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Bill Gates, Warren Buffett And Oprah All Use The 5-Hour Rule

Top business leaders often spend five hours per week doing deliberate learning.

In the article "Malcolm Gladwell got us wrong", the researchers behind the 10,000-hour rule set the record straight: different fields require different amounts of deliberate practice in order to become world class.

If 10,000 hours isn't an absolute rule that applies across fields, what does it really take to become world class in the world of work?

Over the last year, I've explored the personal history of many widely-admired business leaders like Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg in order to understand how they apply the principles of deliberate practice.

What I've done does not qualify as an academic study, but it does reveal a surprising pattern.

Many of these leaders, despite being extremely busy, set aside at least an hour a day (or five hours a week) over their entire career for activities that could be classified as deliberate practice or learning.

I call this phenomenon the 5-hour rule.

How the best leaders follow the 5-hour rule

For the leaders I tracked, the 5-hour rule often fell into three buckets: reading, reflection, and experimentation.

1. Read

According to an HBR article, "Nike founder Phil Knight so reveres his library that in it you have to take off your shoes and bow."

Oprah Winfrey credits books with much of her success: "Books were my pass to personal freedom." She has shared her reading habit with the world via her book club.

These two are not alone. Consider the extreme reading habits of other billionaire entrepreneurs:

• Warren Buffett spends five to six hours per day reading five newspapers and 500 pages of corporate reports.
• Bill Gates reads 50 books per year.
• Mark Zuckerberg reads at least one book every two weeks.
• Elon Musk grew up reading two books a day, according to his brother.
• Mark Cuban reads more than 3 hours every day.
• Arthur Blank, co-founder of Home Depot, reads two hours a day.
• Billionaire entrepreneur David Rubenstein reads six books a week.
• Dan Gilbert, self-made billionaire and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, reads one to two hours a day.

Want to find the time to read? Sign up for the free webinar here.

2. Reflect

Other times, the 5-hour rule takes the form of reflection and thinking time.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong makes his senior team spend four hours per week just thinking. Jack Dorsey is a serial wanderer. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner schedules two hours of thinking time per day. Brian Scudamore, the founder of the 250 million-dollar company, O2E Brands, spends 10 hours a week just thinking.

When Reid Hoffman needs help thinking through an idea, he calls one of his pals: Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, or Elon Musk. When billionaire Ray Dalio makes a mistake, he logs it into a system that is public to all employees at his company. Then, he schedules time with his team to find the root cause. Billionaire entrepreneur Sara Blakely is a long-time journaler. In one interview, she shared that she has over 20 notebooks where she logged the terrible things that happened to her and the gifts that have unfolded as a result.

If you want to be in to company of others who reflect on what they're learning with each other, join this Facebook group.

3. Experiment

Finally, the 5-hour rule takes the form of rapid experimentation.

Throughout his life, Ben Franklin set aside time for experimentation, masterminding with like-minded individuals, and tracking his virtues. Google famously allowed employees to experiment with new projects with 20% of their work time. Facebook encourages experimentation through Hack-A-Months.

The largest example of experimentation might be Thomas Edison. Even though he was a genius, Edison approached new inventions with humility. He would identify every possible solution and then systematically test each one of them. According to one of his biographers, "Although he understood the theories of his day, he found them useless in solving unknown problems."

He took the approach to such an extreme that his competitor, Nikola Tesla, had this to say about the trial-and-error approach: "If [Edison] had a needle to find in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where it was most likely to be, he would proceed at once with the feverish diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search."

The power of the 5-hour rule: improvement rate

People who apply the 5-hour rule in the world of work have an advantage. The idea of deliberate practice versus just working hard is often confused. Also, most professionals focus on productivity and efficiency, not improvement rate. As a result, just five hours of deliberate learning a week can set you apart.

Billionaire entrepreneur Marc Andreessen poignantly talked about improvement rate in a recent interview. "I think the archetype/myth of the 22-year-old founder has been blown completely out of proportion… I think skill acquisition, literally the acquisition of skills and how to do things, is just dramatically underrated. People are overvaluing the value of just jumping into the deep-end of the pool, because like the reality is that people who jump into the deep end of the pool drown. Like, there's a reason why there are so many stories about Mark Zuckerberg. There aren't that many Mark Zuckerbergs. Most of them are still floating face down in the pool. And so, for most of us, it's a good idea to get skills."

Later in the interview he adds, "The really great CEOs, if you spend time with them, you would find this to be true of Mark [Zuckerberg] today or of any of the great CEOs of today or the past, they are really encyclopedic of their knowledge of how to run a company, and it's very hard to just intuit all of that in your early 20s. The path that makes much more sense for most people is to spend 5–10 years getting skills."

