood to let him be angry too. I have a lot of feelings about the utter insanity he’s been forced through with little to no support and if he wants to take all that out by hitting his desk once, by god I’d say that’s a good coping strategy given the circumstances. Both the writing and the fans tend to erase trauma once you’ve passed age 25. The girls have every right to be upset, to break, to not trust people because they’ve been through a few months of hardship, but Ozpin isn’t allowed the same after a couple thousand years of that. We’re going to see the same hypocrisy later in this episode---the group can be upset about lies but Ironwood is not---and I’m hoping (against hope) that the fandom doesn’t make that worse by sweeping this injury under the rug. It’s horrific and absolutely has a bearing on his inability to keep his cool with the group immediately afterwards. We’ve long passed Ironwood owing them endless reassurances and calm responses. 

Anyway, Ironwood still manages to finish the fight because his remaining arm is his robotic one, giving him the strength to easily drag and raise Watts into the air one-handed. He dangles him over the edge of the arena, announcing that he will “sacrifice whatever it takes to stop [Salem].” A clear bit of foreshadowing for his decision at the end of the episode. Watts responds that he hopes he does.

We then move to the Tyrian fight which, on the whole, I don’t think was done quite as well. Granted, there are a lot of enjoyable and badass moments. I like that Clover’s first act is to announce that Tyrian is under arrest, maintaining the law that Atlas (and Ironwood) works to uphold. It doesn’t matter that Tyrian is a crazy serial killer in league with an immortal sorceress hell-bent on destroying the world. Even crazy serial killers have rights and are given the option of surrendering, even when everyone present knows there’s exactly zero chance of that happening. It’s the principal of the thing and the ability to say, “We gave him a chance.” In a world overrun with inequality, this is a small but important attempt to level the field. If you do something wrong you face legal action and those rights are announced to you. Same for Tyrian. Same for Team RWBY. But we’ll get to that.

For now, we see Qrow attack first and like back in Volume Four he and Tyrian are pretty evenly matched. The tide doesn’t turn until Robyn and Clover come into play. Throughout this exchange we see a lot of cool combos among the three of them. Tyrian will block an incoming arrow with his tail only for Clover to snag it with his hook. Robyn can get another arrow to perfectly bounce off the walls and then Qrow’s scythe, hitting Tyrian dead on. Clover can dive between Tyrian’s legs, giving Qrow the opening he needs to attack. It is, as said, pretty badass... almost a little too badass. Personally, I would have appreciated them messing up once or twice. They’re all professionals, yes, but Qrow and Clover have only had one fight together. Robyn, meanwhile, wasn’t even allied with them until an hour ago. This is a situation where skills shouldn’t really trump, “We’re three very distinct people who don’t know each other’s fighting styles well, trying to attack one guy in very close quarters.” There should have been some screw-ups. Especially when we take semblances into account. What, are we supposed to assume here that Clover’s semblance just conveniently overrides Qrow’s? That no mistakes---let alone anything bad---will happen in this fight despite the fact that it’s an extreme parallel to Volume Four? That whole battle emphasized, “Don’t come closer!” because when people fight near Qrow bad shit happens. Now, he fights with two other people in a narrow alleyway and there’s not a single repercussion. Based on their travels looking for the geist, I don’t buy that Qrow’s semblance is just conveniently inactive while near Clover. Even if I did... that’s not a very good writing decision. To me, it’s just more evidence that Rooster Teeth doesn’t understand its own rules/doesn’t know what to do with an ability like Qrow’s. It causes problems only when they explicitly want it to. Then, miraculously, it’s no longer in effect.

Still, we’ll acknowledge that RWBY had a lot else it wanted to accomplish in this episode, so the need to power through this fight is somewhat justified. I personally would have had the entirety of this episode be the two battles---I was shocked when both ended just eight minutes in---but I’m obviously not the one writing the show. Thus, instead of an episode devoted to both the action and the emotion of confronting our two main villains this volume, Tyrian loses his cool after getting punched in the gut, manages to catch Robyn’s arrow in his teeth... 

But it’s a bomb. 

Down he goes. Fight’s done.

Which leads us into the second half of the episode. I want to preface this with a short acknowledgment before we go any further.

Did these last ten minutes give me what I’ve been looking for since the beginning of Volume Six? No. It’s easy to assume it did because all the pieces are there. Ironwood is finally angry about the secret keeping. The Ace Ops are criticizing the group left and right. Surely this is the “The group is capable of making mistakes and they should be called out for it!” that I wanted, right? Not really. For the simple reason that there is a massive difference between:

A story that acknowledges mistakes as mistakes. The characters either grow from this lesson or dig in their heels and are painted as being in the wrong for that decision.

and

A story that takes what the audience (me) perceives as mistakes and frames them as justified choices. The characters do not grow because they’re 100% sure they’re in the right and those who would criticize them are painted as in the wrong. 

“Gravity” is so far into that second option I don’t think the series can come back from it. Does the group face criticism? Yes, but every single time the writing insists that it’s undeserved criticism. It paints the group as the underdogs facing unfair odds, rather than equals---with all the responsibility that comes with that---facing criticism that they need to own up to. Absolutely nothing in this second half implies that the group is going to learn from their mistakes because they, and the writing, still insists that they weren’t mistakes. Which is precisely what we’ve gotten before. Cordovin might criticism them, but Cordovin is in the wrong. Winter might criticism them, but Winter is in the wrong. Every time a character goes, “Hey, you shouldn’t have done this” the group responds with, “Yes we should have!” and the story backs them up. Yes, you should have attacked Argus. Yes, you should have stolen an airship. Yes, you should have lied to Ironwood and spilled the secret to Robyn. Yes, yes, yes. That’s the takeaway every single time. The group is never in the wrong. Others just think they are and those others are painted as cruel, militaristic, unhinged characters.

It’s not at all what I was looking for. Just more of the same.

So that’s the preface. In terms of what we actually get, Ironwood returns to his office with his arm bandaged and in a sling, carrying Watts’ bag, only to drop it when he sees the queen piece on his desk. He calls Winter asking, “Was anyone caught entering the school grounds while I was away?” and when she says no Ironwood has her race off to the Winter Maiden, unknowingly leading Cinder there in the process. “Now show me where you’ve been hiding her.”

We then cut to the group where the trouble begins. They’re not just curious about why Ironwood is recalling them with Mantle still in need of evacuation, they’re actively questioning it. This is the attitude I simply don’t understand. The group acts as if Ironwood is deliberately screwing everyone over when they know better. This is no longer the beginning of the volume where they thought he was some horrific dictator hell bent on destroying his own Kingdom. This is just an hour or so after, “We should tell Ironwood!” and the happy-go-lucky ‘We trust him now’ moment. Even less time after Ruby stared up at him in awe with, “He’s doing it.” They had reason to trust him before they even made it to Atlas. They were given even more reasons in the form of Ironwood sharing his secrets, early licenses, and being allowed to work on the tower. They then still waited until Ironwood was doing everything they wanted before giving him some of that trust back... but the moment he stops doing precisely what they want---we want to keep evacuating Mantle---he’s deemed suspicious again. 

I mean seriously, is the group that dense? Are they incapable of thinking to themselves, “Wow, something must have happened if Ironwood is recalling us before evacuations are complete,” which is precisely the case. The scene tries to frame it as “Group Good” and “Ace Ops Blinding Obeying Orders Bad” but that aspect doesn’t even come into play. There’s nothing blind about it. It simply takes two seconds of critical thinking skills to realize that something really awful must have happened back at the Academy that trumps what you’re doing in Mantle. This is what I mean by the writing being biased. Before we even reach the fight in Ironwood’s office it’s trying to paint him as potentially cruel, potentially suspicious, potentially abandoning his people, look how worried our heroes are about this secret decision he’s made... when all that requires ignoring some really basic deduction in order to reach those assumptions. Remember that intelligence is a plot device in RWBY. If they want Ironwood forced to spill his secrets, he’ll randomly start talking about them in front of his enemies. If they want Ironwood painted as the villain, the group will randomly be incapable of realizing that maybe, just maybe, something went wrong on the home front and you’re needed there.

Things just get so much worse from then on. The group splits with JNR going off to find Oscar and, admittedly, I was shocked we got that at all. I mean yeah, it’s setup for the final reveal at the end of the episode, but the fact that anyone remembered Oscar was missing---let alone happily went off to find him---was still a surprise. So only Team RWBY heads back to Ironwood’s office where they find him (rightfully) panicking over the queen on his desk. Weiss tries to baby him, acting like he’s freaking out over nothing, when all these characters should recall precisely what Ironwood himself points out: the last time we saw this symbol it was a message that Beacon had fallen. He’s not paranoid here. He’s entirely justified in his panic. Ironwood likewise points out that they may have been duped into bringing thousands of people into Atlas as easy targets and Vine agrees, setting up that the Ace Ops are on Team Ironwood throughout the course of this conversation. Not out of blind loyalty, but because he’s right. That is a concern. That may be the plan. We do need to try and do something about that. Team RWBY, however, isn’t convinced.

That is, until Ruby realizes that the chess piece is made of black glass. Which means Cinder left it. Normally I’d congratulate her on that deduction---it is the one smart move we see Ruby pull this whole episode---but I just hate what follows. Namely that Ruby and Ruby alone controls her team’s opinions on a situation. Again. We saw it back in the snow, then again when Blake announced in the elevator that they’d do whatever she wanted. Team RWBY is the one who blindly follows their leader, not the Ace Ops, the only exception being Blake and Yang going rogue in regards to Robyn, but we see that hive-mind mindset here again. Ironwood brings up a good point? Nothing. Ace Ops support that point with more logic? Nothing. Ruby supports it? Oh, suddenly Weiss and Blake are taking this seriously. Suddenly Yang is fired up and ready to do whatever is necessary. Ruby controls the room. It’s only when she’s on board that her teammates decide this is worth getting riled up about.

Which, as I’ve said before, is a horrible way to write a diverse group. Especially when the writing is trying to paint the Ace Ops as mindless soldiers. For all their claims that they just have to follow orders, they’re the only ones parsing through this situation and coming to their own conclusions. It’s just that their conclusions do end up aligning with Ironwood’s which is the “bad” take in this scene. Team RWBY, however, waits until their leader makes a decision and then simply rides her cloak tails. The day that Blake, Yang, or Weiss legitimately disagree with Ruby---not a token “Are you sure we should keep secrets from Ironwood? We’re not actually challenging this. Just checking in”---is the day the writing will disagree with her. AKA, no time soon.

Blake tries to give some bland reassurance about them all being with Ironwood to which he responds, “Are you with me? How did Robyn know about the global communications tower?” Thank you! Thank you for giving us Ironwood’s characterization back and acknowledging that he has no reason to buy their generic ‘Got your back’ statements when everything they’ve done this volume has proven otherwise. They don’t support Ironwood, only themselves and their own teams. The minute he does something they don’t like he’s chucked under the bus. Too bad the writing doesn’t acknowledge any of this and instead continually paints the group as being justified in their decisions. It’s that hypocrisy again. When the group yells at Ozpin for keeping secrets we’re supposed to be on their side. When the Ace Ops yell at the group for keeping secrets we’re... still supposed to be on their side.

Weiss tries to diffuse the situation with “None of this matters right now!” which is real rich when they were just complaining about Ironwood not telling them why they were called back. They get to worry over that, but Ironwood isn’t allowed to worry about them outright betraying him? “Loyalty always matters!” he shouts back and he’s right. Why should Ironwood trust them to have his back in this crucial moment when they’ve never had it before? I’m already seeing more of this hypocrisy among the fandom. When Ozpin kept secrets and told lies the group was given a whole volume to be pissed about that and fans still, to this very day, insist that it hasn’t been enough time for them to get over it, to regain even a portion of that trust. But now that Ironwood has been lied to and betrayed in the same manner? People are annoyed that he’s not just shrugging it off. How dare you not get over in thirty seconds what our heroes got weeks to work through. His inability to just suck it up, as it were, is used to make him seem irrational here. I don’t see anyone, characters or fans alike, acknowledging that his anger is as righteous as the group’s was out in the snow. That there is the disconnect.

Of course, something has to break the tension. Drawn by all the fury and fear, a grimm pops out of Watts’ bag. A fail-safe for if he was defeated and captured. Salem immediately takes control of the grimm and kills it, using its form to appear before them. She reveals that it doesn’t matter that her men were captured. They were just there to “set the stage,” which they’ve done. Still doesn’t explain the random Penny side plot to my mind (seriously, why did the story bother to resurrect her when she has done nothing plot-wise or emotionally?), but whatever. Much more importantly, the stage is set for Salem herself. She’s approaching with the grimm army we saw her amassing which is... iffy.

First off, why? Why after a thousand years has she suddenly changed her MO from keeping to the sidelines to a full-on attack? Again, what’s the catalyst for that massive change? We don’t know. Meanwhile, from a writing perspective, I’m hesitant about having our Big Bad thrown into the mix before the finale. We know there are plenty of volumes left in this series, which automatically undermines any battle they might have with Salem. Will they win?? Of course not! Because RWBY isn’t over yet. Granted, this could all just be a ruse of some sort. Maybe Salem just wants them to think she’s approaching with an army, which would be much more up her alley in terms of long-distance manipulation. But if not... seriously, what’s the point of that?

Here’s hoping it’s a bluff.

Speaking of manipulation, we get a fantastically creepy moment where Salem tells Ironwood to “simply accept the futility of your situation” while smiling like a kind mother. That’s the Salem who is truly dangerous. Ironwood reaffirms that he won’t give up the relics and Ruby pips up with, “We don’t have to kill you to stop you.”

Hey wait. I’m gonna give you all another graphic.

This is Ozpin’s stance! This is his plan! His version of hope! We spent all of Volume Six having the cast beat on him for, “Omg Salem is immortal?!” and with the exception of Nora’s comment, no discussion of this in Volume Seven... but now suddenly Ruby is making this announcement? The group came to this revelation sometime off screen which we a) don’t get to see and b) once again created no scenario in the form of, “Wow! Ozpin was right all along! Maybe we should go talk to him...”

I’m just... wow. The number of times the writing takes what the group and the adults do, the exact same perspectives and decisions, and twists it so that the group comes out looking like heroes and the adults look like misguided, unhinged fools who need to be put in their place... I’m really over it at this point. And by extension the group themselves. Their characterizations have been so badly mangled at this point I legitimately don’t like them as people. I don’t care if they say they want to protect Mantle, or if they say they’ll support Ironwood, or if they say they’re unsure about their choices. All their actions claim otherwise.

Rather than grappling with the huge revelation that the group is apparently no longer obsessed with Salem’s immortality (or rather that Ruby isn’t. The rest of the group doesn’t actually matter. As established, they sync up with her beliefs the second she announces them), we return to Summer Rose. Salem goes, “Your mother said those words to me” and Ruby... loses it? What? I would have been 100% on board with this if we’d gotten it last Volume because then we saw Ruby losing her cool periodically. The smashed alcohol bottles. Chucking her scroll. Screaming at Qrow. That was all building to something. But then we had a year and roughly twelve episodes of normality. Ruby jumps into her fight with Cordovin and has been fine ever since. Hell, she’s been bubbly and confident, goofing off with Penny in one episode, then giving strong orders to her team in another. The one time we see her falter was in her conversation with Qrow and he reassured her completely that she was both doing the right thing and in no way comparable to Ozpin. Now, suddenly, one line from Salem and Ruby collapses? Full on incapacitated? I could buy the crying while still standing strong, I could buy a collapse if we’d kept her characterization going from Volume Six, but this kind of reaction in this context just felt so extreme. Doesn’t help that I really wasn’t sold on the voice acting here. Those cries sound less like devastated sobs and more like weird hiccups. Not to rag on Lindsay. On the whole I think she does a really excellent job as Ruby, it’s just this particular moment didn’t read right to me. I didn’t feel Ruby’s supposed grief here.

So that was... a lot for one line from Salem in a volume of otherwise confident and cool-headed Ruby. We also don’t see it amounting to anything, as per usual with RWBY’s writing. Ruby isn’t out of commission for the rest of the conversation or anything. She pops right back up after a second in Yang’s lap, just as confident and go-getting as before. There was no lead up to this and there are no consequences for the breakdown. Rooster Teeth honestly seems to think they can just chuck random things into the story---Ruby needs to show emotion at some point!---and then just leave it at that, entirely disconnected from everything else around it. Would we have known that Ruby just had her first breakdown of the series a minute later while once again betraying Ironwood? Nope.

Finally, this scene shows us again that the Argus battle was a bunch of nonsense. Ruby’s eyes nearly activate when she’s grieving for her mother, imagining---or perhaps seeing via Salem?---a sad Summer, not a smiling one. Just like her eyes activated while seeing Pyrrha die. Just like they activated when Blake was nearly killed by the Apathy. They activate now while thinking about her mother’s death. The montage of happy moments in lieu of the sad ones not working last volume was entirely out of place.

Salem finally leaves. Now everyone is panicking about this army. Elm points out that they’ll know if anything approaches. Vine checks and realizes that Watts took out their perimeter. Either that or Salem has already destroyed everyone and everything out there. It’s impossible to know. During all this Blake asks if the Amity tower is actually finished and we get more nonsense about how Ironwood is evil for telling a lie, but the group is always justified in telling theirs. The writing really tried to compare Ironwood telling Mantle---who I guarantee 100% does not care about whether a communications tower is finished while they’re getting attacked by grimm---a lie to lure out one of their biggest threats to Blake and Yang going behind Ironwood’s back to tell a potentially non-trustworthy outlaw about said tower, risking that the information would fall into the wrong hands and doom the project before it could be completed either way. Those are not in any way comparable situations, yet the writing really has Weiss going, “General Ironwood?” in a ‘How could you betray us like that?’ tone while Yang continues to look pissed.

And as if they didn’t know! How is this a personal betrayal? They were all helping to build that tower. Surely they’d know it it was that close to being done. Again, critical thinking skills, people. Anyone with two brain cells and their insider information should have looked at Ironwood’s announcement and gone, “Oh, that must be a bluff. Just a few days ago we were arguing about whether to continue taking resources from Mantle. No way is Amity ready. He’s going after Watts. Who is indeed the much bigger threat. Considering that he has control over the entirety of our technology and there’s literally no downside to telling Mantle about a finished tower when they’re getting devoured by grimm.” This is another, “But lying is wrong!” in the face of “But lying kept us alive...?” 

Does everyone get what I’m saying here? How RWBY takes these situations and tries to paint them in an absolutely ridiculous light, expecting the audience to blindly accept this perspective despite everything else they’ve seen for themselves? Like, two episodes ago? I swear I’ve never encountered writing that treats its audience this badly. Scene after scene relies heavily on the viewer having no ability to think for themselves. Just accept that Ironwood is a horrible person for lying about the tower even though there are no repercussions for that and we JUST watched him defeating Watts as a result. Like, five minutes ago. That just happened. In this episode. 

Ironwood then drops the bomb that Winter has gone off to claim the Maiden power. Interesting development. I wonder what that means exactly. Is she just going to lock herself away until the Maiden dies naturally? Do they have her on some sort of life support and is there an agreement to pull the plug if necessary? Are they going to use a machine similar to the one Pyrrha was in and try to force the change early? Or is this just a misleading comment and Winter is merely off to protect the Maiden, no intention of taking the power now? Who knows. We’ll have to wait until next episode to find out.

Ironwood likewise announces that the staff and the lamp need to be locked away now that they’re compromised, even though they’ve been compromised since they first saw Tyrian in Mantle. Insert another [this scenario is so stupid and contrived] explanation here. It’s made worse by Ruby’s childish “You said we could keep it.” Excuse me? What, did you think the lamp was your personal property now forever and always? Is Ruby really sitting there arguing that something Ironwood told her weeks ago trumps the obvious logic of putting the relic where it’s somewhere safe? That’s the characterization we’re going for, a leader who cares more about, ‘But you said we could have it!’ over the fate of the world? What even is this? The fact that Ironwood has to explain to them that the situation has changed just reinforces the group’s overall attitude. That is, one of arrogance and importance. They literally need to be told why putting the relic in a nearly impenetrable vault is better than letting them have it just because they want it. Plus, you know, they lied about the lamp from the start. So there’s that too.

Finally, Ironwood reveals that Amity was originally a plan of Ozpin’s but he didn’t push it far enough. Instead, he intends to use the staff to lift all of Atlas instead, hopefully taking two relics and a Maiden far out of Salem’s reach. Ruby wants to use the tower for its designed purpose instead, which is only a valid option in her mind because the writing was stupid last week. If there had actually been any logic there---if people had been allowed to react naturally and in a variety of ways to the Salem announcement, rather than a super convenient “Yeah! Let’s all work together!” across an entire, panicking city---she wouldn’t be quite so eager to tell the whole world. But we all know at this point that logic bends to the protagonists’ whims, so Ruby wants that same perfect ending across all of Remnant. She stands her ground, as does her team. Obviously.

