From the desk of Victor Pride
Subj: The #1 absolute rule of success
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The principles of success are always the same, and they all boil down to one thing.
Some call it the 80/20 principle (but I don't agree with that, you'll see why later).
Gary Keller, the mad genius behind Keller Williams Real Estate, literally calls it The One Thing.
A fallen soldier named Chin-Ning Chu, the best female author to have written of success, called it Do Less, Achieve More.
Victor Pride calls it going from A to B in a straight line instead of going from A back to A in a circle.
What is it? It's the one true way you find success.
The way it works is very simple…
You have this much energy in a day: ___________.
You can use that energy for any thing or for many things.
The amount of energy you have is still the same no matter what you use it for.
If you use your energy mostly for one thing, you will be able to give most of your energy to one thing.
If you use your energy for many things your energy will be spread thin.
The decision to make it this: do one thing at your best or do many things at less than your best.
The amount of energy you have in a day is still exactly the same, this much: ___________.
What you can control is how you focus and channel your energy.
So let's say you want to create something or you want to make a million dollars online, what's the best way to do it?
Is it best to spread out your energy and work on multiple projects or is it best to give the bulk of your energy to one thing until that one thing is finished?
Unfortunately, and not for lack of trying, no one ever made a million dollars by spreading themselves thin and working on too many things at once.
Big money requires big energy and big money is always made the exact same way…
By focusing the bulk of your energy into one viable project.
Try as they might, the folks who jump from project to project never seem to get the fat payday they're after.
Spreading yourself thin keeps the wallet thin. Focus and determination keep the wallet fat.
In this instance, fat wins and thin loses. Fat pockets are rockets to the next level. To get fat pockets, total focus is required.
Do you know the 80/20 principle? The 80/20 principle states that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
I have found the opposite to be true when it comes to creating the work that pays.
Think about it like this:
Put 80% of your daily energy into the most important project that will rocket you to the next level of success. Spend the remaining 20% of your energy on the extras.
Fat wins, remember? That's why we use the fattest part of our energy (80%) to make our wallets fatter, and we do it in the only way that works…
By focusing on one thing at a time, to the detriment and the exclusion of all else.
I've found this rule of success to be true over and over.
Each time I expand focus, business slows. Each time I narrow focus, business grows, irrespective of time and frequency.
In my career, focus has always beat time and frequency. So what do I do?
I ignore time, I ignore frequency and I focus on doing the one most important thing I can do. I do that until the one thing is accomplished.
With focused energy and a step-by-step plan, it's simply not possible to fail in the long run.
The only way to fail is to quit. What happens when you quit?
When you quit, you start at A and you end up right back at A. Like a chicken with its head cut off, running around in circles.
What happens when you focus 80% of your energy, every single day, on one project with a single-minded determination?
You go from A to B in a straight line instead of always going from A back to A in a circle.
And your pockets get fatter and fatter, just the way you like them.
Success is easy if you just focus on getting from A to B before you think about getting to C, D, E, F and G.
Doesn't matter what you call it. 80/20 principle, the One Thing, Do Less, Achieve More. All is same.
It only matters that you get from A to B, and the way you get from A to B is by focusing the bulk of your energy on one project.
When you do, there is no limit for you.
A becomes B becomes C becomes Z before you know it…
But then again, that's only if you don't lose patience and try to do too much when all that is required is less.
On the other hand…
If you can eliminate the many and focus on the one, you can go from A to B in a straight line and make your pockets fatter than fat.
You see, it's very easy to be a rich man…
If you just stick to the plan.
Until next time.
Your man,
-Victor Pride
Great article. I’ve recently ran into this myself. I became focused on helping a friend get out of his job while building my own projects. Guess what happened? Focus went all over the place and money went down.
Now that I’m focused again a client payed me while I slept. Less really is more. Understand this and get rich.
Thank you Dylan.
Thank you for this article.
What advice would you give to an Aborist who wants to gain strength and make more money?
Thank you Oscar. I don’t know what an aborist is.
That was a typo I meant to say “Arborist”. I do tree work ; climbing trees, doing removals, dragging brush etc.
That’s a good restatement of “The Spoon Theory” (https://thespoontheory.tumblr.com/post/44757754831/faq) which is mainly aimed at people with various sorts of disabilities, but is more widely applicable.
Focus is a powerful principle.
But you cannot focus if you do not know yourself, or if you do not know how to focus. It is very important for a man to be able to “check in” with himself and figure out what he is doing and why he is doing it.
No matter what you’re doing, you should ask yourself, “What am I doing right now” and then follow up with, “Why am I doing X?”
Talk yourself through these things as an objective outsider.
You’ll find the time-wasting things fall away as you do this because you cannot physically focus on two things at one time. You can’t. So if you’re focusing on being the objective outsider, then the time wasting activity must be mentally set aside. And now that you’re not thinking about the time wasting activity, you can pivot back to doing something productive.