We should look at learning like we look at exercise.

We need to move beyond the cliche, "Life-long learning is good," and think more deeply about what the minimum amount of learning the average person should do per day in order to have a sustainable and successful career.

Just as we have minimum recommended dosages of vitamins, steps per day, and aerobic exercise for leading a healthy life physically, we should be more rigorous about how we as an information society think about the minimum doses of deliberate learning for leading a healthy life economically.

The long-term effects of NOT learning are just as insidious as the long-term effects of not having a healthy lifestyle. The CEO of AT&T makes this point loud and clear in an interview with the New York Times; he says that those who don't spend at least 5 to 10 hours a week learning online "will obsolete themselves with technology."

Interested in applying the 5-hour rule to your life?

There was too much information to fit in one article, so I spent dozens of hours and created a free, live masterclass to help you master your learning ritual too! In it, you will discover:

• How to find the time for reading and learning even if you are really busy and overwhelmed.
• How to stay consistent on using that 'found' time without procrastinating or falling prey to distraction.
• How to 10x the results you receive from each hour of learning.

Sign up for the free Learning How To Learn webinar here >>

Michael Simmons

Award-Winning Entrepreneur / Bestselling Author / Forbes Columnist / Co-Founder of @iEmpact / Blogger at http://t.co/T32xDLUBLJ

YOU CAN STEP UP

The world is changing and it's time to be your own boss.

Automation and outsourcing are evaporating the traditional 9-5. Job security, ever-increasing pay and benefits have gone out the window.

But being your own boss gives you incredible freedom. The day I told my old boss I wasn't coming back to the office prison ever again was the best day of my career.

And I'm more successful (mid 7-figure income and growing) than I ever was working a 9-5.

But let's back up.

As recent as 2012, I was freaking broke.

The empty wallet wasn't what sucked, it was the pain of feeling useless, insignificant, and unable to enjoy life.

When I made the choice to start an internet business, my income exploded, and I can now say I am an internet millionaire.

It's not difficult, and I'm going to tell you the most important keys to my success in a second.

There's a key distinction to be made here.

I had thought working a corporate job was the path to success, but I felt more like I was trapped in a comfortable prison.

The worst part of working a white-collar, 9-5 job is that it can feel comfortable.

For most 23-year-olds these days, I had the good life.

My job seemed okay, my apartment was decent, my car was alright, and it felt like if I just stuck with it, I might even get a promotion in a year or two and be able to save money (that long forgotten tradition).

...but I was burying my true feelings. I completely hated my life. I hated my job, I hated my boss, and I hated the fact that I was letting life happen TO me, as opposed to creating my own destiny.

I see many older people who lived that "comfortable" life - had a job for 40+ years, retire relatively broke (the way most people retire these days), and carry with them a million regrets of the things they should have done. I didn't want to end up that way.

Maybe you feel the same way?

**Hu$tle.**

I read a book called 'The 4 Hour Workweek' and decided to make a change in my life

I quickly realized that the only path that gave the FREEDOM and FINANCES that I wanted was having an internet-based business.

I was completely directionless about where to start though.

They say investing in yourself is the best investment you can make, but I can say that the hardest decision I can remember is when I decided to invest in my own education.

So I paid for a training course from my first mentor in 2012, and I had never come across such *real* information and discussions about doing business online ever before, and I could see the strategies were working for people.

**w€rkin' It**

I started stringing together wins, to the point where I could afford to attend some of the awesome events my mentor put together in places like Whistler, London, and Bangkok. Many people from those events ended up becoming friends.

What happened next was surreal.

2013: 473k. (whaaaa...? Yep, happened that quickly)

2014: Millionaire.

2015: 7-figure annual.

2016: On track for 5 million, and Forbes wrote an article about me

2017: Had my first child, and on track for 8-figures.

You used to need a complete miracle to go from broke to a millionaire in a few years. Turns out that miracle was the internet, and now anyone is capable of this.

So? What's the point of telling you all this?

First, I'll lay some huge keys to my early success, starting...now:

1. Read/learn voraciously

Knowledge and SKILLS are your most important assets in every situation.

Income opportunities come and go, but your brain stays with you forever.

If you spend your time chasing silver bullets, you can end up spinning your wheels for years without ever making any real progress.

However, if you spend your time learning valuable information, and building skills along the way, every day you will become that much stronger.

2. Find a mentor

The real turning point in my professional life was when I found someone who had successfully broke the corporate chains.

