Socialism. It's created some of the worst tyrannies known to the history of man. The USSR. North Korea. China. Cuba. Vietnam. Hundreds of millions of human beings dead, all in the name of an ideology which claims to value the common man.
When one points this out to liberals, they invariably whine that socialism in itself is a good idea and that the governments in question weren't/aren't not socialist. Such is an example of what's known as the "No True Scotsman" Fallacy. The individuals who founded the governments in questions believed in socialist principles in every way. I actually believe that they meant well and were honest in their overall intentions. Unfortunately, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Lenin was an honest man. Stalin was probably an honest man. Mao and Ho Chi Mihn were probably honest men. They believed in what they were preaching. The fact of the matter is that what they preached simply didn't and couldn't ever work. The totalitarianism found in traditionally socialist societies was the direct result of trying to address the problems that arose as a direct result of socialism.
Socialism is borne out of egalitarianism. It strives to make everyone equal. The fundamental problem is that everyone isn't equal -- some of us are better than others. Some people are willing to put in serious effort while others play. It's the old fable of the ant and the grasshopper.
Individuals with the drive to get things done are somewhat rare. Given the option, most people would prefer to kick back and relax. It's individuals who get things done who motivate those people to actually make something of themselves. When everyone is made equal and the fruits of motivated labor are simply given to those that don't work, stagnancy will inevitably set in.
Socialism prevents people from having that hustling drive. There is no benefit in doing so; your reward is exactly the same as the person who doesn't hustle. More importantly, however, those with hustle aren't permitted to leverage the talents of those who don't hustle. You wind up with those whom are willing to work supporting those who don't want to work. It doesn't work.
A purely socialist society attaches no benefit to leveraging other people. Sure, your talents enable more to be accomplished within a certain period of time, but you're not compensated for this. Instead, you're expected to accept it as your reward that you simply fulfilled your social duty. That doesn't mesh with human nature. The result is that individuals with the talent for leveraging others do not apply that talent. There's simply no reward for doing so.
Thus nothing gets done. Now, you have to understand that the socialist revolutionaries, whatever you might believe about them, had hustle. They had beliefs. They risked themselves as leaders of men who organized themselves around those beliefs. Where others talked, they acted. They applied the concepts of leverage in order to use the talents of others to bring the greatest successes. Their biggest mistake was that they were wrong.
That's where totalitarianism arose. Socialist policies completely ruined the societies in which they were applied. In order to salvage things, socialist leaders applied far more leverage than should ever be applied by any human being. It's not a surprise that they did -- they had no competition that could stop them in any meaningful manner. So they leveraged their people, expecting out of them more talent than they could ever hope to display given the circumstances. The people who were supposed to benefit most from the revolutions suffered the hardest.
This is why socialism always fails wherever it is tried and why, in revolutionary societies, it leads to totalitarian dictatorship. When policies do not work and the alternative is dire suffering, people sometimes impose the harshest measures to get the results they see as necessary. Some men are better at this than others -- revolutions build men who can hustle and apply leverage better than anything else. Give them an awful situation where there situation is ruined beyond all belief, however, and they will go overboard trying to fix the situation.
Showing posts with label hustle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hustle. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Going the Extra Mile
A friend of mine impressed me today.
This friend of mine is an avid fan of Disney. In particular, he loves Walt Disney World, so much so that he hopes to build a long term career there. Against the recommendations of some of his friends and family, he applied last year for the Disney College Program as a custodian. This guy is very intelligent and probably could have picked his jobs a bit more wisely but he ran with it.
Long story short, he got the job. He loved working there but circumstances in his personal life coupled with not being quite fit for custodial work led to his going home early. He was a bit distraught as it was still a place he wanted to build a career.
Some people give up on their dreams. My friend chose to pursue it again. This time he has reapplied to work for Disney in a job for which he feels great enthusiasm: "Attractions" (basically, the people who operate the rides). Good deal.
Now, most people would be content to reapply and leave it at that. Some go an extra step and call/email to confirm their interest in the position. He did that too. But a few days ago he did something which displayed excellent hustle and surprised me a bit, to say the least.
He created a website.
