Okay, here is the text you provided: Okay, so you’re checking out this book, thinking about spending your money on it. Even more important, you’re thinking of spending your time on it—and time… well, that’s the only thing we can’t get back in this world. Once you spend it, it’s gone, so you’ve got to make sure you’re spending it wisely. Let’s face it, the one thing they’re not making any more of in this world is attention, but now that I’ve got yours I want to honor it, make it worth your while. I get that your time and your attention are valuable.
So this is a book about spending it productively, meaningfully, purposefully. After all, we all get the same twenty-four hours a day, whether we have a million dollars in the bank or a hundred. This book is about how to put those hours to work for you, how to use them to outperform, outwork, and outhustle your way to the top. Hey, I’ve seen some things, met all kinds of interesting, ridiculously successful people. I’ve hung around with world leaders and game-changers. I’m constantly learning from these people, and one of the things I’ve learned is that there is no secret formula for success. However, there are certain essential ingredients that are always in the mix.
Truth is, there is one common trait I notice in all the people I meet who are thriving and striving: every single one of them has got a killer work ethic. Seriously, they are up and at it each and every day, and they are at it hard. You could call it drive. You could call it determination. You could call it oomph, grit, or hustle. I call it rising and grinding. And I’m out to shine a light on it here. Maybe you’re thinking you’ve already read one or two of my books and you’re wondering what there is left to say. I’ve written about the power of broke, telling readers that you don’t need a big budget to be successful as an entrepreneur. I’ve written about how we all stand as our personal brands. I’ve written about my own rise from the streets of Hollis, Queens, to the very top of an urban fashion industry I helped to create.
But now it’s time to do a deep dive. It’s time I took you behind the scenes and let you in on how I power through my days. I’m going to tell you all about what gets me rising and grinding every morning—how things were for me when I was just starting out, and how they are for me now. I’ll show you how I’ve changed my approach, as I learned to rise and grind and hit all these new targets that were set out in front of me. I’ll share a bunch of my day-to-day habits and routines to show how I make the best use of my 24/7, and I’ll break down the rituals of some of the world’s most successful people, from all walks of life—people who inspire me, who amaze me, who push me to be the very best I can be.
The idea is that by pulling back the curtain and showing how these folks live and work, I can highlight some takeaways for readers looking to change things up. Maybe you’ll get a whole mess of ideas. Or maybe you’ll take just one primary strategy and find a way to attach it to what you’re doing in a way that transforms your life forever. That’s how it happened for me, the third or fourth time I read Napoleon Hill’s great book Think and Grow Rich. It lit something in me, turned me on to a very specific practice that I started using myself, one that set me on a path to success. I’ll tell you more about that a little bit later on, but the point here is that we can all learn something from the people around us, from the people we admire.
Think about the people you look up to in your life—the folks in your field or in your community who seem to have it going on. It’s great to be inspired by the successes of others, but one thing I want you to think about as you read this book is how important it is not to be intimidated by the successes of others. Those who are ten times, twenty times, a hundred times more accomplished than those around them are almost always driven in a more focused, more determined way than their peers. What’s the differentiator, between being okay and being great? Between poverty and prosperity? Well, one of the keys is having the right attitude—that was the message I shared with readers in The Power of Broke. But another important key is knowing how to make the best use of your time, how to maximize every moment, and that’s going to be our focus in the pages ahead.
I happen to believe that a small percentage of our lives are determined by acts of God—say, two percent or so. Tsunamis, earthquakes, winning the lottery, chance meetings with people or opportunities that can ignite meaningful prospects…good or bad, these are the things that happen to us and are out of our control. But if we accept this notion, then we must also accept that the other ninety-eight percent of what happens in our lives has to do with the decisions we make or don’t, the actions we take or don’t, the strategies we put in place or don’t. It has to do with how we rise and grind. Here’s the deal: I’m hoping the people you meet in this book will inspire, amaze, and push you, the same way they do me, and that you’ll pick up on some of what they’re doing and apply it to whatever it is you’ve got going on.
Even if you look through the table of contents and see the name of someone who might stand on a different side of an issue that’s important to you, I hope you’ll take the time to see what they’re about. Hey, I can’t say I see eye to eye with every one of these people on every single issue either. But I’m sharing their stories because I’ve learned something important from each of them—something I had to share with you as well. Even if you can’t relate to them directly, I hope you’ll stay with them, learn from them, be inspired by them. Maybe you’re not a mother trying to raise three kids with learning difficulties. But trust me on this, you can learn from that mother’s struggle—and you’ll meet one such mother here. Yeah, chances are you were born with all of your arms and legs.
But you’d better believe you can pick up a couple of things from the guy who wasn’t—and you’ll meet him, too. Look, I wrote this book for two types of people. The first is someone who is already rising and grinding. That person is out there getting things done, every single day, and they’re looking to sharpen their routines, get more bang for their buck, and stay motivated. Maybe that someone is you. Maybe you’ve got something to learn from Nely Galán, the former head of the Telemundo network, or Carlos Santana, the legendary guitarist, or Catherine Zeta-Jones, the Academy Award–winning actress, about what it took to rise and grind their way to the very top of their fields.
I sat with all of these people, and a dozen more besides, and asked them questions they told me they’d never been asked before. I asked them what they do as soon as they get up in the morning, where they turn for inspiration, how they organize their days. I asked them some tougher questions, too—questions I’m asked almost every day by aspiring entrepreneurs who want to make something of themselves, and by corporate leaders who bring me in to motivate their employees and get them to start thinking outside the box.