Workaholics
Source: Leo Reynolds at flickr
From time-to-time I read about some of my business heroes: people such as Donald Trump, Brad Lamb, Richard Li, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Martha Stewart, Dave Ramsey and Kevin Rose. Donald Trump has a series of best-selling business books, Brad Lamb has a popular show on HGTV called Big City Broker, Dave Ramsey has a daily radio show, and Kevin Rose through his blog posts and video podcasts.
These people cover different industries from real estate, to technology, to investing, to information products. Most of them have developed and actively cultivate their own personal brand. None of them have traditionally had any problem sharing their knowledge about what they do as well. It seems when you’re a leader in a particular category, you tend to focus more on what you do and less on what the competition is doing.
The other quality they all seem to have is how hard they work. Donald Trump and Martha Stewart in particular are known for how little sleep they need. Trump has claimed he gets around 4 hours of sleep a night. He wakes up at some ungodly hour (4am I think) and does some reading before he starts to get ready for the day. I’m sure he arrives in his office at 6am.
Bill Gates was famously quoted as once saying, “12 hours is only half a day” when speaking about someone who left the office after only 12 hours. When Microsoft was founded, he was known to sleep at the office sometimes, wearing the same clothes two days in a row, coidng from 9am til 2-3am the next morning fueled only on Coke and potato chips.
Brad Lamb is also known for always thinking about work. On his show, he incorporates work into his vacations, takes calls at night and on weekends. And in fact would likely be miserable if his girlfriend took him somewhere without cell phone access for a whole week. Well, he might still be going to see properties and talk to local developers even then. But he himself says he lives to work, not works to live.
Do you have to be a workaholic to truly succeed financially? Has there ever been an entrepreneur who was known for taking summer’s off, going for long stretches away from the computer and cell phone, and just living a relaxed lifestyle?
Well certainly Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have a relaxed lifestyle these days – known more for their philanthropy and card-playing skill than business lately. But what about when they were first starting out? Did Buffett work only 37.5 hours a week before he made his first billion? I doubt it. I bet he was studying stocks from before breakfast til well after dinner.
So it seems that hard work, at least when you’re first starting out, is a must. Sacrafice is required to win. I’m sure it helps immensely if you love what you do. If real estate deals are what makes you happy, you will want to be thinking about them all day. But a successful runner ultimately has to run faster than the competition. A successful race car driver needs to drive faster too. Becoming better at anything requires a sacrafice of “time”. Malcolm Gladwell once said it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. That’s approximately 5 years at 40 hours a week including vacations. Or 2 years at 90 hours a week without vacations.
After that, you become better than the average bloke, and you can’t help but win.
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