Meanwhile, the Ace Ops aren’t just following Ironwood’s orders like the writing wants us to think via Harriet’s earlier comment. Rather, they’re each thinking through the situation for themselves and making very good points. If Salem has taken out our perimeter than we know our tech and people don’t stand a chance against this army. We just finished up the fight in Mantle and none of us are in a position to start another. Notably, Harriet brings this up, the one whose aura took a massive hit while nearly getting crushed underfoot. Vine points out that sometimes you have to lose a battle to win the war, but Team RWBY, to be blunt, simply doesn’t care.

I’ll be blunt myself here too: I don’t have an easy solution to this particular scenario. I don’t know what the “right” or the “wrong” choice is. Weighing starting a fight with VERY high stakes you’ll lose against abandoning the people of Mantle is just a straight up horrific decision. Like so much of what Ozpin faced, there is no clear-cut, good answer here. Do you stand by the people and risk the world, or work to save the world and doom the people? I don’t know and I do commend Rooster Teeth for writing a difficult choice... just not in giving each side the weight it deserves. Because as said, we’re meant to root for Team RWBY, always. Theirs is presented as the “right” choice every time, despite the fact that, as established, this is far from a black and white decision.

What frustrates me the most is when faced with all of these logical and very important considerations (we might not have backup, we’re in no position to fight, if Salem gets the relics and another Maiden the world is screwed) the group won’t even acknowledge these things. They’re so set in their own perspective they won’t even give these HUGE concerns the time of day. Rather, Yang shoots back, “You can’t just back down from a fight!”

That’s it. That’s the group’s problem in a single line.

This is what got Pyrrha killed.

It’s something the group should remember. She also insisted on fighting when she should have retreated and, since this was back during the days when characters actually faced consequences for their actions, it cost Pyrrha her life. Granted, going after Cinder was a truly useless endeavor. Pyrrha achieved nothing with her sacrifice. Here, Team RWBY hopes to save the people of Mantle, adding a clear justification for their insistence on fighting... but this is nevertheless indicative of that larger “punch it until it stops moving” mindset. It’s not that they decide to fight instead of retreating that’s the problem, it’s that to their mind fighting is the only option. Ever. This is what led to them attacking Cordovin and destroying Argus’ mech, drawing a massive grimm in the process. When faced with the option of backing down, Team RWBY doesn’t consider that an option at all. Which is heroic when up against an actual enemy, far less so when you’re facing an ally and the choice to fight has serious repercussions attached to it. Hell, the group doesn’t even consider compromises. They could have easily acknowledged that collecting the relics, the Maiden, and getting the staff to work on Atlas will take time. You do that while we focus on evacuating the rest of Mantle to the city. But no, even the concept of a compromise simply isn’t possible. You just always fight. Straight up. Anyone who suggests anything less isn’t a true huntsmen. “We’re loyal to the people!” Ruby shouts, as if “the people” doesn’t also include the rest of the world that Ironwood is trying to save and that they’re endangering by keeping the relics and Maiden within Salem’s reach. 

That is one messed up perspective to tout in a story infused with the complex and the morally gray.

The real kicker though? Ruby’s ‘My way or the highway’ attitude obliterates a solution that fell straight into her lap. Jaune calls and says straight out that they have another situation. If Ruby had listened to her teammate for just three seconds they all would have learned about Oscar, thereby undermining Ironwood’s plan. He can’t keep the lamp safe if he doesn’t know where it is. You look for it while, again, we evacuate Mantle. Then we take everything out of Salem’s reach. Win-win. Instead, Ruby blasts her way through the situation. Literally, dodging Ironwood and hiding behind his desk shouting a highly bias version of his plan in the hopes of getting everyone on her side. And it works. 

Because those like Clover don’t get to hear any of that context. Like how the perimeter is gone, there’s an army potentially coming, no one is in a position to fight, we’ve already lost a relic... they just here a Ruby’s version of events that paints Ironwood as the callous man Robyn thought he was---oh my god he’s abandoning Mantle for no good reason!---and people will react accordingly. Ruby likewise doesn’t care that shouting such information over all channels does things like, say, clue Tyrian into their plan. She just wants to do things her way, right now. Pausing to think (because thinking isn’t fighting) simply doesn’t happen.

I used to adore Ruby as a hero. Someone who was intrinsically good, hopeful, and wickedly clever in her ability to come out on top. Now she’s stubborn, arrogant, at times cruel, and charges in headfirst like her sister, refusing to consider any perspective other than her own. And her team endlessly supports that. The writing endlessly supports that. This isn’t our hero working through her flaws, but rather a flawed character that the writing refuses to acknowledge is flawed. When Ruby flies behind Ironwood’s desk the music rises triumphantly, just like it did when she attacked Cordovin’s mech. When Ironwood announces that they’re under arrest, Ruby spits back, “We won’t just let you take us” and we’re supposed to cheer.

Which brings us back to the question of whether the group really faced consequences here. Let me give you all a random, non-RWBY example of two scenes. Scenario One:

Parent: You punched her?

Teen: She insulted me!

Parent: I understand that, but that doesn’t mean you were justified in attacking her.

Teen: Oh, I was.

Parent: Maybe you were, maybe you weren’t, but you can’t solve all your problems that way.

Teen: I... I know that, okay. Back off. I just get so angry...

Parent: I know. We’re going to work on that. You’re grounded this weekend. We can discuss this more then.

Teen: [sighs] Fine.

vs. Scenario Two:

Parent: You punched her?

Teen: She insulted me!

Parent: I understand that, but that doesn’t mean you were justified in attacking her.

Teen: Oh, I was.

Parent: Maybe you were, maybe you weren’t, but you can’t solve all your problems that way.

Teen: Screw you! It worked didn’t it? I think a good punch goes a long way.

Parent: That’s not... okay look. You’re grounded this weekend so---

Teen: Like hell I am. [Proceeds to run off]

Teen: [Later to friend] ---and then she tried to ground me? Can you believe that?

Friend: Holy shit what an asshole.

If we put aside my own iffy dialogue for the moment, Scenario One acknowledges the complexity of the situation while likewise pointing out that the teen didn’t handle herself well. RWBY has achieved that here: the ethics of this scenario are acknowledged as complicated, but the group did things they shouldn’t have, as evidence by Ironwood’s anger and the Ace Ops’ criticism. However, Scenario One goes on to let the teen acknowledge that mistake, thereby validating it in the first place. A consequence is set, grounding, and they accept that, thereby further validating that their behavior needs work. They accept the consequence because both they and the writing acknowledge that the consequence is deserved. It takes what was previously two subjective stances---they say I’m wrong, I say I’m right---and encourages the audience to find the middle ground. Neither was totally wrong or right. The teen might be justified in some respects, but still made mistakes in others. She needs to improve. 

RWBY, however, steers firmly into Scenario Two wherein the teen (Team RWBY) insists points blank that they never made mistakes in the first place, thereby encouraging the audience to question whether Ironwood and the Ace Ops (the parent) is right to be calling them out at all. We see no humility or guilt, only confidence. Ruby shouting “No!” at Cordovin when she’s told to surrender. Yang keeping silent after admitting that she and Blake told Robyn, not bothering to apologize or admit that this might have been a breech of trust. They challenge the validity of the claim that mistakes were made and by virtue of being protagonists encourage the audience to challenge it too. Finally, we see them reject the consequence because they will not admit that it’s deserved. The teen will not accept a grounding. Ruby: “We won’t just let you take us.” We’re then told by others that this rejection was warranted. The friend reinforces the view that the teen was right to run because that punishment is undeserved. The message is, “You never did anything wrong in the first place.” The plot of RWBY likewise reinforces the view that resisting Cordovin’s arrest was right by having her randomly let the group go. The consequence is replaced with a reward and, presumably, we’ll have a similar situation wherein the group either defeats the Ace Ops or is released by them. The consequences never take hold because the writing doesn’t think there should be consequences in the first place. Team RWBY isn’t going to be arrested here. They’re certainly not acknowledging that on some level they deserve to be. We didn’t see that humility while they were cuffed on the airship---that most basic acknowledgement of, “Did we make some mistakes? Could we have done something better? Is Ironwood right to be this mad?”---and there’s none of it now here, either. The tone is pure, “How dare you try and arrest us? We’re the good guys here!” 

This remains as pro-protagonist as it has been the last two volumes. There are no consequences, only another hurdle for the group to overcome, painted as heroes for doing so. It’s Team RWBY vs. The Ace Ops and there’s no confusion about who we’re supposed to be rooting for. The Ace Ops because the group should rightly be stopped from hindering Ironwood’s attempts to keep the relics and a Maiden out of Salem’s hands, for their own lies and secret keeping that endangered them all this volume? Nope. It’s Team RWBY as the presumed heroes, facing off against soldiers who (supposedly) prioritize orders over what’s “right.” 

And yeah, Oscar is gone. There are a number of dismantled robots and blaster fire in the room where Neo presumably took him. So unless they do a flashback we don’t get to see if/how Ozpin reacted to this initial attack. I hope they do provide a flashback because otherwise that’s another crucial scene of Oscar’s that happened off screen...

Can’t wait to see what else we’ll end up with next week! Until then, 💜

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #rwby recaps #mymetas

[agl03]

Do you think we'll see Ward/The Hydra (if he has a name I cant think of it) in the new season? Also do you think Coulson (being an AI) will stay loyal to the group the entire season?

Hi @trekkiehood

Thanks for the follow!

Do you think we'll see Ward/The Hydra (if he has a name I cant think of it) in the new season? 

I think it would be an awful shame for the writers to have not found a way to bring the King of come backs Brett Dalton back for one last final time in a time traveling season.  Even if its for a cameo kind of thing.   And Brett was asked this question by a fan, to which he responded Grant Ward is not in Season 7.  He said nothing about Hive.  Also he could have been lying through his teeth because of the Marvel Snipers.  

It would be a matter of when it would work bringing him into the mix and why.  What point in the teams history are they after that would make them cross paths.

Plus a common time travel trope is the team being faced with situations where they desperately would want to intervene with a past event to save a life or spare some pain.  IE Imagine them being at the Superiors Base when AIDA kidnapped almost all of them.  Jemma having to let Fitz get taken knowing what was going to happen.  Ward falls into a similar boat, if they come across the team before he has been revealed outing him would save lives but would seriously mess stuff up.

So as long as it works with the story I fully expect to see him one last time.

Also do you think Coulson (being an AI) will stay loyal to the group the entire season?

This is going to be the theory that is going to get me in a lot of trouble.  If you don’t like it its totally cool, just don’t kill me for it.

I do have concerns about both Robo Coulson and Enoch during the Season and at one point one or both playing a part in betraying the team...both I will say are going to be unwilling in their actions and/or have no control over them..  

I have concerns that Enoch was indeed taken over and has been playing Fitzsimmons, Malachi knowing that Fitzsimmmons would willing go with him and help him when it came to saving the world vs capturing them and trying to force them to work.  If Enoch has been co opted somehow, then that means he could have also corrupted the programming of Robo Coulson at some point.

If Enoch is all on the up and up (Seriously I want this one to be wrong and would much rather have Uncle Enoch being the coolest baby sitter for Fitzsimmons Secret Kid).  The other thing I have concerns about is exactly who “we had help” was during we had time.  

They would have needed a lot of help to do everything they have done.  While Hunter likely could have found them a kick butt hide out with Margaritas and weapons he’s not going to be a lot of help turning a jump drive into a time machine.  And there has to be other Chronicoms out there, not all were Hunters or Anthropologists.  So we’ll see how many of those Enoch was possibly able to help track down to help.  Plus some saved from Shield, Deke’s Start Up, others who might have a beef with the Chronicoms.  Also I don’t think Fitz is holed up in some cave all by himself.  I think he’s at whatever base they managed to set up with some of the “we had help” peeps.

It only takes ONE of those guys to turn and they are in a lot of trouble.  Not only could this explain Fitz’s peril (which those that follow me know I think it happens pretty much right out of the gate) but any other things that go wrong along the way.  If the missions aren’t really going where/when they should while the real targets are being missed and left unprotected.   Just one person with the right knowledge could sabotage/put a failsafe/secret plan in Robo Coulson as we saw Radcliffe do with Robo May and the whole no clobbering me and bring me the Darkhold thing.  Oh look one of those parallel things the writers love to do.

Side note Darkhold is one of the major things we need to hope the Chronicoms aren’t after.

Something else I can address is that perhaps our big bad of them all isn’t a Chronicom (or a really awful one), what if the big bad has the ability to take control of those with Chronicom tech....Robo Coulson would be included in that, thus Robo Coulson would be forced into a betrayal but perhaps could connect to something of his humanity and pull himself out.

Finally a note that was brought to my attention by a number of people today who got to watch the Peek without and 8 year old talking about Hybrid Animal Crossing Flowers and a Blue Rose.  If you listen very carefully in the sneak peek between 30-40 Seconds when Mack Mentions that we don’t need to be messing with time too much there is an odd almost scanning/buzzing noise that is far too modern and noticeable to be nothing.  And is something I totally take note of even if I don’t know what it means yet.  .Also that dude that Deke bumped into was bad news too, mark my words.

#aos spoilers #aos speculation #ask agl03 #the bad theory I want to be wrong

[mvmadvice]

MvM Bootcamp: Wave 666, the ultimate wave order guide

THE ULTIMATE MANN VS MACHINE, WAVE 666 GHOST TOWN GUIDE INCOMINGGG

I know it’s been awhile folks, but I’m back (briefly) with a down-and-dirty guide on wave 666.

Wave Order:

1. Crit W+M1 Pyros + Crit Bat Scouts + Crit Giant Demoknights

2. Crit Giant Soldiers + Uber Medics (one medic per soldier)

3. Giant Deflector Heavies + Giant Burst Fire Soldiers + Soldiers + Heavies

4. Tanks + Crit Scattergun Scouts

5. Giant Burst Fire Demomen + Crit Demoknights (small) + 1 Tank

6. Extended Banner Direct Hit Soldiers

7. Giant Heavies + Giant Quick Fix Medics

8. Tanks + 96 fucking Spies <----- HALFWAY POINT!!!!

9. Crit Huntsmen

10. Crit Rapid Fire Soldiers

11. Crit Burst Demomen

12. Crit Airblast Pyros

13. Crit Scattergun Scouts (not to be confused with part 4)

14. 1 Tank + Crit Heavies + Uber Medics

Yes, despite it all being one big waves, the bots still come in a specific order. I’ll organize them as “parts” (part 1, part 2, part 3, etc) since it’s all one big wave. Quick explanation of each part under the cut.

Part 1:

Aka the warm up. Just don’t let them get in close to you, and you’ll be a-okay. The demomen come in groups of four, and the little bots come in groups of I wanna say 10? I’ve never really counted because they’re not that big a threat.

Part 2:

The first time you meet Uber medics in the wave. It’ll be hard for Medic pickers to isolate the medics, since each giant soldier comes attached with one and they come as one messy group, meaning there isn’t a convenient place to put all your stickies/throw your gas to kill all the medics cleanly. Ideally, a good Sniper can take out most--if not all--of the medics. However, since good Snipers are hard to come by, you’re better off popping the medics as fast as possible. If you have a kritzkrieg Medic and a Soldier on your team, it may be worth popping kritz on the Soldier, since Soldier’s crockets can fairly reliably 1 shot Uber medics. 

Part 3:

The Giants will always come as a pair. Ideally, you’ll want to kill the first pair before the second one drops, etc etc. The little bots can be annoying though, since the spam is super crazy during this part. If you have a medic, make sure your projectile shield is ready, because you can literally render all the bots useless for a short period of time. If you’re playing Engineer, move your sentry gun out of the way at the beginning of this part or get ready to wrangle it. If you’re playing Soldier, you can fire a few cheeky rockets early to try to damage the bots right as they hit the ground. Splash damage is your best friend during this part. Soldier, Demoman, and Sniper really shine here.

Part 4:

This is the easiest tank part (and also probably the easiest part of Wave 666 if your team is good at working together). If you have an Engineer, he can singlehandedly hold the bomb for the entire duration of this wave, allowing the other 5 players to focus down the tanks. Alternatively, if you either lack an Engineer or your Engineer doesn’t realize the power he has against a bunch of Scouts, dedicate ONE person to stopping the bomb. Some good classes you’ll see often that are good at watching the bomb are: Soldier, Demoman, Scout, Sniper (if he can aim), Pyro (if they’re not on the tank), and Heavy. Demoknights and Spies can also watch the bomb, but they aren’t nearly as effective. Phlog Pyros, Buff Banner Soldiers, and Carbine + Bushwacka Snipers should always be on the tank, not on the bomb. If you’re really struggling, try seeing if your team has enough tank damage. I’ll talk about tanks and tank damage more extensively in another post.

Pro tip: If you think you might be done with the Scouts and want to stop watching the bomb, press tab and see how many Crit Scouts are left. You’re done with Scouts (for now) if the number is 75.

Part 5: 

The demomen (both the giants and the little ones) will move in groups of five or ten. This means that they’ll be grouped up very nicely with each other, but it also means that you can quickly get overwhelmed by 20+ giant demos all spamming grenades everywhere. They do, however, take a long time to reload, so if you want to get in a few quick Ubersaws, it’s possible with good timing (2-3 depending on how much you wanna push your luck).

This part is also pretty easy, depending on how much AOE (area of effect) damage you have. Basically, if you have a lot, the giant demos go down fast. If you have very little, well, it’s do-able, but you’ll need to be very efficient at rotating between the tank and the bomb. Oh yeah, did I mention that after 10-15 giant demomen drop, a single tank will appear? Yep! This tank has more HP than the tanks you just fought, so be careful. Ideally, your team will split in half and deal with them at the same time. If you have very little tank damage but a lot of bot damage, focus the tank first (I know, but hear me out). Since you know you don’t have a lot of tank damage, starting on the tank early will make sure you have enough time to get rid of the tank before you take on the robots. Most teams with very little tank damage will have a lot of robot damage, so you should be able to take care of the robots fairly quickly. If you have very little of either, I have to genuinely wonder how you got so far into the wave in the first place.

Part 6: 

If you’re playing Engineer, you basically have to hide your sentry around corners to pick off bots before they can react to your gun. If you’re playing any other class, buy crit and blast resistance. Wave 666 is different from other modes in that you can refund your upgrades during the wave. The ending of Part 5 is very slow (a few crit demoknights filter in over a short period of time), so take that chance to get as much crit and blast resistance as you can. Let the sentry gun watch the bomb while your team goes to get upgrades. You’re gonna need it.

This part usually isn’t that hard though, overall, since most people have blast and crit resistance by now anyway.

Part 7:

As soon as the last soldiers spawn, the first Giant Heavy/Medic pair will also spawn. Try to clean up the soldiers before they drop. This is a pretty straightforward part of the wave. Kill the Medic (without letting it pop uber, or else it’ll go back to full hp), then kill the Heavy. Make sure you don’t have more than 2 pairs on the field at any given time, or your life will be hell and the wave will be over.

This part you’ll have relatively little control over, but don’t let the last pair touch the bomb. Usually, the first or second pair will be able to touch it, maybe let the third pair, but absolutely do not let the last pair touch the bomb. If they do, you risk having the bomb still in play during the dreaded part 8.

Part 8: 

The spookiest and hardest part of wave 666 that everyone has told you about. Wave 666 is known for 2 things: being really fucking long and the ninety-six fucking spies that come at the same time to destroy your life.

These spies are NOT your normal support spies, which typically come in groups of two or three. No. These spies will swarm. There will be something like 10 or 20 on the map until you kill them all. They also drop money ($2 or $3, this is the part where even the best scouts will lose that A+ rating). But the most annoying, least known part about these spies is as follows:

They can cap the bomb.

You read that right. It’s extremely rare that they have the opportunity, since the tank usually gives enough time for the bomb to respawn, and the Spies will never spawn with a bomb, but if you do happen to have a bomb? Good luck winning this.

During this part of the wave, buy backs, crit canteens, and uber canteens are your best friends. If you’re a non-explosive class, you can jump on top of the tank. If you’re a Scout, please don’t do that if you already see someone up there. You can dodge spies with pretty good success, let the tank Sniper sit up there. Sincerely: a tank Sniper.

HALFWAY POINT IS OVER, SOMETHING LIKE 7 OF 10 TEAMS FAIL BY THIS POINT, SO IF YOU’RE HERE, CONGRATS! YOU’RE BASICALLY DONE!

