The #1 myth about success

Why Hard Work Is NOT the Answer

It annoys me when people tell you:

“Work hard and you will be successful!”

It’s utter garbage advice!

Think about it:

If hard work alone was enough to become incredibly successful, waitresses and construction workers would be billionaires. Unfortunately, hard work is NOT enough to achieve success.

There are a few reasons, which we’ll cover in this newsletter.

Note:

“Success is highly individual. Meaning that what you consider to be success might be terrible or even disgusting to others. For the sake of being able to discuss it, I’m talking about material/financial success here.

No, money isn’t everything but it gives a great foundation to find the rest.

The Macro of Success

There’s a famous saying from Warren Buffet:

“It’s not about how hard you row, but about what boat you’re in.”

Let’s face it:

If you’re working a low-paying job, like being a nurse, teacher or cop, you’re certainly not going to see great financial returns. This is a shame, since those are crucial jobs in high need.

So, what makes a good vehicle for success, the boat?

It’s all about value provided x leverage.

What Does Value Mean?

The first rule of money is that we get paid in correlation to the amount of values that we provide. Additionally, it also depends on the amount of people that can provide the same value (supply and demand).

For example:

A doctor saving earns more than someone at McDonalds because he provides more value to people and there are way fewer people with the required skills to be a doctor.

Let’s look at another more extreme example of providing value:

Ray Dalio is a hedge fund manager of one of the biggest funds.

It’s estimated that he makes between 500 million and a billion, a year!

You might think it’s unfair, but it isn’t.

His fund has a ton of investors to which Bridgewater (the hedge fund) provides value. Ray’s investment strategies make billions in profits for his investors and his own earnings are proportionate to the value he provides to his investors.

Would you happily pay $10000 to someone if you’d get $25000 in return?

I know I’d make that trade any day of the week!

What Is Leverage?

Let’s take a music teacher as an example of this.

If she’s giving 1-on-1 lessons to students, she might earn a decent living depending on her prices and amount of students.

However, she can do way better with leverage!

The first kind is the amount of people she serves.

What if instead of 1-on-1 lessons, she were to give group lessons? Of course she couldn’t charge as much for it, but if she were to teach 6 students at once and charge one third of her usual prices, then she’d double her hourly income.

That’s a lot better already, but can we get more leverage?

The answer is yes.

What if our teacher created an online course for beginners?

Of course, it would be a lot of work to put it together and market it. On the other hand, she could teach unlimited students and since it’s an online format, it’s independent from her time!

Note:

If you’ve ever thought about chasing your passion, one of the best opportunities is building a community to teach people. You could have a community around teaching guitar, professional skills, flying model planes, painting or whatever it is you desire.

If that interests you, check out Skool as well as the Skool Games.

The 4 Main Kinds of Leverage

When it comes to your vehicle of success, it’s important to know the main ways of generating leverage for yourself.

These are:

• People

• Money

• Media

• Code

People is pretty straightforward:

If you have a job, the company's owners have leverage. The hours you put in contribute to the success of the business and as a result, the owners make money through the effort of other people.

This is also the reason why you won’t get rich with a job alone.

Let’s talk about money:

Warren Buffet’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns about 400 million shares in Coca-Cola. Because of this investment, they earn an estimated $736 million per year. 

His money earns him more money.

Fun fact: In 2022, the CEO of Coca-Cola “only” earned $54.5 million.

The Opportunity in Front of Us

These first two types of leverage are hard to put into practice.

You probably don’t have a pile of cash laying around and unless you already have a business, you’re not going to create leverage through hiring people anytime soon.

However, media is a great opportunity in 2024!

Here’s why media is great:

Every day countless of people are doomscrolling on social media. While it’s an incredible waste of time for them, on the flip side are the creators who make content for social media.

Some teens earn more than 6 figures a year creating videos.

Remember how I said the amount of people you give value to matters?

That’s where media shines.

If I create a video for YouTube or other social media, I only have to create the video once. My amount of work stays the same whether 10 people watch it or 10 million people watch it (I wish lol).

