Most people in life look for a shortcut to success. The easy path. Maybe trying to win the lottery or buying some get rich quick scheme that they saw online. But how often do those work? Extremely rarely at best. But people keep looking and trying. Let’s stop and think for a moment. How much further ahead in life would all those people be, if all the time and effort they had spent looking for a shortcut, were spent on the normal path just working to move ahead? Let’s ask that question again but with a small change. How much further ahead would all those people be, if all the time and effort they had spent looking for a shortcut, were spent working hard on a difficult path? Because most people avoid the difficult paths, so those who voluntarily choose to walk that way, will be compensated proportionally. There is actually a strong argument to be made that they are compensated exponentially.
In the book “Why Men Earn More” by Warren Farrell, on page 78, the author states that people who work 13% more hours end up earning 44% more pay. He got his data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics by the way. For an average work week of 40 hours, 13% more hours is only 5 more hours. That’s one extra hour per day. Essentially come in 30 mins earlier and leave 30 mins later. This is not to say that the first week you start doing this, your pay is going up immediately. That 44% more pay is more so spread out over time through faster raises, promotions or you moving to a different company that will pay you more for your effort.
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Alright we’ve established that shortcuts essentially don’t work. So what about the opposite? Something I call the Longcut. Could something like that work? I’d argue yes, but it will require patience and of course hard work, because nothing good in life comes easy. To explain the Longcut, I’d have to combine knowledge from two different sources.
One is a quote “You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with.” If your five closest friends that you hang out with the most are drunkards who get wasted Friday and Saturday night, you’re probably doing the same thing. If your five closest friends are health and fitness nuts who go to the gym every Friday night, you’re probably doing the same thing. If they’re finance experts who are constantly investing, again you’re probably doing the same thing. Parents instinctively know this quote to be true. That’s why they watch carefully who their children spend time with. They know that what their children say and do is most often learned from the people around them.
The other knowledge source is a poem.
“Be careful of your thoughts, for they become your words.
Be careful of your words, for they become your actions.
Be careful of your actions, for they become your habits.
Be careful of your habits, for they become your character.
Be careful of your character, for that becomes your destiny.”
You can see how little things may become something big. Someone thinking about revenge may act it out and wind up in jail (Their destiny). Someone else thinking about a business idea may take action on it and become a multimillionaire (Also their destiny). The difference starts small, with what thoughts they choose to have.
Ok now we have our two knowledge sources to combine to create the Longcut to Success. Firstly success means different things to different people. For some it means getting really wealthy. For others it may mean getting to the top in some field, like maybe becoming a pro football (soccer for Americans) player. Regardless the Longcut works either way. First we apply the quote “You are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with”. If you want to become wealthy, surround yourself with wealthy people as much as you can. The wealthier the better. So look at billionaires. And maybe not just any billionaire. The top five throughout history. Oh wait, you don’t know any billionaires at all nor any way to get to know them. The wonder of modern technology is that you can watch, listen and learn from people that you don’t know and even from people that are already dead. Youtube videos, documentaries, books, podcasts, audiobooks. You can find your billionaires, pro football players or whomever you want to be like in those sources. Personally I prefer podcasts and Youtube videos. They’re free and I can listen to them passively using earbuds while driving, cooking, cleaning, etc. This allows me to use time extremely efficiently.
When you do all the mundane activities that you have to do daily, (showering, restroom, driving, cooking, eating, cleaning, etc), listen or watch the five people that you want to be like. If you do that then they essentially become the five people that you spend the most time with. Over time, they will rub off on you. Words and phrases that they say, actions that they take, how they think. Don’t believe me? Look at your own life and think about where you think, talk and act like your friends.
After a while of listening to your chosen five people, you will begin thinking like them. This is where the poem from earlier comes in. Thinking requires thoughts. Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, character becomes destiny.
That is not to say that your desired end result will come without work. No it will actually take a tremendous amount of work, spread over a long period of time. It will also almost certainly not follow the exact path that you plan. As in the poem, in order to get to your destiny, thoughts have to be followed by ACTION. Many people never make it past that step. They think about things but don’t do anything about it. Make no mistake. Work is required. But that was the whole point of this article. The Longcut to success. People looking for shortcuts avoid work. People on the Longcut embrace it.