His website is called I Want To Work At Disney. He even took the time and extra money to register the name www.iwanttoworkatdisney.com! It's still a work in progress, of course, and he says he's constantly working to refine it, but I'm impressed that he's made the effort in the first place.
The winnings in life go to those who are willing to go the extra mile in life and put in extra effort where others are content to rest. I'll keep you updated regarding how he does.
This friend of mine is an avid fan of Disney. In particular, he loves Walt Disney World, so much so that he hopes to build a long term career there. Against the recommendations of some of his friends and family, he applied last year for the Disney College Program as a custodian. This guy is very intelligent and probably could have picked his jobs a bit more wisely but he ran with it.
Long story short, he got the job. He loved working there but circumstances in his personal life coupled with not being quite fit for custodial work led to his going home early. He was a bit distraught as it was still a place he wanted to build a career.
Some people give up on their dreams. My friend chose to pursue it again. This time he has reapplied to work for Disney in a job for which he feels great enthusiasm: "Attractions" (basically, the people who operate the rides). Good deal.
Now, most people would be content to reapply and leave it at that. Some go an extra step and call/email to confirm their interest in the position. He did that too. But a few days ago he did something which displayed excellent hustle and surprised me a bit, to say the least.
He created a website.
His website is called I Want To Work At Disney. He even took the time and extra money to register the name www.iwanttoworkatdisney.com! It's still a work in progress, of course, and he says he's constantly working to refine it, but I'm impressed that he's made the effort in the first place.
The winnings in life go to those who are willing to go the extra mile in life and put in extra effort where others are content to rest. I'll keep you updated regarding how he does.
How to Make More Money
Time is money. The saying is old and clichéd and yet few things in life are as true. How often do you stop to think about the value of your own time?
Most people's time is worth very little. This is reflected by the fact that they do not make money for that time. If you take a moment to examine the reasons as to why this is so, the answer becomes apparent -- they spend most of their time doing things that are pretty much worthless. Their activities are not producing any value.
Before I get started, I want to make it clear that there's absolutely nothing wrong with relaxing or doing stuff that's fun. Such is absolutely key to a healthy and well-balanced life. There's no point in striving to become wealthy if not for the aim of enjoying the "finer things" in life! If you don't take the time to relax and enjoy your life you'll burn out.
With that in mind, however, it's important to keep in mind that time spent watching television or doing the countless other mundane things people do during the course of a day is time where you're not providing value. After passing that point where your basic relaxation needs have been met, your time is being wasted. No value is being created and you're not developing a talent that might provide value in the future.
A failure to understand the concept I'm about to explain is why most people stagnate in life.
The two driving factors for determining prices in a capitalist economy are the law of supply and the law of demand. Increased supply drives prices down and increased demand drives prices up. The area of the graph (it's not a single point due to there being a variety of factors involved) where these two forces meet is where price is determined.
Many people overlook that these fundamental laws play a role in determining the price of their own time. You have twenty four hours in a day. If you are smart, you're spending seven or eight of those hours sleeping. You can't be your best without being well rested. You also devote some of your time to eating. The rest is composed of the various other things you do during the course of a day.
So, in terms of your personal amount of time, supply is fixed at twenty four hours. You can't change that. The only meaningful way to increase your value, then, is to increase demand.
The demand that is attached to your time is directly connected to your ability to get things done within that 24 hours. Note that I intentionally did not say "your ability to do things." There are key differences between doing things and getting things done. Doing things doesn't mean that what you are doing will get done. Getting things done doesn't necessarily mean that you did them yourself. That distinction is what most people do not understand when it comes to the value of their time.
People don't pay you for the sheer amount of personal effort you put into a task. If that were the case, you could get rich digging holes and filling them back up for sixteen hours a day. No, what people value is your ability to get a job done in an effective manner. The more more you can do and the more effective you are at your tasks, the more they will value your services. To harp on a theme I've been covering as of late, you increase your effectiveness and the amount you do by hustling your own talents and by leveraging the talents of others.