Knowing that this was possible for someone else fueled my competitive desire to be successful myself.

That competitive urge is powerful… LISTEN TO IT!

Tim Ferriss made me believe.

And my 'online business guru' Lorenzo showed me how to do it.

This brings me to my next point

3. Do EVERYTHING your mentor asks you to do

This is what I did with Tim Ferriss (internet business... automation... etc).

And this is how I learned to create an online business, from Lorenzo.

The rest is history as they say.

So what's the next step for you?

Register for my free webinar where I'll show you they key strategies behind what I do and how you can get started right away: http://jetset.money

Making the shift from being a corporate drone into an entrepreneur isn't an easy task.

And I remember just how scary it was when I made the leap.

Even buying that $47 training course by my mentor Lorenzo was an incredibly hard decision for me!

That's why I offer my webinar for free, so that you can see what's possible TODAY, without having to spend anything.

Register here: http://jetset.money

Take care,

John

P.S. - If you are interested in more information about working with my system and training under me as a student, send me a message.

P.P.S. Please share this post to motivate others! I want 2017 to be a turning point year for as many people as possible.

GOD IS THE POTTER AND DESIGNER : NOTHING COMES EASY

 Let us speak on the subject "nothing good comes easy". Every good thing has a price. I will illustrate this with a story I heard. 

One day, some guys saw a beautiful tea cup and everyone commented that the tea cup was very beautiful. Suddenly the tea cup spoke. " I have not always been this beautiful. One day, the potter took me and started pushing me, pounding me, pressing me. I screamed and screamed that it was painful. I told him to let me go and be free, for I did not enjoy what he was doing. He shook his head and with a smile said, not yet. Suddenly, he put me on a wheel and started spinning me around. I was dazed and feeling dizzy. I told him to stop and that I was feeling nauseated.  I told him I wanted to throw up and he should stop. He smiled again, shook his head and said, not yet. I thought that was all. He again put me in an oven to heat up.  I felt like I was going to die. I had never seen or felt this kind of heat ever in my life. I was sure I will not make it. Just before giving up, the door opened and I was left to cool. I enjoyed this moment. I wished I would be left alone here but suddenly he took me and stared brushing me with a terrible paint that was choking me. The brush was painful and the paint smelt really bad. I wanted to throw up and I screamed to be left alone. At the top of my voice I was  screaming to be left alone. The potter again smiled and gently said, not yet. I thought this whole exercise was over; again, he tossed me into another oven to get heated up. The pains of the brush, the smell of the paint and again this heat all got to me. I was sure I was going to die. How can I come out of this alive. I was shouting and crying that I should be left alone. The potter smiled once more and with a gentle voice said, not yet"

"Just as I was to give up, the doors opened and the potter gently brought me out and put me on a stand to cool down. I enjoyed this, after passing through all that pounding, heating, brushing and painting, heating again, wow, I enjoyed this. The potter now brought a mirror and told me to look. I saw a very beautiful chinaware that was so lovely. I screamed,  this cannot be me. It is very beautiful."

"The potter smiled reassuringly and said, if I had left you at every stage of your screams and shouts,  you would have been one ugly clay and if I did not heat you up nicely, you would not have been this beautiful and would have cracked apart. Also, if I did not apply the brush and the paint nicely,  you would not last and would fall apart with every little pressure. Your patience to go through it all has brought out the beauty in you"

The story above summarizes my submission this week. Nothing good comes easy and that there is a price to pay for every growth and advancement. 

Have a great week.

Kingsley Odoh is a worship leader,  musician and entrepreneur. He is a member of New Dawn Baptist Church, Victoria Island, Lagos. Nigeria 

SMALL CAN BECOME GREAT - Samuel Babarinde

Small Can Become Great

A man can rise  from the lowest ebb to the highest and the zenith of his dream. One can move from the status of having  nothing to possessing abundance.This may seem to many like magical realism; However,  it is  the outcome of the grace of God through Jesus Christ. He (GOD) bestows grace upon his own. 

This is the true work of God and not sure realism. Every season of opportunity  is an example of the greatness of him that uses the foolish things of this world to showcase his glory in the life of true believer in Christ Jesus

 

Considering the saviour -Jesus Christ, he was born in a lowly manger. God shielded him from danger. He stayed in manger  because there was no room in the inn.  This didn't stop his greatness or cause his glory to go down. 

The process of transformation may be irksome and rough. We must stay strong and tough. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a step.And subsequently giant strides on the road map to greatness. Each person has the potential to excel.   

