How hustling only makes you tired, not rich. (upbeat music) So hustle, work your face off, work 'till you drop, work until you're exhausted. That's always the message about the secret to success. You've got to work hard and you've got to put in the hours. I think that there's some truth to that, but that truly is not the answer. Because if that is the answer, I have two questions for you and then I'll rest my case.
Number one, are you currently working very, very hard? Are you getting the results that you want? Are you making the kinda money that you want? That's question number one. If the answer's no, then why not? If that's such a secret formula for success, right? Number two, how many people do you know in your life, that works very hard, yet they don't make a lot of money? Think about it, so that cannot be it. That cannot be the answer. It's part of the answer, you've got to put in the effort.
You've got to work hard to a degree, but that's not what's gonna make you rich. So what is the answer, what is the truth? The truth is this. I think it depends on where you are in your career, but assuming I'm talking to you as an entrepreneur, I'm talking to you as a high achiever, here's what I believe. If you've been working and hustling ... I hustled the first five years of my life, I did.
I worked every single day, I didn't take a single day off, the first five years of my life. There was no balance, I was working my face off. I gotta pay the price to success, I got that. But if after five years in your career, I believe, in terms of money, if you're not making at least six figure income, after five years of hard work, something is missing.
If after 10 years of your career as an entrepreneur, you're not making seven figure income, you gotta revisit, you gotta look at what you're doing right now. Something is wrong, that's the way I measure it. Because if you're not making the money that you want after ten years, you really think, by putting in more hours, which you know, you cannot possibly put in more hours. You've put in as many hours as you could, you work on the weekends, that is not the answer.
While you're working 12 hours a day. What are you gonna work, 13, 14? That two hours, when you're exhausted, that two hours effort, you think that is gonna make you the difference? That's gonna give you the breakthrough? It's not, that is not the answer. So that's why I much more subscribe to the principle of the 80-20 Principle. Now if you've never read that book by Richard Koch, I recommend you read it, it's a phenomenal book. It's one of the books that I highly, highly recommend. What he means is, anything that you do in life, 20% of your activities give you 80% of the results. 20% of customers gives you 80% of revenue. 20% of customers give you 80% of headaches.
You look at everything we do in life, only 20% of what you do gives you 80% of results. So if you're looking at what you do, you're hustling, you're doing all these things, which is good, but then you gotta think about, if it's not working, you got to know how to think. It's not just hustle, you got to think, what is it that I'm doing, what is not working? What could I have done better? A lot of the influencers, a lot of the gurus, they all talk about hustle, hustle. "You gotta work 10 times harder man, you gotta work your face off." Their approach, I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying that's their approach. I'm just saying that's what they do, it's the shotgun approach, right? It's boom, all this effort and you just do as much shotgun, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and hopefully something will hit, and you know what? You do enough of that something will hit and it's okay, but my approach, is the sniper approach. I wait and I wait, and I look and I look, and it's one shot and it's one kill, that's it.
Minimum effort, maximum result. I don't do the shotgun approach, I do the sniper approach. That's the way I see it and that's why, everything I stand for is about simplicity. It's about simplicity, it's about elegance. Hustle is not what makes you rich. You look at every single rich person that I know, they hustle, yes they still hustle, which is fine. But their definition of hustle is very different, from your definition of hustle. Your hustle is just work, work, work, work, work. While I can tell you what makes people rich, is not the word hustle. What makes people rich, is the word leverage. Look at every single rich person, has leverage. I'm talking about, what is leverage? Other peoples time, other peoples money, other peoples resources. They have a team, they have money making them money. They have advisors, they have technology. They have something, they leverage other people's 'blank'. Other peoples talents, other peoples resources. Other peoples time, other peoples intelligence. That's what makes you rich. The keyword is not hustle, it's leverage.
Now, you got to earn the right to get to the point leverage, and chances are you might not have the understanding to be there yet, but today, I'm just sharing the concept with you. Hustle, but then you got to learn to leverage, we get to the next level. I'll share a very simple thing, a simple story about my life. When I was making six figure income in my early 20s, I set the goals that I want to make, I want to become a millionaire. Now you gotta understand, when you're making six figure income, a $100000 a year, a $120000 a year, to make a million dollars a year, what do you do? At the time I knew that, okay, I'm working pretty damn, frigging hard. I wasn't taking a lot of time off, and I'm making six figure, $100000 a year. If I want to get to a million dollars a year, that's 10 times the results, that's 10 times the income. I sure as hell don't think I could work 10 times harder. I only have 24 hours a day, I cannot suddenly have 240 hours a day, that's just impossible.
I still have 24 hours a day, so what could I do? SO the answer I knew ... I didn't have the answer back then, but I knew for sure it wasn't 10 times more effort. That's not it, but it is 10 times more leverage. How can I leverage, how can I have 10 times more impact? How can I reach 10 times more people in the marketplace? How can I deliver 10 times more value? How can I have 10 times more quality? That's the leverage key, that's what makes you earn more money, because money is nothing more than a byproduct of value creation. How can you create more value for more people? It's that simple, so at a time when I was making six figure income, I was only working with a handful of people.
I was only serving a dozen people, and I was making grade A money. So I know if I wanted to make more money, I needed to serve more, I needed 10X times the people that I served. Maybe not 10X, but I definitely needed to multiply that number. And I also know, to be a seven figure earner, it's very, very different from a six figure earner in terms of mindset. So I know two things, I need to shift my mindset. The way I think about, who do I have to become to want to think about these things.
And I need to think about how I can, deliver more value to more people, or in a bigger way. That's it, not the money part, that's what I focus on. It's not just hustle you see, it's so far from fucking hustle. It's not about that, it's about thinking. I think about that and I accomplish that goal.
NOTE: Full of speech is in video!