The Most Important Question You Need To Answer To Be Successful
You've probably listened to many interviews of successful people. You've read their autobiographies. You've watched them talk on stage and shared their stories.
All these successful people, the self-made ones, share certain similarities:
They worked hard. They faced lots of obstacles and problems. And they persevered.
Pick a field, and you'll see that the top 1% in that field had to overcome lots of diversity before triumphing.
Malcolm Gladwell talked about the 10,000 hour rule to be great at anything. The idea is that you need to have 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become a master and be successful.
Michael Jordan worked on his craft to become arguably the best basketball player. He practiced drills, he lifted weights, etc every day. Gary Vaynerchuk, before becoming a house name in the marketing world, worked every day in his dad's liquor store.
So people always thought that hard work and perseverance are the secrets to success because successful people preach about these ideas when they share their journey.
But here is the truth: many people work hard.
What distinguish successful people then?
You can find the answer to that by answering one powerful question:
What are you willing to sacrifice to be successful?
When you have the answer to that question, you will automatically work hard. You will persevere and survive through adversity.
Why is sacrifice the key to success?
It's not a lie when all the gurus said that you can become anything you want, as long as it doesn't defy the laws of nature (e.g. it's complicated to be a NBA player if you're 3 feet tall).
But you can be great at many other things. You can be a great father. You can be a great husband. You can become a great marketer. You can be a millionaire. You can be a billionaire.
The only trick is that:
You can be successful at many things, but you can't be successful at all of them.
Your time is limited. You are given 24 hours a day during which you have to sleep, work, learn new things, and live.
That means something in your life has to give. You need to sacrifice some activities to be successful in a few others. It can be a weekend gate away with your partner. May be you need to sacrifice the time you spend with your children. May be it's your sleep that you have to sacrifice.
Jack Dorsey claimed in 2011 that he'd slept for less than 6 hours when he had to run both Twitter and Square.
Note: Sleep deprivation is no joke. So I don't recommend decreasing your sleep time.
Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbla famously sold 1,000 boxes of cereals, that they called Obama O's and Captain Mc Cain, to keep Airbnb afloat at the beginning (they made money out of the 2008 presidential election).
Elon Musk got $180 million when Ebay acquired Paypal. And he invested most of it to fund SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Even before that, Musk and his brother slept in their office and used YMCA shower while they started Zip2, their first company.
Why then no one talks about sacrifice?
By now, you must be wondering, "so if sacrifice is the key to success, why successful people don't talk much about it?"
I was like you. I also asked the same question.
But then it dawned on me that successful people actually talked about sacrifices, only in a way that soothes our ears. When they told us that they worked really hard, they were saying that they spent less time with their friends and family.
But it's hard to acknowledge that you knowingly chose not to spend time with your family.
Besides, that message might not resonate with others. Everyone can work hard. But not everybody is willing to sacrifice their Friday night out with their friends, or their weekly hike with their family, to get there.
In conclusion
If you are really serious about being successful, do you know what sacrifices you are willing to make to achieve it?
Are you willing to do anything, as long as it is legal, to get there?
