5 Things To Continue or Start Doing In 2024 (to Be Successful)

In the last post, I discussed 5 things which I suggest you avoid or stop doing completely in 2024 if you want to move closer towards the success that you see yourself eventually having.

This article is also available in podcast form:

In this article, we’ll continue on this track, except talking about things which you should continue or start doing in 2024 to get closer towards this said success.

And it’s funny. We all know what to do. It’s not a secret.

Everyone knows that if they:

Started exercising more
Got around the right people
Stopped spending money unnecessarily
Stopped eating the wrong kinds of foods and too many foods
Spent more time on things which can help them be successful and stopped spending time on things which don’t

They’d have a better life than they do right now.

Everyone knows this. It’s not a secret.

Yet despite this, many people can’t find it in themselves to do it.

I believe this is for many reasons, but I truly feel its because these are lag activities.

Meaning, these are activities that someone pursues in the absence of barriers to their achievement.

Spending money unnecessarily – that’s a lag outcome.

That’s a lag outcome that comes from lack of self-control. Therefore, to solve that problem – you develop financial self-control.

From that perspective, we focus on the things which will lead to these outcomes.

You stop eating too much junk food when you can develop a plan for eating the right foods in the right amounts.
You get around the right people who can help you when you see that you are around the wrong people and that your life isn’t going anywhere from hanging around these people.
You spend more time on things which will move the needle in your life when you can see that small changes over time lead to big results. You buy into the kaizen methodology.

And so on and so forth.

Therefore, following this logic – these 5 things are going to be things which lead up to helping you be successful in many areas.

It doesn’t matter what it is. If you can implement some of these into your life, you’ll be well on your way to succeeding in a big way in 2024.

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Develop a degree of detachment and pursue separation

Most things you want to do in life will require some degree of separation from most people in your life.

If you want to become valedictorian of your high school class, there’s a chance that you’ll have to study longer and harder than your classmates.

If you want to build a business, there’s a chance you’ll have to spend many hours formulating plans, working on the business itself, and doing things which people who do not own businesses cannot relate to.

If you want to become a millionaire, there’s a chance you’ll have to limit your spending, reduce or eliminate debt, accumulate assets, and practice an uncommon frugality that many people also cannot relate to.

All of these things will separate you from other people by default.

And there’s a chance that there will be some degree of pain involved because you are moving away from a group. Humans like to be in groups. Because in a group, there’s a less chance that something bad is going to happen to you.

But when you start to move away from a group of people who all think the same, you will end up being cast out by the group.

Anyone who has done anything significant has been cast out by the group. Think of Jesus Christ, Ghandi, Socrates, the Buddha, Galileo, the list goes on for a long time.

And while I’m not comparing myself or you to these individuals, it just becomes clear that moving out of lockstep with cookie-cutter, one-sized-fits-all solutions requires breaking away from a group at some level.

I realized this in my mid 20s, as I found myself with a need to create separation.

At the time, I had some friends who I was no longer ideologically aligned with anymore, yet I found myself spending an outsized amount of time with them.

A couple of years prior, I would have tried to keep seeing them with the same frequency, despite the inner incongruence I felt when I was with them.

So I had a choice:

continue hanging out with them at the same rate (and as a result have them influence my decision-making)
decrease the amount of of time I hung out with them (and decrease their influence in my life).

I chose the latter.

And these people weren’t bad people. I didn’t see eye to eye with some of the people in the group, but that doesn’t make them bad people.

It was just an incongruent fit for where my life was and where it was headed.

But now, that space has been filled with people who do resonate with me at where I am in my life. It feels right.

I don’t have to justify my decisions to these people.

I don’t have to twist myself in knots to be someone I’m not.

I don’t feel an inner discord that says to me “you are wasting your time spending it with these people”.

In your life right now, I can guarantee that if you have not made this choice to pursue separation for the sake of your dreams and aspirations, you will be slowly pulled away from these things.

Why?

Because you are the average of the 5 people you spend the time with the most. They will influence your decision-making whether you like it or not.

So you will either reorganize your schedule to spend more time with people who are resonate to your current station in life or you won’t.

And the choice is yours.

Just know that in 5 years or in 10 years, you will be closer to or further away from your ideals and visions. And it all comes down to what you are doing right now.

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Focus on the vital few, instead of the trivial many

This concept is also famously known as the Pareto Principle which is a natural law. Basically, it states that a minority of your inputs are responsible for a majority of your outputs.

What are some examples?

A few things in your day give you more excitement and joy than most things in your day.
- Few things that give you joy – your parents, your significant other, your pets, maybe even your line of work
- Many things that aggravate you – the weather right now, traffic, lines, high prices at the grocery store, your co-workers, a persistent cough you have that isn’t going away, and maybe even your line of work
A few things you currently do right now are responsible for your current level of success.
- Maybe you’re a good public speaker, you have excellent managerial skills, and you excellent project management skills
  - This would make you a good director of a department because you’re good at organizing people and resources. These 3 skills help you make a 6 figure salary
Maybe you travel on a few roads most of the time, you eat the same selection of foods most of the time, you text the same amount of people most of the time, and the list goes on and on and on.

