How do you become a millionaire — or a billionaire?
With 24-hour days.
Last night I watched a YouTube video of a kid who has dedicated the past four years of his life to becoming a better surfer. He moved to Oahu, Hawaii, and started surfing every day for at least two hours. Some days, he surfs six to eight hours.
I love surfing — at least the idea of it. I’ve surfed 10-15 times in my life. I’m terrible.
I want to float and carve on big waves. But, I surf once or twice a year. By Thursday each week, the kid from the video surfs as much as I do in a year.
Unless I too were to dedicate four years of my life — likely longer since I’m 39 and and he’s 20 — I will never be as good as him at surfing.
Success is almost always determined by the amount of time you invest.
There are undeniable genetic, physical, and mental factors that make it easier for people to succeed. A five foot two guy has zero chance at becoming an NBA center.
However, in most pursuits, you can become better than 99% of others if you’re willing to do the work. You have the potential in you to do far more than you’re doing today.
Your 24-Hour Opportunity
I win receive no sympathy when I share this: I want to gain weight.
My body wants to be 180 pounds; For sports and appearance, I prefer 200.
To gain weight, I must track everything I eat for at least a couple weeks every 3-6 months. I then can calibrate my diet to produce the results I want.
Small decisions, a few calories here and there, produce unnoticeable results. Repeated for months and years, small decisions produce enormous cumulative effects.
You don’t become obese eating one 200,000 calorie meal. You gain weight one 200-calorie snack, or slightly larger portion, at a time. Eat an extra 500 calories more than you burn per day and you’ll gain one pound of body weight per week. Eat one bag of potato chips more than your daily calorie expenditure, gain 17 pounds in a year — in five years, 85 pounds.
Small uses of time produce unnoticeable short-term effects and undeniable long-term effects.
You don’t build wealth in one day, no matter how many of the 24 hours you work. You learn and apply what you learn day after day, for years.
Warren Buffett once gave a lecture to a group of students in which one of them asked, “Mr. Buffett, how do you become a great investor?” Buffett, holding up a large stack of papers, replied,
“Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”
–Warren Buffett
Here’s a plan that would work for anyone who desires wealth, though few will follow it:
- Go to Amazon and look at the category of books related to entrepreneurship. Order the top three books.
- Read those three books and triangulate the advice in them. What are they all saying that seems to be the same thing?
- Apply the consistent advice to either start a business, get better at your current job, or prepare for a new job.
- Each week, reflect on what worked and what didn’t in your pursuit of wealth. Keep notes.
- Order and read the next three entrepreneurship, business, or investing books on Amazon.
- Repeat steps 1-5 for 5-10 years.
All the advice you need to accomplish anything you want is out there waiting for you. You just have to A) want it, B) go get it, C) apply it, and D) do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Track Your Time
Most people don’t know where their time goes, and don’t achieve what they want in life.
Solve this problem starting today.
Create a spreadsheet with the following four columns:
- DATE
- START TIME
- END TIME
- ACTIVITY
For two weeks, log all you do that’s more than 15 minutes (leave out your bathroom breaks). Enter your sleep, meals, work, hobbies, and entertainment. Everything.
After two weeks, review the results.
If you were to show your log to the person you admire and respect most in the world, would you be embarrassed?
Good. Now change how you spend your time to align more with what you want in life.
Don’t make excuses. Take 100% responsibility for your life.
Unless you believe you’re going to be reincarnated as a cricket, you only have one life.
Every day, you have less life remaining than you did the day before. Every hour is an opportunity, a gift.
Decide now where you wish your hours to take you.