#1 key to success in business and life according to Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs – FOCUS – only doing one thing in life. Saying no to everything that is not that one thing. Working and grinding and thinking about that thing 24/7. Always asking yourself, “Will this help me at my one thing?” No one respect someone who is mediocre at a lot of things. Everyone respects people who are the best at one thing. Focus is saying no to social events other than family, saying no to different business opportunities, saying no to random hobbies. Remind yourself to focus everyday. Most people can focus for a day or a week or a month or sometimes even a year. But the people who can focus deep and hard for years and years are the ones who conquer the world. Bill Gates slept under his desk all through his twenties even when he was already a billionaire. https://images.app.goo.gl/REzti41KsTmES6BNA
It means saying no to drinking, going to bars, wasting time with bad people. It means going to bed early, eating well and putting all your mental energy and time into building an unstoppable machine of a business.
Strangely, the harder you work, the easier life gets. It is soul destroying to work for minimum wage in a factory or a store doing the same thing over and over for a tiny amount of money that never grows. It is life enriching to build a business and do new things every day, see the amount of money you make grow year after year, and earn the respect of everyone you know.
I want a better life for my kids than I had. I want them to go to good schools, have successful people around them, avoid pitfalls like alcohol drugs and poverty, to be happy and satisfied. It is getting harder in America to move up social classes. Far fewer people have done it in our generation vs previous generations. Our kids may be stuck in whatever socioeconomic class we earn for them. So it is critical we put all of our energy into learning and growing business and getting as far ahead as we can.
Plus focusing all your energy and getting amazingly good at one thing is much more fun and satisfying than anything else you can do in life. Once I became wealthy, I tried all of the “fun” stuff… I spent months traveling through Europe, Asia. I spent a year golfing everyday at a fancy country club with rich retired men, I spent time with friends in Vegas… All of it ultimately became boring and didn’t provide meaning. So now I am back to building business and am happier than ever.
Sam Walton, founder of Walmart in 1930s, worked on building it to a massive titan in the 1980s. He said in his autobiography he wrote of his life that he loved working on his business more than anything. He died of cancer in the 1980s and right up till the day he died he was traveling the country visiting Walmarts and working. His family is now one of the wealthiest and most powerful dynasties in the world.
John D Rockefeller, the wealthiest man of all time, built Standard Oil by working every day until he was 97. He was the most powerful man in the world for the last few decades of his life. He never drank alcohol or did any drugs. He said the success of his business was due to his focus on working to make it the best running company possible. He worked hard and focused his whole life. He has been dead nearly a century, and his family is still one of the most powerful in the world with hundreds of his descendants being multimillionaires and even a few billionaires.
One more thing… Wealthy people become wealthy by looking at money differently than poor people. Lots of books and studies have been written on this. Wealthy people see each dollar as a tool / an employee. Each dollar needs to go to work for you to make more. Poor people only view money as something to spend. Rich people only spend money when spending that money does not matter to them.. it’s much less than 1% of their net worth. If you invest $1,000 today in your business or in a stock or real estate, It could grow to be $100,000 in 15 years or so. If you spend that $1,000 today, it’s gone forever and you may not have future opportunities to earn it again. Most money spent on personal stuff does not improve your happiness. You just want the next thing after that. When your mindset changes to focusing on your business and growing your wealth, You actually become much happier. It is much more satisfying to grow your power (dollars are just units of power) then to waste it on frivolous things. Read up on the power of compounding interest, focusing on going a business that builds wealth and reinvesting that money wisely leads to being able to have a truly meaningful life.
It took me a long time to understand all of this stuff, and now it’s my goal to make my team members genuine partners. I think the very best motivation and the very best growth comes when you share the wealth building opportunities of a business with your team.