It’s like this for everything.

In a free market society, the top 20% of people control 80% of the wealth.
In a company, 20% of the employees, earn 80% of the money.
On Google, 20% of the search results get 80% of the clicks.

Hell, for some things – it can be exaggerated further into 90/10 or even 95/5, though that is not often the case. That’s an extreme disparity.

But there are some aspects where it gets ridiculous.

This is how you start to build leverage into your life.

I learned about this principle when I was studying economics in school. And then, I thought it was only economics.

That is…until I started seeing it everywhere.

When I would watch sports games, whether on my campus or on TV, only a minority of people would score goals or baskets. Everyone else was either for support, assist, or just to help fill up the roster.

When I thought about success with women, I noticed that most of my friends would only have like 1 or 2 girls interested in them, some others a few more, then you had a few guys who were killing it.

When I thought back to my classes, only a few people would be engaged with the material, a bigger group of few slightly interested in the material, with most of the class being relatively unengaged.

It was everywhere.

Then, I started to get deeper into personal development and I came across the work of Brian Tracy, who is a huge believer in the Pareto Principle.

And he said that the top 20% of people in any field make 80% of the money.

I then decided that I would get into the top 20% of whatever field or activity I was involved in.

Sure for work, but for anything else either.

By this token, this required me to create separation because again, most people do not live this way. Most people try to do everything and as a result – do nothing.

Instead of focusing on areas where if they honed in–could transform the paradigm of their lives and the lives of their families, they get caught up in the drama of the trivial many and neglect the vital few.

They neglect their gifts. They neglect their advantages. They neglect the things which can give them leverage.

And that is why they live lives of mediocrity, frustration, and underachievement.

I decided to live a life where I focus on the vital few instead of the trivial many, which added space and clarity to my days. That is why I advocate for less is more in all areas where I can.

I suggest you figure out your areas of leverage and exploit them so you can have more success in an easier and faster manner.

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Learn how to sell

Many people have an idea of “selling” in their head.

Many people have all kinds of ideas without much if any direct experience with it.

Selling is one of these things.

Many people’s idea of selling is the hard-close salesman who’s trying to get you to buy whatever or the used car salesman who harasses you as soon as you get in the lot.

And again, these are just ideas. They are not based in reality.

The reality? It’s estimated that 13% of people in the United States is involved in sales of some kind. That means in a group of 8 people, at least one of them will be involved in sales.

I honestly believe the number is a bit higher – when you think about all of the people who are involved in revenue generating or revenue retaining activities :

business development reps
customer service reps
consultants
hybrid sales and marketing people
people in eCommerce
account managers
etc.

I honestly think it’s probably 1 in 4 – or 25%.

And without sales – the economy stops. Money doesn’t change hands, products don’t get moved, the entire thing grinds to a halt.

In The Psychology of Selling, Brian Tracy said selling is the spark plug in the engine of free enterprise. President Calvin Coolidge once remarked that the business of America is business.

All of our financial markets – from the stock market, the bonds market, commodities, real estate, insurance prices, current interest rates – all have to do with sales.

Businesses fail for only one reason: low sales. There is no other reason. If a business can generate enough selling activity to keep its doors open and its staff employed, it will remain open. If it doesn’t, it won’t.

Most CEOs of publicly traded companies have a background in sales of some kind. Because the main purpose of the CEO is to generate business value, is to sell.

Every CEO that I’ve worked for was at one point in their career, a salesperson. Whether they:

did inside sales where they were ringing the phones
canvassing and doing door-to-door
trying to generate memberships for some type of product or service

These people were all accustomed to selling in some capacity.

So from that perspective, sales is pretty important.

But despite this, most of us never get taught anything about sales at home or in school.

The only things that most of us get taught is:

sales is sleazy
never trust someone who’s trying to sell you something

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Hell, even on college campuses, there isn’t even a department of sales. There’s a business department, there’s a marketing department, but there’s not a sales department.

And there’s a variety of reasons for that – but to me, it comes down to 2 reasons:

Most people misunderstand the discipline of selling – mainly because it is more intangible and less theoretical
It involves rejection – and rejection can be painful.

There’s a few schools that are now teaching selling, but they’re often bundled together with business or marketing – which is fine, but really, if you work in sales – you know that sales is a beast in and of itself.

This is changing – many people find themselves in some type of profession where they must sell all or a majority of the time.

Some people are more naturally talented at the skills that make a good salesperson but virtually everyone has to be trained in some way.

Almost no one is a natural salesperson right out of the box.

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But once you develop this skill, what does this mean?

Well, for one – you’ll know how business works on an elementary level.

Lots of people know the theory of business but when time comes to do business, they find themselves out of their element.

This means you can walk into almost any place of business, analyze that same business, and develop a plan to create revenue.

