“5-hour rule” - the secret to success of billionaires
Having spent years studying the world's most successful and wealthy entrepreneurs, author Michael Simmons discovered a phenomenon he calls the “5-hour rule” in their way of life.
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From Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey to Bill Gates, Warren Buffett or Mark Zuckerberg - no matter how busy they are, they spend at least 1 hour/day (ie 5 hours/week) on learning and training activities.
For the leaders author Michael Simmons followed, the five-hour rule typically involved three main activities: reading, reflecting, and experimenting.
1. Read
A wild article says that Nike founder Phil Knight has such special respect for his library that you have to take off your shoes and bow when entering it.
Oprah Winfrey also admits that books have contributed significantly to her success. “Books brought me personal freedom,” the media queen once said. Oprah also shares her reading habits with the world through her book club.
Here are some insights into the reading habits of successful business leaders:
Warren Buffett spends 5-6 hours a day reading 5 newspapers and 500 pages of corporate reports.
Bill Gates read 50 books in 1 year.
Mark Zuckerberg reads at least 1 book every 2 weeks.
Mark Cuban reads more than 3 hours/day.
Arthur Blank – co-founder of Home Depot reads 2 hours/day.
Billionaire David Rubenstein reads 6 books/week.
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2. Reflection
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong requires his senior team to spend 4 hours a week thinking. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner spends 2 hours a day thinking. Brian Scudamore, founder of $250 million company O2E Brands, spends 10 hours a week just doing this.
When Reid Hoffman needs an idea, he calls his friends: Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, or Elon Musk. When billionaire Ray Dalio makes a mistake, he logs it into the system and makes it public for all employees in the company. Then he spends time with his team to figure out the root cause.
In an interview, billionaire Sara Blakely said she has more than 20 notebooks to record the terrible things that happened to her.
3. Testing
Google has a policy of allowing employees to spend 20% of their work time experimenting with new projects. Meanwhile, Facebook encourages experimentation with its Hack-A-Months program.
The greatest example of experimentation may be Thomas Edison. Even as a child prodigy, Edison approached new inventions with humility. He outlined every possible solution, then tested each one. According to biographers, “although he understood the theories of his time, he found them useless in solving unknown problems.”
He took his approach to such extremes that his rival Nikola Tesla commented on his “trial and error” approach: “If Edison had to find a needle in a haystack, he would not stop to judge where it was most likely to lie, but with the diligence of a bee would immediately examine each straw until he found the needle.”