Note for parts 9-14: These bots all come in a row, and don’t give you a break in between bot types, so you’ll often get a mix of two bots at the end of one part and beginning of the next. You might also start to lag due to the large number of particle effects now in the game.

Part 9:

Crit huntsmen. They’re pretty easy if you have a Medic and a Soldier. I’d argue they could probably hold the bomb all on their own if they don’t die. Snipers are really weak in the HP department, so they’re easy to burst down in groups. By now you should have more than enough damage.

If you’re playing Sniper, this is the last part of Wave 666 that you’ll be useful in until part 13 (since Soldier does your job better).

Part 10-11:

The Crit Soldiers from part 10 are very dangerous. You might want to dodge in and out from behind walls (the ones on either side of the main pathway are good, as well as the wall on top of the building in the middle. If you’re lucky, the bomb bot will go towards the right side (if you are looking from the hatch to the robot spawn), where there is a really good bottleneck corridor. Have a low quality screenshot from a recent game (ignore the icicle sentry buster).

This bottleneck is absolutely amazing vs the bots from part 10-12 because if you can get the bomb placement just right, all the robots will funnel in from the front.

Sometimes, you might get a cheeky flanker, but if you have an Engie or a very aware power class, they aren’t a problem.

The Demomen can be dealt with similarly as the Soldiers.

Part 12:

The Pyros are where your power classes start to falter. The best class against these Pyros is your Engineer. If you don’t have one, good luck. They’ll probably be able to push you all the way to your hatch, but if you have enough people alive (2-3) at any given time, you should be able to prevent the cap.

If you’re at the bottleneck, have one person above and the rest of the team on the ground. Ideally, your soldier(s) are smart enough to figure out that these Pyros know how to reflect and have perfect reflect timing, so they’ll position themselves accordingly. 

Part 13:

The Pyros will soon trickle to a halt and some Scouts will start to mix themselves in. Be careful, these Scouts do a lot more damage than the Scouts from part 4.

Part 14:

A few minutes after the Scout’s start spawning, a tank will spawn. This tank is even tankier than the tank from part 5 and drops very little money when you kill it (but that doesn’t matter, you’re basically done anyway at this point). At the same time, the Heavy/Medic pairs will also start to drop, so it’s just a giant fuckfest of crits and panic.

Be warned: robots can cap while ubercharged. If you do not have a Demoman, Pyro, or another class that can disrupt a bomb drop, make sure to pop the medics’ uber before they reach your base.

If you’re playing Sniper, this is the part of the wave that you get to be useful again, because your charged bodyshots will 1 shot the uber medics, preventing them from popping.

If you beat all of that, then you’re done!

Congratulations!

You get to feel accomplished that you beat wave 666.

Make sure to keep an eye out for some in depth analyses of the harder parts of the wave, along with some class guides for wave 666.

#mvm advice #TF2 #tf2 mvm #mann vs machine #mann vs machine advice #mvm boot camp

[theultimateegghead-blog]

Salt Fortress, the tf2 mercs ranked for how frustrating they can be to fight against.

I have been playing a lot of Team fortress 2 lately. Mostly for the Halloween event but also because I have friends that I can’t see IRL that play TF2. Well, as I have sunk over 200 hours into this game, I have fought against every class. I have won many fights, I have lost many fights. I am the middle ground player, I am often in the middle of the scoreboard of a heated match. Not bad, but not perfect. Well, a general rule of TF2 is that each class is a nightmare if played by a skilled player or a joke if played by an inexperienced or bad player. I have meet both skilled and bad players of every class and I wanted to make this list of how frustrating each class is against. I will be reviewing their abilities, strengths and weaknesses and so on. Keep this in mind, I do not main any class, so I have fought these guys as multiple classes. This is not a specific class vs class list, more so just a general list. Without further ado, lets see my thoughts on overcoming the 9 classes of TF2.

9 – Engineer

The Engineer is a defensive class that mostly prioritizes in area denial. The engineer’s main role is to construct various buildings to aid the team. These buildings include a sentry gun, an ammo and health dispenser and a one-way teleporter to help get his team to the front lines quickly. An engineer can be a nightmare if he gets creative with where he puts his buildings down. There can be times where an engineer somehow manages to construct a nest and a teleporter in your base. This can be a frustrating nightmare, but it mostly happens when you are unfortunately playing alongside an incompetent team. Most engineers are big targets when their buildings are destroyed, but some can fight back with deadly accuracy. Engineers will generally not stray far from their building nest, so they are easy to ambush if you can overcome their buildings. Because of this they are not the most frustrating class. They rarely take the time to hunt you down and make you miserable and can be pushed away with enough force given. Novice players will build in large groups and will become huge targets for enemy players. Now if an engineer has a friend, such as a pyro, also known as a Pybro, things can get a bit tougher.

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8 – Medic

The medic, true to his name, prioritizes on healing. The medic is a high priority target. A medic can combo with a heavy, soldier, demoman or pyro and can utterly destroy the enemy team. With various tools at his disposal, such as damage resistance, invincibility or guaranteed critical hits. The medic should be the one to take down first. Medic’s usually hide behind their companion and will flee if their companion is killed. They have a few ways to defend themselves. A nail gun, a crossbow and melee weapons are some of his offensive tools. Even though he is primarily a healer he can do some nasty melee damage. Medic’s who primarily try to be offensively based are often considered a joke. What is annoying is when a medic is healing a spawn camper. If you are a spawn camper, you are on the naughty list. Overall, Medic’s are at their most dangerous if they are healing someone, they can be a decent threat alone but are not hard to defeat in a 1v1 battle.

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7 – Pyro

The Pyro is an interesting class. Most Pyro’s pose little threat unless they are within close range. Even them it is not an immediate victory for our friendly arsonist. A skilled Pyro can be very annoying. With the new jetpack, a Pyro can get the jump on you almost as much as a soldier or a demoman. If you are not careful, you’ll become a human bbq. Some Pyro’s are skilled enough to deflect rockets and bombs, making him a counter for soldiers and demoman. The pyro can also be a menace for spies. If you are going against a skilled pyro, you and your team can be in for a bad time, but on the other hand there is always the pyro that just rushes you endlessly. So, the frustrating factor depends on the Pyro’s skill level.

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6 – Spy

What keeps the spy so high on the list is the consistency of player skill. A skilled spy can be an absolute nightmare to fight against. However, a large number of spies are inexperienced and make many mistakes that give away their location. While a new player will have a harder time fending off this absolute monstrosity of a class, more experienced players are aware of the tell-tale signs of an enemy spy. Spies can kill any class in one shot, can destroy engineer buildings, can disguise as an enemy player and can go invisible. In return they are not the tankiest class. The spy’s tools can provide more frustration when fighting against him. The spycicle can make his inherit weakness to pyros a little easier to circumnavigate, and the infamous dead ringer which allows him to fake his own death. The spy is the most inconsistent challenge of all the classes. With some people turning invisible at the perfect moment, jumping off a stairwell or some scenery and backstabbing a pursuing heavy. Then there are the spies that disguise in plain sight and run straight for the enemy. At their worst moments they are nothing more than a mild nuisance, at their best they can be a team killing monster.

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5 – Heavy

The heavy is the most tanky class in TF2. The heavy is slow and lumbering but can be a major threat to the enemy team. Armed with a minigun, a shotgun or food and his fist, the heavy is deadly to take on in a 1v1 battle. The Heavy is often seen with a medic nearby healing them. While they are easy targets for spies and snipers, they can rip apart anyone in front of them quite easily. Heavies can eat certain food items to restore health at the price of being left open for a while. What makes a heavy dangerous is that even inexperienced players can pose a threat as well. Some heavy variants include the Tomislav sniper heavy, the friendly Hoovy, the fat scout and so on. Heavies can be annoying to fight and will almost always beat down others especially if they are being healed by a medic. However, if you can exploit the Heavy’s slow movement, he can be defeated in close range.

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4 – Soldier

The soldier takes little skill to play, but a lot of skill to master. A soldier can ambush you out of nowhere Be a nuisance for engineers and can overall be a deadly adversary for an enemy team. Soldiers don’t need to be precise with their aiming as splash damage can do the job for them. Soldiers are able to rocket jump and can pop up at the least expected times. They sometimes tend to peek and shoot around corners, making them harder to defeat. Any soldier, regardless of skill level can be dangerous, some can even buff their allies and make a push all the more troublesome. While soldiers are by no means invincible, a skilled soldier might take a good amount of effort to defeat. There is a reason soldier is one of the most played classes.

*********

3 – Sniper

The Sniper, true to his profession, is a sniper. He fights at long range and thus most cases you cannot engage in close range combat unless you sneak up on them. The Sniper can pick off classes pretty easily with his headshots. Medics, Heavies and Engineers are usually the prime target for a sniper, with most skilled ones being able to take down almost any class from across the map. Sniper also has some close-range weapons and defenses for when things get dicey. Sniper is the class of choice for most hackers and cheaters as well, luckily, I have yet to encounter any particularly nasty hackers. One of Sniper’s biggest weakness is the fact they get tunneled vision while scoped in, so they are easy to ambush. However, if the sniper is armed with a bow and arrow they are much more alert to their surroundings. Snipers can be annoying and difficult to counter and can quickly ruin a good game.

*********

2 – Scout

Scouts are among one of the most annoying classes in any class-based shooter. The scout is weak but fast. He has a powerful gun and is so mobile that he can appear and ambush players from almost anywhere. They jump and spasm around when fighting you and are the hardest classes to hit. To compensate, he is weak health wise. He does not need a lot of punishment to go down. Every game is guaranteed to have a scout or two, as he is a very all-purpose class. Also, a lot of scout mains I have had the misfortune of meeting were some of the biggest jerks. Though this isn’t to say all Scout players are jerks, my brother is a scout main and he’s a cool dude.

*********

1 – Demoman

This is the last thing you see when your fun dies. This lass can ruin anyone’s fun. Sniping from far away? Oh, look at that demoman just jumped across the map and blew you up. Building a sentry nest? Nope, Demo just showed up and blew everything up. Don’t even get me started with Demoknights. Demoman is a class that always manages to escape with only one hit point. They can be the most annoying class to fight against, as even a novice player can just spam bombs and get kills. Demoman can virtually counter any and all classes with his extremely versatile sets. On top of that, most spawn campers are Demoman. Oh, Tavish, I love your character, but I hate having to fight against you… ********* Regardless of who you main, regardless of how you play, this is not a call out. Have fun. Im just joking around with this list. I love TF2 and its wonderful cast of characters, they are some of the most comedic and well written video game characters ever. However, if you play TF2 odds are you have played a match or two with an enemy player that made you want to rage, maybe. Well, thats enough venting for now, see you next time.

#salt #tf2 #the engineer #the spy #the medic #heavy weapons guy #scout #spy #medic #demoman #soldier #sniper #pyro #team fortress 2 #steam #valve

[mysteryprof]

Do you have any tips or strats for Hanzo that some players might not know? I'm a Mercy main with 300+ hours on her but I recently started playing Hanzo a lot (with maybe 26 hours on him now?) and I feel like I could be doing better.

I DO!

I HAVE A WHOLE GUIDE

hopefully this helps you o uo)/

- Last Updated: 5/29/19 -

A lot of stuff is gonna sound really basic here, but I want to cover EVERYTHING and approach it like playing for the first time

Sensitivity: > PC- I personally play Hanzo on 6.8, but that’s all dependent on the DPI of your mouse (different number determines how well your mouse is gonna respond to your sensitivity is kinda the best way I can explain it??) and your own preference. For example, I have a very basic Logitech M510 mouse with 1000 DPI (Sidenote: I recommend a mouse with side buttons if you don’t already have one). Another Hanzo Main friend of mine has a 1600 dpi mouse and plays at either 4 or 5, but like I said, whatever works for you; whatever helps you track moving enemies better outside of the technical jargon. A solid sensitivity will really let you get used to landing Flick Shots. > Console - I play on PC only, but from what I’ve heard it’s best to just set his sensitivity on both the horizontal and vertical axis to max. 

Primary Fire- Hanzo’s arrows are Projectile, not Hitscan.- HITSCAN DEFINITION: Characters that have Hitscan have no travel time for their weapon. As in, as soon as you fire the crosshair over someone, you’re hitting them. That’s why characters such as Soldier 76 and McCree (even though he has Falloff Damage) are great counters to Pharah.- In Hanzo’s case, you’ll be aiming at where people are GOING TO MOVE instead of ON them. Lead your shots; let them run into the arrow. You’re golden once you get used to- something like a Tracer’s blink pattern. Even better would be getting familiar with Recall and being able to tell where she’ll reappear. Prediction is key.- I’ve noticed that a lot of Genjis like to go into a Swift Strike at the end of their Deflect… The timing is super tight, but you can land the killing headshot right before they hit you.- The ultimate test of leading your shots is against flying Pharahs. You gotta give quite a bit of leeway with them depending on the distance; it takes quite a bit of practice. I personally kinda picture Pharah as a box and you wanna shoot at her corners depending on if she’s ascending or dropping; more often than not it’ll be at her feet. Storm Arrow should make tracking her a little easier now.

Flick Shots- I honestly recommend looking up a video on these; it’s a lot easier to understand if you see it in action- Here’s a really good post my friend made about them- Flick Shots are far more viable on PC. It’s a lot harder on console even when both horizontal and vertical sensitivities are maxed for Hanzo.- Not much I can give advice on these for except: practice, practice, practice. Start yourself on the bots in the Practice Range, then move up to AI.

Storm Arrow- Great if you wanna just chip at the enemy team if they’re in a cluster- WORKS AMAZING WITH GRAVITON SURGE; follow up with after Dragonstrike if you want absolute overkill- Absolutely use it to chip away at barriers- A Bastion in turret form’s worst nightmare; a full volley will kill them- The temptation to spam all six shots when being confronted/in a panic is high, but you’ll do better if you take the time to focus and aim- The amount of damage a full volley can do through Amplification Matrix is delightfully disgusting. 840 Damage. >:3c

Sonic Arrow- Its radius is 9 meters- Go for unexpected Headshots when people come running around the corner.- It’s a good idea to always a Sonic Arrow up whenever you can; it benefits everyone for possible ult coordinations when the enemy groups up to make pushes.- You can catch invisible Sombras running through with a Sonic Arrow as long as she stays within its range.

Lunge- Just moving towards a point and using Lunge when available will get Hanzo there a little faster than normal walking- Get hooked? Lunge backwards. Incoming Death Blossom? Lunge. Deadeye? Lunge to cover.  - Lunge can be combined with wall climb. If you’re climbing and haven’t reached the max height, you can lunge to another surface and finish climbing up that. - Lunge lets Hanzo get around his sniper perches with much better efficiency… Like, there are some crazy corner jumps he can make now without having to hop on the ground and climb back up on the other side.

Dragonstrike- One of the most important things to know about Dragonstrike is that it’s still a projectile arrow when fired for a quick second before it turns into Dragons. This is why Genji can deflect it and Dva can absorb it with her Defense Matrix if you are close range.- The Dragons are no longer effected by Nano or any other damage boosting ability. - This one is a bit irrelevant, but it doesn’t hurt to know that Dragonstrike does 200 damage per second and has INFINITE RANGE.- Combo with Zarya or Reinhard when you have the chance- tbh you’re probably gonna kill off a Baptiste bc he’ll completely nullify Dragonstrike. DS doesn’t damage the Immortality Field either.- Much like Dva’s Self Destruct, Dragonstrike is a good point clearer to drive the enemy away.- Don’t forget to use Sonic Arrows to see if you’re viable for a good cluster of kills because half the time you’ll be shooting that bad boy through a wall. Keep it up whenever you can.- Honestly? lead a little bit with Dragonstrike bc people are gonna either see or sense it comin’ and they’ll be able to get out of the way. Sometimes you’ll get lucky enough that people’ll just walk into it.

Reticle- Reticle is honestly just a matter of preference; all of them are viable in my opinion. I currently made the switch back to Hanzo’s default after two years and I’ve found that the form it changes into for Storm Arrow helps me aim it better. But also! I’ve grown to like the triple line for a solid sight on where arrows are going if they aren’t fully nocked. - I’m still going to leave my old Crosshairs setting since it’s really paved the way for me. I liked having the additional top/bottom arms for aiming apart from just the left/right on his default. This might put you on the path for finding something you’re comfortable with. 

Practice- I personally like to do a custom match skirmish for practicing if I’m coming out of a long Overwatch break- You have just yourself and 6 other AI with every skill deactivated (I personally use 6 Anas) and it’s a great way to practice leading your shots. The AI will just unpredictably run around bc they have nothing else to do. - Once you feel more comfortable, take down the amount of AI, activate some skills, switch around the hero type of the bots, see if you feel any better against them. If not, go back.- I’m also all for practicing in vs AI. I play it all the time when I wanna chill; I used to play it exclusively. It’s just hard to sometimes practice correctly since the AI comes at you in a cluster and they go down pretty easily.

#anonymous #Askin' Percy

[kaialone]

Catching up on Yokai Watch News

Yokai Watch Spoilers (Movie 4 and Busters 2) under the cut.

--

Mastertag for pre-release Movie 4 information.

Mastertag for pre-release Busters 2 information.

--

Sorry this took a while but, this is gonna be a post to mostly summarize the information that was released via magazine and website updates in the past week.

I have been somewhat busy, so I don’t have time to translate every bit of this, gotta kinda skim over some parts, so this won’t be 100% complete, but I wanted to put out something at least.

First I’ll go over the stuff revealed for Busters 2 and then the stuff revealed for Movie 4, so if you’re only interested in one of the two, just go to the part you wanna read.

Busters 2 Stuff:

A lot of the stuff that the magazine leaks covered are also mentioned in the trailer that was released shortly after. The website also updated with some of this information and can be found here.

The game will appearently take place on a island called Karakuri, where the treasure of a pirate king is said to be hidden?  The Busters will go there to look for treasure, with the New Busters (Indy Jaws, Zom B Chopper, Neko II, and Mr. Scoop) presumably still being after the goals theyve been said to have in the anime and YKW3. (This last part is more my conjecture than anything)

It has been revealed that there will be two versions of “Yokai Watch Busters 2: Hidden Treasure Legend of Banbaraya”, called “Sword” and “Magnum”, and we also now know it’s release date, which is the 7th of December, 2017.

Each version will come with a special Yo-kai Treasure Medal, both featuring Enma and a new character called Kaira, who will seemingly play a role in the 4th movie, too.

Seems that these come with QR codes that will allow you to battle and befriend both Enma and Kaira, too.

It also seems like with this game you will be able to play online with up to 4 people? Though I’m unsure if I understood this right, cause I’ve never played a Busters game myself.

Something else that is shown off is the Treasure Gear, which from what I understand is the various weapons that the Yo-kai Pod merchandise can be turned into.

(for the reference, this is a Yo-kai Pod:

Its a lamp-like device that can have additional stuff get attached to it to turn into various other stuff.)

The Japanese version of the recent Nintendo Direct showed of the Treasure Gear well, showing the Chainsword, Sniper, and Magnum modes.

Unless I’m misunderstanding, there are also certain item boxes you can only destroy with these? (I could be wrong about this part)

A magazine also showed off a 4th Treasure Gear, which is literally called Hyūdroid, but could also be romanized as something like Hughdroid?

(image source)

The text is as follows:

“The Adventure Partner Hyūdroid also appears!

A new model of Treasure Gear. Within a dungeon, it moves around automatically and finds treasure!!”

Something else interesting the magazine mentioned that doesn’t seem to be adressed in the trailer or on the website is this bit:

(From the same source as the one before)

“The Mysterious Cry ‘Banbarayahh’!?

Within the game, when this cry occurs, strange events will...!?”

A new group of characters called the “Bundori Family” (might be romanized differently) has also been revealed:

It seems that they will be your “rivals” when it comes to treasure hunting in the game, whatever that means.

Twitter user rabbittotank has kindly translated the information on them that the magazine provides. You can check that out here.

In addition to these guys, 6 new Hidden Treasure Yokai (or Hihou Yokai) have been shown off:

Again, twitter user rabittotank has translated the information on these yokai found in the magazine. You can see those here.

--

And that’s about it for Busters 2, from what I can tell, cept for some merchandise related stuff, new Treasure Medals, and of course Emblems for the new Hidden Treasure Yokai and the like.

So onto

Movie 4 Stuff:

Here I must apologize again, because of how blurry some of the text is, I can’t translate all the text from the magazine, but I will show off the bits that I can translate.

