Five Laws of Actualized Success

If you defined what success is to you it probably sounds something like:

Being able to spend my days how I want while contributing to the world in a meaningful way and having the resources to live my life without extreme hardship.

What I’m going to lay out for you right now are five rules that will help you get to that above definition of success with a minimum amount of lost effort.

For those of you with somewhere to be right now, not a free moment to spare, and the desire to know what the rules are…well you’re one of those that should make time for the rest of this article. Nevertheless, here they are, taken completely out of context with no amplifying information.

1. No one will give it to you.
2. Decisions are a hot commodity.
3. The most finite resource is attention.
4. Measure by action not time served.
5. Purpose drives success and happiness.

1. No one will give it to you.

I recognized the first law of actualized success when I was rewatching the movie Wanted starring James McAvoy.

I’m sure you’ve heard of it.

It’s about an average guy living an average life who through a series of fortuitous events learns that he is the son of a super spy, and he too has the super spy gene. (What lab can I find that in?)

And… BOOM! Plot shift and adventure ensues.

His whole world was turned upside down. It went from boring and mundane ergonomic keyboards to fast paced action sequences, bending bullets in mid-air, and Morgan Freeman as a mentor.

I realize now that this is basically the most popular movie plot line of all time that we are all being spoon fed like it’s the way reality works.

1. Protagonist lives a boring life.
2. An unexpected superhuman event takes place.
3. Main character then changes his entire life and goes on adventure after adventure.
4. Life is awesome now.

Here are just a few more examples to really drive my point home.

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Kid finds golden ticket, inherits chocolate factory.
• King Ralph (John Goodman Classic): Entire Royal family gets electrocuted to death, a deadbeat bowl from America inherits the throne.
• Spiderman: High school nerd gets bitten by radioactive spider, becomes superhero.
• Star Wars: Farm kid finds out he’s a jedi, saves the universe.
• Brewster’s Millions (Richard Pryor Classic): Less than average amateur baseball player inherits millions out of the blue.
• The Princess Diaries: Normal awkward girl finds out she is royalty. (This might be a rip off of King Ralph…)
• Harry Potter: Do I have to explain this one? “You’re a wizard, Harry.”

I could go on and on and on.

I’m sure you have another one in your mind right now…

What’s the common denominator here? An average person (someone we identify with) has a clash with fate that turns their entire life around.

They go from Hopeless to The Universe’s Only Hope.

Usually this happens through NO DOING of the protagonist whatsoever.

This lie is programmed into us from an early age.

We are taught in these movies that if we follow the rules and do as we are told, one day lightning will strike and we will win the lottery or gain the ability to fly.

The exact opposite is true though.

THE ONLY WAY WE CAN ACHIEVE THE TYPE OF SUCCESS WE DAYDREAM ABOUT IS BY MAKING IT HAPPEN ON OUR OWN.

This is a call to action.

Decide now to take your success for yourself in every way possible.

2. Decisions are a hot commodity

You’ve been conditioned to loath decision making. To view it as a burden, something to push off on someone else, even if that just means future-you.

The number of problems that future Michael has had to deal with is too damn many.

It’s not a total lie though. Decisions can be hard mentally and emotionally and physically draining. The lie is that you can shirk the responsibility of deciding and still have everything you want in life.

How about a sea story from an old Marine?:

I had a Commanding Officer who was one of the most erratic and outspoken people I have yet to meet in my life. By all standard accounts of “humanness” he was (I assume still is) a borderline sociopath and semi-professional megalomaniac. Serving under him was one of the most instructive periods of my career, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

On one particular occasion I was in his office for a meeting. He told me that he was going to send me to this 2-month school on the actual other side of the planet. Great, I was on board, but I knew that it was a bit of a pipe dream. Usually people just say these things to sound powerful and cool anyway.

To my naive surprise he picked up the phone, made two phone calls, and sent a text in a matter of minutes.

The first call he explained to the local decision maker for that school on our base that:

“This Marine (me, Michael) is the Intel Officer for the Premier F/A-18 Squadron on the planet and was chosen for the position because he is the smartest and most capable person for the job in the Marine Corps. If he doesn’t go to this school during the next iteration the schoolhouse should be shut down because it’s clearly a waste of tax-payer money.”

I now felt a little puffed up and the person on the other side of that call had a fire lit under their ass to make a powerful man happy.

The second call was to the actual school on the other side of the world, where it was roughly 9PM, to the director of the course in question. The conversation went similarly, but instead of telling him his school was risking wasting taxpayer money without me there, my boss told the director that his school was the sole reason that the Marine Corps Air Ground Task Force is unparalleled in its ability to perform Joint Operations (Translation: The Marines are the shit and you’re the reason why.)

