Why Work Sucks — & How You Can Multiply Your Success Without Ever Drudging Through It

If there’s one thing pretty much everyone agrees on it’s that you should never have to do more work than you absolutely have to. Remember that when deciding how you spend the precious hours of your life.

But with that said — 99% of people fail to understand something alarmingly important to getting what it is they want in life: They don’t understand a key part of using this thing called “work” to become successful beyond your wildest dreams.

And don’t worry — I’m not going to berate you about how “kids these days don’t work anymore” or “the values of hard work have been forgotten”.

It’s cool. This isn’t one of those things. In fact, it’s quite the opposite:

Humans have been programmed biologically — by evolution — to conserve energy. Food was scarce to our ancestors.

So if we don’t have an immediate reason to exert energy?

We simply won’t.

But what if there were a way to get the success you want in life without even feeling like you’re exerting energy?

Spoiler alert: there is.

It’s Called
Finding Your Greatest Gift.

When you’re giving your greatest gift to the world, you simply don’t work anymore.

A guy named Jim Rohn used to say living your greatest gift is the only way for your labor to be truly fulfilling.

Fulfilling, meaning, it leaves you FULL. You walk away from it each day totally satisfied that it happened. And you WANT to go back and do it again the next day.

“Are there really people like that?” You may ask…

And I’m telling you, yes. There are.

In fact that’s extremely important for you to know. Because the most sacred thing in our lives that we can give another human being besides our love…

Is Our Labor.

Your labor is your time. It’s your emotion. It’s your intellect and your spirit. Repeated day-in and day-out. For the vast majority of your life. And if you can find a way where what you do for a living activates that sense of what you’re MADE for?

Then work is not “work” — it’s something else entirely. Something that enlivens you.

So here’s a wake-up call if you need one:

You have to align NOW with what’s most important to YOU. What you really believe in. What’s most meaningful for you. And when you combine THAT with your labor… you can bring to it a level of excitement and passion nobody else can.

And if you settle for something less than that…

Well, sure, you might have to do it because you have to pay your bills in the meantime. I get it. But even then — you can’t ever give up pursuing what’s going to make you feel MOST alive.

It’s Never Too Late.

You and I and the entire world are in a very strange economic and political time right now.

A lot of people are out of work.

A lot of people have chosen to be unemployed.

A lot of people have been laid off.

And some of us are just approaching a lull from the grind during the holidays.

That’s why right now is the absolute best time ever to really think about how you can…

Turn Your Labor
Into Your Love.

It’s 100% possible for you.

Now one of the secrets I’ve found over the years — is that if you’re going to be a true master at something you don’t show up as the best in the world at it on day one. You get to mastery because you did it for thousands and thousands of hours.

Many people know the idea that mastery takes 10,000 hours. Honestly, that’s an arbitrary number. But it’s a good benchmark to keep in mind. Because when you do something enough — with enough intensity and intention to constantly get better…

Then your labor has to be your love.

Who would put themselves through that otherwise?

Seriously.

Because when you’re living your greatest gift, you LOVE the idea of constantly getting better at it — there’s no final “arrival” point where you stop.

You’re always progressing.

You are driven by your own nature to keep leveling up. And then usually what happens is you get these insights that allow you to serve other people more. You serve them in higher quality and quantity, with more efficiency.

And you know what the result of that is?

That’s How You Make
More Money In Less Time.

But if I were to be completely honest — the money flowing in is just a byproduct.

Because what makes people fulfilled by their labor is their motives for the work. If your motive is just to make money, pay your bills, get rich, or whatever it’s going to be… The people who do that aren’t often fulfilled — even if they do make the money they set out to make.

The most fulfilled human beings in my experience — and I’ve had the privilege of working with thousands of high-achieving people now… the people who are most ALIVE regardless of the economics — are people who are doing something where they feel the motive is…

More Than
Just Themselves.

We all know what it feels like when you’re trying to do something for someone you love and you’re not doing it as a trade, you’re not trying to get something back — you’re just doing it because it’s what you’re made for.

That’s why motive DOES matter.