First we have this page:

(image source for this and the following magazine pics)

While on this page, they point at Enma and the Enma Blade he is wielding and have descriptions for them, sadly I can’t really make out either of those. Though what little I can read of the Enma Blade’s description, it just seems to go over what it is again. (In case you dont know, the Enma Blade already appeared in YKW3)

What I actually can read is this bit:

“Kaira enters the war, too!?

Do not miss Onimaro VS Yōkai (Shadow Side) !!

The Yōkai ‘Onimaro’ that have appeared alongside the comet, who transform the humans they inspirit into Kaodeka Oni (Huge Faced Oni), are terrifying beings!! And Kaira plans to take advantage of this situation and take over the world!? Can the yōkai, transformed into the Shadow Sides, their combat forms, save the world from crisis!?”

And this:

“The king of the Yōmakai is me!!“

Aside from these there is also this little bit, but it’s literally just listing their names:

From left to right: Jibanyan (Shadow Side), Onimaro Leader, and Kaodeka Oni.

Next is this page:

Again, I can’t make out everything, and some stuff is incomplete, but I will go over the stuff I do understand.

This page features the new character Kaira again:

“Kaira the Snake King A yōkai who has tricked Enma and became the king of the Yōmakai. Using the power of Onimaro, he plans to rule the human world as well.”

Note: I am unsure about the world “tricked” here, might be another kanji, it’s a little blurry. If it IS the kanji I think it is, it could also be translated as “framed” or “trapped” or the like.

Also Note that his sword is labelled too, but

I can’t really make any of it’s description. It appears to be called “Snake King Sword”, but that name might be incomplete.

“The Era of Enma is over!!“

“This Sword holds the key to the story!?

Fudō Thunder Sword A legendary sword that was sealed away, for its power is too strong for anyone to control it.”

Note: “Fudō” could possibly translate to “Immobile” or “Unmoving”. Also cause I was confused about it for a moment, I want to point out that this is NOT the same as Kaira’s sword. It’s a different sword.

“In the setting of the movie - 30 years into the future, Kaira the Snake King has become the master of the Yōmakai!? And the swords that the two of them possess, alongside the legendary sword sealed in the Yōmakai, appearently will be important keys of the story!!”

And that’s it for what I got on the information from the magazine, but there is a little bit more from recent news udpates to the website.

First, there is a little notice about how if you got a pre-sale ticket for the movie, you can scan the QR code on it to get a treasure coin in YKW3.

--

Second, more interestingly, there will be some sort of crossover between Yokai Watch and Gegege no Kitarō.

I will translate the entire news post on that one:

“Gegege! Nyo, nyo, nyo way!! 'Gegege no Kitarō'

will appear in a 'Yokai Watch Movie'!

With this, the shocking 'Yōkai Tag Team' is born!

(Translator's Note: I am not sure if it refers to 4th movie specifically, but given the context I feel like it more than likely does.)

This new work is...! The veteran of Yōkai Anime, the national character everyone knows about, 'Gegege no Kitarō' will appear! And not just Kitarō will appear; Daddy Eyeball, Catchick, Old Man Crybaby, the Sand Witch, Rollo Cloth, Ratman, everyone from the familiar 'Kitarō Family' will make an appearance!

(Translator's Note: I used the english names from 2002, I hope thats okay?)

'Gegege no Kitarō' is the master piece of Shigeru Mizuki, which could be called the parent of modern Yōkai Manga and Anime. The manga series started in 1965. The anime started to be broadcast in 1968, and in the blink of an eye, started a Yōkai Boom, spreading the image of 'Yōkai' throughout the world, with 5 more national anime series being produced afterwards.

The voice actress who plays the role of Kitarō, who breathes life into numerous super popular characters, and enjoys national popularity, is the outstanding Masako Nozawa! Kitarō is brought back to life with Masako Nozawa's voice!

(Masako Nozawa's comment): "The protagonist of the first series, Kitarō, fully lives within me. This time around, I am looking forward to see and imagining, how we will be accepted, or what kind of welcome we will receive, as we enter Yokai Watch. For now, I am very excited and looking forward to the completion. Yōkai are immortal."

Furthermore, this Kitarō-like Jibanyan form is known as 'Kitanyan'. Somewhere within the work, this 'Kitanyan' will appear!”

--

Third, there’s a little thing about Kaira, which is mostly the same as what the magazine already said, but since that makes it not that hard to translate, here it is:

“ Kaira the Snake King,

the strongest (worst) rival,

for the strongest of the Yōmakai,

The Great King Enma,

makes his appearance!

(Translator's Note: the word used to describe Kaira here is a pun that can mean both "strongest" but also something like "most vile")

In the setting of the movie - 30 years into the future, Kaira the Snake King has become the master of the Yōmakai!? It seems he also plans to rule the human world.

The swords that the Great King Enma and Kaira the Snake King possess, and the legendary sword sealed in the Yōmakai are important keys to the story!?”

--

And lastly, it seems that the winner of the Shadow Side design contest has been chosen.

From what I understand, people where able to submit their own ideas of the Shadow Side design for a Yokai of their choice, via various forms released in different magazines around the time.

Unless I’m mistaken, it appears that someone named Kakuto Yona (unsure about the surname’s spelling) was the one to win first place, and their drawing of Shadow Side Bushinyan (Shogunyan) will be turned into a treasure medal

And with that we should be all caught up on general news, again, sorry it took me so long to get this finished.

#yokai watch #yo kai watch #youkai watch #Yokai Watch Busters 2 #Yokai Watch Movie 4 #yokai watch spoilers #my translations #yokai watch translations #busters 2 pre release #yokai watch corocoro leaks

[wingheadshellhead]

Hi, I love your blog! So I've been reading a lot of 616 stevetony lately, and I've noticed that in both canon and in a lot of fiction, Steve seems to really dislike Extremis (even before superior iron man). Why do you think that is? Even without looking at this with shipper goggles (which I always am), I think it's really strange that Steve has so much disdain for something that essentially saved one of his best friend's lives.

(THIS HAS TAKEN ME 5 BILLION YEARS BUT HERE IT IS FINALLY)

i used to be in the same boat and automatically assumed steve’s dislike of extremis was one of those fandom headcanon things that was so commonly accepted it’d basically become fact, but it’s really, actually, all 100% canon. but the comics that deal with it happen right before civil war so i think many ppl have simply forgotten or skipped over that part of tony’s timeline.

execute program is the 6-issue arc that comes right after extremis and it’s the main thing i tell everyone they have to read if they’re putting themselves thru the ringer that is 616′s civil war. it is so so important to understanding tony’s headspace and where he’s at before the events of civil war occur. 

READ EXECUTE PROGRAM. a) bc it’s absolutely crucial to tony’s side of civil war, b) the follow-through from the extremis arc is just… amazing, virtuosic. i really genuinely think it is a fascinating, excellently-written arc, c) when it gets gay it gets very gay. truST ME you do not need your shipper goggles for this at all bc guess which of the following things are canon: the sound of steve saying his voice being the only thing that snaps tony out of (likely a dissociative episode) trying to murder a villain that nearly kills peter, dyeing his hair blond when he’s going on the run, tony stopping his heart to save steve’s life. all of them !!! all canon !!!!!! 

extremis is, basically, terrifying. to the average human being, hell even the average superhuman. it’s p much unfathomable the sheer level/magnitude/scope of extremis. extremis allows tony to access and control any piece of technology on earth and even in earth’s atmosphere, he can hear satellites. it’s like having the singularity as a superpower. 

so part 1, iron man vol. 4 #7 (2006), opening issue and we have tony stopping a villain with lethal force, all while counting down the milliseconds and bidding on priceless artefacts.

now, avengers don’t kill. and tony doesn’t, he stops the man’s heart, then restarts it, basically performing defibrillation. 

and then we get this conversation: 

and after tony jets off leaving the new avengers to sort out the aftermath, we get this disturbing reminder:

a proper reread might prove me wrong but i don’t think the writers ever clarify whether this transformation in tony’s personality is due to extremis or outside manipulation (which is the culmination of execute program’s arc as i’ll go into in a bit). but when your brain is literally a machine and you Have Become more machine than human, this is the natural progression of tony’s humanity – the aspects of compassion, empathy, etc. – fading into the background to accomodate for extremis. 

extremis brings out everything about tony that steve (and possibly the world) fears most. it makes him cold and calculating, and with a brain like tony stark’s elevated by the superhuman capacity to think and react at the speed of a machine, he’s unstopppable.

part 2, iron man vol. 4 #8, we have tony nearly straight up burning a man alive for almost killing peter and laughing about it. 

he’s so deep in Destroy Mode that he doesn’t even register steve’s warning, and here i think he acts entirely out of instinct –– like extremis is thinking for him rather than his brain prompting him to do this. 

extremis is also the cause of tension between tony and the newly-formed new avengers (one of my favorite line-ups!!), he almost gets into a fight with logan and jessica has to break them up. it turns out tony is missing time in his memory, which is extremely worrying for someone w/ his level of power…

what’s so fascinating about extremis, and why we have so much to thank warren ellis for (the writer of the extremis arc), is that it is the perfect and the most logical climax of the modern iron man story. tony’s worst villain, as we’ve known since the very beginning really, has never been anyone else but himself. and in the case of extremis, it’s a highly technologically advanced version of himself that can do and be everything he’s ever dreamed of being able to achieve vs. him. 

the question extremis asks is at what cost? at what cost does technological advancement, bleeding-edge breakthroughs, and the spirit of human innovation come at? how far would tony go to become the Ideal version of himself that he sees as superior in every way? what would he sacrifice for that?

extremis represents basically the pinnacle of sci-fi tech in iron man comics, it’s why even god awful superior iron man used a 3.0 version of it as the foundation for tony’s sins. it’s the farthest point he’s ever reached, and it’s also the lowest in terms of the damage and fallout that comes from it. because ofc, tony stark can’t have nice things like this, but also bc the hubris + nature of extremis allowing its host to play god can’t exist without there being negative consequences. really b ad consequences. 

huge respect to danial & charles knauf, the authors of execute program, too, because they find a way to perfectly bring the arc full circle as ellis did with his extremis. the central villain plot revolves around ho yinsen’s son. the kid hacks extremis and uses it to control tony, sending him to subconsciously assassinate a bunch of people on his kill list, i.e. a list of all the men involved in yinsen’s death. i mean like, HOLY SHIT, an iron man plot where a literal ghost from tony’s past – a direct victim of events tony was involved in, the son of the man that sacrificed his life so iron man could be born and so tony stark could live – shows up, weaponises tony’s own body + technology and uses him to murder people who are scheduled to participate in a peace summit despite the blood on their hands and the human cost of their involvement in the weapons industry.

DRAWING PARALLELS BETWEEN YINSEN’S LIFE’S WORK AND TONY’S LIKE DEATH AND DYING WOULD BE KINDER. again bc of my memory or even regardless due to constant retcons + reruns of the iron man origin story, i don’t know if it’s ever been explicitly stated before that yinsen also got into the weapons industry in order to get the funding necessary to support his other revolutionary work. but his son literally conflates yinsen with tony here, blending them into one + the same with that final panel and it becomes very obvious that at least a small part of him blames father for entering into weapons design. if he hadn’t, he might never have been captured by the the terrorist group that wanted him and tony to build them missiles. 

also, yinsen + villains involving yinsen are a recurring theme in iron man history but can we talk abt the fact that tony has never ever let himself forget the man bc jesus christ

yinsen’s kid is killed by a SHIELD sniper, activating the dead man’s switch and unleashing all the peackeeping units tony built that are now compromised. now, tony’s no jean grey or wanda maximoff but if this arc shows anything it’s not to underestimate him bc intentional or not (lmao) if he put his mind to it there’s literally no limit to the damage he could do. 

we see various heroes fighting off the peacekeeping units, and the new avengers are at the peace summit fighting a hulkbuster. 

and here it is people !!! the 23989485th time tony kills himself so steve can live. 

JUST. THE LOOK ON HIS FACE. AND THEN THIS ABSOLUTE LACK OF HESITATION:

so, yes. extremis was traumatising for pretty much every single person involved. steve has extremely good reasons for HATING extremis, even in the early stages or even if a fic is taking place before the events of execute program.

if you read the full arc, you’ll see tony running himself into the ground with his new abilities (world’s greatest multitasker can now multitask 192483958 things at once? ofc he’s going to use and abuse and exploit that), you see him spiralling and losing his grip on reality (mainly because he’s actually having dissociative episodes and losing time due to being remotely controlled to assassinate ppl but also bc of the Effect extremis is having on him). i brought up wanda and jean earlier as a casual reference but like, to put it in that kind of perspective, people just weren’t made to have this much power.

on a smaller scale, apart from eating up all of tony’s time and attention and mental health in a really bad way, it just Distances him from everyone. especially from the team. it’s Isolating, having this much going on in his brain and no one else in the world to fully understand it. 

and on steve’s side, you also have the fact that tony’s genius is both one of the things he loves and lowkey resents most about him. he has this deep-set anxiety about tony with all his brilliance and intelligence leaving him behind in the dust, or worse, laughing at him and how outdated and dim-witted he is in comparison. this is steve’s version of tony’s “i’m never going to be good enough for him”, a sentiment summed up in a quote from him as early as tales of suspense vol. 2 (1995): “yes, tony stark, a man of today and tomorrow is the man i’ll never be.” he’s so afraid of being abandoned + alienated by tony’s mind and the future that tony’s worked so tirelessly to build that might render him irrelevant. he’s scared of a future where he has no purpose, but more or just as importantly, he’s scared of becoming obsolete in tony’s life, of not being needed by tony anymore. one of the things that endeared him so much to tony, and which laid the foundations of their lifelong friendship, was the fact that from Day One (1), tony made him feel At Home. he never let him feel ashamed or isolated as The Man Out Of Time, he actively worked to make steve feel comfortable and to give him the things he needed to acclimatise and to fit himself into this brave new world. 

extremis undoes all of that. it propels tony so far and so fast into the future that it makes tony untouchable to steve. all of the ‘i can hear satellites’ stuff renders steve helpless and even more out of his depth than usual. it presses all of steve’s secret buttons and then some.

to sum this all up, and to finish my extra rambling abt tony bc u asked me about extremis and i couldn’t not finish with this:

here we have, ladies and gentlemen, everything u need to understand abt tony going into civil war. and it’s not on any of the official civil war fucking reading lists which really pisses me off because whether or not they did it on purpose the knaufs basically wrote all of execute program as the perfect precursor and characterisation groundwork for an antebellum tony stark. 

a tony stark who was just very recently manipulated against his will into assassinating people and causing a world-threatening incident that could have resulted in the deaths of thousands, including his own friends and teammates (and the love of his life), is a very different tony stark to the one ppl see in civil war #1.

what happens in stamford was an accident, too. no one meant for that to happen. tony knows first fucking hand what that means and what it feels like to carry that responsibility and guilt. his position in civil war supporting the SHRA is not only to protect the potential lives that could be lost in another stamford incident but also to protect superhumans and superheroes from ever being exploited against their will by villains to kill and hurt and destroy. 

superheroes are inherently susceptible to being used, it’s just part of the narrative convention –– a superhero is brainwashed or mind controlled or otherwise forced against their will to do something awful. and even if it’s not their fault there needs to be  accountability  for the victims. both the victims that suffer directly because of superhuman incidents but also the superheroes that become victims of ppl who abuse their powers. it’s abt protecting superheroes not just from civilians but from themselves. and if u’ve read a single comic u kno that this kinda shit happens way too often and way too easily.

sO YE S T hIS iS W HY. AND IT Ex PL AINS SO MUC H AND i j UST WISH P PL WOULD GODDAMN REA D THIS. LIKE EVERYONE WHO EVER WANTS TO SAY ANOTHER A GODDAMN THING ABOUT TONY STARK IN CIVIL WAR NEEDS TO FIRST READ EXECUTE PROGRAM FIRST OR PAY ME $10

anyway…………… one last time, i’m so so so sorry this took forever to get to. hope the wait was worth it!

#mod: answer #averageapplepie #stevetony #stony #extremis #text: meta #universe: 616 #comic: iron man v4 #original: meta #i'm so sorry u had to wait so long like #i should warn ppl that ever ask me a meta question that i might take half a yr to reply #......not to deter u tho bc i promise that my answer will be as well thought-out and in-depth as i can make it

[bettydgunter90]

070: The 10X Rule vs. 80/20 Principle – What’s the Right Way to Run Your Business?

  In today’s episode, Jaren and I are going to talk about two competing ideologies about how to handle work.

The 10X Rule and the 80/20 Principle. Guys like Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuk love to talk about the importance of hustle, while other guys like Tim Ferriss and Perry Marshall focus more on the importance of working smarter instead of harder.

They can’t all be right, can they?

Does it make more sense to massively increase your outputs or to selectively work harder on the very few things that produce better results than everything else?

In this conversation, we’ll talk about the merits of both, and the areas where each philosophy falls short.

Links and Resources

What is the 80/20 Rule?

What is the Pareto Principle?

Book Summary of The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone by James Clear

80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall

033: How to Build an Empire with the 80/20 Principle – Interview with Perry Marshall

Overview on Fractals

The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone

The Perfect Kettlebell Swing by Tim Ferriss

Everything You Need to Know About Getting Your County’s Delinquent Tax List

The One Thing by Gary Keller

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)

Diminishing Returns

Perry Marshall’s Evolution 2.0 Project

Seth’s Best Audiobooks

Seth’s Best Books

Share Your Thoughts

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Help out the show:

Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts Your ratings and reviews really help (and I read each one).

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

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Thanks again for joining me this week. Until next time!

Right-click here and “Save As” to download this episode to your computer.

Episode 70 Transcription

Seth: Hey everybody, how’s it going? This is Seth Williams and Jaren Barnes with the REtipster podcast. Today, Jaren and I are going to just sit down and talk about two competing ideologies, things that a lot of people talk about as one being better than the other. And we’re going to compare these two and try to hash out which one actually makes the most sense. The two ideologies I’m talking about, the first one is the 10X rule. The second one is something called the 80/20 principle, otherwise known as the Pareto principle.

So just to give a quick summary of what these two things are, in case you’re not familiar with one or both of them. The 10X Rule, this was originally coined by I think Grant Cardone. He’s got a book called “The 10X Rule”. I actually found this really helpful overview from jamesclear.com. I will link to this in the show notes if you want to check it out. But he explains the book “The 10X Rule” in three sentences.

The 10X rule says that you should set targets for yourself that are 10 times greater than what you believe you can achieve and you should take actions that are 10 times greater than what you believe is necessary to achieve your goals. The biggest mistake most people make in life is not setting goals high enough. Taking massive action is the only way to fulfill your true potential. There you go. That’s the 10X rule.

Now, the 80/20 rule or the Pareto principle, I’m reading this from Wikipedia here. I’ll link to this in the show notes as well. The Pareto principle also is known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few or the principle of factor sparsity states that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Perry Marshall actually has a great book, a very well-known book about this. We’ve had him on the podcast before, episode 33. I’ll link to that in the show notes as well. But it’s this idea that, and you can see it really like everywhere in nature, in business, in your personal life, like it’s all over the place where 80% of outcomes or outputs result from 20% of all causes or inputs for any given event. And that is from Investopedia’s definition.

Just think about anything you do in business, like the deals you get or where your biggest profits come from or really generally anything that produces the desired result, chances are a lot of your efforts toward that end, the 80% is going to either be wasted or it’s not really going to account for the things you really after, but 20% is going to account for the bulk of that.

Obviously, the power behind understanding this is once you know where your 80% and your 20% are coming from, you can intentionally redirect your efforts toward that 20% so you can get further with less effort. Jaren, I know particular has spent a lot of time going through, especially the 80/20 principle because he used to work for Perry Marshall, right? Jaren?

Jaren: Yeah. I worked on his Evolution 2.0 project for a nano minute probably, I don’t know, three months or something, but we actually used to go to church together for a while, which is super random. That’s actually how I met him. I wanted to talk about these two opposing ideologies for a while. I thought about maybe writing a blog post. I’m glad that we’re doing this today because here’s the thing.

The 10X rule pretty much tells you that the solution to you getting the results that you want to get in whatever it is that you want to do, whether it’s business, your personal life, you just have to put more effort into it. If you do 10 times the amount of effort, so in the example of sales calls, if you want to make more sales, you just have to call 10X the number of people that you normally would call. If your normal call volume in a day is 10, instead of doing 10 calls, you want to make 100. If your normal day is 100 calls, you want to make 500 calls. You want to 10X it.

Seth: And that applies in like things like direct mail too, which I don’t know, it’s easy to say, “Yeah, just do more”, but it’s like, “Hey, there’s real costs here both with time and money”. It’s like, where does it stop?