I now realized that true leadership knows no socially accepted norms like business hours.

The text, as it turns out, went to a former big-wig at the school telling him that my CO was sending a stud to the course so they better bring their “A” game to impress me.

I now felt the pressure to perform and promulgate the reputation of my CO. I was an extension of him while at the course so I better make him proud.

That 5 minute meeting showed me that:

• Real decision makers make decisions above their pay grade.
• Most people won’t argue with you if you fluff their ego.
• When you steal a decision off of someone’s plate they’re actually grateful.
• It’s possible to both take complete ownership for something and completely empower others to accomplish that decision at the same time.

Most normal people are busy trying to avoid decisions while real change-makers are busy making decisions that they have only a tangential interest in AND the people actually responsible for those decisions will thank them for it.

Make no mistake about it, decisions are a hot commodity. The truly successful are making a disproportionate number of the decisions and are getting to skip rungs on their climb up the success ladder as a result.

3. The most finite resource is attention.

I want to fill you in on the most endangered natural resource and how it’s causing you to lose.

It’s not oil.

It’s not cobalt.

It’s not even love.

It’s ATTENTION.

You’ve probably heard sayings like:

“Time is the only thing they aren’t making any more of.” or

“Money doesn’t grow on trees.” (That was a favorite saying of my grandfather.)

Sure those are finite but they aren’t the most at risk resource. Even if your life has proven different thus far, you can always make more money.

As a self-professed “time-snob” even I will admit that I have free-time in my schedule. I protect it like a Rottweiler guarding a bone wrapped in bacon but I do submit that it isn’t my most protected asset.

It’s ATTENTION

Without focused attention you can’t concentrate enough to make money and time just seems to slip away.

Acquiring attention is the driving prerogative of most tech companies. The chain of events is like this:

• Consumer spends time on their app
• They show advertisers how much ad time they have.
• Advertisers give them money
• They add new features, new games, more gifts, etc, etc to keep our attention.

I myself have often wondered why in-the-Sam-hell Google would spend money advertising their search feature. They already have a billion searches a day (Don’t fact check that, I’m being hyperbolic…). It’s not about Search. It’s about keeping our attention.

Accountants at Google are very happy that I used them as an example instead of Bing, or Duck Duck Go.

Why is attention so precious to you? Because if you aren’t paying attention to what you’re doing you are wasting your time and as a result you probably aren’t making money or happiness as efficiently as possible.

For our demographic, absolute advantage, comparative advantage, low hanging fruit, minimum viable products, economy of force, and a bunch of other high-brow economic concepts are what dictate success. Efficiency is key.

You should always be looking to find the least amount of attention you can expend on a project or task in order to get the highest pay-off.

The lie we’re told is that we should want more money or strive to save time by hacking our way through life.

As if free time and a fat bank account will satisfy us. IT WON’T

What we actually want is to be as successful as possible in the most efficient way possible so that we have leftover attention for the things that fulfill us.

I don’t want to be the husband that comes home mentally fried and physically exhausted. The partner who can’t enjoy the woman he married. I don’t want to be too tired to go hiking or surfing on the weekend. I damn sure don’t want to be the guy who is too wrapped up in work that I don’t even bring my attention home.

WHO DON’T YOU WANT TO BE?

This is the exact reason why I put so much emphasis on planning ahead of time. I am constantly telling people to make simple decisions ahead of time so that deciding on lunch doesn’t contribute to your allostatic load, so it doesn’t steal some of your precious attention. Choose the information you consume by pulling it towards you; don’t allow it to be pushed to you by 24 hour news cycles or the like. Keep your phone on airplane mode more than it has a signal (try this one. You just may love it).

Life will suck every ounce of attention you have if you don’t protect it.

True success in life can only be had by those that hoard their attention and give it out like it’s the last ticket on the last flight out of Saigon.

Time thieves are bad but attention thieves are worse.

4. Measure by action not time served

Do you know what every crime movie that has a criminal as the main character has in common?

Contrarily, do you know what every crime movie that has Johnny Law as the main character has in common?

In criminal based movies, when you get pinched you keep your mouth shut and do your time with integrity. When you get out you get a promotion and a drug fueled night of debauchery.

In police based movies, when someone gets arrested they roll-over, strike a deal with the feds, and hope for a reduced sentence or witpro (that’s witness protection for those of you not privy to Dep of Justice lingo.)