Little drops of water make a mighty ocean. A vivid expression of this saying is that of the mustard seed which grows to become a large tree. If we let the Master work in us, through us and walk with us; then, we will experience the fullness of the exponential effect of his blessings. 

Natural laws and agricultural expectation is that in every seed of a fruit, there is tendency of a mighty tree. God can do exceedingly more abundantly than we can think or imagine. 

There is greatness in everyone.

Samuel Babarinde : Regenerate believer and a passionate Christian in the things of the Kingdom. He is driven by corporate and professional excellence.

SPEAKING ON GENUINE DEMOCRACY

The challenge to all Nigerians is to choose leaders  who must they themselves must  be educated and be willing to promote  quality education. 

When leaders who are elected by crook or hook are themselves not well educated, the future of the country is better imagined than anticipated.  Education is a panacea for any group of people who will elect the right kind of people who will run a government for the good of the people. A person suffering from knowledge deficiency and deficit in skills  is  not fit for political leadership. Education is the solution 

VALENTINE :THE ORIGIN, ESSENCE AND SPIRITUAL IMPLICATIONS OF VALENTINE DAY:*

*THE ORIGIN, ESSENCE AND SPIRITUAL IMPLICATIONS OF VALENTINE DAY:*

During the third century, an oppressive Roman Emperor called Emperor Claudius II had made it a capital punishment (death) to worship and serve Christ.

He had decreed the Romans to serve and worship his gods, and deprived the young Roman soldiers of getting married.

But an elderly Christian had stood his ground for his faith and had insisted on serving Jesus Christ and preaching the love of God to the young soldiers.

This was considered treason against the government.

He was arrested, sentenced to death and jailed. In the last weeks of his life in the prison, the jailer (prison commander) who observed that he was very learned and possessed very good Christian character, brought his blind daughter to him to be giving her lessons.

He taught her about God and told her many Roman histories and stories from the Bible. He taught her the love of God. The blind girl got so used to the elderly Christian prisoner. On his last night he left a note for Julia, the blind girl, encouraging her to love God and serve Him. And in ending the note, he wrote: "From your Valentine".

His death sentence was carried out the next day, February 14, 270 A.D.

*The name of this martyr was Valentinus*, a man who died for standing for the Preaching of the Christ and teaching people about the love of God.

So, for his love for God, he was regarded as 'Saint'.

Archaeologists have unearthed a Roman catacomb; an ancient church dedicated to Saint Valentine. During 496 AD, the Pope marked February 14 as celebration in honor of his martyrdom.

*February 14, is known as Valentine Day. But the essence of Valentine Day historically was a celebration in honor of the martyrdom of a devoted preacher, Valentinus, who stood on his faith in Christ against the devilish idolatry decrees of a Godless Emperor.*

*He preached Christ to the Roman soldiers and spread the love for God and humanity when it was a crime to do so. The day he was martyred was declared "Valentine Day". February 14, 270 AD.*

However, the devil has rewritten history today. All over the world, the history has successfully been erased and rewritten the way the devil wanted. The reason for the DAY has been blotted out from people's memory and a minor aspect of the whole story had been blown beyond proportion. The little card note Valentinus had left behind for Julia, her young beloved convert, whom she taught, preached to and prayed for, had ended with: "From Your Valentine".

*On February 14, in the year 270.AD, somebody died for Christ and is now in Heaven, but on February 14, 2017, several people will die spiritual death.*

The Destinies of several young men and girls will be aborted that day, because the devil had changed the reason for the Valentine Day celebrations. He had rubbed off living and dying for Christ and replaced it with living and dying on the bed of immorality.

That day, many young girls and ladies will give their virginity away for a gift of phones, ipads, bags, clothes, and even valueless gifts as little as chocolate, sweet, fried chickens and plates of pepper-soup and salad.

By the evening of this year Feb 14, demons of fornication and adultery will invade our streets and storm our night clubs and hotels to take register of those who are dying soon of STDs, including new candidates who are going to contact HIV and AIDS.

On Feb 14 this year, forces of evil are coming down on adulterated Valentine Day to possess people with the spirit of Rape and drug abuse. Imagine the amount of pregnancy preventive drugs and materials that shall be sold. Harlots will sell that day. There will be Christian backsliders that day....BECAUSE SOME GLORIOUS DESTINIES WILL BE ABORTED ON VALENTINE DAY.

*The story of Reuben, Genesis 35:21-22a:*

21. Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.

22. And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine; and Israel heard about it.

A strange spirit came upon Reuben, the first born of Jacob, and he went and slept with his father's young wife. Israel heard about it and said nothing. Nothing was heard about it again for many years, and we never heard that Reuben asked for forgiveness or repented or became sober about it and the matter died just like that. Really?