Jaren: And I used to be a very strong proponent of the 10X rule and it got me into a world of hurt in a lot of ways because it falls short. I do think there’s a place for it, and this is where the 80/20 principle comes in. The 80/20 principle is this law of nature. It’s everywhere. That 80% of your desired results come from 20% of your effort. You can apply that in a number of different areas.

Actually, Pareto was an economist, and what he recognized was kind of the underlying principle behind communism. He said, if you look at a nation’s economy, 80% of the wealth of that nation is owned by 20% of the population. And his whole ideology was founded in like that’s unjust. It’s not okay that a bunch of small elite group of rich people have all the world’s wealth. Whereas the majority of people in the nation are poor or struggling or subpar, they don’t have the same amount of wealth.

But the reality is no matter what you do, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s time, no matter the context, this is a law that is in place. It might not break out to exactly 80/20. It might be 70/30. It might be 10/90. The reality is there is this ratio that life inherently is skewed. It’s not fair. It’s not 50/50, it’s 80/20.

Seth: One thing that stuck out to me about Perry Marshall when I was reading his book is that, and I’d never heard anybody else say this, but this idea that there is an 80/20 within an 80/20. Even within that 20%, you can boil it down even further to the top. Is it 6%? 4% And even beyond that, you can boil that down in further. And I think that’s where the fractals thing comes into play.

Jaren: Yeah, and I don’t pretend to understand what fractals are, but if you guys do a Google search on YouTube and look up fractals, there are these like fractal videos that essentially just zoom in to a certain moving pattern and then the pattern repeats itself. So that’s the concept of a fractal is that like 80/20 is fractal in nature. No matter how much you break it down, the 80/20 principle continues to apply to infinity. That’s what a fractal is. It’s that concept that you were just talking about where it’s not just 80/20. It’s also the 80/20 of the 80/20 and it can break down from there.

When I first started getting introduced to the 80/20 principle, it really changed the game for me because I realized, “Wait a second, it’s not about massive action. It’s not about the ‘grind’. It’s about the right amount of action and the right leverage point”.

So, let me give you a really good example of this. Let’s take the 10X rule for an example and talk about working out. If I want to lose weight, if I apply the 10X rule to losing weight, if I’m working out one hour a day, 10X literally means for me to work out 10 hours a day. Is it feasible for me to work out 10 hours a day and have a life and have work? I don’t even know if that would be healthy for your body to be honest. No, it’s not healthy and it’s definitely not the way that you want to go. But yes, there’s a principle there that if you increase one hour or two, I don’t know, say three hours. Yeah, that’s true. You’re going to have a compound effect, but it’s like shotgun blasting versus being a sniper.

Whereas if instead of doing that, I borrow from let’s say Tim Ferriss’s four-hour body where he actually broke down a kettlebell workout where he got a massive amount of gains for a 30-minute workout once a week, or maybe it was an hour workout once a week. He did one little thing that was such a powerful leverage point that it yielded him the results that he wanted for one hour’s worth of effort versus three, four, five, ten hours a day of working out.

When we look at business, when you look at life and we looking at real estate, I think that the 10X rule really falls short unless you couple it with the 80/20 principle. Because if you know what leverage point to pull and then you 10X that, that’s when you’re going to hit a home run. But if you just are a shotgun blast, and you say, “All right, I just want to become successful, so I’m just going to do tons of mail”. Well, you might be just literally, if you took all of the money in your bank account to “10X” on direct mail and your squadron it all on a direct mail campaign, let’s say you did blind offers and your offers were all wrong. Now all your money’s gone and you’re done. No more business. It doesn’t work.

The 10X rule, it falls short unless you know “Okay, I’m going to narrow in and have this particular. I’m only going to mail to 55 and older and have access to a deceased database that’s super accurate. I am going to put all my money on this thing that I know is for sure return on investment”. Then it makes sense.

Seth: I think the tricky thing about that approach is you really have to be sure about what you’re doing. Like it is possible to zero in on the wrong 20 from the overall 100%. You can think that it’s going to work, but unless you really have verifiable data to know what’s going to pan out or be at least very, very confident of that, narrowing in doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to succeed. But in a perfect world, if you really knew it, yeah, you could basically leverage that in a big way.

Jaren: Yeah. I think there was a story that Perry Marshall talks about in his book, his “80/20 Sales and Marketing” book. If it didn’t come from him, I don’t know exactly where it came from, but I’m going to butcher this story. But it really brings the point home.

Back in Egypt, this is an ancient parable or nature story of how the pyramids were made. That there was the Pharaoh commissioned two people to build the pyramids. And one guy’s approach was essentially to just get to work and just like go and grab these huge stones and like go hard on trying to force himself to get it done. And the other guy dedicated his time to studying. Both of them had something like five years or something to get the pyramid done. The guy that just got to work and just started “10X” it, he ended up having a big problem on his hands because I think it was coming up to the last two years or whatever. The way he went about structuring the pyramids, they weren’t adequate. They fell apart. It wasn’t working. Even though he had moved all these stones and had done all this effort.

Whereas the guy that studied, he figured out a particular way to create a lever. What he did was it so surpassed his competitor’s ability to build that within two years remaining of the five-year period, he was able to build his entire pyramid like that. So, I know that I kind of butchered that a little bit and paraphrase that, but I hope that, stories always kind of hit home. That’s the difference between 10X and 80/20.

When you just have brute force with no direction, you can very, very easily waste your time and it can be very costly. Whereas if you narrow in on 80/20 and then find the leverage point and 10X that, that’s where you’re going to become successful.

Seth: Yeah. When I think about examples of that in my own life, like when I was first getting into real estate, I knew nothing about direct mail, I knew nothing about the delinquent tax list idea, which is one of many different ways to zero in on a subset of people to go after with direct mail. But yeah, when I was just looking for everybody who had the property listed for sale on the MLS, it did not go well. It resulted in just hundreds of wasted hours with literally nothing to show for it. But the first time I discovered the right type of person to go after, a very specific kind of property owner and how to contact them, it totally changed everything.

And even within that, say if you were going to send direct mail to only vacant landowners, even within that, there are certain types of owners who live in certain places and certain proximities away from their property, certain property sizes, certain markets. Like there’s all kinds of ways you can drill down even further. So that’s why I’ve always sort of thought, especially when you’re breaking into a new market and you’ve never worked there before, you don’t really know what’s going to go down. You have a theoretical idea but you’ve never actually done it. It’s not a bad idea to start off with maybe 500 mailers or something.

Don’t spend thousands on it yet, but get a feel for, “Are people responding to this? Is the message right? Are the offer prices right? Am I even sending this to the right people?” And if it falls flat, you can figure that out before you have dumped tons of money into doing it the wrong way. I remember when we were talking to Perry Marshall, that was one of the things because I had talked to him about, I’ve got two duplexes, but I don’t know if these two are a good representation of the market. Maybe they’re both terrible deals. Maybe they’re both awesome deals. But I don’t have enough data to see am I sitting at a good spot? Should I keep this strategy? Or I should I start looking for other types of properties and other areas?

And his response was basically, you need to find out what works before you want to jump in with both feet. Figure out what is really getting results. If you’re lacking data, get more data. Try other things first and then once you really know, then you can dive in.

Jaren: Yeah. And I really wanted to share these insights with you guys today because this is years of struggle and years of me spinning my wheels and wasting a lot of energy and effort on things that haven’t panned out that you’re going to be able to leverage and learn from. So, I hope that you guys really pay attention here because the 80/20 principle is one of the most crucial principles of success on the planet. It gives you insight, even into how to do marriage and how to spend time with your kids. It’s not just quantity, it’s quality. That’s directly out of the 80/20 principle.

Seth: I think what kind of bugs me about the 10X rule, especially from people who just push that and nothing else, like they pay no lip service to other ways of doing things like the 80/20 principle. I understand why they do it. It’s a very compelling message. It’s something you can really get up on a pedestal and do these raw speeches about just “Work harder, work harder and you’ll find success”. You can’t totally discount that. There is totally truth to that, but it’s not the whole story. And it bugs me when I don’t hear the whole story. When I don’t hear other ways of looking at things. Man, lots of books have been sold off just pushing that one mindset. I don’t know, it doesn’t always go well for people.

Jaren: I mean you think about even lighting a candle as an example. If I 10X lighting a candle, I’m going to bring like a blow torch or like a fire gun or whatever those huge fire blasters. And my candle is going to melt before I can even light it. That’s the 10X rule in effect. Whereas the 80/20 principle says, listen, I just want to candlelit so I just need to apply the right amount of flame in order to get my candlelit to reach my goal. It’s just much more efficient and you have to approach life that way, especially in business because it’s really easy to waste money on marketing. It’s really easy to waste money and waste energy and waste effort on a bunch of things that don’t actually move the needle. You have to get really focused on what’s going to move the needle today and do that one thing. Even the one thing, the whole concept from Gary Keller, that whole idea is based on the 80/20 ideology.

Seth: It seems like we both agree there is a time and a place for the 10X rule. What is that time and place like? When is it appropriate to just put 150 million % into what you’re doing and just work yourself to death? When is that logically the correct path?

Jaren: I think it’s when you have a very clear leverage point that you’ve proven. For example, in my land business, I exclusively sell land through land specialized real estate agents. I didn’t do that at first and when I first started working with land agents, I didn’t put all my eggs in that one basket. I did it over time to see, “Hey, is this working? How’s it going?” But that is for me, a very clear example of an 80/20 principle I play that I 10X. Instead of having the whole 10X concept of doing what everybody else is doing, just do 10 times more of the ads on Craigslist, 10 times the listings on Facebook marketplace being 10 times the amount of groups.

Sure, that would probably kind of sort of getting me there, but I work at REtipster full time. This is my full-time job. I don’t have the time to be sitting there answering is it available from a Facebook buy-sell-trade group. So, me finding, well, really my wife, but us finding these land specialized real estate agents that I can learn how to vet properly and line up, now the bottleneck of my business that was the bulk of activity is now a hundred percent outsource. Sure, there are some drawbacks just like with everything. One of the things is if I am in a county where I can’t find an agent and I hit a new county, I’ve kind of screwed there. Another thing too is if something happens to my agent, they retire, they die, they get sick, I’m kind of screwed there. I am vulnerable. But it’s such a benefit-cost ratio that it’s worth it to me for my circumstances where the bulk of my time and energy is given to REtipster, it’s a no brainer.

So, I’m building my entire business based on agents, but I validated it, sold a handful of properties through agents, and said, “All right, game on. I don’t even have a buyers website. I don’t even have a buyers list. I don’t need to put my attention on there at all. I’m just exclusively leveraging agents”. That’s a primary example for me in my land business.

Seth: The thing that I can’t deny is that there is some kind of power to that 10X mentality. I remember hearing, man, I think it was Brandon Turner and Josh Dorkin about two separate things at one point. It was kind of back when they were getting big into tech stuff and interviewing Grant Cardone and stuff. I think Brandon said, yeah, my goal is to… Don’t quote me on this. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like my goal was to own a thousand units in the next X number of years. With the caveat that even if that doesn’t happen, I’m probably going to end up with a lot more than if I hadn’t had that super ambitious goal. And I think there’s some truth to that.

If you’re really shooting for something way bigger than what you think is actually possible, like assuming you’re actually implementing anything, you probably will end up further along than if you were just very small thinking, very ultra-realistic, that kind of stuff. However, that’s what the caveat that you actually have the right systems in place.

I’m listening to the audiobook of “Atomic Habits” right now by James Clear, who also defined the 10X rule that we just talked about a few minutes ago. And a big thing he talks about in that book is the difference between goals and systems. He says if you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.

When you think about the Olympics, everybody has the same goal. It’s to get a gold medal, but many people do not get that. It’s not the goal because certain people didn’t get it, it’s because of the systems that got them to where they are. Just as in general, James Clear was talking about how the problem with goals is that they create this “either/or” version of happiness. It restricts your path of happiness to one single scenario where in reality there are many different paths to success.

Say for example, if my goal is to own 10 apartment buildings and if I don’t end up owning 10 apartment buildings, that means I failed if I didn’t reach that goal. Whereas if I focus more on the system, systems-first mentality allows you to fall in love with the process instead of the product, which kind of allows you to be happy along the way. So, you can sort of feel like you’re getting there just by following the right process in the first place. Kind of underscores the importance of really understanding what you’re doing before you’re really let loose and go crazy doing that thing.

Jaren: Yeah, I like that a lot. But as you’re talking, I don’t know if I agree with the underlying principle of setting your goals to something that’s not realistic and achievable. And the reason why is I do agree with you that if you shoot for, “I want to own a million properties”, you’re probably not going to end up hitting a million, but you might end up hitting a thousand. But realistically it’s hard to build a system around buying a million properties. And I think going back to some of the stuff we were talking last week in last week’s episode about when is enough is enough. Having the end in mind I think is really important.

For me if we talked about cash flow or something, at 125 units, I personally, I’ve run the numbers and stuff, that would be ideal for me. I think that would be an ideal spot where I would have money to continue to grow and invest and my family wouldn’t have to worry about finances anymore. We would be in a good place based on our current lifestyle.

So, if I have 120 properties as my goal, over the next say, 5-10 years, and then I reverse engineer it because I have the end in mind, I can actually feasibly hit that. Whereas if I 10X that and I’m like, “Okay, no, I want a thousand units in the next 10 years”. And I could feasibly try to build a system around that and spin my wheels and really put all that effort and energy into it. But why? Why when I know I just want 125?

Seth: Yeah. It’s almost like you would have to do the 10X rule with the underlying understanding that it’s okay if you don’t get there and it’s almost likely that you won’t get there. Which then leads back to the question, “Why do you have that goal in the first place?”

Jaren: Yeah, that’s my point.

Seth: It’s kind of like you are intentionally overshooting for something that you know you’re not going to get. I don’t know. Because if you really do believe you can do it and then the likely scenario comes to pass where it doesn’t happen, then you feel like a failure. So, I don’t know. I think in with you. Maybe it depends on the individual and how they think through and process this stuff. Maybe some people just need to get all hyped up like that in order to take any action. And I guess if that’s what it requires to move the needle, okay, but I don’t need that. I’m much more of to default a very realistic kind of thinker. I don’t pretend that I’m going to do like tens of millions of dollars of deals and stuff. If I don’t think it’s going to happen, I’m not going to make that goal. And if I think it’s out of line with my other priorities, then I’m not going to sacrifice everything and put it all on the line just to hit this stupid ambitious goal.

Jaren: Yeah, I think because what we were talking about last week, man, having a very clear “why” behind what you’re doing and when you’ve reached success, maybe it’s because my personality is achievement-oriented too. My failing to hit a goal, even if it was an unrealistic goal hurts me. Even the thought of it like right now emotionally, in my body I feel the emotional chemicals fascinate like “No, no, no, I can’t fail. No, no, no, no, no, no, no”.

I think the 10X rule of setting unrealistic goals just so that I work harder just creates a lot of anxiety and stress for me. Whereas I’d much rather just set a realistic goal, accomplish it, and then set another goal. If I said, “Okay, I’m going to 10X and I’m going to get a thousand units in the next five years”, I mean I can break down and try to build a system like that, but it’s going to take 10 times the amount of effort and I got other stuff going on and it’s unnecessary. I don’t know from a system standpoint why you would ever set your goal higher than you need it to be.

Seth: Yeah, an interesting thing about that is having a goal that is 10X larger than what you would normally do. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to take 10 times the effort.

Jaren: That’s true.

Seth: If you do set up the people and the systems to get there, it could only be like maybe twice as much effort, maybe the same amount of effort, you’re just working towards different things like managing other people who do the job rather than you doing it yourself. So, it’s actually an interesting thing to differentiate.

Jaren: But what I saw begs the question as to “Why do I need a thousand units when I only realistically need 125?” I guess in Grant Cardone’s mind, more is always better and at all costs. Just do more, get more, be more. But I don’t know if I would just fundamentally agree with that belief system. I need to be all that I need to be, I guess. But I don’t know. But there’s something about wanting to attain more and always trying to be the best that you can be and reach for the stars.

Seth: Well, when you were asking that earlier about, “Why do I need that number of units?” my question was, “Why do you need anything?” How does anybody come up with a number and decide that that’s enough? It’s totally a subjective thing and it depends on whatever that person decides is going to make them successful or happy.

Jaren: But to that point, I can understand having a goal of a thousand units because if I have a thousand units that are under management or under my control, or they’re owned by my company, then I have a crazy amount of influence because anybody is going to be lining up to listen to what I have to say. Even if what I say is good or bad, it won’t matter because I have so much success.

Seth: Until somebody else comes along with 10,000 units and now you’re a nobody to them.

Jaren: Well yeah, it’s true, but there’s still a certain level of like, if my goal is a thousand units, then my goal is a thousand units and that’s cool. But to say, “Okay, my goal is a thousand units, I’m going to shoot for 10,000 units” – Why? Why 10X it if you know exactly what you want?  

Seth: Yeah. Well, maybe you want more clout or it will make you feel better about yourself for some reason. You’ve decided that that makes you worth more or more valuable as a human. I don’t know. There are all kinds of crazy reasons for that.

Jaren: But those would be reasons to set the goal for 10,000 units. If you have 10,000 units and you’ve got all the clout in the world, shooting for 100,000 units, at some point you have the law of diminishing returns in effect. Your accomplishment is going to have a drop-off point of value or ROI. I understand if you have a clearly defined goal for an adjusted vacation for 1,000 or 10,000 units or even 100,000 units, but at some point, in your assessment, you’re going to hit a tipping point where you’re not going to get the same amount of ROI on your effort. So, it’s pointless. You might as well just from the get-go, be very clear on what you want and define what success is required to get what you want and then go after and actually make it happen at all costs.

In my mind, I would rather 10X, so to speak, on accomplishing my actual goal and actually having that happen versus me shooting for the moon and then be okay if I hit the stars. Do you know what I mean? I’d rather like get the moon and own it.

Seth: In summary, it sounds like the 10X rule is basically the equivalent of working harder, whereas 80/20 is working smarter. Would you agree with that? There is a time and a place to work harder. But usually, that’s after you understand what the 20% is. And I think when you start out, nobody knows what that is. You can’t get away from some waste. There will be some hard work that does not pan out as planned, but it seems like the optimal path is “As soon as possible, figure out where that 20% is and start heading down that path”. And hopefully, you’ll actually get lucky enough to discover the 20% of the 20% or even beyond that.

And that’s actually an interesting thing. I know lots of people who are successful real estate investors that have done tons of deals, but they’ve never even tried the land business or they’ve never tried a delinquent tax list. Not that you need to do that to succeed, but there are certain things I know about that are super powerful that they’ve never done and vice versa. They probably know super powerful stuff that I’ve never done. So, it’s kind of makes you wonder if there is only one 20%. Does that mean everybody has to arrive in the same place, come to the same conclusion for it to work or there are different subsets of 20% that can work for other people and different approaches?

Jaren: Yeah, I think it’s the latter because certain leverage points can only happen based on your unique circumstances. For example, you and me are both American. Just by the sheer fact that we were born in this nation, we have advantages and leverage points that the majority of the world doesn’t have. I think you mentioned it in last week’s episode about you heard Jordan Peterson say on some podcasts that the top 1% of the world is anybody who makes over $32,000 a year. Just that sheer bracket. If you live in a family where your parents make $32,000 a year or above, you have a substantial leverage point for success. You have opportunities that people just don’t have in other places.

If you take a kid, I’ll pick Kazakhstan because my wife is from there, some orphan kid from an obscure village in Kazakhstan. They’re not going to be able to invest in flipping land in the United States most likely unless certain circumstances happen that expose them to those opportunities. But that orphan kid in Kazakhstan, he can look at what he’s exposed to and what leverage points he has available and he can use them.

Not to get spiritual on you guys but what we’re getting into here is really a lot of what the parable of the talents teaches. That some are given 2 talents, some are given 10. But really what matters at the end of the day is what did you do with the talents that you were given? And so, it is true that because 80/20 is fractal, it can scale down or scale above depending on what you’re exposed to and what leverage points you have.

Somebody who goes to an Ivy league school or somebody who grew up in the hood or all of the different factors, they give you a different set of possibilities to leverage. But in any scenario, there’s still an 80/20 opportunity for you to capitalize on. You just have to learn how to pay attention to it and identify it. And then once you see it’s there, that’s when you want to increase the effort to reach your goal.

Seth: Do you feel like you’ve discovered any 20% in life, Jaren?