Secondly, you are engaging in an activity that is a black box to most people. As I stated earlier, most people have an idea of sales in their head – often an incorrect idea. As you learn how to sell, this idea starts to recede.

Third, you start to view everything in terms of numbers and probabilities.

At its most fundamental, all of sales is a numbers game. The more prospects you encounter, the higher chance someone will buy.

Simply put, the more you’re able to learn selling and everything that goes with it, the more expedited your path will be to success.

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Develop a marketable skill or a set of skills that will give you leverage

This is closely connected to the point above but can really stand on its own.

You need skills. Skills are the engine of productivity, which is the engine of life.

Without productivity, nothing moves.

Mail doesn’t get delivered, websites don’t get developed, products don’t get refined, life comes to a standstill.

So you need skills. The question is “what skill to develop?”

I have a lot of thoughts around this, but the best answer is a skill that lies at the cross-section of:

Income potential – your ability to make money
Applicability – a skill that can be applied to many different use cases throughout various times
Individual knacks – things that you may be uniquely good at
Individual interests – things that you take an interest in without prior prompting

There aren’t a ton of skills that meet all of these 4 criteria. Most skills we develop because we wouldn’t do it for free or because we wouldn’t be interested in it regardless.

An example could be something like getting into real estate either as an agent, developer, or investor can hit all of these 4 things.

Real estate has the potential to:

bring a high income (income potential)
be a perennial because everyone always needs a place to live (applicability)
you may have a skill that lends itself well to real estate – such as being good with numbers (individual knacks)
And you may have always been interested in real estate (individual interest)

That’s just one example.

And you spend a large chunk of your life working. You better make sure you at least tolerate it.

Some people look to “enjoy” work, but as the book The Wealthy Gardener states:

“Work to me was more like a sober friend than a passionate lover.”

If you need help with this, check out these two resources:

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Start living a self development lifestyle

I feel that this one is cheating a but because it wraps up everything I talked about here, in the last episode, and everything I talk about on here in general.

It also is one of the ways in my new ebook 7 Surefire Ways to Dramatically Change Your Life in 90 Days.

The main purpose of life for all of us is to become all that we are capable of becoming.

If you are reading to this – I am willing to bet that at some level, you are clothed, fed, housed, employed, and have some amount of money coming in doing something.

Once you do have all of these checked, congratulations – you have now moved out of survival mode. This is ground level.

This is the reason why civilization was created. So we can get out of survival mode and reach higher.

To ask questions like “why are there stars in the sky?” or “what is the meaning of life?” or “how do I get X in my life?’”

You basically start to strive higher.

And once you start setting goals, then you start to realize the methods of their attainment.

Namely, this means developing yourself to be someone who has reached these goals. Because if you could already achieve them at your current level of development, you already would. Therefore, you’ve got to go to work on yourself.

Not just once. Not just twice. But repeatedly. Continuously. Until the day you die, honestly.

Because if you want different life outcomes, you need a different lifestyle. And if you want a different lifestyle, you need to go to work on the actions you do on a regular basis – also known as habits.

And you develop the right habits that will make you successful – via self development. It is literally your ticket to the good life.

The more you improve yourself, the more capacity you have to improve yourself.

Self-improvement made me a better son, a better co-worker, a better entrepreneur, a better lover, a better citizen, a better person in general.

It led to developing skills. It led me to focusing my efforts on the few things that would lead to my success – self development being one of them.

It led me to the point where I had stopped giving a fuck about how everyone else was acting and how everyone else was acting and just do me.

And on Twitter, I frequently put out a tweet that says something along the lines of “Psychology says those who don’t consciously engage in self-improvement will pass down generational trauma.”

Psychology says those who don't consciously engage in self-improvement will pass down generational trauma.
— Unstoppable Rise (@unstoprise) January 19, 2024

And that tweet is always a hit because everyone knows deep down it’s true.

But what is the thing that stops many people from doing this? All of the nonsense that gets in the way.

And I’ll end this off the same way I started it.

Everyone knows what to do. We all know. It’s not a secret.

Everyone knows that if they:

Started exercising more
Got around the right people
Stopped spending money unnecessarily
Stopped eating the wrong kinds of foods and too many foods
Spent more time on things which can help them be successful and stopped spending time on things which don’t

They’d have a better life than they do right now.

Everyone knows this. It’s not a secret.

Yet despite this, many people can’t find it themselves to do it.

And people cannot find it in themselves to do it because they do not live a lifestyle of purposeful self development.

The decision to go to the gym or not go.
The decision to eat that food or not eat it.
The decision to read that book or watch TV.
The decision to learn more about the skill or not.
The decision to call up a friend who you haven’t talked to in a while.

These are all small and seemingly insignificant decisions that take place in our days. But over time, they all lead to a path somewhere.

And Earl Nightingale once remarked “We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.”

We are made and unmade by seemingly insignificant actions that take place over a series of relatively unremarkable days.

So I’ll ask you – how are you making yourself? What are you doing right now that will take you down a certain path?

Only questions you can answer.

What are you planning to make this year better than the last? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.