If you’re just doing something for yourself, there’s nothing wrong with that either because life supports whatever else supports life: If you’re part of life, and you’re doing something that’s going to make your own life better — I think the universe gets connected to you and gives you insights.

But if you’re going to work to support MORE than yourself — MORE life than just you… Well, when things support “more” of life, then more of life shows up to support you.

Make sense?

That might sound kind of airy-fairy but when you really investigate it — it’s completely true.

For example — when people have kids, their lives tend to change. Because now they’re working to support something more than just themselves.

In the same way, when people really start focusing on how to serve a community, then a country, then humanity as a whole — you get insights you won’t get when you’re just trying to somehow “get the job done.”

Often included in those insights are how you can make a lot more money, easily. Or have a better relationship. Or even better health.

But most people are unhappy in their life because they look at labor as work.

They look at it as:

“Why should I have to put so much effort in for so little?”

But what they don’t realize is the effort IS the reward. If you are doing something you love, it’s there. And even if you’re not doing something you love, it’s still there. It’s just a little bit harder to find. I’ll explain how that works in a second.

The point is, you CAN discover something you’re really passionate about. But in order to do it, you have GOT to get out of the story of “what you can’t do because xyz” and you’ve gotta put yourself on the line!

You might know that two-thirds of the planet right now is living on less than two dollars a day.

So no matter how difficult our life may be, most of us — our worst challenge is somebody else’s greatest dream.

Discovering what we love starts with gratitude for what we already have.

And understanding what’s wrong with the world is always available to us. But so is what’s right.

And if you and I can figure out what’s RIGHT with what we can do — if we can start from where we are and enjoy it…

Then That’s When
Everything Changes.

Here’s an example. This is a funny story that was originally told by Tony Robbins:

When Tony was just 18 or 19 years old, he had some partners in a business.

And this was a health business.

He believed in it and he was passionate about the health business, too. But his business partners got involved with a particular guru they really believed in who lived in India. And gradually they decided they were going to do this chant they learned from the guru in the seminars they were putting on in the business.

Now these were seminars on how to get yourself into peak fitness and health — and they were doing them for successful business people in Beverly Hills and west Los Angeles.

Tony was concerned about this guru.

He was worried his business partners were now going off to India to have these spiritual experiences — and they were going to come back and try to convert customers in the business to some form of spirituality.

Whether it was right or wrong for them to do that — it didn’t matter to him.

He just didn’t believe that was what they were in business for. They were in business to help people with their health and fitness.

So being a young kid and thinking he had all the answers, Tony went to India with one thing in mind:

He was going to go talk to the guru, and make sure the guru straightens his business partners out so they understand that their labor is a gift — and they need to give their labor separate from their spiritual beliefs.

So he…

Jets Off On A
Journey To India.

And he stays outside this ashram because he wasn’t a follower of this whole spiritual thing.

And while his business partners are in the ashram, Tony stays outside — and one day he comes back from having a meal and this little monk walks up to him.

The monk goes, “Excuse me — I’ve not met you.”

Tony introduced himself. And the monk says: “What are you here for?”

Tony says, “Well I’m here to see the guru and I want to have a meeting with him.”

But anyone who knows anything about India, knows that you don’t just have a meeting with a guru. People come for five or seven years and they don’t even get a meeting with the guru.

Yet Tony told the monk, “I’m here to get his help and straighten something out. It’s very important for some of his followers.”

And the man said, “Well I haven’t seen you at seva.”

“What’s Seva?” he asked.

“Seva is when you volunteer your time to give work — to give labor — to the guru.”

And Tony goes, “Well I’m not a follower of the guru so I don’t do Seva.”

The monk replied, “Yes, but you’re staying in the Guru’s place!”

Tony said, “I’m paying to stay in the guru’s place.”

The monk said, “It doesn’t matter. You’re eating the guru’s food.”

Tony said, “I’m paying for the guru’s food.”

The monk goes, “But here you have to pay — and you must give labor. And you must volunteer four hours a day to Seva.”

Tony said, “You gotta be kidding me.”

Before the monk left, he gave Tony the place to report to for his assignment.

And Tony is thinking, “There’s no way I'm going to do this.”

