Do you believe that hard work is what it takes to be successful?
I know this sounds bad, but I think it's one of the most bullishit
ideas that's emerging in the culturescape today. Hard work has very, very,
very little to do with success. But do this, if you just open up Instagram
and follow most entrepreneurial channels on Instagram there's this bullshit
simplistic motivational pictures that you see consistently about working
100-hour weeks, about working harder than the competition. I mean,
check this one out. This one is apparently a quote from Elon Musk that says,
"Work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in 80 to 100 hours
every week. This improves the odds of success." The problem is it doesn't.
You see, science shows that after around 50 hours of productive time,
your productivity goes down. But what happens is,
if you continue pushing yourself, often due to lack of sleep,
due to lack of taking care of your health, you have failed relationships.
You have failed social connections. You have sleep deprivation which is
reducing your cognitive abilities, which means your performance
starts depreciating. You start aging more. And so, this whole idea of hard work as a
means to success is one of the most dumb ideas that entrepreneurs are putting out.
I used to believe it and it ruined me and it slowed down my growth.
Now, there's an alternate idea, and if you've read Michael Singer's book,
"The Surrender Experiment" he's at the whole other end of that spectrum.
In "The Surrender Experiment" Michael Singer, he, by the way,
is the guy who also wrote "The Untethered Soul" which is a
New York Times bestseller, but I prefer his book
"The Surrender Experiment." He built a billion-dollar company
through what he calls "The Art of Surrender," regular meditation,
getting into flow. So, what is going on here?
How do you have these two opposing thoughts from people who are building
massive businesses, who are massively productive, and one is about hard work and
one is about surrender. Now, I was thinking about this a lot for the
last five years because this matters to me. As an entrepreneur,
I want to be able to get a lot done but I don't want to break myself doing it.
And what I realized, and I shared some of this in my book,
"The Code of the Extraordinary Mind" is that it's not binary.
It's not about hard work nor is it about surrender. It's not binary rather there is
a layering to it. In my theory, I suggest that there are four different
levels of consciousness and if you're at the first level of consciousness,
you need hard work. But very rapidly you can move to the next level
of consciousness and at the secondary level of consciousness you start learning
particular tools that allow you to do more with less work. Now, you want to move up.
Now, there's a third level of consciousness which a lot of people don't
even know exists. At that third level of consciousness, your goals no longer even
become important. At that third level of consciousness, you're tapped
into something else. And there's a fourth level
of consciousness which is where some of the most remarkable people in the world
I've seen play at and they just seem blessed by luck and they are not breaking
themselves with hard work. So. in short, this binary idea, hard work
versus surrender is not really binary. You can flip it around.
And what you need to do depends on what of the four levels of consciousness you're
currently operating on. So, if you find this idea fascinating,
if you've wondered about this, this hard work idea as I have,
check out this master class I'm doing. It's about an hour and 10 minutes that I
go deep into these theories and I share with you the four levels of consciousness
and the protocols and the tools that I've been bringing in in these four levels
to maximize my impact in the world and I think you might find this
really interesting. So, as you guys know, I'm an ardent consciousness hacker
from teaching meditation for five years to launching meditation apps to putting
myself through a lot of different systems for playing with my consciousness.
I've tried to figure out how to access altered states to maximize productivity.
And really, this whole thing about hard work guys is rubbish.
It is absolute rubbish. It's a bullshit idea that needs to be
swept into the dustbin of history because it only applies to people who are
operating at the most basic level of state awareness. So, anyway,
check out this master class if you find this idea interesting.
I'd love to know your thoughts and I'd love to see what you think.