In this episode of the Creating Wealth podcast, Jason Hartman began with a recap of the most recent Jason Hartman University event. He mentioned several upcoming events, including a possible event taking place in the Northeast for the first time.
He then interviewed Benjamin Hardy, author of Willpower Doesn’t Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success. The pair discussed time, how to cheat time, be more productive, and the difference between successful and unsuccessful individuals. Hardy also mentioned 10x thinking and how to apply it to your business, as well as not allowing circumstances to be a crutch for failure.
JHU Event Recap
Jason Hartman begins the episode by mentioning that the 1000th episode is only thirty episodes away, and that if listeners have any suggestions or ideas for the milestone, they can post them at www.jasonhartman.com/ask. He notes that through this page he receives some great comments but cannot always address them quickly. He states that he will try to answer the questions on air or directly as soon as he can. He also reminds listeners that if they have any talents or services to perform, they can also mention them at the above-mentioned URL.
He states that he returned from San Jose after completing the Jason Hartman University event. The clients and attendees were great, and he got quite a few compliments on the event itself. For the most-part, he receives good reviews, and hardly ever hears negative critiques, unless they’re related to political disagreements. Even then, those people will state that the seminar was good, but that they disagree with Hartman’s political views.
Politics and Personal Finance
Hartman mentions that it is very hard to disconnect politics from personal finance in today’s world, as the two are deeply interwoven. He gives an example of the new tax reform and how it is significant for investors as well as the economy. He states that he has to talk about it since investment advice usually covers politics. He warns that if a listener is receiving investment advice and politics aren’t covered at all, run for the hills. Listeners need a big picture view to truly understand the facets of investment.
Upcoming Events
Coming up in early April is the Ice Trip Hotel event in Sweden, which has been greenlighted. It’s an ADventure Alliance trip, and both members and guests can attend. For more information, visit www.jasonhartmanicehotel.com.
Hartman states that he’s thinking about conducting a seminar in the Northeast side of the country for the first time. He’s considering Philadelphia as of now, the city of brotherly love. His reasoning is that there’s an opportunity to combine a Creating Wealth seminar with the Venture Alliance retreat that’s tentatively planned to take place in New York City in early May. The Creating Wealth seminar covers big picture items rather than the math of JHU, and it also takes place in May.
Venture Alliance Junior
Hartman reminds listeners that there is now a Venture Alliance Junior membership available for investors or aspiring investors age 35 and under to join. For more information on this group, visit www.jasonhartman.com/ask.
Slipstream Time Hacking
Because this is a 10th episode of the Creating Wealth podcast, Hartman’s focus is centered on a topic of general interest. This episode’s interview is with Benjamin Hardy, Medium’s #1 most-read writer and author of Slipstream Time Hacking and Willpower Doesn’t Work. Benjamin discusses the concept of time hacking and how to cheat time and live more. He is tuning in out of South Carolina.
Hardy states that the cores of his books were developed when he was an undergrad in psychology. He had a professor he worked closely with who explained that there were a lot of professors in his department that found themselves shackled by the golden handcuffs due to their cushy jobs. This means that these professors had jobs good enough to where they didn’t want to leave, but parts of the jobs held these people back. One professor in the department wanted to take his wife on a vacation to Hawaii but mentioned that his trip would take ten years to plan and complete.
Time as a Distance
Hardy explains that this professor is going to spend the next ten years thinking about the Hawaii trip. Because he wrote his Time Hacking book in 2014, he compares his concepts to the Interstellar movie that came out around the same time. Time relativity was an important focus in the film. Hardy mentions that time is distance traveled and explains with the example that light traveling from the Sun to the Earth takes about eight light-minutes. Even though the measurement mentions time, it is a distance traveled.
Hardy mentions that in the movie, the astronauts visit a water planet where every hour spent there equaled seven years on Earth. The reason for this was that the water planet was traveling through space so quickly that in one hour it was covering the same distance Earth would cover in seven years.
The colleague plans to visit Hawaii in ten years, and this is both a time and a distance, according to Hardy. The trip is ten years away, but Hardy asks if there are ways for the time to be shortened to six months. He mentions that the faster one moves to a destination; the slower time goes because more time can then be spent at the destination.
Hardy explains that his book is about determining what you’d like to do or what you’d like to be and finding the fastest way to get there. The aspiring vacationer wants to visit Hawaii, but won’t get there for ten years, because he’s chained down with the golden handcuffs and things that he does not really want. This increases the distance.
In his book on Time Hacking, Hardy covers the questions of what time is, how it works, how it can be manipulated, and how to cheat time to slow it down to benefit oneself.
Hardy states that life is not about minutes, rather, it is about how much one really lives. A person can live a day’s worth of time, but he may not really be experiencing life during that time.
He mentions another film, Click starring Adam Sandler. In this movie, the main character uses a time-controlling remote to fast forward a part of his job that he hated, until he received a raise. This fast-forwarded his life ten years into the future. He fast-forwarded again so that he could take a vacation, six years ahead, and by the time the movie ended, the character became aware that his life was over, and he’d only truly lived for about six minutes.
Hardy’s Response to Critics
Hartman explains that he has never understood how physicists say that time is only a construct and does not truly exist. We get older, and the world revolves around time. He asks Hardy about the hacking of time in this sense and that if someone were trying to debunk Hardy’s book they might say that in order to achieve goals, working harder and being more efficient is the key. He asks for Hardy’s response on the difference between this concept and his books.
