If You Aren't Doing This ONE Thing, Your Life Is Way More Off-Course Than You Think

"I don't have time to read." - Said by no successful person, ever.

The Biggest Problem You Can Possibly Make

A wise mentor of mine once told me to be very observant of people.

There's always something you can learn, some nugget of wisdom you can pick up, he said.

As I watch those around me, I'm struck by the fact that most people understand and manage their time very poorly. Specifically, they convince themselves that their life is busy and they don't have the time to invest in their own education and personal growth.

"Maybe I'll read that book, reach out to that person, or start that idea when I have more time."

Then, I ask, what are you making time for?

Understanding Time Very Well

Let's assume, since you're reading this article, that you want to improve your life.

This requires uphill progress. Forward momentum. This isn't easy to do. Because of this, the most successful people humbly acknowledge that they can't do it all on their own.

Instead of reaching their goals by spending 20 years learning it all themselves, they dramatically shorten their learning curve by finding the right educational tools to help them avoid mistakes and seek the most efficient path up the mountain.

This is why masterminding is one of the most important activities of successful people. They bounce ideas off each other and bring together unique abilities so that the whole becomes exponentially greater than the sum of the parts.

Thus, everyone has the ability to only work in their area of expertise while simultaneously having access to the wisdom and strategies from others to compensate for where they fall short.

Most people don't understand how to master these systems that will lead to their growth.

Most people don't bring the right others on board.

Most people don't understand the power of borrowing experiences, lessons, and ideas from other people to reduce the amount of time, frustration, energy, and money they'd have to spend on their own.

Those who understand time very well are able to make the best use of it. Those who make the best use of their time are able to focus better and accomplish more than anyone else. And those people are the ones who become successful.

Do you understand time?

Do you think of time like money, as a substance that you can invest in a variety of things, some yielding higher rates of return and satisfaction than others?

Do you realize that by investing your minutes wisely today you could save years of pain and confusion later?

Learning the difference between things that add pressure and weight to your life and the things that make everything else run smoothly is key.

Then, doing the latter creates seamless and effortless execution for what you want to accomplish.

Yes, You Can Do This

"It's not an accident that successful people read more books." - Seth Godin

Successful people read many more books and connect with many more people because they set goals and objectives that would take far too long for them to reach on their own.

If Jeff Bezos never hired any employees, how big do you think his company would be?

You can't build something truly amazing yourself.

It's when you dissolve your ego, humbly look around, and focus on where you can give credit that you actually achieve the most significance.

Unfortunately, most people are so in their own way they don't see what knowledge and abilities they lack and where they should improve. They don't devour the great books, learn from the masters, and most importantly, implement what they teach.

Then, if you ask them why they don't spend time on this essential activity, you'll almost inevitably hear "I might read that when I have more time."

By then, they've missed the point. Great books can literally change one's life. I've never understood how one could not have the time to read. When looking back at my life, I've read books before that have literally saved me dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of hours worth of guesswork.

Tony Robbins has a concept called the decade in a day, meaning that through a book or seminar you're essentially getting the best wisdom from somebody over 10 or more years of their experience, but it only took you a few hours to go and get it.

Yes, you do have time to spend learning. Warren Buffett spends 80% of his days reading.

When you look at time this way, suddenly personal learning has a huge ROI. The worth of your time is thousands of times repaid.

You aren't going to be around for very long compared to the whole scope of history. However, you can get all the wisdom and advice you need for a hundred lifetimes because humanity as a whole over the course of thousands of years has figured things out that you don't need to go reinvent. All you have to do is be smart enough to take advantage of the existing resources.

Don't reinvent the wheel.

Newton spent his life studying and writing down the most important laws in physics. Thus, everyone who came after him had a solid understanding of gravity. When the Wright brothers built their airplane, they didn't need to spend their entire lives first analyzing what actually keeps us on the ground.

People before them did that.

That piece was already in place.

All they had to do was build the next thing. As Newton himself actually said, it was by standing on the shoulders of giants before him that he was able to accomplish the things that he did.

People before you, giants, have paved the way. The scope of human knowledge and expertise is fascinatingly large. There are mentors available for just about anything you desire to do.

The only thing holding you back from dramatically shortening your learning curve is your own ego. The "I can do it all on my own" mindset.

Viewing time in this way:

• Do you really have time not to read great books?
• Do you really have time not to find the best mentors, coaches, and guides you possibly can?
• Do you really have time not to collapse the time frames in your life, business, and work by bringing other people on board who will do the things you can't do as well?

The 50-Years Test: Where Will You End Up?

"A man's character is like his house. If he tears boards off his house and burns them to keep himself warm and comfortable, his house soon becomes a ruin." - Ralph Moody

What you're doing today is most definitely building something.

What will that something look like in 50 years? Is your house going to be a palace or a ruin?

Are you foolishly sacrificing greatness in the long run by doing what's easy today?

Is the work you do currently on a trajectory to get much better as time goes on?

Are the activities you're doing leading you uphill or downhill?

Are you collapsing the time frames it takes to do something by bringing the right ideas, wisdom, and expertise from others on board?

Conclusion

In Richie Norton's breakthrough book The Power of Starting Something Stupid, he warned against those who wait before creating their dreams:

"Here is the cold, hard fact of the matter. No matter how hard you work, no matter how much you study, no matter how much money you earn and tuck away, no matter (insert your favorite excuses here), there is still no guarantee that the stars will eventually align in the way you're waiting for them to....You have exactly zero reasons left to wait until later."

I offer a similar warning.

Don't wait to start. Don't wait to learn. You'll never be ready. You'll never have enough time to do something. So make time. Block out what matters to you and accelerate your learning curve with the tools in this article. Your dreams may not take as many hours as you thought.