Part of this involves looking for opportunities to do more. You can do this during your own free time or while you are at work, around your place of employment. Find tasks that people need done and offer to take care of them. It's best to start in areas that involves your own talents so that you can do them personally but sometimes you'll find yourself set to tasks which you can delegate to others. Turn people's problems into tasks, tasks into projects, projects into jobs, and jobs into money and indispensability. Find ways to use your talents and the talents of those around you to accomplish your goals. If you've used the talents of your co-workers, be sure to give credit where credit is due. That's leadership.
You will begin to establish value in the minds of people around you when you can demonstrate that you are able to get effective and refined results to the tasks at which you're set. Keep diligent records of everything you accomplish -- doing so will serve you well when it comes time to negotiate new wages or salaries. Demand for your time will increase dramatically in the wake of results and the price of your time will increase accordingly.
Hustling lets you use your twenty four hours more efficiently. Leveraging exponentially increases the amount of hours you set to a task without actually effecting your personal supply. When you are capable of hustling and leveraging work that would take a regular person fifteen hours into one hour's time, your time becomes worth fifteen times that of the regular person.
Your successful executives and business leaders are leveraging hundreds and thousands of individuals during their normal work hours. They leverage effective individuals who in turn leverage skilled individuals below them, in a chain that goes from the Vice President of Marketing to the mail room clerk. They get hundreds and thousands of hours of results out of a single hour of their time and thus they make that much more -- everything that is done produces a necessary result. They certainly don't work harder or physically do more but they do get more done with what they have. They are paid, in fact, for hustling the skill of leveraging people.
If you want to make more money, learn to maximize the results you can produce within a twenty four hour period of time. Look for ways to expand your role. Develop a unique skill and learn to do it better than anyone else. Find ways to tap into the talents and efforts of others to accomplish the tasks which you can't or won't do. Don't be content to let your free time go to waste when you can focus on learning and applying these skills.
The journey towards making more money is long and hard. You only get out of it what you put in. The results, however, will outstrip any and all of the hurdles you've met with along the way.
Most people's time is worth very little. This is reflected by the fact that they do not make money for that time. If you take a moment to examine the reasons as to why this is so, the answer becomes apparent -- they spend most of their time doing things that are pretty much worthless. Their activities are not producing any value.
Before I get started, I want to make it clear that there's absolutely nothing wrong with relaxing or doing stuff that's fun. Such is absolutely key to a healthy and well-balanced life. There's no point in striving to become wealthy if not for the aim of enjoying the "finer things" in life! If you don't take the time to relax and enjoy your life you'll burn out.
With that in mind, however, it's important to keep in mind that time spent watching television or doing the countless other mundane things people do during the course of a day is time where you're not providing value. After passing that point where your basic relaxation needs have been met, your time is being wasted. No value is being created and you're not developing a talent that might provide value in the future.
A failure to understand the concept I'm about to explain is why most people stagnate in life.
The two driving factors for determining prices in a capitalist economy are the law of supply and the law of demand. Increased supply drives prices down and increased demand drives prices up. The area of the graph (it's not a single point due to there being a variety of factors involved) where these two forces meet is where price is determined.
Many people overlook that these fundamental laws play a role in determining the price of their own time. You have twenty four hours in a day. If you are smart, you're spending seven or eight of those hours sleeping. You can't be your best without being well rested. You also devote some of your time to eating. The rest is composed of the various other things you do during the course of a day.
So, in terms of your personal amount of time, supply is fixed at twenty four hours. You can't change that. The only meaningful way to increase your value, then, is to increase demand.
The demand that is attached to your time is directly connected to your ability to get things done within that 24 hours. Note that I intentionally did not say "your ability to do things." There are key differences between doing things and getting things done. Doing things doesn't mean that what you are doing will get done. Getting things done doesn't necessarily mean that you did them yourself. That distinction is what most people do not understand when it comes to the value of their time.
People don't pay you for the sheer amount of personal effort you put into a task. If that were the case, you could get rich digging holes and filling them back up for sixteen hours a day. No, what people value is your ability to get a job done in an effective manner. The more more you can do and the more effective you are at your tasks, the more they will value your services. To harp on a theme I've been covering as of late, you increase your effectiveness and the amount you do by hustling your own talents and by leveraging the talents of others.
