The
biggest difference I’ve observed between successful &
non-successful people is: HOW THEY SPEND THEIR TIME. People either waste
time or improve the “future version” of yourself.
Amazingly,
poor / unsuccessful people spend any waking moment “filling time”. That
is to say, doing things that add little to no value to their future
life — filling their time with “stuff to do”. I’m talking about playing
games on their phones, on instagram, snapchat, youtube, facebook, etc.
This is acceptable when you are a child, but not as an adult! Their
mindless minutes waste away — minutes turn into hours, hours turn into
days and weeks and months — pure time wasting. Unsuccessful people place
a very “low value” on their time — even though they have a fixed life
span — a limited time on earth — they have a “do it later mindset”. Yes,
they may be behind on their rent, credit cards and car payments, but
generally goofing off takes away some stress.
Successful
people spend their time reading new books, listening to educational
podcasts, learning new things, experiencing new things, visiting new
places, writing about their experiences, practicing their
craft/specialty, etc. They are generally “curious” about the world they
live in and place a very “high value” on their time — they say “No”
often to commitments that drain their time. Yes, successful people may
have acquired some wealth, but they are always driving towards improving
themselves and learning to adapt to changing circumstances — they have a
“do it now” mindset. They travel to exotic locations and try new things
to burn stress, they work hard and play hard.
(Banff National Park, Sept 2013)
If
you think about the best use of your life, it’s to build something that
lasts longer than your life — why waste life away on things that just
fill up time?
So the next time you have a
free hour or two, THINK CAREFULLY about how you will spend it — wasting
time on something doesn’t improve your life OR doing something that can
provide a future benefit. Do you lean more towards how successful or
unsuccessful people think?
We aren’t
trying to define what success is here…everyone has their own personal
success “definition”. Pretty amazing how many people disagree with the
basic idea of using your time wisely. Do you think todays Billionaires
like: Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett spend hours and hours on
Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat letting time pass watching cute cat
videos every day? The basic idea is to improve the FUTURE version of
yourself.