Jaren: Yeah. I would say being a Christian is a massive 80/20 because you can hear from God. My faith is one of them, but I don’t want for those in our audience that are not religious or whatnot, I don’t want to make you roll your eyes at me. What I’ll say is reading has been a massive leverage point in my life. I didn’t graduate from college. I did a freshman year and then I dropped out.

But because I’ve been an avid reader and I’ve been obsessed with self-development, it hasn’t phased me at all in my life and in the things that I have available to me. So I think that being a self-starter, being somebody who is aggressive about personal development and reading widely, reading everything that you can get your hands on is a massive leverage point. We wouldn’t even be talking about 10X or 80/20 right now if I hadn’t read them in the book. That’s just the reality of it.

Seth: That’s very true. But is there an 80/20 of what you should be reading? Because there’s a lot of stupid books out there that are a total waste of time. Do you just kind of go with the New York Times bestseller list under personal development and stick to that? How do you know which things to read?

Jaren: That’s a good question. I think how I gauge it as I look at what other successful people that I admire are reading and the types of books that they’re reading. So, I don’t just read anything, I don’t look at reviews. I might do some searches as the top 10 books for X subject and then cross-reference those 10 books to a number of other sites and then see which ones are mentioned several times. There’s an online influencer named Tom Bilyeu that runs something called Impact Theory, and he has a recommended reading list. And because I trust Tom and he started Quest Nutrition, like those quest bars because he’s been super successful and he interviews all a lot of these guys that have had a really impact on my life, that’s where I’ve heard about David Goggins and other people that I really emulate and look up to. If he says it’s a good book, I feel like I can trust his views on it because it’s a filter. It’s a leverage point. I’m leveraging his experience and what I value in his assessment.

Seth: As I look on my audible reading list here, I can’t do the math as quickly, but it looks like not all of them but at least 80% of these, the only reason they’re on my list is that I heard about them from somebody else. Somebody else that I trust. Like they said, “Hey, this is a good book, read it”. A couple of them are ones that I just sort of saw as recommended items in Amazon and that kind of thing. But yeah, most of them are direct recommendations from other people. I guess for publishers that’s a note to them. It’s really important to get people to recommend your stuff.

Jaren: Yeah, a hundred percent. Word of mouth is a huge leverage point. I think another big 80/20 thing, at least in business is branding. The reason why Simple Wholesaling, a company that I used to work for in Indianapolis is on the map, whereas other wholesalers that are just as good, if not better in terms of price, aren’t, is because of branding. It’s a weird psychological thing, but if you’re on a podcast or you’re the guy on the video or you’re the guy writing the blog post or you’re the guy at a networking event talking on the mic, people for whatever reason, say you are higher esteem.

If you can do things that brand you like having a booth or showing up in magazines or being on a podcast or building a content strategy where people look up to you for whatever reason, that’s a huge, huge, huge, huge leverage point that a lot of people don’t want to put the time, energy and effort into because it’s a lot of work. But it pays out dividends for years and years and years to come.

Seth: Yeah. Going back to what we were talking about earlier, that is an interesting thing. There could be somebody who hears that and they’re like, “Okay, well, that’s a lot. I got to get up in front of a stage and start speaking” or “I got to brand myself”. But maybe they just don’t have the skill set or they’re not gifted at being an onstage personality or maybe they just hate it. It’s just not their thing. Maybe their leverage point is something else. They have a different 20% that they ought to go after. That’s kind of a tricky thing to wrap your mind around because on one hand, it seems like this 20% should be the same for everybody, but on the other hand, it’s like it can’t be because it’s just not everybody is the same. Everybody is in a different situation, so, unfortunately, there is no perfect formula everybody ought to follow. But I think you can’t deny there is that 20% somewhere for everybody.

Jaren: Just to respond to what you said right there, even in our work, I feel like your 80/20 would be writing. You’re way better writer, it comes much easier to you. You’re much more methodical, you’re much more detailed. Whereas for me, it takes me probably twice as long I would guess as it does you to write something that is up to the REtipster standard because I’m just not wired that way. I’m much better on a podcast or in a coaching environment or in a live medium. That’s just how I’m more wired. Whereas for you, those things drain you. And so, you’re not going to be able to, like I could do a podcast every day. I could probably do two podcasts a day and I’d be super happy and pumped. Whereas Seth would be like, that’s literally the definition of hell.

Seth: Yeah man, that is a fascinating thing because it’s very true. We just excel at totally different things, which is really kind of a good thing for any organization to have people who aren’t all experts at the same stuff because you can cover more ground that way. But it’s not that you can’t write and it’s not that I can’t go live, it’s just hard. It’s not where we come live and enjoy every moment of life. It’s kind of like a ticking clock. Like I can only do this so long before my head explodes.

Jaren: That’s how I feel when I edit articles.

Seth: Me too. I’m the same way. Cool. Anything else we want to explore about the 80/20 versus 10X?

Jaren: No, man. I’ve always wanted to have some form of content about this subject because I used to go ballistic and just try to do everything and go crazy under the guise of the 10X rule. And it didn’t really get me anywhere. It just made me waste a lot of time. Whereas when I started applying the 80/20 principle, that’s when I started getting real traction in my life, in every area of my life. It applies to everything. I just really hope that for somebody out there, even if it’s just one person, that you guys find this as helpful as I did.

Seth: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was a good conversation for sure. And now that we’ve gone through the meat of our conversation, do you want to do one of these little random questions that you and I can both answer?

Jaren: Yeah. Let’s do it.

Seth: Okay. So, this is an interesting question. The question is this – What is the longest line you have ever stood in? What was it for and was it worth the wait?

Jaren: Mine is super boring.

Seth: So, it was not worth the wait, I take it.

Jaren: No, it was worth the wait, but I’m just saying it’s like, I think the longest line I’ve ever been in was that in customs visiting, going back and forth from Kazakhstan when I visited my wife when we were separated for a year and a half going through the immigration process.

Seth: How long was it?

Jaren: It wasn’t even probably that long. Probably 30-40 minutes.

Seth: Oh, it’s not that bad.

Jaren: Yeah, it’s not that bad, but that’s the only thing that I can think of off the top of my head. I’ve never been one to like on Black Friday, go stand outside Walmart. That’s not my thing.

Seth: For me, I did that one time. I stood outside. If you remember, this store is Circuit City which no longer exists. I remember there was a really good deal on a laptop or something. This was when I was in college. And so, I got up super early, like 04:00 in the morning and just froze almost to death waiting for this thing. I was probably like the hundredth person in line and when they opened the door as I found out they only have four of these laptops in the whole store. It was literally for nothing. I totally wasted my time, I didn’t have to get up that early, I didn’t have to freeze. I just went home disappointed and went back to bed. That was not the longest line. The longest one I think was at Cedar Point when I was in high school waiting for a rollercoaster. It was like standard to sit in line for at least two hours for some of these things. It was just nuts.

Jaren: As you brought that up, I think realistically it’s probably been the amusement parks, but I don’t have any particular memory of like, “Oh my gosh, this is so long”. The only one that was annoying that I can remember is the customs.

Jaren: It’s interesting. I remember when I was a kid waiting for anything just seemed like an eternity. It was almost physically painful to just like wait and wait. Even if it was like waiting at a restaurant to get a table for like 10 minutes. It just was like pulling teeth. And the older I’ve gotten, I don’t know. Not that I enjoy it, but it’s like, it’s just okay. Maybe I’ve gotten better at daydreaming or something.

Jaren: Well, I actually saw an article about that phenomena recently where a lot of people feel like when they were younger, days felt longer and years felt longer. The article, I don’t remember where it was from, otherwise, I’d have listed in the show notes. But it was interesting because the older you get, the more time you have.

Seth: It’s proportionally. It is longer for how long you’ve been alive.

Jaren: Yeah. When you’re younger, if you’ve only been alive for let’s say 4 years, a year is a really long time compared to when you’re like 55.

Seth: Yeah. My wife’s grandparents are in their 90s and I’m getting to the point in life where I mean I think everybody can relate to this at some point. But obviously the older I get, when it’s like, “Oh, it’s Christmas again. Holy cow. It was Christmas like last week. I can’t believe that’s here already”. And I’m 36 at the time of this recording. And if you’re in your 90s, man, it’s going to fly so quick. Because you’ve just been alive for so much longer and a year really isn’t that long compared to how long you’ve been alive. That must be kind of trippy when you get that old.

Well folks, if you want to check out the show notes for this episode, hopefully, you enjoyed it. Go to retipster.com/70. That’s 70. And you can find links to a bunch of stuff that we referenced here and other resources and other information about both the competing viewpoints.

And if you guys are listening to this from your phone, you can send a text to stay up to date with what we’re doing. Just text the word FREE. That’s F-R-E-E to the number 33777 and you’ll know what to do after that. So, thanks again everybody for listening. I hope you guys got something out of this. I hope you’re doing well in business and life and we will talk to you again in the next episode.

Jaren: Later guys.

The post 070: The 10X Rule vs. 80/20 Principle – What’s the Right Way to Run Your Business? appeared first on REtipster.

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[douglassmiith]

How the Memory of His Fallen Brothers Powers Dakota Meyers Passion

May 26, 2017 6 min read

This story originally ran April 5, 2016.

Growing up on a farm in Greensburg, Ky., Dakota Meyer had a big problem with authority. During his senior year of high school, a visiting Marine recruiter asked what he planned to do after graduating. Dakota replied, “probably play football.” The recruiter replied, “That’s good, because there’s no way you could be a Marine.”

Not one to back down from a challenge, Dakota shot back: “Get the papers ready. I’ll sign them today.” He was just 17 and his parents needed to co-sign his contract. After training as a Marine Corps sniper, he completed one tour in Iraq and signed up to head to Afghanistan because he “wanted to fight.”

While serving in Afghanistan, Meyer’s combat team was caught in a deadly ambush. Disobeying direct orders to stay out of harm’s way, Meyer raced into the fight. During the ensuing six-hour battle, Meyer saved the lives of several Marines and soldiers and recovered the bodies of four of his fallen brothers. For those selfless actions, President Barack Obama presented him with the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2011.

Related: Use This Green Beret Method to Find Out if Someone Is Trustworthy

Upon his discharge, Meyer’s life took a turn he wasn’t expecting. Previous to these events, if you asked him what he’d be doing for a living, he told Entrepreneur, “I grew up on a farm, and I think I would have come back and done something like that. It’s an honest way of life, a conservative way of life, simple way of life. Definitely the exact opposite of what I am doing now.”

What he is doing now is by no means simple: he has toured as a motivational speaker, advocates for veteran employment, formed partnerships with businesses such as Toyota, became a regular guest on Fox News Channel and has taken a full dive into the world of entrepreneurship. He currently runs two companies: Dakota Meyer Enterprises (construction and general contractor) and DM Tactical LLC (training for the federal government.) Both are small businesses, and both have grown substantially over the past 18 months.

Entrepreneur spoke with Meyer, and gleaned valuable life lessons from the self-described regular guy who leads anything but a regular life.

How did the months and years following your Medal of Honor ceremony change your mindset?

This medal is something I wish I never received. It represents the worst day of my life, but the attention that it got me made me want to do great things to honor the lives of my fallen brothers. After the ceremony, I experienced different parts of the world, experienced different types of people — it lit a fire in me to give me more confidence in myself and it showed me to make the most of every moment.

Related: This Navy SEAL’s Travel Checklist Could Save Your Life On Your Next Trip

You’ve met U.S. presidents, business leaders, appeared on major network shows including David Letterman, what did experiences like that teach you?

You look at these names and you think, I could never be that. But the more that I met these people, the more that I realized with the right frame of mind and the right amount of passion, I could be them.

Is there any crossover between what you experienced in the military and what you’ve since experienced in business?

Being in the Marine Corps and doing the job I did, there is a lot of risk involved. It made me comfortable with risk. Being an entrepreneur is all about risk. Being an entrepreneur is like going to Vegas every day and shoving all of your chips into the middle of the table every single day.

It doesn’t matter how big of a company you have, I always tell people that you are one job away from being broke. And if you don’t live that way, you’ll be broke. I think that what got me to where I am as an entrepreneur is that I got comfortable with the unknown and I got comfortable with risk. If you are not comfortable with either one of those, then you’re not going to be a successful entrepreneur.

What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in business up to this point?

Business is just like sports: if you’re the best in the group that you run in, you’re never going to get any better. It’s the same thing in business. I surround myself with people who are smarter than me and have more experience than me, and I have gotten a lot of great advice. Mark Gross, CEO and founder of Oak Grove Technologies, which specializes in tactical training and intelligence services, has been an amazing help. He gives me straight scoop, and that’s what you need. He tells me this will work, this won’t, and that advice is amazing.

Related: The Secret Business of Training Navy Seals

You’ve advocated for veteran employment. What should business owners know about these men and women looking to join the civilian workforce?

Over the next year, there’s going to be 250,000 veterans getting out of the military. I think it’s crazy that people look at it like, “Oh, we need to give these men and women jobs.” That’s crazy! As a business owner, I look at it like, “There’s only 250,000, if I don’t hurry up and hire as many of these people as I can get, I lose out.”

What qualities do they bring to the table?

There’s not one company out there that is not looking for a quality person, a selfless person, a person with a whatever-it-takes attitude. You take someone who has spent four years in college and left with a degree vs. someone who has spent four years in the military and left with an honorable discharge…I’ll take the veteran all day long. A veteran is a person who has proven themselves in an uncontrolled, unstable environment. That’s the kind of person I want on my team.

And the biggest lesson you’ve learned?

At the end of the day, no one is going to care about your company as much as you do. That is a motto that you will live or die by. And if you don’t believe that, just take your eye off the ball for a day and watch what happens. The only business owners that fail are the ones who gave up. You are going to be tested every day, every hour, every minute. You need to be up for that and you need to welcome that. And if you do, you will succeed.

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How the Memory of His Fallen Brothers Powers Dakota Meyer’s Passion

May 26, 2017 6 min read

This story originally ran April 5, 2016.

Growing up on a farm in Greensburg, Ky., Dakota Meyer had a big problem with authority. During his senior year of high school, a visiting Marine recruiter asked what he planned to do after graduating. Dakota replied, “probably play football.” The recruiter replied, “That’s good, because there’s no way you could be a Marine.”

Not one to back down from a challenge, Dakota shot back: “Get the papers ready. I’ll sign them today.” He was just 17 and his parents needed to co-sign his contract. After training as a Marine Corps sniper, he completed one tour in Iraq and signed up to head to Afghanistan because he “wanted to fight.”

While serving in Afghanistan, Meyer’s combat team was caught in a deadly ambush. Disobeying direct orders to stay out of harm’s way, Meyer raced into the fight. During the ensuing six-hour battle, Meyer saved the lives of several Marines and soldiers and recovered the bodies of four of his fallen brothers. For those selfless actions, President Barack Obama presented him with the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2011.

Related: Use This Green Beret Method to Find Out if Someone Is Trustworthy

Upon his discharge, Meyer’s life took a turn he wasn’t expecting. Previous to these events, if you asked him what he’d be doing for a living, he told Entrepreneur, “I grew up on a farm, and I think I would have come back and done something like that. It’s an honest way of life, a conservative way of life, simple way of life. Definitely the exact opposite of what I am doing now.”

What he is doing now is by no means simple: he has toured as a motivational speaker, advocates for veteran employment, formed partnerships with businesses such as Toyota, became a regular guest on Fox News Channel and has taken a full dive into the world of entrepreneurship. He currently runs two companies: Dakota Meyer Enterprises (construction and general contractor) and DM Tactical LLC (training for the federal government.) Both are small businesses, and both have grown substantially over the past 18 months.

Entrepreneur spoke with Meyer, and gleaned valuable life lessons from the self-described regular guy who leads anything but a regular life.

How did the months and years following your Medal of Honor ceremony change your mindset?

This medal is something I wish I never received. It represents the worst day of my life, but the attention that it got me made me want to do great things to honor the lives of my fallen brothers. After the ceremony, I experienced different parts of the world, experienced different types of people — it lit a fire in me to give me more confidence in myself and it showed me to make the most of every moment.

Related: This Navy SEAL’s Travel Checklist Could Save Your Life On Your Next Trip

You’ve met U.S. presidents, business leaders, appeared on major network shows including David Letterman, what did experiences like that teach you?

You look at these names and you think, I could never be that. But the more that I met these people, the more that I realized with the right frame of mind and the right amount of passion, I could be them.

Is there any crossover between what you experienced in the military and what you’ve since experienced in business?

Being in the Marine Corps and doing the job I did, there is a lot of risk involved. It made me comfortable with risk. Being an entrepreneur is all about risk. Being an entrepreneur is like going to Vegas every day and shoving all of your chips into the middle of the table every single day.

It doesn’t matter how big of a company you have, I always tell people that you are one job away from being broke. And if you don’t live that way, you’ll be broke. I think that what got me to where I am as an entrepreneur is that I got comfortable with the unknown and I got comfortable with risk. If you are not comfortable with either one of those, then you’re not going to be a successful entrepreneur.

What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in business up to this point?

Business is just like sports: if you’re the best in the group that you run in, you’re never going to get any better. It’s the same thing in business. I surround myself with people who are smarter than me and have more experience than me, and I have gotten a lot of great advice. Mark Gross, CEO and founder of Oak Grove Technologies, which specializes in tactical training and intelligence services, has been an amazing help. He gives me straight scoop, and that’s what you need. He tells me this will work, this won’t, and that advice is amazing.

Related: The Secret Business of Training Navy Seals

You’ve advocated for veteran employment. What should business owners know about these men and women looking to join the civilian workforce?

Over the next year, there’s going to be 250,000 veterans getting out of the military. I think it’s crazy that people look at it like, “Oh, we need to give these men and women jobs.” That’s crazy! As a business owner, I look at it like, “There’s only 250,000, if I don’t hurry up and hire as many of these people as I can get, I lose out.”

What qualities do they bring to the table?

There’s not one company out there that is not looking for a quality person, a selfless person, a person with a whatever-it-takes attitude. You take someone who has spent four years in college and left with a degree vs. someone who has spent four years in the military and left with an honorable discharge…I’ll take the veteran all day long. A veteran is a person who has proven themselves in an uncontrolled, unstable environment. That’s the kind of person I want on my team.

And the biggest lesson you’ve learned?

At the end of the day, no one is going to care about your company as much as you do. That is a motto that you will live or die by. And if you don’t believe that, just take your eye off the ball for a day and watch what happens. The only business owners that fail are the ones who gave up. You are going to be tested every day, every hour, every minute. You need to be up for that and you need to welcome that. And if you do, you will succeed.

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Delray Beach SEO

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[riichardwilson]

How the Memory of His Fallen Brothers Powers Dakota Meyer’s Passion

May 26, 2017 6 min read

This story originally ran April 5, 2016.

Growing up on a farm in Greensburg, Ky., Dakota Meyer had a big problem with authority. During his senior year of high school, a visiting Marine recruiter asked what he planned to do after graduating. Dakota replied, “probably play football.” The recruiter replied, “That’s good, because there’s no way you could be a Marine.”

Not one to back down from a challenge, Dakota shot back: “Get the papers ready. I’ll sign them today.” He was just 17 and his parents needed to co-sign his contract. After training as a Marine Corps sniper, he completed one tour in Iraq and signed up to head to Afghanistan because he “wanted to fight.”

While serving in Afghanistan, Meyer’s combat team was caught in a deadly ambush. Disobeying direct orders to stay out of harm’s way, Meyer raced into the fight. During the ensuing six-hour battle, Meyer saved the lives of several Marines and soldiers and recovered the bodies of four of his fallen brothers. For those selfless actions, President Barack Obama presented him with the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2011.

Related: Use This Green Beret Method to Find Out if Someone Is Trustworthy

Upon his discharge, Meyer’s life took a turn he wasn’t expecting. Previous to these events, if you asked him what he’d be doing for a living, he told Entrepreneur, “I grew up on a farm, and I think I would have come back and done something like that. It’s an honest way of life, a conservative way of life, simple way of life. Definitely the exact opposite of what I am doing now.”

What he is doing now is by no means simple: he has toured as a motivational speaker, advocates for veteran employment, formed partnerships with businesses such as Toyota, became a regular guest on Fox News Channel and has taken a full dive into the world of entrepreneurship. He currently runs two companies: Dakota Meyer Enterprises (construction and general contractor) and DM Tactical LLC (training for the federal government.) Both are small businesses, and both have grown substantially over the past 18 months.

Entrepreneur spoke with Meyer, and gleaned valuable life lessons from the self-described regular guy who leads anything but a regular life.

How did the months and years following your Medal of Honor ceremony change your mindset?