Part of this involves looking for opportunities to do more. You can do this during your own free time or while you are at work, around your place of employment. Find tasks that people need done and offer to take care of them. It's best to start in areas that involves your own talents so that you can do them personally but sometimes you'll find yourself set to tasks which you can delegate to others. Turn people's problems into tasks, tasks into projects, projects into jobs, and jobs into money and indispensability. Find ways to use your talents and the talents of those around you to accomplish your goals. If you've used the talents of your co-workers, be sure to give credit where credit is due. That's leadership.
You will begin to establish value in the minds of people around you when you can demonstrate that you are able to get effective and refined results to the tasks at which you're set. Keep diligent records of everything you accomplish -- doing so will serve you well when it comes time to negotiate new wages or salaries. Demand for your time will increase dramatically in the wake of results and the price of your time will increase accordingly.
Hustling lets you use your twenty four hours more efficiently. Leveraging exponentially increases the amount of hours you set to a task without actually effecting your personal supply. When you are capable of hustling and leveraging work that would take a regular person fifteen hours into one hour's time, your time becomes worth fifteen times that of the regular person.
Your successful executives and business leaders are leveraging hundreds and thousands of individuals during their normal work hours. They leverage effective individuals who in turn leverage skilled individuals below them, in a chain that goes from the Vice President of Marketing to the mail room clerk. They get hundreds and thousands of hours of results out of a single hour of their time and thus they make that much more -- everything that is done produces a necessary result. They certainly don't work harder or physically do more but they do get more done with what they have. They are paid, in fact, for hustling the skill of leveraging people.
If you want to make more money, learn to maximize the results you can produce within a twenty four hour period of time. Look for ways to expand your role. Develop a unique skill and learn to do it better than anyone else. Find ways to tap into the talents and efforts of others to accomplish the tasks which you can't or won't do. Don't be content to let your free time go to waste when you can focus on learning and applying these skills.
The journey towards making more money is long and hard. You only get out of it what you put in. The results, however, will outstrip any and all of the hurdles you've met with along the way.
Concepts in Success: Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck. The man is a polarizing figure, to say the very least. Love him or hate him, one cannot deny that he is a very successful man. I believe that success seekers can learn a lot by both studying and applying some of the methods he has used in his own life.
Glenn Beck represents a wonderful dual application of both principles I had mentioned yesterday: hustling and leverage. His success is the product of an optimal synergy between the two that has propelled him to heights of which most can only dream.
To repeat what I stated in The Art of Leverage, hustling in the sense I mean it is not criminal and has nothing to do with scamming the people around oneself. Instead, it is the quality of putting unimaginable amounts of time and effort into developing a skill so that you are better than nearly 100% of other people. While others relax and spend most of their time engaging in all sorts of mindless diversions, you study, practice, and hone your skill. It's hard work. The end result is the ability to apply the talent you have developed to tasks as if it is simply natural to you.
You don't have to be born with a talent to be successful. You just have to enjoy doing it enough so that you're willing to devote inordinate amounts of your time doing it. This is one of the primary reasons why, in a previous post, I recommended doing what you love as the key to never working again.
Glenn Beck spent years upon years developing his abilities to speak and to connect with audiences. These are not easy talents to develop as most people do not enjoy embarrassing themselves in front of groups of people. One of the greatest benefits to the particular skill set that Glenn Beck has developed is that it has enabled him to develop a brand around himself. Branding is another part of what separates the successful from the ordinary. We'll cover that concept another time.
Imagine for a moment that Glenn Beck, armed only with his highly honed speaking abilities, operated solely on his own. During the course of a day he would have to research, plan out, and write both a radio show and a television broadcast. He would then have to perform both. Meanwhile, he would be responsible for writing and managing his news site The Blaze as well as several others. On top of that, he would have to sit down every evening to put in several hours of work on the various books he releases every year in between calls from companies seeking endorsements for their products. Let's be realistic here -- there aren't enough hours in a day to operate like this! He has the same 24 as the rest of us!
What Mr. Beck does, then, is leverage the talents and time of others towards these ends. He has people who hustled to become good at research to do his research, people who hustled to be good at production to produce his shows, and people who hustled to become good at writing to script his shows. He has extremely capable people managing his personal brand and overseeing every aspect of his business. He most likely has individuals that ghostwrite his books. It's more than likely that he compensates everyone within his organization quite well, as skilled talent tends to come at a premium. All he really provides is the skill and brand that hinges it all together.
