Execute Ruthlessly On These Five Basic Habits To Outperform 95% of People.

15 Jan

“You only have to get things right a few times” — Warren Buffett

I have a deep fascination with extreme outliers.

Think elite athletes, world-class CEOs, or prophet-like investors.

I’ll read their books, listen to their podcasts and stalk them on every social media platform.

I am like a crack addict, if only for self-development content.

The biggest misconception is that extremely successful people live life fundamentally differently, or have access to knowledge we don’t.

Wrong.

Okay then, what makes successful people successful?

Answer:

They execute basic habits consistently for a long period of time.

As Warren Buffett once said,

“You only have to get things right a few times. 12 investment decisions in my career have made all the difference.”

From my obsession with successful people, here’s what I’ve observed.

#1: They do this every morning.

What do Jack Dorsey, Tim Cook, and Mark Wahlberg all have in common?

They are all early risers.

Waking up early is not a magic bullet that will make you successful overnight (pun intended).

But there is strong evidence to suggest that your creativity and focus peak in the morning hours.

Throw in some exercise and you’re off to the races.

Not to mention the freedom from notifications and distractions. There is no expectation to be on your phone at 5 or 6 am in the morning.

Successful people exploit the morning hours to do the most non-urgent but high-leverage work. They design their life to capitalize on their morning creativity and flow.

Unsuccessful people leave their mornings unprotected. They schedule low-value, urgent tasks. They let people book meetings during their peak flow hours. Big mistake.

Knowing how to protect your most valuable hours of the day is a signal of a successful person. It’s positive productivity.

They can work less while doing more at a higher quality.

Successful people know that not all hours of the day are created equally. This is how you can work for 4 hours per day and produce more value than people working 10 hours a day.

How you spend your morning, is how you spend your day. How you spend your days, determines how you spend your week. Weeks determine months, and eventually your year.

#2: They are constantly doing this.

This is probably the worst-kept secret for success.

Reading lots of books.

In our distracted, 15-second attention span (thanks Tik Tok) world, the ability to engage deeply with topics is shrinking.

This is great news for you.

Reading is becoming more valuable at the exact time it is becoming rarer.

Fewer and fewer people are reading.

Which means more and more opportunities for you.

If you can commit to reading a book every few weeks, you’ll put yourself ahead of 95% of people.

I’ve not met a single successful person who doesn’t read a lot of books.

Elon Musk grew up reading two books per day.
Bill Gates reads 50+ books per year.
Warren Buffett spends five to six hours per day reading.

Remember when you would use cheat codes to level up your character in a game? Well, reading books are those cheat codes in real life.

You can get access to the best minds in the world for less than the price of dinner.

You get the point — read more books, quit most of them, and read the great ones twice.

#3: They aren’t ruled by the chemicals in their brains

We all feel emotions. That’s normal.

But we all process and use emotions differently.

That’s where successful people edge out unsuccessful people.

Successful people will feel a lack of motivation, self-doubt and insecurity, but will use it to fuel their creativity and work.

Unsuccessful people will remain trapped in their emotions, using them as an excuse to not work on their dreams.

Successful people use their emotions as a guide on the side, not the sage on the stage.

They let emotions point you in the right direction, not make them careen headfirst into a tree.

#4: They focus on building this.

Successful people focus on building leverage.

Leverage allows you to make greater returns, with less work over time.

They do this by creating permissionless leverage for themselves through:

Code (and no-code tools).
Media (blogs, videos, podcasts).
Community (paid memberships, etc).

Joe Rogan never asked if he could create the biggest podcast in the world.

And also do this by creating permission leverage:

Labor (i.e people working for you).
Capital (i.e money).

Building leverage requires an upfront investment of time and energy, with no promise of a return immediately.

But permissionless leverage has a long tail of investment return.

You could build something once, and get paid a lifetime for it.

#5: They never forget about doing this.

They never stop investing.

Not in the financial markets or in businesses.

But in themselves.

Warren Buffett credits a public speaking course he did for much of his success.

Investment in yourself can look like this:

Taking an intentional break to rest and reset
Buying an online course
Hiring a coach and mentor
Joining a paid community

Don’t be a cheap stake for your own self-development.

Always wanting ‘free’ or ‘cheap’ self-investment is expensive.

Successful people know their best work comes after investing in themselves. Unsuccessful people wait for people to invest in them.

So, what does this mean for you?

This isn’t another successful p*rn article.

The truth is that success is up to you to define.

You get to decide what success looks, sounds and feels like to you.

This could look like winning awards, hitting profit targets, and gaining the reputation of being the top dog.

But the habits I’ve written about transcend circumstance.

They can help you 10x your results in whatever you want to achieve.

Wake up earlier.
Manage your emotions.
Read more books.
Build leverage.
Invest in yourself.

___________________________________________

If you enjoyed this article, you can connect with me HERE.

You can also support more of my work by becoming a Medium Member using my referral link: michael-lim.medium.com

Chennie Biadnes