But it all starts with knowing yourself, and being able to check in to where you are.
Great article, sir!
Thank you John.
I’m trying to grasp this concept but not sure if I’m trying to maintain a schedule or multitasking.
• I hit the gym in the morning
• Handle errands for 1-2hrs – to-do list (which includes things for a side project that I’m hoping to turn into a full blown career)
• Then I work my day job (salesman) for the remainder of the day. I’d say from noon to 8pm.
I spend a small amount of time on my personal goals then I work my ass off for a job to fund those goals in hopes that I’ll be able to drop my day job. Weekends it’s full speed personal goals.
You already know the answer.
You want to focus on your personal goals? Then pick one, and ditch as much of the rest as you can.
You need money saved up for rent to go into something 100%
While I read this article, I just can’t stop thinking: “All right, this is the first post to promote High Energy Entrepreneur. I’m so exited”.
Wrong :(
Thank you Vic! This post fired me up and helps narrow my vision to reach my goal to be the real estate agent in Canada. I am a real estate agent with Keller Williams and just came back from Vegas where they had Family Reunion, all the top realtors in Keller Williams from all over the world came to learn more and see Gary Keller talk! Gary was the most motivating person I listened to over the 3 days conference. He is amazing and made the entire trip worth it just to hear what he has to say.
Thank you Wes.
Being the student of your own mindset, to actually see the objectives of the man you learn in your vision, so you can be it through visualization.
The more you stick to it, the more it is consistent to be on it, and the more tenacity on how much longer could the man learn his own ideas that are in the mind of which is occupied by that one thing.
That one thing that makes some maniac, out of control, obsessed into doing it for the sake of their brainchild to manifest to be true.
True it as it is as long none is has never been twisted through plan A, get ready to be mindblown away.”Eh, did I just past plan B when I was all the way to paradise?!”
Isn’t it a fat child full of junk?
That fat is a typical sign of a consumer. A consumer of junk. Never mind about health for this kind of kid. The kid is fat because of the serving of the eating habit.
Give a candy and that kid will soon go through rounds of illnesses related for eating carbs. That would be the ideal approach to be prone to make business for cash out the kid, by giving in what it wants mostly with the many candies in the world to receive a rated hype.
The kid is getting fatter, the candy shop is also getting ‘fatter’. The kid would love to spend 20% of its time to sleep. The business would ever spend 20% , AFTER it has done doing the one thing it does. ‘What is it??’
Obvious, making business grow fatter after for the last 80% of its time.
As it so happens, guess who’ll be in the store after that 20% of time is gone? Eventually, it is the same fat kid! Always intensely consuming, always growing fat during the most time of that kid’s livelihood.
Come 2030, the business is booming fat all over your town!!
lol
[It is contradictory, see it through the end.]
Isn’t it a fat child full of junk?
That fat is a typical sign of a consumer. A consumer of junk. Never mind about health for this kind of kid. The kid is fat because of the serving of the eating habit.
Give a candy and that kid will soon go through rounds of illnesses related for eating carbs. That would be the ideal approach to be prone to make business for cash out the kid, by giving in what it wants mostly with the many candies in the world to receive a rated hype.
The kid is getting fatter, the candy shop is also getting ‘fatter’. The kid would love to spend 20% of its time to sleep. The business would ever spend 20% , AFTER it has done doing the one thing it does. ‘What is it??’
Obvious, making business grow fatter after for the last 80% of its time.
As it so happens, guess who’ll be in the store after that 20% of time is gone? Eventually, it is the same fat kid! Always intensely consuming, always growing fat during the most time of that kid’s livelihood.
Come 2030, the business is booming fat all over your town!!
lol
I’m focused on cutting to get ripped. Focusing on anything else 100% is impossible.
Dieting for me steals a lot of energy but I know that the payoff is huge if I’m physically dialed in. Its a priority.
Usually its the thing that keeps popping up in your mind that needs your attention and focus. When its complete then move to the next.
Great article Victor. I am trying to blog as well as vlog. I recently read an article from GLL that made sense to me.
He said to make a video for every blog post ONLY after the post is written. I am going to incorporate this into my blog.
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Seftimor.
Do Less Achieve More is a great book as is her other book, Thick Face Black Heart. Highly recommend Ronin reading.
I had to build a website. There was no time limit but I had to get it done. So in three weeks I built a pretty nice website, while socializing, partying and just in general living my life. Then because of some stupid technical reasons I had to restart from nothing.
I became so mad that I opened up an old article Victor had written about making anger work for myself. It’s called How to Channel Your Anger Into Power, look it up (April 24, 2012). Then I turned off everything. I turned off social media, put all books and videos aside, didn’t go near people and opened up my fresh new website files and started coding. I didn’t do anything else besides working out and doing my breathing exercising, just coding, coding, coding. 80% coding, 20% everything else.