There's nothing wrong with this. It's how the world works. Everything must be flawless in its presentation when you want to break through to the upper pinnacles of success. Everything must be checked, double-checked, refined, and perfected before others can see it. Solitary individuals haven't the time nor capacity to present such perfection, which is why they fail. Successful people know to develop a skill that makes them indispensable to an organization. They then set about to find the means to use that skill so that they might leverage others into doing the other tasks they need done. You can do this around any skill so long as it has value and so long as you are able to build a brand around it.
Master the concepts of hustling and leverage and you will go as far as your dreams will take you.
Glenn Beck represents a wonderful dual application of both principles I had mentioned yesterday: hustling and leverage. His success is the product of an optimal synergy between the two that has propelled him to heights of which most can only dream.
To repeat what I stated in The Art of Leverage, hustling in the sense I mean it is not criminal and has nothing to do with scamming the people around oneself. Instead, it is the quality of putting unimaginable amounts of time and effort into developing a skill so that you are better than nearly 100% of other people. While others relax and spend most of their time engaging in all sorts of mindless diversions, you study, practice, and hone your skill. It's hard work. The end result is the ability to apply the talent you have developed to tasks as if it is simply natural to you.
You don't have to be born with a talent to be successful. You just have to enjoy doing it enough so that you're willing to devote inordinate amounts of your time doing it. This is one of the primary reasons why, in a previous post, I recommended doing what you love as the key to never working again.
Glenn Beck spent years upon years developing his abilities to speak and to connect with audiences. These are not easy talents to develop as most people do not enjoy embarrassing themselves in front of groups of people. One of the greatest benefits to the particular skill set that Glenn Beck has developed is that it has enabled him to develop a brand around himself. Branding is another part of what separates the successful from the ordinary. We'll cover that concept another time.
Imagine for a moment that Glenn Beck, armed only with his highly honed speaking abilities, operated solely on his own. During the course of a day he would have to research, plan out, and write both a radio show and a television broadcast. He would then have to perform both. Meanwhile, he would be responsible for writing and managing his news site The Blaze as well as several others. On top of that, he would have to sit down every evening to put in several hours of work on the various books he releases every year in between calls from companies seeking endorsements for their products. Let's be realistic here -- there aren't enough hours in a day to operate like this! He has the same 24 as the rest of us!
What Mr. Beck does, then, is leverage the talents and time of others towards these ends. He has people who hustled to become good at research to do his research, people who hustled to be good at production to produce his shows, and people who hustled to become good at writing to script his shows. He has extremely capable people managing his personal brand and overseeing every aspect of his business. He most likely has individuals that ghostwrite his books. It's more than likely that he compensates everyone within his organization quite well, as skilled talent tends to come at a premium. All he really provides is the skill and brand that hinges it all together.
There's nothing wrong with this. It's how the world works. Everything must be flawless in its presentation when you want to break through to the upper pinnacles of success. Everything must be checked, double-checked, refined, and perfected before others can see it. Solitary individuals haven't the time nor capacity to present such perfection, which is why they fail. Successful people know to develop a skill that makes them indispensable to an organization. They then set about to find the means to use that skill so that they might leverage others into doing the other tasks they need done. You can do this around any skill so long as it has value and so long as you are able to build a brand around it.
Master the concepts of hustling and leverage and you will go as far as your dreams will take you.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Art of Leverage
I'm going to tell you a little secret. Pay close attention; this secret is vital to your success.
You can't get wealthy without other people.
Let's face it. None of us lives in a vacuum. We live in societies and are defined by the relationships we build with others. Sure, you could go out and live in the woods all by yourself, not depending upon a single soul. Are you taking any supplies with you? No, that's cheating -- most of those supplies were only made possible by others. Even if you grow your own food and sow your own clothes, the tools you used in doing so were provided by other people.
The fact is that we depend upon others to survive and even the most capable of mountain men would fail were he to accept the challenge of living entirely independently in the woods without help from nary a soul. Mere survival is absolutely dependent on social cooperation of some sort. Why is it, then, that people believe that they can become wealthy and successful entirely on their own?