So many events came over it, nobody mentioned it again. He went with the rest of Jacob's children to Egypt; he saw the glories of Egypt. He was welcomed into the palace of Joseph and ate with him in the royal palace. He grew and had many children and everything was going fine for him till the day their father would say the last prayers for them and give them his final decree.

At the point of death, whatever he said was final for life.

He gathered them together for the final blessing and began to bless them all. But he began with Reuben, the first son, who was to be the heir who should carry the highest blessings among the children.

The record was opened to his long forgotten atrocity. He thought it had been swept under the carpet. He thought he was smart and he had had a simple fun. But his father opened his mouth for his final blessing and said:

● Gen. 49:3-4 (NKJV)

3. "Reuben, you are my firstborn,

My might and the beginning of my strength,

The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.

4. Unstable as water, you shall not excel,

Because you went up to your father's bed;

Then you defiled it—He went up to my couch.

Though he was the beginning of Jacob's strength, he was supposed to be an epitome of Excellency of dignity and power. He was to be naturally blessed and was born to be a man of natural dignity and power, but....HIS DESTINY WAS ABORTED the day he had "fun" with his father's young wife. So, his own verdict was: *"You shall not Excel"* from a man who was anointed to proclaim a final verdict on the Sons of Israel. Reuben was destined to be a royal dignified personality above his siblings, but for that single night of 'fun' with that woman.

Many people will have a lot of lustful funs on Feb 14, and wake up Feb 15 morning as normal, but the truth is: long after a very hot pressing iron had been disconnected from the power source; it would still be hot for a while, until it begins to grow cold. Some power cable would be disconnected from the power source of some people on Feb 14.

Some young men and women will place their entire life virtues and destinies in the hand of marine agents that night.

Feb 14 evening is a 'Night of Fun', when many men and ladies will slaughter their destinies on the bed of lustful pleasure. By Feb 15 morning it is done!

Destiny Auctioned to a young man or a lady whose future has been mortgaged to the devil.

If Joseph had had a fun with Potiphar's wife, he would never have got to the palace to see the type of Glory he saw. He escaped that trap which would have aborted his destiny on which so many lives in Egypt and Canaan land, including the lives of his generation unborn depended upon.

There is a great story in

 ●*Proverbs 7:6-27*. It is a sad story of a young man on his own "Valentine Night".

He had thought he wanted to have a fun that night, he had thought he wanted to enjoy himself, but crashed his future in a night of fun.

*●Proverbs 7:21-23*

21. With her enticing speech she caused him to yield,

With her flattering lips she seduced him.

22. Immediately he went after her, as an ox goes to the slaughter,

Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks,

23. Till an arrow struck his liver.

As a bird hastens to the snare,

He did not know it would cost his life.

I beg every child of God reading this post to send it to their loved ones especially all those whom they know have not known the true meaning of Valentine Day so that their destinies could be preserved for their glorious future.

Dear brethren, Please let's post this write up to our young ones to guide them in escaping the devil's traps on Valentine's Day and pray that the power of God will prevail against the desires of the devil.

May The Lord bless us as we preach the true meaning of the DAY

SAVING IS INVESTMENT

Just Drops!

Recently, when I was going to bed after using my bathroom, I started hearing sound of drops of water from the tap in slow successions, but since it was dropping into an empty bucket, I decided to let it be.

But, alas! When I woke up the next morning, around 5am, the bucket was almost full! I was surprised that just drops even in such slow successions could produce that much. I couldn't help it, 'Just drops?!' I questioned rhetorically.

But the following night, I made sure that the tap in my bathroom was locked completely and I checked the bucket and saw that it was empty, though wet. Then I went to sleep.

I guess you already know what I saw the next morning. The bucket was not wet as I had left it, but it was now dry!

Then I realized the importance of a drop and how much difference it can make in all ramifications of one's life compared to a dry tap.

Imagine letting the drops be for a year, I would be scooping with drums at the end of the year!

So, how about that drop of savings?

How about a drop of reading useful books today and every day?

How about that drop of a verse of the scripture today and every day?

How about that drop of prayer today and every day?

How about that drop of a soul won for Christ today and every day?

How about a drop of worship today and every day?

How about a drop of step towards your God-given dream today and every day?

How about a drop of giving into your heavenly account?

What virtue and discipline will you start today in little drops?

Never neglect the importance of a drop, for when the harvest time comes, you would have made a big difference. May God Bless Us! Have a wonderful day! Start something good even though small now please Jesus cares you are lifted

By Samuel Adesina Aworinde