In just three days I created a website a thousand times better than the one I created in three weeks. My fingers hurt but I didn’t care, I was so angry I had to get it done. This was yesterday. All that’s left now is to buy a domain and put everything I created there.
This is what focus means.
In the morning I was checking my emails and this article was there. Fellow Ronins, listen to Uncle Vic, turn off everything and FOCUS. You get a TREMENDOUS advantage just by turning off everything and focusing on the task at hand.
Have an ass kicking day.
Thank you Andrew.
One should always strive to improve in every way possible.
One year later, you should not be the same person you were one year ago.
Ideally, you can use 6 month to one year as a benchmark to see signs of growth and improvement. And you develop successful habits everyday to nurture that discipline for what it will come for later on.
The daily habits become a routine and you simply don’t even think about it, you just do it. Get in and get out. You go to the gym and get the quality workout. It becomes an everyday thing now where you don’t even question why you do it.
Just like when you brush your teeth or you take a shit. You don’t ask yourself why you do it, you just do it. In fact, you start to wonder why average saps don’t workout at the gym but by then you just simply don’t care and put all your focus on yourself.
Be so disgusted that you don’t want to plateau and that internal motivation will just get you going. If you need external motivation then you already lost. It’s ONLY YOU; ONLY YOU that can help yourself. No one else. They can give you that extra push but it’s up to you at the end of the day.
You should also get rid of all that clutter distraction that clogs your mind. If you have to even spend five to ten minutes on deciding what to wear, what to eat, then you are wasting your time. Simply you should already know what you wear and what you eat. Instead of stressing all your mental energy on trivialities, you put all that mental focus on business and your mission.
If you want to become a car mechanic, then you should do whatever you can to study on different components that make up the car, take few courses, apply as a “helper”, learn the trades in and out, and expose yourself to the industry and use ALL YOUR TIME to make this happen.
If you have no plan to visit France but you read about tourism in Paris and how to get around the city then you are simply wasting your time. Maximize your time efficiently.
Love hearing your way of putting it…. when I opened that book on the one thing in the beginning pages it states something like:
An average sized male expends 94k joules of energy doing 545 pushups… I instantly grabbed a white sheet of paper and a pen and a stopwatch did 550 pushups in just 39 minutes. I did this with so much intensity that at around the 300 mark it just felt like the remaining pushups had no weight on me that I could go on forever if I wanted to… I had reached the alpha state.
I find this to be true. It takes commitment to go A-B. It’s also dispelling yourself to stay focused and don’t drift of task. If you do, just remind yourself your a shark and not a ghost!
KEY FOR SUCCESS FOR A MAN IS F I F A
WILLPOWER( it’s a muscle that should be exercised heavily & often)
PICK A FIGHT (stop excessive shopping/masturbation and pick a fight
otherwise you’ll be in the social statistics)
LOW EXPECTATIONS
CURIOSITY
DELEGATION
PROMISE EVERYTHING AND DELIVER NOTHING.
SUNSHINE & HEAT (SOLAR POWER)
MORE EXPERIMENTATIONS (life is an experiment)
DONT KILL YOURSELF YOU DESERVE MORE KISSES AND PLACES TO GO IN FUTURE.
Every time I feel a little lost and wanting to recharge my energy I enter this blog and I charge myself like Duracell.
Thanks Victor Pride
Thank you Adrian.
I can fully appreciate the principle of only focussing on one thing at a time for best results.
When I first started my own business I was all over the place trying to set up a website, get logos designed and all kinds of things. It didn’t actually make me a single penny until I outsourced all of that and focused purely on doing the kind of work clients hired me for.
Find the exact part of your business that clients genuinely want from you and just do that as often as possible. That’s where the money is and it’s all that matters. Everything else should be delegated or outsourced.
Hi , brother
Comment for another purpose , drake right is out of red supplement , what happen to RED Focus , is there any near release date , because I postpone the idea of buying Modafinil , because it’s illlegal in the country that I live in.
Regards,
I’ve found that having a side hustle that has synergy with your main business/occupation/job – helps you to remain focused. Making sure that side hustle has leverage will be the key to insuring that you generate large returns on your most valuable commodity – your time.
Well of course, if you actually go from A to B you will be on your way to success for sure.
Take myself for example, just started my own blog. Hurray right?
Well, I intend to actually focus all my energy on it and succeed where others fail. It won’t be a short-term project. No. I won’t stop at A or B or C for that matter, I will go beyond the alphabet.
Watch out Victor :)
Great article Victor!
Too many people make the mistake of spreading themselves too wide over multiple projecta, myself included.
I also noticed that when I put all my energy into one thing, I progress very fast at it.
The problem is if you have too many interests and a broader vision, it becomes hard to focus on just one thing and you really have to take a step back and feel what the next step is and then put all yout energy into achieving it!