There is no substitute for hard work. It is the cornerstone of building success, and that will never change. However, by harmoniously integrating all aspects of your life and building them simultaneously toward success, you can achieve more with the effort you put in. We all have tendencies that create friction and disrupt harmony, such as pushing too hard, not eating right or not getting enough rest. By looking at your life as an integrated system that requires harmony to expand and evolve, you can ultimately do more with less and become the ideal version of yourself.

Of course, there are times we all must grind, sacrifice sleep and balance to get crucial things done. But that is not the lifestyle you are trying to achieve as an entrepreneur because it is simply not sustainable. The goal of any entrepreneur should be to hire with intention and build and grow it in a way that increases output by designing, automating and optimizing systems. Ultimately, you should be doing less grinding as your business grows and matures in this way, not more. There’s a lot of noise out there that champions burning the candle at both ends and sacrificing everything to build a business. That’s working hard, but not smart. Your goal should be to grow your business into something you actually enjoy running, and that fits seamlessly into the rest of your life. Not something that consumes your life.

This is the third of three episodes where Rob is rolling solo, with no guests, to dive deep on topics that are especially important to him and, he believes, are important for your success.

Rob is a life-long learner. Even at his level, he is constantly searching for more information, better philosophies, bits of wisdom that can unlock further potential and a greater understanding of the world. Like you, he reads (and listens to) books, consumes podcasts, subscribes to every entrepreneur blog and social account, constantly absorbing points of view from smart and successful people. It’s one thing to consume and be inspired by those we hope to emulate, but it is the distilling of the most important nuggets of information from those sources that are immediately applicable to your own systems in life and business. You will get more out of the educational media you consume by not trying to grasp it as a whole, but picking out those few key points that you can put into action immediately, add them to your toolbox, and use them to grow and evolve toward mastery. And when you consume the same thing a decade later, you will not only see completely new tools for your evolved state, but the experience will serve as a barometer of just how far you’ve come. This is the second of three episodes where Rob is rolling solo, with no guests, to dive deep on topics that are especially important to him and, he believes, are important for your success.