And most importantly:

It is NOT tied to my time.

When I publish a video today, it could get seen by people 6 months or even 3 years from now. This means that it has incredibly high leverage to publish.

The same would go for the music teacher in our example.

After she has created her online course, students can buy it and go through the content. With some marketing, she could sell the course to 10 people or 1000. Meaning that it’s incredible scaling.

Resources

I’m biased as I’m a content creator myself, but I’d highly recommend the path of creating content! It’s one of the best ways to take your passion and make an income on the side with it.

And in time, it could replace your job’s income as well.

Now is one of the best times to get started for a few reasons:

• With the AI tools we have, creating content is easier now than ever before.

• Social media usage is at an all-time high.

• Social media platforms are rewarding good content now more than any time before.

• Online education is getting more mainstream by the day. More people are accepting of online courses and communities than ever before.

With that said, this will still be a lot of work.

Here are a few resources if you want to dive into this:

Education

• Think Media

• Alex Hormozi

• Gary Vaynerchuk

• The Real World

• Content Creation Formula

Resources:

• Skool (beginner friendly platform for creating a community)

• Beehiiv (create and monetize a newsletter)

• Kartra (what I use to sell products online, bit more advanced)

• Upwork (outsource for cheap)

• Capcut (simple video editor)

• AI Essentials (get 13 AI tools in 1 subscription)

Of course there are many more people to learn from and many more opportunities out there. However, these should give you a good starting point to learn more and see if this is right for you.

The Productivity Myth

With all of the above, that’s only half of the story…

There’s another reason why hard work is NOT enough:

Many people work hard, but they still don’t get anywhere. Besides the macro we discussed, people often confuse being busy with being productive. And unfortunately that’s simply not the case.

Consider driving a car:

If you’re continuously driving on a roundabout, it doesn’t matter how fast you drive. You’re never going to get to your destination!

Likewise:

It doesn’t matter how hard you work if you’re working on the wrong things.

The first rule about productivity is to get crystal clear on what you’re trying to achieve. Once you know that, you can reverse engineer the activities that actually move the needle.

This way, you’re doing the stuff that matters rather than meaningless busiwork.

Let’s continue in the action steps below.

The Ultimate Guide to Men’s Happiness and Satisfaction
If life ever feels meaningless this is a must watch!

The video above covers a simple blueprint men can follow to create a life of meaning and purpose. It covers the main reason why life can often feel meaningless and I share the simple antidote.

You’ll learn the 2 things every man needs to have a fulfilling life.

Picking the Right Vehicle for Your Future

Honestly, this has been a tough newsletter for me to write.

This is because I don’t like to talk too much about business or personal finance. This is because these are areas that I’m still working on myself and haven’t figured out yet.

I’m certainly not the person to listen to when it comes to business advice.

However, what I CAN talk about is getting clarity in life.

The steps below will help you in clarifying for yourself what path you should follow in life. It will help you figure out if business is right for you (it’s not for most people), or if you would be better off doing something else.

Firstly, think about your ideal life (put yourself 5-10 years into the future):

• Where do you live?

• With whom do you live?

• What does your typical day look like?

• How are you earning your living?

• What income are you earning?

• How would your describe your “perfect” self?

• Can you describe your perfect day?

• What does your ideal situation look like in terms of your: health & fitness, career, family life, social life, finances, personal growth, hobbies, and so on.

Are those easy questions?

Absolutely not!

However, when you can answer these kinds of questions, you gain more clarity on what your ideal life looks like.

Now, you can reverse engineer your way back to today.

Ask yourself what it would take for you to achieve the desired lifestyle you wrote down. With that in mind, you can start searching for potential vehicles (career, study, business, investments, etc.) that could get you there.

The next step is simple:

Who has already achieved what you want to achieve?

Find them, either online or in real life.

After you find them, examine what they did in order to achieve the success that they have. Because similar actions will get similar results. You’re literally looking for a living blueprint to achieve your life’s biggest desires!