Making the Time

By Robert Ringer

People have often commented that they are amazed at how prolific I am. And it’s true … I am prolific. But not in the way you might think. The truth be known, I’m “tortoise prolific.” Put another way, I’m “sneaky.” I have a good winning percentage, but it’s not a result of being extraordinarily smart or fast. Let me explain.

One of my most cherished strategies for being prolific is what I like to refer to as the Peck-Away Theory. Have you ever looked back and thought to yourself, “Gee, if I had just started that project six months ago and worked on it a little each day, I’d be done by now?” As Hugh Downs says, the time will pass anyway, so why not use it to accomplish something that you really want to get done?

Since I, like all busy people, can never hope to get around to getting everything done that I’d like to, I have a tendency to work on many projects simultaneously — especially if they’re tedious in nature. This runs the gamut from moneymaking projects of major importance to organizational and tidying-up tasks.

For example, if I have to review and make revisions to a contract, I might work on it a half-dozen times a day, ten to fifteen minutes at a crack. Since I intensely dislike this kind of work, I know I’d never find the time, or make the time, to do it from start to finish in one sitting.

While I’m working on the contract, I might also be running Disk Cleanup or Defrag on my computer. And while that’s going on, I might listen to, and take notes for, a CD that I need edited, perhaps in segments of fifteen to twenty minutes. From there, I might work on another draft of an article such as this one. And so on.

In a way, I guess this makes me a bit of an enigma, because I tend to be a very focused person. I always have one major project that I spend a majority of my time on each day, and I’m relentless about following such projects through to conclusion.

Even so, I take periodic breaks from my main project and peck away at anywhere from five to ten other projects throughout the day. The result is that a task I may never have “found” the time to do ends up getting completed over a period of time.

My approach to pecking away at projects is somewhat related to a Japanese strategy for achieving goals known as Kaizen. The “Father of Taoism,” sixth century B.C. philosopher Lao Tzu, summed up Kaizen well when he said, “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with the first step.”

More recently, Robert Maurer, in his book One Small Step Can Change Your Life, discusses the Kaizen technique in detail. One note of caution: His book is more focused on making small, steady improvements in one’s life rather than on getting projects completed, but, still, his main point is very much related to my own approach to working on projects.

I guess my Peck-Away Theory is really just another way saying, “Make the time.” It’s just that I make the time to do many things rather than just one. You might want to give it a try and see how it fits on you. It’s not for everyone, but it certainly has paid enormous dividends for me over a period of many years.

Copyright © 2007 Tortoise Press, Inc.

Robert Ringer is the author of eight books, including three No. 1 best sellers, two of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time. Subscribe to his free e-letter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, and receive a free e-copy of his classic No. 1 best seller, To Be or Not to Be Intimidated? Visit www.robertringer.com.

Your Hidden Genius, Part I

By Robert Ringer

In a shocking display of fuzzy-headedness over the holidays, I acceded to my wife’s insistence that I take her to a movie — an activity I have avoided like the plague for years. My defense is that it was her birthday, and the only alternative was strangulation … not an option, given that the husband is always the prime suspect.

Her choice was the long-awaited “last” Rocky film. I know, I know … Rocky II, III, IV, and V were all supposed to be the final Rocky film, but … hey … Sylvester Stallone has to make a living. And if George Lucas could use “last” as a marketing ploy for Star Wars over and over again, why shouldn’t Stallone? In any event, I’m happy to report that even though the newest Rocky film is a bit farfetched, it is vintage Stallone — emotionally draining, uplifting, and, above all, highly entertaining.

I should point out that I’ve had an emotional attachment to Stallone and his Rocky films since 1977. It all began when my then secretary told me she had seen a movie over the weekend that was a “must see” for me. She went on to say that Sylvester Stallone’s success with that first Rocky closely paralleled my own success with my first book.

She explained that Stallone had done it all. He wrote the script, raised the money, played the lead character, and produced and directed the film. Unfortunately, there has been a several-hundred-million-dollar disparity between our respective returns on invested time and energy over the years, but tortoises get used to such inequities.

Nevertheless, watching Rocky Balboa got me to thinking about Stallone’s amazing rise from troubled teenager to wealthy, famous superstar. Injured at birth, he has had a droopy lip and slurred speech throughout his life, making him as unlikely a movie star as a weightlifter with an Austrian accent and a name most people can’t pronounce.

