A Secret Secret of Success

It was said that Albert Einstein only slept for 3 hours a year, which is purist hyperbole. Sure, he was a busy man, with all his projects, but he must have been of truly extraordinary intellect in order for his brain to function so well without any resting time. It was also highly probable that he didn’t have a social life and was the opposite of energetic.

As a youth, I was really good at something special, I knew I was world-class. I was only so brilliant because I'd happily spent 3 or 4 years doing it every single day. I sacrificed many things… whether it was all for something or nothing is irrelevant. I became great out of devotion..

 "You can only succeed at something with time… without it, only being lucky will get you success"

Imagine a champion snooker player gaining great success in his field—how did he do it? He (or she) must have practiced day and night for years; dedicating himself to that particular skill. Would he have been able to do all he did in order to become successful if he had to look after an unwell relative, a child, business or other things of such high priority?

Often, the reason a student fails at school is that he or she has had more ‘important’ things to do other than revise for tests, research and do homework. No, not just partying....

Badly behaved at school, Isaac Newton didn't have parents, many friends or family... all he had was free time and interests.

“Why didn't the slaves spend time experimenting for the progression of science? Because they were busy…”

Imagine a student, who cannot spend enough time learning, because its friends and family are always stealing its attention, the learning tools are absent and it has to work to not be homeless and hungry... Ok, would you expect to see that student become successful in its studies? Would a student without those setbacks have a harder time studying?

If one desires a good chance of success, one must be obliged to undertake training in all relevant practices at the near complete expulsion of other unrelated activities. One is only capable of executing said notion if one has copious amounts of time to spare and no distractions.

Imagine attempting to focus on something, with something else in your mind... 

"One of my former students, Roland Legiardi-Laura, though both his parents were dead and he had no inheritance, rode a bicycle across the U.S. alone when he was hardly out of boyhood. Is it any wonder that in manhood he made a film about Nicaragua, although he had no money and no prior experience with filmmaking, and that it was an international award winner — even though his regular work was as a carpenter?"
'Why Schools Don't Educate' by John Taylor Gatto

You can't sit around painting, writing, developing, studying or experimenting if you've got lots of business to handle and you shan't be a success at something without doing it all the time.

Basically, this particular secret of success is to not have many obligations or problems to handle; to be free, you need space to grow.

Take this concept further and it can assist in explaining the correlation between wealthy business-focused parents and vocationally successful children.

"To give yourself the best chance of success: disregard family or other things that are unrelated to your goal"