I’m not here to play favorites but stick with me on this analogy.

The majority of working-class stiffs think that life is like a Mafia movie. They think that if they go into work every day for their designated amount of time that in:

• 2 years they’ll get a raise.
• 5 years they’ll get a promotion.
• 10 years they’ll make partner.
• 20 years they’ll get a corner office.
• 30 years they’ll get a gold watch (retirement).

This is what we’re led to believe. Sure the formula has changed a bit over the years but the expectations are similar. Instead people are hoping that if they put in the hours needed eventually:

• They’ll get “discovered” on social media.
• Finally get that book deal.
• Get bought out by Google or Facebook.
• Get asked to go on The Joe Rogan Experience.

“Just keep pluggin’ away there buster! Eventually the world will love you because you’re showing up.”

To be clear: THIS IS A LIE.

Doing your time is a recipe for averageness. Everyone is doing their time.

Life is more like The Wire than the Sopranos…Did I just date myself? (I DGAF. Both are great shows that stand the test of time.) Anyway…

I’m telling you right now to flip… give up your meth distributor. Where’s the lab?

What is the workplace equivalent?

High Impact actions. Boldness. Walking into your biggest competitor and telling them they better buy you out now or they will have a rough 2021 when you really start picking up momentum.

Stop showing up. Identify the activities with the highest potential yield for success and do those.

It’s much easier to do your time. It’s much easier to show up everyday and conduct the bare minimum actions necessary for “success”.

Finding opportunity is hard. It in and of itself it’s time consuming as well as attention consuming.

Along the same vein, those things in life that yield the most satisfaction are things that you can’t just show up for. You need to commit to them and throw your full self into. There isn’t time for status updates if you want to have the full experience.

If you’re tired just thinking about this fact, I applaud you for getting this far and empathize with you.

In order to be your most creative, ingenious self, in order to live life with your full personality and passion you need to simplify. Get all the mundane stuff done quickly, answer your daily FAQ before those questions even get asked.

Stop living in a fantasy world where there’s honor among thieves. There isn’t. There’s honor in ingenuity. You need energy and freed up attention for that though.

5. Purpose drives success and happiness.

“Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscious commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge.”

Victor Frankl wrote that in his book Man’s Search For Meaning. He was a psychiatrist, neurologist, survivor of Auschwitz, the infamous WWII concentration camp, and an iconic author.

As I’m sure you can tell by the name, his book went into how to find meaning in your life. He even managed to ascribe meaning to the atrocities he survived during the war. It’s definitely worth a read.

He very succinctly tore down the final success lie that we’ve all been sold. Aim for success, shoot for happiness. These are actually just platitudes that many of us unknowingly live by.

Dr. Frankl very succinctly laid out the final law of success: Aim for purpose in everything that you do; success and happiness will follow.

Even with this wisdom already very much in the ether what is often one of the first questions asked of someone who is trying to discover their purpose?

Here’s my experience: I went through a major career change in the last 5 years. In that time I literally recall saying something to the effect of: “I just don’t think I care about anything. The only things that make me happy are eating ribs, drinking a six pack of tall boys (that’s beer), and watching all the Indiana Jones movies in one sitting.”

Obviously, I had some work to do.

The question that was a response to…

“What makes you happy? Just do that.”

I guess I intuitively knew that I would never be happy until I first found my purpose.

To be frankl (see what I did there?), your purpose right now may not always be your purpose. I believe that few of us have these huge overarching missions in life.

Life is more like a video game where we have missions that we must accomplish and then our purpose shifts.

That should clear up your concern of worrying that if you decide to start walking in one direction right now that you’re stuck on that path for life, you aren’t.

Shit! In a matter of years I went from the business of war to the business of helping people live longer and happier lives.

Imagine what you could do!

Closing

If you found yourself nodding along while reading I encourage you to take these laws one step further. Test them.

Ask a mentor, parent, boss, or friend that seems to have had a large amount of success in their life if they align with these “laws”.

These are my take on the topic of actual and perceived success from my clients, colleagues, and research. They aren’t actual laws. If you break one and still manage to find success, great on you.

Always ask yourself though; did you take the most direct path or was there an unnecessary amount of suffering involved? One of the primary directives I have in my line of work is to eliminate the most amount of time wasted and unnecessary suffering possible.

How does your day-to-day life align? Here are the laws of success one more time:

1. No one will give it to you.
2. Decisions are a hot commodity.
3. The most finite resource is attention.
4. Measure by action not time served.
5. Purpose drives success and happiness.