But he started to feel guilty. He saw all these people — doctors, lawyers, moms, kids — they’re all working around him. So finally he reports for Seva, thinking he’ll just get it out of the way.

Tony Robbins is a huge guy. He’s 6’ 7”. So when he shows up for the Seva to “give his labor”, the monk looks at Tony and goes:

“Ohhh big man!
Furniture mover!”

Tony goes, “Oh no no, I’ve got a bad back.”

(Which was true but he was greatly exaggerating.)

Now Tony says that one type of work he despises is doing the dishes. Growing up, he always had to do them. And he swore that as an adult, he’d hire someone, or always find a way out of dish-washing.

So when the monk finds out Tony has a bad back, he says, “If you can’t move any furniture, there’s only one job left. Dish-washing.”

And dish washing in India is a different labor entirely than you might picture in your kitchen.

You walk into this ashram and there are these milk solids and yogurts all over the floor. And you’re standing in your bare feet, taking these enormous filthy dishes in a conveyor line. And it’s chaos.

Tony had to do that for four hours a day for six or seven days.

He was livid about it.

He was mad at himself that he ever came to India. He was washing these dishes, upset — and plus he was a vegan and didn’t like the fact that there was milk all over the floor.

He Was Judgmental
About Everything.

And in the middle of all this stuff, after about an hour of being angry — he got tired of being angry. And some part of him goes, “Whatever you do, you’re the best at it. And why don’t you be the best damn dishwasher you can be?”

So Tony starts washing these dishes with a frenzy.

He starts telling the other people working to speed the whole thing up.

And that’s when something magical happened.

The thing that he thought was so disgusting and filled with labor and work — became play.

And he started laughing to himself.

He thought, “What an ego-filled jerk you are to think that you’re below washing some dishes.”

And then he got beyond his “ego” and “jerk” — and stepped into, “Why not just enjoy whatever you do… and when you do, all of a sudden it’s not work anymore?”

And that was his big spiritual breakthrough in India.

Tony went back to the states with his business partners, and they went on to write a book called Fit For Life which sold millions of copies.

But that’s beside the point.

What’s The Point
Of All This?

Burn this into your brain:

If you can get yourself to love to do the stuff you hate to do, then there’s no limit to the success you can have in your life.

If you can embrace the things that you’re afraid you have to do to succeed in your business, your career, your relationship, your health, or your life — then you can have everything.

See — there are always things everybody doesn’t want to do.

Even when you’re doing what you want to do there will be things you don’t want to do.

And the more focused you are on how you’re NOT going to do that thing, the more life seems to bring those things out for you, make them bigger, and…

Turn Them Into Barriers.

So as we move full-swing into the holidays, and you’re thinking about turning your labor into your love, maybe it’s also a great time to take something that you can’t stand doing and go, “You know, I’m going to find a way to do this for two hours. And I’m going to love the hell out of it.”

And if you did that, you might just find a little breakthrough.

You might find that if you’re in the swing of something you hate doing — and you tap into your inborn ability to enjoy literally anything in life — and you just focus on what you can give instead of what you can get…

I absolutely promise, in that state of giving, work disappears.

It doesn’t matter if you’re working from a laptop on the beach, or in a warehouse somewhere just trying to make ends meet.

And you know what? It doesn’t even matter whether people even thank you for your work or not — as much as we all do enjoy people’s gratitude…

When you’ve done something really well, and you know it, it doesn’t matter what anybody else says.

You know who you are. You know what you become. And you know what you’ve given.

In the end, even the people that seem to be selfish inside, we’re all yearning for something more in ourselves.

We’re yearning to feel like our life matters.

And I see people all the time who are just working their tail off. And they’re so focused on the work, that they forgot their work is actually a gift they can give.

Sometimes that gift is just their joy. Sometimes that gift is your intention. Sometimes that gift is a level of effort that’s extraordinary.

If you can change your paradigm from labor to service — and tap into that idea of service — then that’s exactly what life is made for.

Life is not about “me”, it’s about “we”. You already knew that.

Maybe this holiday season it’s a good time to remember that labor is service, and service is life.

That’s why when we serve something more than ourselves, we feel more alive.

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love.

- Kahlil Gibran, ‘On Work’
The Prophet