in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in Psychological Review, psychologist Abraham Maslow shared his hierarchy of needs.
This article is written for people who, like me, want to achieve greatness with less effort.
Being a CEO is not achieving greatness
Recently I read a book about a woman whose dream was to become the CEO of a company.
She studied hard, relocated with her family to many different cities, kissed a lot of asses, asked her husband to become a stay at home dad, and made so many more sacrifices.
Finally, she was offered the position of CEO of a company that was about to go bankrupt.
She accepted the challenge, took no pay for one whole year, reduced the compensation of her staff, and after a year, she turned the company around. After a few years she retired with her beloved title of CEO.
Yes, she did something remarkable. But she paid a high price for her greatness. And at the end of the day, even as a CEO, she was always someone’s employee. The board of directors and the shareholders were her boss.
The road to greatness is entrepreneurship
Instead, she could have chosen to be an entrepreneur.
In 1986 Howard D. Schultz, founder of Starbucks got into the coffee by opening a little coffee shop in Seattle called Il Giornale. From there, he grew his business until he transformed his business and became the CEO of Starbucks. He achieved greatness by going into entrepreneurship.
In 1962 Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart store called “Wal-Mart Discount City store.” then he got a second, a third, and we all know the rest of the story. This was not a complicated business, and he grew it one store at a time.
These were two people who opened very simple businesses, they were the CEO from day one, and never had to follow orders dictated by anyone else. Their businesses were great businesses in less than 10 years.
You too, you can be a CEO of some simple to understand business.
Take real estate for example. If you are on the lookout for fair priced properties, you can buy one property per year. At the end of 20 years, you can have 20 properties. Assuming each one of them is worth half a million dollars. At the end of the 20 years, you have a real estate portfolio of 10 million dollars.
Assuming a 2% return on the value of assets. You will have a nice salary of $200k, with no boss, and no more than 10 hours of work per week.
There are many small business that you can run well without having fancy degrees or taking huge risk.
At one time I became an Airbnb host of 5 properties. Each property was earning a couple of thousands per month. I was working part time, I was the CEO of my life and the investment of capital & know-how were modest.
The stock market is the laziest way to make money
There is nothing easier than to make money in the stock market.
The average return of the stock market for the past 100 years is about 8%. You do the math but if you have a portfolio of $500,000, that year you could easily earn $40,000 without lifting a freaking finger. How much easier can it get?
Why isn’t everyone in the stock market? Sure, you have to have some money to get started, but once you get it, it’ all downhill form there.
Achieve intellectual greatness
People are lazy. To be intellectually superior to most people around you, all you have to do is to read for 30 minutes every day. It doesn’t matter what you read. In the long run, you will change preference many times, but don’t break the cycle. Don’t go to bed until you have read your 30 minutes.
I started my reading journey by reading spy novels, after two years I moved to literature, then philosophy, and now I read a variety of nonfiction works.
This is a life time endeavor. To read for one month or even one year, it has very little value, but when you do it for 10 years or more, you become smarter by the page.
Listen to educational podcasts
Podcast its the greatest intellectual cheat I know. You don’t need to put aside any extra time or you don’t have to make any effort to learn from podcast.
Find a few educational, self improvement shows and listen to them while you do your dishes, while you walk, while you drive, while you walk, while you do any kind of activity where you don’t require your complete attention.
The thoughts expressed in most podcast are generated by experts in their fields. That message starts dripping into your head and after a while, they become your own thoughts. You are becoming smarter practically for free and with no effort.
Sleeping is a super power
Whatever you do, arrange you life in a way that you will never have to use an alarm clock.
Your sleeping should be protected at all cost. If you have to go to bed early in order to wake up earlier, well that’s the sacrifice you have to make.
The thing that works for me is to never make an appointment before 10:00 am. That way, I can make sure to sleep when my body has enough sleep.
Conclusion
The road to greatness is not difficult. You can achieve greatness with little effort. You do have to take some risk, and break away from the norm, but that’s why you will become great and others won’t.
Just keep in mind that road to greatness is paved with a myriad of tinny habits that you implement every day, but within 10 years you should be at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Support this blog
You can support this blog by:
- Using our Amazon Affiliate link.
- Subscribing to our YouTube Channel.
- Subscribing to our podcast through your favorite podcast app.
- Making a donation of $1, $2, or $5.
- Subscribing to our newsletter. We send one email every Sunday with a summary of the week.