This episode applies Hormozi’s “do what’s required” framework to entrepreneurship, contrasting the forcing function of parenting (where ignoring a crying child is impossible) with business tasks that are easier to avoid. The core insight challenges the “do your best” mentality by emphasizing that best efforts may not meet objective requirements, and entrepreneurs must cultivate the discipline to solve hard problems without external accountability.
Key Takeaways:
- Required Beats Best Doing “what’s required” forces capability elevation beyond “your best,” because requirements don’t negotiate with effort levels.
- Parenting as Forcing Function A crying 2-year-old creates unavoidable action (feed, change, comfort) that entrepreneurs must self-impose on business tasks lacking external consequences.
- LandPricer Prompt Example Spending hours refining AI prompts for buildable area detection across all US land illustrates doing what’s required when no one else has solved the problem.
Listen to learn how to create forcing functions for entrepreneurial tasks that lack built-in consequences.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, Chris Duff over at Serious Land Capital vacant land funding partner today wanted to do another mindset oriented podcast for this Sunday here. To no surprise, I mean, been referencing a lot of her Moses teachings. It’s not uncommon.
for like pretty much anybody in the entrepreneur space, there’s just so much to go off of. And for people I really try to pay attention to, I tried to be like, okay, what would the best student of this person actually do and the actions that they would take if you’re actually taking the time to spend in a course or following somebody and so forth. that’s why I really, really focus in on
people who are on a trajectory that I would like to emulate in some form or fashion and take it really seriously and not screw around and actually try to be their best student. Or like I won’t join any courses unless I believe and will deliver on being the best student within that course, or at that is the intention.
when doing so, delivering on it. Yeah, sometimes it’s be a bit more subjective in terms of what those actual results are, but I try to keep that in mind whenever I take a step forward in a direction from learning from somebody. And one thing, and I really love this YouTube video Ormosy had put out a few weeks ago, like brutally honest truths, and they’re all labeled with.
with headlines like this, but it definitely came out within April 2025. I’ve been taking notes on this one, listening to it a few times. It’s definitely one of those that stood out a lot more. And this was just focused on results over excuses and just to focus in that when you’re doing something that you really don’t wanna do.
which usually happens every day, like you just have to figure out a way to do what’s required. And how the typical terminology is like, just do your best, do your best. But your best might not be good enough for what it actually takes to get the job done. And so doing what’s required, like it’s just a shift in the framework.
to understand, I need to figure this out no matter what. And so there’s a few examples within this here. So, like I’ve been working on this land price here project for a while, like I’m just trying to figure out all these LLM prompts to recognize, aerial imagery better.
and just come up with these prompts on the fly. It’s really difficult for some of these to figure out, especially if I’m trying to define a primary buildable area across any land within the US. How do you actually define a prompt like that and have AI be able to recognize it appropriately? It’s a super difficult problem. was banging my head against the wall. How do I sort this out to get AI to be more accurate? even as I’m like,
feeling that I just remind myself, hey, yeah, there’s a reason this is hard. There’s a reason people haven’t figured this out just yet. Like, you know, it is possible, but you’re going to have to do what’s required here. You know, you have to sit for hours and hours more to do this. You know, do you need to go freshen up your mind to kind of clean up your thought pattern so you can return to this and figure out what else needs to be done.
but one way or another, like in order to get this product to work, you are going to have to figure this out. So that is a framework that, helps me get over those tough times. and that’s the thing too, sometimes like with work, like there’s always another excuse, right? This is, to like, just not do what’s in front of you. and especially as entrepreneurs, right? Like you are the buck stops with you. So if you don’t hold yourself accountable.
and you want to go do something else, like technically you can do that. You you’re not having a gun to your head, you’re not shackled to your desk. And you can always come up with that excuse that you weren’t able to figure out what was required. So it’s a little easier to get out of that and, you know, get stuck in kind of those nasty mental turmoil of just like, I just really do not want to do this or distract myself and figure out some other tasks that are a little bit easier, but don’t actually move the…
needle forward and not getting the work that truly needs to get done happens all the time. was like, entrepreneurship 101 is trying to figure that out and it never really goes away. You just get better at trying to manage that. Whereas like other situations, like, you know, myself being a parent of a two year old and I think that any other parent can relate here, it’s, it’s, you’re much.
You’re forced into that figuring out to do what’s what’s required versus like just doing your best You know think of those situations where I Mean I’m going back to like newborn mode here like we’ve been out of that for a little bit but it’s like okay your kid wakes up in the middle of the night and Crying they need to be fed changed. What have you like?
That is the starkest example, like, okay, there is something that is required of me. I can’t just sit here in bed. I mean, you could, but you’re really gonna pay for it. You’re not gonna be able to sleep. It’s not serving your kid and any, you you’re not doing your kid any favors by having them suffer next to you. Trust me, I think any parent has tried to like just ignore kids crying sometimes and it just doesn’t like, it seeps.
deep into your mind and it just doesn’t work that long. like you’re forced into doing something that is required, which is getting out of bed when you were sleeping, trying to catch up on some Z’s and it’s like, no, I gotta get this kid fed. I gotta get him changed, put him back to bed. And then you can get yourself back to bed. Like that is a forcing function that is far less easy to ignore than what we might encounter like on a daily.
daily basis from trying to get certain projects done on a work perspective or hobbies or whatever you’re working on, you’re better nutrition or exercise, something like that. It’s easier to ignore what is actually required. Whereas yeah, with kids, like it’s just, you really can’t. Or, know, if you really do ignore what is required of them, you know, you better be aware that
Child protective services will come in and take it eventually. you know, I think about the embarrassment of that. That’s what I always remind myself. It’s like, would just die of embarrassment if I just, you know, wasn’t taking care of my kid and the authorities had to get involved there. that’s as much of a forcing function as, you know, just being like a good human being, being good parent, taking care of things. Like the social pressure of that too. So.
Whereas again, no one’s coming to lock you up or take your business away if you don’t do your job other than going out of business. So, you know, that is another forcing function, but you can always just make an excuse, I’ll just go work for somebody else to do something else, whatever. So I think about that a lot. And it just reminds me of that phrase. I went to a in-person Wim Hof event several years ago. It was like pre-COVID in Brooklyn.
and a very, very powerful experience. I’ll never forget it being in a room of, I don’t know, like 200 people or something and just having Zim Hoff. He’s the breathing guy. I’m sure a lot of you became very famous over the last 10 years or so. Like the kind of hyperventilation breathing goes on all the ice water excursions and so forth. That part I really didn’t like, but I liked the breathing side.
but being in a room of like, you know, a couple hundred people being led by Vim, which is kind of his powerful voice and just, you know, led being led through this breathing exercise. just such a unique experience as a human being, especially kind of the community feeling of it. And I just remember Vim just mentioning like during these breathing patterns, like, you know, do your best and the best will come about. I just never forgot that phrasing there, but now
Like I’m shifting it over to, you know, do what’s required and what’s required will come about because that’s actually what we want to happen. And if you do that, that improves your best anyway, because whatever needs to be done that’s required, that might’ve been better than your best was before all of sudden your best gets elevated. And so it’s still all fly wheels together. So hopefully this one is helpful.
today here.
million of these kinds of mindset factors that I always think about on a daily basis, but this is one. It’s been more recent, so hopefully this one is helpful for you all. With that, seriousland.capital for any of your funding needs, zero cost review of land deals at Land Daily Diligence Facebook group Mondays and Thursday, and landpricer.ai for the most simple and accurate way to price land. With that, subscribe and share. Talk to you all next time.
Bye.