This medal is something I wish I never received. It represents the worst day of my life, but the attention that it got me made me want to do great things to honor the lives of my fallen brothers. After the ceremony, I experienced different parts of the world, experienced different types of people — it lit a fire in me to give me more confidence in myself and it showed me to make the most of every moment.

Related: This Navy SEAL’s Travel Checklist Could Save Your Life On Your Next Trip

You’ve met U.S. presidents, business leaders, appeared on major network shows including David Letterman, what did experiences like that teach you?

You look at these names and you think, I could never be that. But the more that I met these people, the more that I realized with the right frame of mind and the right amount of passion, I could be them.

Is there any crossover between what you experienced in the military and what you’ve since experienced in business?

Being in the Marine Corps and doing the job I did, there is a lot of risk involved. It made me comfortable with risk. Being an entrepreneur is all about risk. Being an entrepreneur is like going to Vegas every day and shoving all of your chips into the middle of the table every single day.

It doesn’t matter how big of a company you have, I always tell people that you are one job away from being broke. And if you don’t live that way, you’ll be broke. I think that what got me to where I am as an entrepreneur is that I got comfortable with the unknown and I got comfortable with risk. If you are not comfortable with either one of those, then you’re not going to be a successful entrepreneur.

What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in business up to this point?

Business is just like sports: if you’re the best in the group that you run in, you’re never going to get any better. It’s the same thing in business. I surround myself with people who are smarter than me and have more experience than me, and I have gotten a lot of great advice. Mark Gross, CEO and founder of Oak Grove Technologies, which specializes in tactical training and intelligence services, has been an amazing help. He gives me straight scoop, and that’s what you need. He tells me this will work, this won’t, and that advice is amazing.

Related: The Secret Business of Training Navy Seals

You’ve advocated for veteran employment. What should business owners know about these men and women looking to join the civilian workforce?

Over the next year, there’s going to be 250,000 veterans getting out of the military. I think it’s crazy that people look at it like, “Oh, we need to give these men and women jobs.” That’s crazy! As a business owner, I look at it like, “There’s only 250,000, if I don’t hurry up and hire as many of these people as I can get, I lose out.”

What qualities do they bring to the table?

There’s not one company out there that is not looking for a quality person, a selfless person, a person with a whatever-it-takes attitude. You take someone who has spent four years in college and left with a degree vs. someone who has spent four years in the military and left with an honorable discharge…I’ll take the veteran all day long. A veteran is a person who has proven themselves in an uncontrolled, unstable environment. That’s the kind of person I want on my team.

And the biggest lesson you’ve learned?

At the end of the day, no one is going to care about your company as much as you do. That is a motto that you will live or die by. And if you don’t believe that, just take your eye off the ball for a day and watch what happens. The only business owners that fail are the ones who gave up. You are going to be tested every day, every hour, every minute. You need to be up for that and you need to welcome that. And if you do, you will succeed.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

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[scpie]

How the Memory of His Fallen Brothers Powers Dakota Meyer’s Passion

May 26, 2017 6 min read

This story originally ran April 5, 2016.

Growing up on a farm in Greensburg, Ky., Dakota Meyer had a big problem with authority. During his senior year of high school, a visiting Marine recruiter asked what he planned to do after graduating. Dakota replied, “probably play football.” The recruiter replied, “That’s good, because there’s no way you could be a Marine.”

Not one to back down from a challenge, Dakota shot back: “Get the papers ready. I’ll sign them today.” He was just 17 and his parents needed to co-sign his contract. After training as a Marine Corps sniper, he completed one tour in Iraq and signed up to head to Afghanistan because he “wanted to fight.”

While serving in Afghanistan, Meyer’s combat team was caught in a deadly ambush. Disobeying direct orders to stay out of harm’s way, Meyer raced into the fight. During the ensuing six-hour battle, Meyer saved the lives of several Marines and soldiers and recovered the bodies of four of his fallen brothers. For those selfless actions, President Barack Obama presented him with the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2011.

Related: Use This Green Beret Method to Find Out if Someone Is Trustworthy

Upon his discharge, Meyer’s life took a turn he wasn’t expecting. Previous to these events, if you asked him what he’d be doing for a living, he told Entrepreneur, “I grew up on a farm, and I think I would have come back and done something like that. It’s an honest way of life, a conservative way of life, simple way of life. Definitely the exact opposite of what I am doing now.”

What he is doing now is by no means simple: he has toured as a motivational speaker, advocates for veteran employment, formed partnerships with businesses such as Toyota, became a regular guest on Fox News Channel and has taken a full dive into the world of entrepreneurship. He currently runs two companies: Dakota Meyer Enterprises (construction and general contractor) and DM Tactical LLC (training for the federal government.) Both are small businesses, and both have grown substantially over the past 18 months.

Entrepreneur spoke with Meyer, and gleaned valuable life lessons from the self-described regular guy who leads anything but a regular life.

How did the months and years following your Medal of Honor ceremony change your mindset?

This medal is something I wish I never received. It represents the worst day of my life, but the attention that it got me made me want to do great things to honor the lives of my fallen brothers. After the ceremony, I experienced different parts of the world, experienced different types of people — it lit a fire in me to give me more confidence in myself and it showed me to make the most of every moment.

Related: This Navy SEAL’s Travel Checklist Could Save Your Life On Your Next Trip

You’ve met U.S. presidents, business leaders, appeared on major network shows including David Letterman, what did experiences like that teach you?

You look at these names and you think, I could never be that. But the more that I met these people, the more that I realized with the right frame of mind and the right amount of passion, I could be them.

Is there any crossover between what you experienced in the military and what you’ve since experienced in business?

Being in the Marine Corps and doing the job I did, there is a lot of risk involved. It made me comfortable with risk. Being an entrepreneur is all about risk. Being an entrepreneur is like going to Vegas every day and shoving all of your chips into the middle of the table every single day.

It doesn’t matter how big of a company you have, I always tell people that you are one job away from being broke. And if you don’t live that way, you’ll be broke. I think that what got me to where I am as an entrepreneur is that I got comfortable with the unknown and I got comfortable with risk. If you are not comfortable with either one of those, then you’re not going to be a successful entrepreneur.

What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in business up to this point?

Business is just like sports: if you’re the best in the group that you run in, you’re never going to get any better. It’s the same thing in business. I surround myself with people who are smarter than me and have more experience than me, and I have gotten a lot of great advice. Mark Gross, CEO and founder of Oak Grove Technologies, which specializes in tactical training and intelligence services, has been an amazing help. He gives me straight scoop, and that’s what you need. He tells me this will work, this won’t, and that advice is amazing.

Related: The Secret Business of Training Navy Seals

You’ve advocated for veteran employment. What should business owners know about these men and women looking to join the civilian workforce?

Over the next year, there’s going to be 250,000 veterans getting out of the military. I think it’s crazy that people look at it like, “Oh, we need to give these men and women jobs.” That’s crazy! As a business owner, I look at it like, “There’s only 250,000, if I don’t hurry up and hire as many of these people as I can get, I lose out.”

What qualities do they bring to the table?

There’s not one company out there that is not looking for a quality person, a selfless person, a person with a whatever-it-takes attitude. You take someone who has spent four years in college and left with a degree vs. someone who has spent four years in the military and left with an honorable discharge…I’ll take the veteran all day long. A veteran is a person who has proven themselves in an uncontrolled, unstable environment. That’s the kind of person I want on my team.

And the biggest lesson you’ve learned?

At the end of the day, no one is going to care about your company as much as you do. That is a motto that you will live or die by. And if you don’t believe that, just take your eye off the ball for a day and watch what happens. The only business owners that fail are the ones who gave up. You are going to be tested every day, every hour, every minute. You need to be up for that and you need to welcome that. And if you do, you will succeed.

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070: The 10X Rule vs. 80/20 Principle – What’s the Right Way to Run Your Business?

  In today’s episode, Jaren and I are going to talk about two competing ideologies about how to handle work.

The 10X Rule and the 80/20 Principle. Guys like Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuk love to talk about the importance of hustle, while other guys like Tim Ferriss and Perry Marshall focus more on the importance of working smarter instead of harder.

They can’t all be right, can they?

Does it make more sense to massively increase your outputs or to selectively work harder on the very few things that produce better results than everything else?

In this conversation, we’ll talk about the merits of both, and the areas where each philosophy falls short.

Links and Resources

What is the 80/20 Rule?

What is the Pareto Principle?

Book Summary of The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone by James Clear

80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall

033: How to Build an Empire with the 80/20 Principle – Interview with Perry Marshall

Overview on Fractals

The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone

The Perfect Kettlebell Swing by Tim Ferriss

Everything You Need to Know About Getting Your County’s Delinquent Tax List

The One Thing by Gary Keller

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)

Diminishing Returns

Perry Marshall’s Evolution 2.0 Project

Seth’s Best Audiobooks

Seth’s Best Books

Share Your Thoughts

Leave a note in the comments section below!

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Help out the show:

Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts Your ratings and reviews really help (and I read each one).

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Thanks again for joining me this week. Until next time!

Right-click here and “Save As” to download this episode to your computer.

Episode 70 Transcription

Seth: Hey everybody, how’s it going? This is Seth Williams and Jaren Barnes with the REtipster podcast. Today, Jaren and I are going to just sit down and talk about two competing ideologies, things that a lot of people talk about as one being better than the other. And we’re going to compare these two and try to hash out which one actually makes the most sense. The two ideologies I’m talking about, the first one is the 10X rule. The second one is something called the 80/20 principle, otherwise known as the Pareto principle.

So just to give a quick summary of what these two things are, in case you’re not familiar with one or both of them. The 10X Rule, this was originally coined by I think Grant Cardone. He’s got a book called “The 10X Rule”. I actually found this really helpful overview from jamesclear.com. I will link to this in the show notes if you want to check it out. But he explains the book “The 10X Rule” in three sentences.

The 10X rule says that you should set targets for yourself that are 10 times greater than what you believe you can achieve and you should take actions that are 10 times greater than what you believe is necessary to achieve your goals. The biggest mistake most people make in life is not setting goals high enough. Taking massive action is the only way to fulfill your true potential. There you go. That’s the 10X rule.

Now, the 80/20 rule or the Pareto principle, I’m reading this from Wikipedia here. I’ll link to this in the show notes as well. The Pareto principle also is known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few or the principle of factor sparsity states that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Perry Marshall actually has a great book, a very well-known book about this. We’ve had him on the podcast before, episode 33. I’ll link to that in the show notes as well. But it’s this idea that, and you can see it really like everywhere in nature, in business, in your personal life, like it’s all over the place where 80% of outcomes or outputs result from 20% of all causes or inputs for any given event. And that is from Investopedia’s definition.

Just think about anything you do in business, like the deals you get or where your biggest profits come from or really generally anything that produces the desired result, chances are a lot of your efforts toward that end, the 80% is going to either be wasted or it’s not really going to account for the things you really after, but 20% is going to account for the bulk of that.

Obviously, the power behind understanding this is once you know where your 80% and your 20% are coming from, you can intentionally redirect your efforts toward that 20% so you can get further with less effort. Jaren, I know particular has spent a lot of time going through, especially the 80/20 principle because he used to work for Perry Marshall, right? Jaren?

Jaren: Yeah. I worked on his Evolution 2.0 project for a nano minute probably, I don’t know, three months or something, but we actually used to go to church together for a while, which is super random. That’s actually how I met him. I wanted to talk about these two opposing ideologies for a while. I thought about maybe writing a blog post. I’m glad that we’re doing this today because here’s the thing.

The 10X rule pretty much tells you that the solution to you getting the results that you want to get in whatever it is that you want to do, whether it’s business, your personal life, you just have to put more effort into it. If you do 10 times the amount of effort, so in the example of sales calls, if you want to make more sales, you just have to call 10X the number of people that you normally would call. If your normal call volume in a day is 10, instead of doing 10 calls, you want to make 100. If your normal day is 100 calls, you want to make 500 calls. You want to 10X it.

Seth: And that applies in like things like direct mail too, which I don’t know, it’s easy to say, “Yeah, just do more”, but it’s like, “Hey, there’s real costs here both with time and money”. It’s like, where does it stop?

Jaren: And I used to be a very strong proponent of the 10X rule and it got me into a world of hurt in a lot of ways because it falls short. I do think there’s a place for it, and this is where the 80/20 principle comes in. The 80/20 principle is this law of nature. It’s everywhere. That 80% of your desired results come from 20% of your effort. You can apply that in a number of different areas.

Actually, Pareto was an economist, and what he recognized was kind of the underlying principle behind communism. He said, if you look at a nation’s economy, 80% of the wealth of that nation is owned by 20% of the population. And his whole ideology was founded in like that’s unjust. It’s not okay that a bunch of small elite group of rich people have all the world’s wealth. Whereas the majority of people in the nation are poor or struggling or subpar, they don’t have the same amount of wealth.

But the reality is no matter what you do, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s time, no matter the context, this is a law that is in place. It might not break out to exactly 80/20. It might be 70/30. It might be 10/90. The reality is there is this ratio that life inherently is skewed. It’s not fair. It’s not 50/50, it’s 80/20.

Seth: One thing that stuck out to me about Perry Marshall when I was reading his book is that, and I’d never heard anybody else say this, but this idea that there is an 80/20 within an 80/20. Even within that 20%, you can boil it down even further to the top. Is it 6%? 4% And even beyond that, you can boil that down in further. And I think that’s where the fractals thing comes into play.

Jaren: Yeah, and I don’t pretend to understand what fractals are, but if you guys do a Google search on YouTube and look up fractals, there are these like fractal videos that essentially just zoom in to a certain moving pattern and then the pattern repeats itself. So that’s the concept of a fractal is that like 80/20 is fractal in nature. No matter how much you break it down, the 80/20 principle continues to apply to infinity. That’s what a fractal is. It’s that concept that you were just talking about where it’s not just 80/20. It’s also the 80/20 of the 80/20 and it can break down from there.

When I first started getting introduced to the 80/20 principle, it really changed the game for me because I realized, “Wait a second, it’s not about massive action. It’s not about the ‘grind’. It’s about the right amount of action and the right leverage point”.

So, let me give you a really good example of this. Let’s take the 10X rule for an example and talk about working out. If I want to lose weight, if I apply the 10X rule to losing weight, if I’m working out one hour a day, 10X literally means for me to work out 10 hours a day. Is it feasible for me to work out 10 hours a day and have a life and have work? I don’t even know if that would be healthy for your body to be honest. No, it’s not healthy and it’s definitely not the way that you want to go. But yes, there’s a principle there that if you increase one hour or two, I don’t know, say three hours. Yeah, that’s true. You’re going to have a compound effect, but it’s like shotgun blasting versus being a sniper.

Whereas if instead of doing that, I borrow from let’s say Tim Ferriss’s four-hour body where he actually broke down a kettlebell workout where he got a massive amount of gains for a 30-minute workout once a week, or maybe it was an hour workout once a week. He did one little thing that was such a powerful leverage point that it yielded him the results that he wanted for one hour’s worth of effort versus three, four, five, ten hours a day of working out.

When we look at business, when you look at life and we looking at real estate, I think that the 10X rule really falls short unless you couple it with the 80/20 principle. Because if you know what leverage point to pull and then you 10X that, that’s when you’re going to hit a home run. But if you just are a shotgun blast, and you say, “All right, I just want to become successful, so I’m just going to do tons of mail”. Well, you might be just literally, if you took all of the money in your bank account to “10X” on direct mail and your squadron it all on a direct mail campaign, let’s say you did blind offers and your offers were all wrong. Now all your money’s gone and you’re done. No more business. It doesn’t work.

The 10X rule, it falls short unless you know “Okay, I’m going to narrow in and have this particular. I’m only going to mail to 55 and older and have access to a deceased database that’s super accurate. I am going to put all my money on this thing that I know is for sure return on investment”. Then it makes sense.

Seth: I think the tricky thing about that approach is you really have to be sure about what you’re doing. Like it is possible to zero in on the wrong 20 from the overall 100%. You can think that it’s going to work, but unless you really have verifiable data to know what’s going to pan out or be at least very, very confident of that, narrowing in doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to succeed. But in a perfect world, if you really knew it, yeah, you could basically leverage that in a big way.

Jaren: Yeah. I think there was a story that Perry Marshall talks about in his book, his “80/20 Sales and Marketing” book. If it didn’t come from him, I don’t know exactly where it came from, but I’m going to butcher this story. But it really brings the point home.

Back in Egypt, this is an ancient parable or nature story of how the pyramids were made. That there was the Pharaoh commissioned two people to build the pyramids. And one guy’s approach was essentially to just get to work and just like go and grab these huge stones and like go hard on trying to force himself to get it done. And the other guy dedicated his time to studying. Both of them had something like five years or something to get the pyramid done. The guy that just got to work and just started “10X” it, he ended up having a big problem on his hands because I think it was coming up to the last two years or whatever. The way he went about structuring the pyramids, they weren’t adequate. They fell apart. It wasn’t working. Even though he had moved all these stones and had done all this effort.

Whereas the guy that studied, he figured out a particular way to create a lever. What he did was it so surpassed his competitor’s ability to build that within two years remaining of the five-year period, he was able to build his entire pyramid like that. So, I know that I kind of butchered that a little bit and paraphrase that, but I hope that, stories always kind of hit home. That’s the difference between 10X and 80/20.

When you just have brute force with no direction, you can very, very easily waste your time and it can be very costly. Whereas if you narrow in on 80/20 and then find the leverage point and 10X that, that’s where you’re going to become successful.

Seth: Yeah. When I think about examples of that in my own life, like when I was first getting into real estate, I knew nothing about direct mail, I knew nothing about the delinquent tax list idea, which is one of many different ways to zero in on a subset of people to go after with direct mail. But yeah, when I was just looking for everybody who had the property listed for sale on the MLS, it did not go well. It resulted in just hundreds of wasted hours with literally nothing to show for it. But the first time I discovered the right type of person to go after, a very specific kind of property owner and how to contact them, it totally changed everything.

And even within that, say if you were going to send direct mail to only vacant landowners, even within that, there are certain types of owners who live in certain places and certain proximities away from their property, certain property sizes, certain markets. Like there’s all kinds of ways you can drill down even further. So that’s why I’ve always sort of thought, especially when you’re breaking into a new market and you’ve never worked there before, you don’t really know what’s going to go down. You have a theoretical idea but you’ve never actually done it. It’s not a bad idea to start off with maybe 500 mailers or something.

Don’t spend thousands on it yet, but get a feel for, “Are people responding to this? Is the message right? Are the offer prices right? Am I even sending this to the right people?” And if it falls flat, you can figure that out before you have dumped tons of money into doing it the wrong way. I remember when we were talking to Perry Marshall, that was one of the things because I had talked to him about, I’ve got two duplexes, but I don’t know if these two are a good representation of the market. Maybe they’re both terrible deals. Maybe they’re both awesome deals. But I don’t have enough data to see am I sitting at a good spot? Should I keep this strategy? Or I should I start looking for other types of properties and other areas?

And his response was basically, you need to find out what works before you want to jump in with both feet. Figure out what is really getting results. If you’re lacking data, get more data. Try other things first and then once you really know, then you can dive in.

Jaren: Yeah. And I really wanted to share these insights with you guys today because this is years of struggle and years of me spinning my wheels and wasting a lot of energy and effort on things that haven’t panned out that you’re going to be able to leverage and learn from. So, I hope that you guys really pay attention here because the 80/20 principle is one of the most crucial principles of success on the planet. It gives you insight, even into how to do marriage and how to spend time with your kids. It’s not just quantity, it’s quality. That’s directly out of the 80/20 principle.

Seth: I think what kind of bugs me about the 10X rule, especially from people who just push that and nothing else, like they pay no lip service to other ways of doing things like the 80/20 principle. I understand why they do it. It’s a very compelling message. It’s something you can really get up on a pedestal and do these raw speeches about just “Work harder, work harder and you’ll find success”. You can’t totally discount that. There is totally truth to that, but it’s not the whole story. And it bugs me when I don’t hear the whole story. When I don’t hear other ways of looking at things. Man, lots of books have been sold off just pushing that one mindset. I don’t know, it doesn’t always go well for people.

Jaren: I mean you think about even lighting a candle as an example. If I 10X lighting a candle, I’m going to bring like a blow torch or like a fire gun or whatever those huge fire blasters. And my candle is going to melt before I can even light it. That’s the 10X rule in effect. Whereas the 80/20 principle says, listen, I just want to candlelit so I just need to apply the right amount of flame in order to get my candlelit to reach my goal. It’s just much more efficient and you have to approach life that way, especially in business because it’s really easy to waste money on marketing. It’s really easy to waste money and waste energy and waste effort on a bunch of things that don’t actually move the needle. You have to get really focused on what’s going to move the needle today and do that one thing. Even the one thing, the whole concept from Gary Keller, that whole idea is based on the 80/20 ideology.

