I came across an article on Medium by Grant Cardone called Are you 9 to 5 or 95? In the article Gant Cardone explains that he works 95 hours a week. He says, “If ever you want to be a millionaire, you need to stop doing the 9 to 5 and start doing 95….the closer you get to 100 the more benjamins you will make.” I gave this some thought, and I think I know why this works.

When I was an undergraduate at Arizona State University I had a professor that had this mentality as well.  I forget what the name of the class, but I do remember this antidote.  He explained that he would be the first one in to work in the mornings, and the last one to leave.  His boss found him one night working at 7:00 PM and his boss asked him where his peers were. He said he didn’t know; they must have left.  His boss told him to keep up the work.  The professor went on to explain that his boss always came to him to take on new projects, and this lead him to rise in the University.  He believed this was because his Boss always saw him put in the work. 

Now, this part is true.  Putting in more work will lead to making millions.  It only takes three to four years of grinding 95 to 100 hours a week to get to 7 figures.  But, the work has to be ubiquitous, provide value, and you need to have grit.  Before I begin, let me explain that making money brings joy, but I personally don’t think it is exciting.  You have to get into a groove of doing the same thing every single day.

Before I explain my schedule, and provide clarity to the above statements, I personally don’t care about money.  I care about leaving a legacy and making the world better than when I got here.  The best way to achieve this is through Philanthropy and Civic Duties.  I believe that to have the largest impact in these areas I need money, because that’s what Capitalism as an economic system does.  Banking and Finance will play a big role in my overall strategy, so I do currently work in the banking sector.  I enjoy banking, and there are so many better things we can be doing to make better communities, and one day I will have an impact on making these things happen.  But until then you have to spend time learning, so I have decided to work in banking.  So here is how many hours I work.

1. Bank – 55
2. 3T Fitness – 18
3. Age of Radio – 18
4. October Revolution (Corporation that owns Age of Radio) – 2.5
5. Philanthropy – 2.5

This comes out to 96 hours a week.  I have been doing this specific schedule for about a year.  Before that, I was putting more focus on 3T Fitness.  I get about 5 hours of sleep a night and I try to get as much exercise as possible, so I don’t go insane.  But once you get in the groove and know what you want you just do it.  But, I don’t think the work itself has a direct relationship with getting to the 7 figure income (which really isn’t that much).

Ubiquity in my opinion is the number one goal of any business.  Ubiquity is the fact of appearing everywhere.  It means that when people scroll through Instagram you are there; when people turn on the radio, you are there; when people think of your industry they think of you.  When people say podcast I don’t want people to think Spotify or Joe Rogan.  They need to think Age of Radio.  When people think of fitness they think of 3T Fitness.  It is the most important thing you can do.  Advertise and produce constant consistent content, as much as you can fucking muster. If you only have one goal in your business or in your career make it this. 

Let’s think of my professor story.  Why did he get chosen for jobs, because his boss saw him working all the time.  He was there when other people weren’t. In fact, this is how luck is created.  In 2015, I was working for the bank and John Vasquez was my boss. He was selected to go to the CBA Executive Banking school.  At the time, I was doing everything I could with financial education in Arizona.  I was on the Board of Junior Achievement of Arizona, I was in the Banks Financial Education committee, and I was becoming well know in the retail bank.  John called me and asked me if I knew how to do Weighted Average Cost of Capital and modeling.  I told him of course, and I embarked on spending my weekends and some weekdays tutoring him. 

During that time John got to know me better, and two years later we were still very close friends.  Well, because he got to know me he asked me if I could help him with YouTube and Podcasting.  I said yes, and now we own 3T Fitness in Mesa, Arizona together.  Being everywhere, and working your ass off creates luck.  That is why ubiquity is important. 

You also have to add value.  If you are just working and doing shit that doesn’t provide any value then you will just be working.  With everything you do you have to do it with meaning.  When I think of providing value, it means that the activities that you do have to align with your mission.  If the activities align with your vision then those activities will provide value.  If those activities, do not align with your vision and values then you shouldn’t do those activities.  It is a lot easier to say then to do, because only when you start looking at your activities will you realize most of the shit you do isn’t providing any value to you, your customers, or your family. 

People have been told their whole life that time is money.  Time isn’t money.  Value is money.  The more value you add the more money you will make.  If you can switch off the “time is money” mentality, and that value is money you will stop looking at how many hours you are working because the end goal is to provide value. 

If you are ubiquitous and provide value, then the last thing you need have is grit.  Grit is the reason so many businesses and families fail.  They have no grit.  They can’t focus and work and work and work and work to reach their goal. You have to want it more than anything.  If someone tells me they will do anything to be successful, but they want to go to happy hour, or go out to dinner with friends, or spend all day talking about the Game of Thrones premiere than those people will never be successful.  The reason Ferrari doesn’t advertise on television is because the people that can afford them aren’t spending their time watching television.  I spend about 3 hours a week with leisure activities.  My leisure activities are working out and reading books, papers, blogs, magazines, or whatever I can to provide insight.  I take my wife out to eat once a week, and that is about all the time I see her. 

Out of ubiquity, value, and focus/grit I would say grit is the hardest one to learn.  There were a few things that helped me.  Some of them were just because I was poor growing up, and a few I actively did:

1. I grew up dirt poor, so I had to be resourceful.  This you can’t really teach unless you go and live on the street.  Being poor is fucking terrible.  Everyday you have to figure out how you are going to eat, how to pay for a roof over your head, and how to keep the lights on.  You learn how to handle stupid amounts of stress being poor.  I do not recommend it, but it was very helpful and I am grateful for it everyday.
2. Learn martial arts and exercise.  Martial arts and exercise are amazing for learning how to reach small attainable goals.  When you are learning martial arts you traditionally work on learning a new set of skills and then test our of your belt for a new colored belt.  The same thing with exercise. If you are setting goals, say to lose 5lbs, you focus all your energy on losing the 5lbs.  These are small incremental wins.  This is important in business because you learn to turn big goals into small goals, and when you achieve them you feel good and want to keep going.
3. Learn to read.  What I mean is, learn to spend hours reading.  You should be able to sit in one place and read for 8 or 9 hours at a time.  Don’t just read business books or motivational books. Read classics.  Read biographies. Read history. Read current novels, read reviews on new books, and then read those books.  Reading should be the easiest thing you can do with your time.  The reason why this is important is not only because the knowledge you gain, but because it teaches you to push further.  Get a stop watch set it for 20 minutes, and read.  Do that every day for a week. Then on the weekend do it for 60 minutes.  The following week do it every day for 40 minutes, and so on.  Make it your own, but sit and fucking read.
4. Work. If you are an employee, try working more than your 40 hours.  Most employers won’t pay you, do it for free.  Start by working 50 hours a week and move it up to 60.  If you your company won’t let you due to labor laws then volunteer the extra 20 hours that week.  Start working more, and eventually 8 hours won’t feel like shit.  I have been working on this post for 2 hours. I didn’t even realize any time went by.  When I am at the bank, I feel like I blink and 8 hours is over.  When this happens it will be easy to work 100 hours a week to provide value.

I spent years doing these things so I could out work everyone.  Like I said, I work 7 days a week.  It  really is nothing, and after a couple of years you look back and see what you created and its pretty fucking impressive.

“Shape the Universe”