Hardy mentions that his Time Hacking book is a self-published piece. He notes that a publisher from Portfolio, an offshoot of Penguin Publishing that handles a lot of self-improvement and business books, contacted him about his book. The publisher loved his book and said that it was different from others he read due to being relevant to the cosmos. It shook him. The first half of the book covers a good deal of philosophy and science, while the second half is strategy.
In a lot of senses, Hardy says, one’s personal view determines their world approach. When he decided to start blogging, it only took him 3-5 months to become one of the top writers and he attributes this to his approach rather than his skill.
10X Thinking VS 2X Thinking
Hardy mentions teachings by Dan Sullivan on 10x thinking, and notes that it is easier for the brain to handle than 2x thinking. If you’re making $100,000 and you change your goal to $1 million, focusing on 10x thinking can make the goal easier to attain. When using 10x thinking as a filter for your decisions, you can see which activities and people are and are not worthwhile.
10x thinking forces us to answer questions about our lives and tells us what truly are positive uses of our time and what we only think are positive uses of our time.
He uses the example of Hartman’s podcast, to which Hartman replies that he has to ask himself his favorite question, compared to what. He states that he doesn’t know what opportunities he’s giving up by hosting the podcast, but he loves it and gets business out of it.
Time Hacking Daily
Hardy mentions how to cheat time with time hacking strategies, and they begin at morning routines. He states that the brain is powerful in the morning, so it is advisable to conduct as much work as you can before 8:00am. For Hardy, it isn’t difficult to write three books a year, because he gets his work done early in the morning. The difference between people making a lot of money through work, and people failing 
can center into what they do with their morning.
Hartman mentions that he could be considered successful and does not have a morning routine developed.
Hardy replies that he’s interested in asking Hartman, when it comes to success, how well is he doing compared to how well he could be doing. Hardy states that in his view, Hartman appears very content with where he is in his life.
Hartman replies that morning routines seem kind of trite, but that he does not disagree with them. Perhaps his success would be greater if he had a routine in the morning.
Investing in Relationships
Hardy mentions that almost all of his research compares entrepreneur characteristics with those of aspiring entrepreneurs. The difference is really investing money in your goal. When you invest in something, you become committed to it. Investing in something inspires people to work at it. The process can be sped along in this way. Investing money in a good relationship is a start. Hardy recalls wanting to write a book proposal for one of his books, but he didn’t know how. He states that a lot of people procrastinate when they don’t know how to do something, but if they invest money in it, it’s hard not to show up when they’ve already paid. Hardy paid $3,000 for help in getting the proposal done and not only did it teach him how proposals work, it gained him a $250,000 book deal in three months.
Hartman clarifies this as leverage, as in leveraging a relationship. Because of paying for a relationship, Hardy gained two things, knowledge from a professional, and success for himself. He agrees that people will show up if they put money on something. With his real estate clients, he states that so many people want to figure everything out before they start. It’s important to learn by doing. For example, in the stock world, Hartman mentions that there are model portfolio tools designed to help people develop their portfolio without risking money. However, until you put your own money down, you won’t show up.
Hardy explains that Dan Sullivan would say that if you invested in stock, you could get about a 12% return, and if you invest in the right people and relationships, you can 10x your goals.
Behavior Shapes Personality
Hardy mentions that most people in the western world believe that their personalities are fixed things. However, your behavior actually shapes your personality. When you create a behavior, you literally change your psychology and your identity.
In Hardy’s new book, Willpower Doesn’t Work, Hardy explains that if we do not create and control our environments, those environments will control us. We live in a global environment now, and some people have been slow to adapt. This has led to massive increases in addiction, and it has been said that one cannot totally overcome an addiction through willpower. It’s important to create conditions to make success inevitable. Remove things that should not be in your life. If you’re trying to eat healthy, remove junk food from your life. If you’re trying to life a 7-8 grade life, you have to rid yourself of 2-grade people.
Stepping Out of Routine Environment
Hardy states that who you are in your routine environment is different from who you are outside of it. He notes that Bill Gates used to take “think weeks” where he would disappear and be away from work for a week, so that he’d have time to think. This is where he got some of his best ideas. Another artist takes a one-year sabbatical for every six years of work, and during that sabbatical, he would gain ideas for the next six years.
It’s important to get out of your routine environment one time every week. Take a trip and spend time making big decisions away from your routine. Meditation and journaling can also help with breaking routine.
Through forcing functions, we can create environments where we do not make mistakes. It works in design, where there are no stupid decisions in the design process. Ideas are free-flowing.
Hartman adds that rather than beating yourself up about the environment that you’re in, change the environment and shape it to your success.
Hardy agrees with Hartman that once you’re in a new environment, you become a new you. Western people do not often understand this. You change, and you can be different depending on the situations you’re in.
Circumstances Are Not Excuses
Hardy explains that he and his wife have been foster parents for three years, and notes that it would not be good for the kids in his home if they were beating themselves up over slow progress regarding their former environments wrought with neglect. If you’re struggling to make traction, it could be your environment.
Hartman adds that the danger of this is that people listening might tend to blame their environments on their lack of success. Both Hardman and Hardy grew up in less-than-ideal backgrounds, and they changed their circumstances because they didn’t like them. We have to control what we can and not use excuses to give up.
Hardy agrees that we cannot become victims of our circumstances. You and your environment are two pats of a whole. In a way, you have to be responsible for it. You’re going to be shaped by your environment, but you’re in charge of how that happens. We are the authors of our own lives
For more information about Benjamin Hardy, visit his website at www.benjaminhardy.com. There, he has information about his books and there are free bonuses listed for pre-orders, including his online courses and strategies.