Leverage. Leverage is one of the main tools that set the winners apart from the losers. Leverage is the ability to use the people around you and their resources to further your goals. I'm not, of course, talking about taking advantage of people. That'll only get you so far and you'll meet with failure long before you meet with success. Instead, you must learn the art of making mutually beneficial arrangements where both sides profit in the end.
Why bother with mundane tasks which you hate to do, aren't good at, and just eat up your time? Find ways to outsource such activities to others who are better at them and more efficient than you. Make it well worth their time. Do you lack the resources to pay them in money? Pay them in trade of services. Even better, build up the value of your own services by taking the time to develop your skills and allow others to leverage your talents towards their goals. Far from there being any shame in that, it is actually how you become successful in the first place! No one in the history of humanity has ever become wealthy or successful without offering some sort of service of a value highly perceived by the society around them. The more you have to offer, the more you will receive.
Leveraging utilizes networks. When you use the services of a person to complete a project, what you are actually tapping into is that person's network. When others use your services, they are tapping into yours. If you want to utilize an effective leveraging system, learn to recognize those that know how to leverage the talents of others in their own efforts. The cumulative effect on your own success will be exponential.
Leveraging others to take care of less-important activities which eat up your time frees you up to perfect your particular skill set. The other part of success is knowing how to hustle when it comes to the activities which you don't leverage. When I say hustle, by the way, I'm not talking about anything illegal -- this article at The Art of Manliness sums it up best -- The World Belongs to Those Who Hustle.
Hustle when it comes to what you're good at. Leverage individuals who have hustle and know how to leverage when it comes to things you're not good at. The abilities to leverage and hustle are what set successful individuals apart from those who are simply ordinary.
You can't get wealthy without other people.
Let's face it. None of us lives in a vacuum. We live in societies and are defined by the relationships we build with others. Sure, you could go out and live in the woods all by yourself, not depending upon a single soul. Are you taking any supplies with you? No, that's cheating -- most of those supplies were only made possible by others. Even if you grow your own food and sow your own clothes, the tools you used in doing so were provided by other people.
The fact is that we depend upon others to survive and even the most capable of mountain men would fail were he to accept the challenge of living entirely independently in the woods without help from nary a soul. Mere survival is absolutely dependent on social cooperation of some sort. Why is it, then, that people believe that they can become wealthy and successful entirely on their own?
Leverage. Leverage is one of the main tools that set the winners apart from the losers. Leverage is the ability to use the people around you and their resources to further your goals. I'm not, of course, talking about taking advantage of people. That'll only get you so far and you'll meet with failure long before you meet with success. Instead, you must learn the art of making mutually beneficial arrangements where both sides profit in the end.
Why bother with mundane tasks which you hate to do, aren't good at, and just eat up your time? Find ways to outsource such activities to others who are better at them and more efficient than you. Make it well worth their time. Do you lack the resources to pay them in money? Pay them in trade of services. Even better, build up the value of your own services by taking the time to develop your skills and allow others to leverage your talents towards their goals. Far from there being any shame in that, it is actually how you become successful in the first place! No one in the history of humanity has ever become wealthy or successful without offering some sort of service of a value highly perceived by the society around them. The more you have to offer, the more you will receive.
Leveraging utilizes networks. When you use the services of a person to complete a project, what you are actually tapping into is that person's network. When others use your services, they are tapping into yours. If you want to utilize an effective leveraging system, learn to recognize those that know how to leverage the talents of others in their own efforts. The cumulative effect on your own success will be exponential.
Leveraging others to take care of less-important activities which eat up your time frees you up to perfect your particular skill set. The other part of success is knowing how to hustle when it comes to the activities which you don't leverage. When I say hustle, by the way, I'm not talking about anything illegal -- this article at The Art of Manliness sums it up best -- The World Belongs to Those Who Hustle.
Hustle when it comes to what you're good at. Leverage individuals who have hustle and know how to leverage when it comes to things you're not good at. The abilities to leverage and hustle are what set successful individuals apart from those who are simply ordinary.
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