Seth: It seems like we both agree there is a time and a place for the 10X rule. What is that time and place like? When is it appropriate to just put 150 million % into what you’re doing and just work yourself to death? When is that logically the correct path?

Jaren: I think it’s when you have a very clear leverage point that you’ve proven. For example, in my land business, I exclusively sell land through land specialized real estate agents. I didn’t do that at first and when I first started working with land agents, I didn’t put all my eggs in that one basket. I did it over time to see, “Hey, is this working? How’s it going?” But that is for me, a very clear example of an 80/20 principle I play that I 10X. Instead of having the whole 10X concept of doing what everybody else is doing, just do 10 times more of the ads on Craigslist, 10 times the listings on Facebook marketplace being 10 times the amount of groups.

Sure, that would probably kind of sort of getting me there, but I work at REtipster full time. This is my full-time job. I don’t have the time to be sitting there answering is it available from a Facebook buy-sell-trade group. So, me finding, well, really my wife, but us finding these land specialized real estate agents that I can learn how to vet properly and line up, now the bottleneck of my business that was the bulk of activity is now a hundred percent outsource. Sure, there are some drawbacks just like with everything. One of the things is if I am in a county where I can’t find an agent and I hit a new county, I’ve kind of screwed there. Another thing too is if something happens to my agent, they retire, they die, they get sick, I’m kind of screwed there. I am vulnerable. But it’s such a benefit-cost ratio that it’s worth it to me for my circumstances where the bulk of my time and energy is given to REtipster, it’s a no brainer.

So, I’m building my entire business based on agents, but I validated it, sold a handful of properties through agents, and said, “All right, game on. I don’t even have a buyers website. I don’t even have a buyers list. I don’t need to put my attention on there at all. I’m just exclusively leveraging agents”. That’s a primary example for me in my land business.

Seth: The thing that I can’t deny is that there is some kind of power to that 10X mentality. I remember hearing, man, I think it was Brandon Turner and Josh Dorkin about two separate things at one point. It was kind of back when they were getting big into tech stuff and interviewing Grant Cardone and stuff. I think Brandon said, yeah, my goal is to… Don’t quote me on this. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like my goal was to own a thousand units in the next X number of years. With the caveat that even if that doesn’t happen, I’m probably going to end up with a lot more than if I hadn’t had that super ambitious goal. And I think there’s some truth to that.

If you’re really shooting for something way bigger than what you think is actually possible, like assuming you’re actually implementing anything, you probably will end up further along than if you were just very small thinking, very ultra-realistic, that kind of stuff. However, that’s what the caveat that you actually have the right systems in place.

I’m listening to the audiobook of “Atomic Habits” right now by James Clear, who also defined the 10X rule that we just talked about a few minutes ago. And a big thing he talks about in that book is the difference between goals and systems. He says if you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.

When you think about the Olympics, everybody has the same goal. It’s to get a gold medal, but many people do not get that. It’s not the goal because certain people didn’t get it, it’s because of the systems that got them to where they are. Just as in general, James Clear was talking about how the problem with goals is that they create this “either/or” version of happiness. It restricts your path of happiness to one single scenario where in reality there are many different paths to success.

Say for example, if my goal is to own 10 apartment buildings and if I don’t end up owning 10 apartment buildings, that means I failed if I didn’t reach that goal. Whereas if I focus more on the system, systems-first mentality allows you to fall in love with the process instead of the product, which kind of allows you to be happy along the way. So, you can sort of feel like you’re getting there just by following the right process in the first place. Kind of underscores the importance of really understanding what you’re doing before you’re really let loose and go crazy doing that thing.

Jaren: Yeah, I like that a lot. But as you’re talking, I don’t know if I agree with the underlying principle of setting your goals to something that’s not realistic and achievable. And the reason why is I do agree with you that if you shoot for, “I want to own a million properties”, you’re probably not going to end up hitting a million, but you might end up hitting a thousand. But realistically it’s hard to build a system around buying a million properties. And I think going back to some of the stuff we were talking last week in last week’s episode about when is enough is enough. Having the end in mind I think is really important.

For me if we talked about cash flow or something, at 125 units, I personally, I’ve run the numbers and stuff, that would be ideal for me. I think that would be an ideal spot where I would have money to continue to grow and invest and my family wouldn’t have to worry about finances anymore. We would be in a good place based on our current lifestyle.

So, if I have 120 properties as my goal, over the next say, 5-10 years, and then I reverse engineer it because I have the end in mind, I can actually feasibly hit that. Whereas if I 10X that and I’m like, “Okay, no, I want a thousand units in the next 10 years”. And I could feasibly try to build a system around that and spin my wheels and really put all that effort and energy into it. But why? Why when I know I just want 125?

Seth: Yeah. It’s almost like you would have to do the 10X rule with the underlying understanding that it’s okay if you don’t get there and it’s almost likely that you won’t get there. Which then leads back to the question, “Why do you have that goal in the first place?”

Jaren: Yeah, that’s my point.

Seth: It’s kind of like you are intentionally overshooting for something that you know you’re not going to get. I don’t know. Because if you really do believe you can do it and then the likely scenario comes to pass where it doesn’t happen, then you feel like a failure. So, I don’t know. I think in with you. Maybe it depends on the individual and how they think through and process this stuff. Maybe some people just need to get all hyped up like that in order to take any action. And I guess if that’s what it requires to move the needle, okay, but I don’t need that. I’m much more of to default a very realistic kind of thinker. I don’t pretend that I’m going to do like tens of millions of dollars of deals and stuff. If I don’t think it’s going to happen, I’m not going to make that goal. And if I think it’s out of line with my other priorities, then I’m not going to sacrifice everything and put it all on the line just to hit this stupid ambitious goal.

Jaren: Yeah, I think because what we were talking about last week, man, having a very clear “why” behind what you’re doing and when you’ve reached success, maybe it’s because my personality is achievement-oriented too. My failing to hit a goal, even if it was an unrealistic goal hurts me. Even the thought of it like right now emotionally, in my body I feel the emotional chemicals fascinate like “No, no, no, I can’t fail. No, no, no, no, no, no, no”.

I think the 10X rule of setting unrealistic goals just so that I work harder just creates a lot of anxiety and stress for me. Whereas I’d much rather just set a realistic goal, accomplish it, and then set another goal. If I said, “Okay, I’m going to 10X and I’m going to get a thousand units in the next five years”, I mean I can break down and try to build a system like that, but it’s going to take 10 times the amount of effort and I got other stuff going on and it’s unnecessary. I don’t know from a system standpoint why you would ever set your goal higher than you need it to be.

Seth: Yeah, an interesting thing about that is having a goal that is 10X larger than what you would normally do. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to take 10 times the effort.

Jaren: That’s true.

Seth: If you do set up the people and the systems to get there, it could only be like maybe twice as much effort, maybe the same amount of effort, you’re just working towards different things like managing other people who do the job rather than you doing it yourself. So, it’s actually an interesting thing to differentiate.

Jaren: But what I saw begs the question as to “Why do I need a thousand units when I only realistically need 125?” I guess in Grant Cardone’s mind, more is always better and at all costs. Just do more, get more, be more. But I don’t know if I would just fundamentally agree with that belief system. I need to be all that I need to be, I guess. But I don’t know. But there’s something about wanting to attain more and always trying to be the best that you can be and reach for the stars.

Seth: Well, when you were asking that earlier about, “Why do I need that number of units?” my question was, “Why do you need anything?” How does anybody come up with a number and decide that that’s enough? It’s totally a subjective thing and it depends on whatever that person decides is going to make them successful or happy.

Jaren: But to that point, I can understand having a goal of a thousand units because if I have a thousand units that are under management or under my control, or they’re owned by my company, then I have a crazy amount of influence because anybody is going to be lining up to listen to what I have to say. Even if what I say is good or bad, it won’t matter because I have so much success.

Seth: Until somebody else comes along with 10,000 units and now you’re a nobody to them.

Jaren: Well yeah, it’s true, but there’s still a certain level of like, if my goal is a thousand units, then my goal is a thousand units and that’s cool. But to say, “Okay, my goal is a thousand units, I’m going to shoot for 10,000 units” – Why? Why 10X it if you know exactly what you want?  

Seth: Yeah. Well, maybe you want more clout or it will make you feel better about yourself for some reason. You’ve decided that that makes you worth more or more valuable as a human. I don’t know. There are all kinds of crazy reasons for that.

Jaren: But those would be reasons to set the goal for 10,000 units. If you have 10,000 units and you’ve got all the clout in the world, shooting for 100,000 units, at some point you have the law of diminishing returns in effect. Your accomplishment is going to have a drop-off point of value or ROI. I understand if you have a clearly defined goal for an adjusted vacation for 1,000 or 10,000 units or even 100,000 units, but at some point, in your assessment, you’re going to hit a tipping point where you’re not going to get the same amount of ROI on your effort. So, it’s pointless. You might as well just from the get-go, be very clear on what you want and define what success is required to get what you want and then go after and actually make it happen at all costs.

In my mind, I would rather 10X, so to speak, on accomplishing my actual goal and actually having that happen versus me shooting for the moon and then be okay if I hit the stars. Do you know what I mean? I’d rather like get the moon and own it.

Seth: In summary, it sounds like the 10X rule is basically the equivalent of working harder, whereas 80/20 is working smarter. Would you agree with that? There is a time and a place to work harder. But usually, that’s after you understand what the 20% is. And I think when you start out, nobody knows what that is. You can’t get away from some waste. There will be some hard work that does not pan out as planned, but it seems like the optimal path is “As soon as possible, figure out where that 20% is and start heading down that path”. And hopefully, you’ll actually get lucky enough to discover the 20% of the 20% or even beyond that.

And that’s actually an interesting thing. I know lots of people who are successful real estate investors that have done tons of deals, but they’ve never even tried the land business or they’ve never tried a delinquent tax list. Not that you need to do that to succeed, but there are certain things I know about that are super powerful that they’ve never done and vice versa. They probably know super powerful stuff that I’ve never done. So, it’s kind of makes you wonder if there is only one 20%. Does that mean everybody has to arrive in the same place, come to the same conclusion for it to work or there are different subsets of 20% that can work for other people and different approaches?

Jaren: Yeah, I think it’s the latter because certain leverage points can only happen based on your unique circumstances. For example, you and me are both American. Just by the sheer fact that we were born in this nation, we have advantages and leverage points that the majority of the world doesn’t have. I think you mentioned it in last week’s episode about you heard Jordan Peterson say on some podcasts that the top 1% of the world is anybody who makes over $32,000 a year. Just that sheer bracket. If you live in a family where your parents make $32,000 a year or above, you have a substantial leverage point for success. You have opportunities that people just don’t have in other places.

If you take a kid, I’ll pick Kazakhstan because my wife is from there, some orphan kid from an obscure village in Kazakhstan. They’re not going to be able to invest in flipping land in the United States most likely unless certain circumstances happen that expose them to those opportunities. But that orphan kid in Kazakhstan, he can look at what he’s exposed to and what leverage points he has available and he can use them.

Not to get spiritual on you guys but what we’re getting into here is really a lot of what the parable of the talents teaches. That some are given 2 talents, some are given 10. But really what matters at the end of the day is what did you do with the talents that you were given? And so, it is true that because 80/20 is fractal, it can scale down or scale above depending on what you’re exposed to and what leverage points you have.

Somebody who goes to an Ivy league school or somebody who grew up in the hood or all of the different factors, they give you a different set of possibilities to leverage. But in any scenario, there’s still an 80/20 opportunity for you to capitalize on. You just have to learn how to pay attention to it and identify it. And then once you see it’s there, that’s when you want to increase the effort to reach your goal.

Seth: Do you feel like you’ve discovered any 20% in life, Jaren?

Jaren: Yeah. I would say being a Christian is a massive 80/20 because you can hear from God. My faith is one of them, but I don’t want for those in our audience that are not religious or whatnot, I don’t want to make you roll your eyes at me. What I’ll say is reading has been a massive leverage point in my life. I didn’t graduate from college. I did a freshman year and then I dropped out.

But because I’ve been an avid reader and I’ve been obsessed with self-development, it hasn’t phased me at all in my life and in the things that I have available to me. So I think that being a self-starter, being somebody who is aggressive about personal development and reading widely, reading everything that you can get your hands on is a massive leverage point. We wouldn’t even be talking about 10X or 80/20 right now if I hadn’t read them in the book. That’s just the reality of it.

Seth: That’s very true. But is there an 80/20 of what you should be reading? Because there’s a lot of stupid books out there that are a total waste of time. Do you just kind of go with the New York Times bestseller list under personal development and stick to that? How do you know which things to read?

Jaren: That’s a good question. I think how I gauge it as I look at what other successful people that I admire are reading and the types of books that they’re reading. So, I don’t just read anything, I don’t look at reviews. I might do some searches as the top 10 books for X subject and then cross-reference those 10 books to a number of other sites and then see which ones are mentioned several times. There’s an online influencer named Tom Bilyeu that runs something called Impact Theory, and he has a recommended reading list. And because I trust Tom and he started Quest Nutrition, like those quest bars because he’s been super successful and he interviews all a lot of these guys that have had a really impact on my life, that’s where I’ve heard about David Goggins and other people that I really emulate and look up to. If he says it’s a good book, I feel like I can trust his views on it because it’s a filter. It’s a leverage point. I’m leveraging his experience and what I value in his assessment.

Seth: As I look on my audible reading list here, I can’t do the math as quickly, but it looks like not all of them but at least 80% of these, the only reason they’re on my list is that I heard about them from somebody else. Somebody else that I trust. Like they said, “Hey, this is a good book, read it”. A couple of them are ones that I just sort of saw as recommended items in Amazon and that kind of thing. But yeah, most of them are direct recommendations from other people. I guess for publishers that’s a note to them. It’s really important to get people to recommend your stuff.

Jaren: Yeah, a hundred percent. Word of mouth is a huge leverage point. I think another big 80/20 thing, at least in business is branding. The reason why Simple Wholesaling, a company that I used to work for in Indianapolis is on the map, whereas other wholesalers that are just as good, if not better in terms of price, aren’t, is because of branding. It’s a weird psychological thing, but if you’re on a podcast or you’re the guy on the video or you’re the guy writing the blog post or you’re the guy at a networking event talking on the mic, people for whatever reason, say you are higher esteem.

If you can do things that brand you like having a booth or showing up in magazines or being on a podcast or building a content strategy where people look up to you for whatever reason, that’s a huge, huge, huge, huge leverage point that a lot of people don’t want to put the time, energy and effort into because it’s a lot of work. But it pays out dividends for years and years and years to come.

Seth: Yeah. Going back to what we were talking about earlier, that is an interesting thing. There could be somebody who hears that and they’re like, “Okay, well, that’s a lot. I got to get up in front of a stage and start speaking” or “I got to brand myself”. But maybe they just don’t have the skill set or they’re not gifted at being an onstage personality or maybe they just hate it. It’s just not their thing. Maybe their leverage point is something else. They have a different 20% that they ought to go after. That’s kind of a tricky thing to wrap your mind around because on one hand, it seems like this 20% should be the same for everybody, but on the other hand, it’s like it can’t be because it’s just not everybody is the same. Everybody is in a different situation, so, unfortunately, there is no perfect formula everybody ought to follow. But I think you can’t deny there is that 20% somewhere for everybody.

Jaren: Just to respond to what you said right there, even in our work, I feel like your 80/20 would be writing. You’re way better writer, it comes much easier to you. You’re much more methodical, you’re much more detailed. Whereas for me, it takes me probably twice as long I would guess as it does you to write something that is up to the REtipster standard because I’m just not wired that way. I’m much better on a podcast or in a coaching environment or in a live medium. That’s just how I’m more wired. Whereas for you, those things drain you. And so, you’re not going to be able to, like I could do a podcast every day. I could probably do two podcasts a day and I’d be super happy and pumped. Whereas Seth would be like, that’s literally the definition of hell.

Seth: Yeah man, that is a fascinating thing because it’s very true. We just excel at totally different things, which is really kind of a good thing for any organization to have people who aren’t all experts at the same stuff because you can cover more ground that way. But it’s not that you can’t write and it’s not that I can’t go live, it’s just hard. It’s not where we come live and enjoy every moment of life. It’s kind of like a ticking clock. Like I can only do this so long before my head explodes.

Jaren: That’s how I feel when I edit articles.

Seth: Me too. I’m the same way. Cool. Anything else we want to explore about the 80/20 versus 10X?

Jaren: No, man. I’ve always wanted to have some form of content about this subject because I used to go ballistic and just try to do everything and go crazy under the guise of the 10X rule. And it didn’t really get me anywhere. It just made me waste a lot of time. Whereas when I started applying the 80/20 principle, that’s when I started getting real traction in my life, in every area of my life. It applies to everything. I just really hope that for somebody out there, even if it’s just one person, that you guys find this as helpful as I did.

Seth: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was a good conversation for sure. And now that we’ve gone through the meat of our conversation, do you want to do one of these little random questions that you and I can both answer?

Jaren: Yeah. Let’s do it.

Seth: Okay. So, this is an interesting question. The question is this – What is the longest line you have ever stood in? What was it for and was it worth the wait?

Jaren: Mine is super boring.

Seth: So, it was not worth the wait, I take it.

Jaren: No, it was worth the wait, but I’m just saying it’s like, I think the longest line I’ve ever been in was that in customs visiting, going back and forth from Kazakhstan when I visited my wife when we were separated for a year and a half going through the immigration process.

Seth: How long was it?

Jaren: It wasn’t even probably that long. Probably 30-40 minutes.

Seth: Oh, it’s not that bad.

Jaren: Yeah, it’s not that bad, but that’s the only thing that I can think of off the top of my head. I’ve never been one to like on Black Friday, go stand outside Walmart. That’s not my thing.

Seth: For me, I did that one time. I stood outside. If you remember, this store is Circuit City which no longer exists. I remember there was a really good deal on a laptop or something. This was when I was in college. And so, I got up super early, like 04:00 in the morning and just froze almost to death waiting for this thing. I was probably like the hundredth person in line and when they opened the door as I found out they only have four of these laptops in the whole store. It was literally for nothing. I totally wasted my time, I didn’t have to get up that early, I didn’t have to freeze. I just went home disappointed and went back to bed. That was not the longest line. The longest one I think was at Cedar Point when I was in high school waiting for a rollercoaster. It was like standard to sit in line for at least two hours for some of these things. It was just nuts.

Jaren: As you brought that up, I think realistically it’s probably been the amusement parks, but I don’t have any particular memory of like, “Oh my gosh, this is so long”. The only one that was annoying that I can remember is the customs.

Jaren: It’s interesting. I remember when I was a kid waiting for anything just seemed like an eternity. It was almost physically painful to just like wait and wait. Even if it was like waiting at a restaurant to get a table for like 10 minutes. It just was like pulling teeth. And the older I’ve gotten, I don’t know. Not that I enjoy it, but it’s like, it’s just okay. Maybe I’ve gotten better at daydreaming or something.

Jaren: Well, I actually saw an article about that phenomena recently where a lot of people feel like when they were younger, days felt longer and years felt longer. The article, I don’t remember where it was from, otherwise, I’d have listed in the show notes. But it was interesting because the older you get, the more time you have.

Seth: It’s proportionally. It is longer for how long you’ve been alive.

Jaren: Yeah. When you’re younger, if you’ve only been alive for let’s say 4 years, a year is a really long time compared to when you’re like 55.

Seth: Yeah. My wife’s grandparents are in their 90s and I’m getting to the point in life where I mean I think everybody can relate to this at some point. But obviously the older I get, when it’s like, “Oh, it’s Christmas again. Holy cow. It was Christmas like last week. I can’t believe that’s here already”. And I’m 36 at the time of this recording. And if you’re in your 90s, man, it’s going to fly so quick. Because you’ve just been alive for so much longer and a year really isn’t that long compared to how long you’ve been alive. That must be kind of trippy when you get that old.

Well folks, if you want to check out the show notes for this episode, hopefully, you enjoyed it. Go to retipster.com/70. That’s 70. And you can find links to a bunch of stuff that we referenced here and other resources and other information about both the competing viewpoints.

And if you guys are listening to this from your phone, you can send a text to stay up to date with what we’re doing. Just text the word FREE. That’s F-R-E-E to the number 33777 and you’ll know what to do after that. So, thanks again everybody for listening. I hope you guys got something out of this. I hope you’re doing well in business and life and we will talk to you again in the next episode.

Jaren: Later guys.

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