At fifteen, his classmates voted him “most likely to end up in the electric chair.” Then, after stumbling from one job to another for several years, Stallone came upon the mother of all stumbles: acting. This happened while he was coaching women’s athletics at the American College of Switzerland.

After some bit parts and a “light” porn film, he wrote his first script, The Lords of Flatbush, in which he cast himself as one of the four main characters. Believe it or not, I actually saw that film back in 1974 — an abysmal piece of work — and I remember Stallone well.

He played a somewhat blubbery hoodlum in a leather jacket — not exactly a matinee idol. At the time, no one could have convinced me that the pudgy guy with the speech impediment would soon become the most famous actor in Hollywood.

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What’s so inspiring about Stallone is that his real-life success bears such a close resemblance to the success of his Rocky character. We’ve all read and heard much over the years about how every individual possesses a “hidden genius,” and Stallone’s life is an archetypal example of this. He wrote his first Rocky script in just three days! That is genius — hidden genius, because he had never written a movie script prior to the incredibly bad The Lords of Flatbush, and he had limited experience with acting and directing.

Had Stallone not stumbled onto acting in Switzerland, it’s quite possible he never would have discovered his hidden genius. Just think about that for a moment. There would have been no Rocky series, no Rambo series, no Hollywood legend by the name of Sylvester Stallone.

So, clearly, the public at large stands to benefit when someone discovers his hidden genius. That being the case, if you would really like to do something for “society,” you would do well to make a serious effort to discover your hidden genius — then exploit it to the max.

As I left the theater feeling exhilarated, another hard-case-turned-success came to mind — one who discovered his hidden genius only after overcoming the twin demons of drug addiction and alcoholism. Today, he’s a major television personality, and there appears to be no limit to what he can accomplish.

I’ll be discussing this remarkable individual in Part II of this article, as I believe his story, along with that of Sylvester Stallone, will inspire you to start thinking seriously about your own hidden genius.

Copyright © 2007 Tortoise Press, Inc.

Robert Ringer is the author of eight books, including three No. 1 best sellers, two of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time. Subscribe to his FREE e-letter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, and receive a FREE e-copy of his classic No. 1 best seller, To Be or Not to Be Intimidated? Visit www.robertringer.com.

Your Hidden Genius, Part II

By: Robert Ringer

In Part I of this article, I discussed the remarkable rise of Sylvester Stallone from a droopy-lipped, speech-slurring thug to Hollywood superstar — a result of his discovering his true genius while coaching women’s athletics in Switzerland. After seeing Stallone’s new movie, Rocky Balboa, another public figure came to mind — one who managed to overcome drug addiction and alcoholism to rise to television stardom.

The television personality I am referring to is the ultra-likeable Glenn Beck. There is no television commentator quite like him. He is funny, knowledgeable, outrageous, polite, self-deprecating (often referring to himself as a “rodeo clown”), well-spoken, folksy, and, above all, entertaining.

If you don’t know who Glenn Beck is, you’re in for a treat when you discover him. He’s on CNN Headline News every weeknight at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time, with many reruns throughout the evening and early morning hours.

You heard right. The voice of socialist America, CNN, apparently tossed in the towel about nine months ago and brought a hard-core conservative on board. Apparently, the powers that be at Ted Turner’s brainchild decided that ratings are a higher priority than ideological purity. (I have it on good authority that the loss of socialist purity at CNN has caused comrade Lou Dobbs to sob uncontrollably every night at bedtime.)

What’s amazing about Glenn Beck is that not only has he survived alcoholism and drug addiction, he’s also been through a divorce and, among other things, managed to go relatively unnoticed by the general public for more than two decades.

When Beck’s life was in a shambles, could anyone possibly have imagined that he would some day be a wildly successful television personality? Hardly. On the contrary, I’m sure people saw him as the bum he was.

Yet, beneath his bum exterior was a hidden genius — a genius Beck probably didn’t even know he possessed. His is a natural talent that started to come to the fore when he was exposed to talk radio at an early age. Yet, it did not fully surface until he reached his forties.

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All this begs the question: If a guy with a troubled childhood, slurred speech, and a droopy lip could become a film mega-star … and a former alcoholic and drug addict could become a major television personality … what could you accomplish if you could only uncover your hidden genius?

Given that the rewards are so high — not just monetarily, but, even more important, from the standpoint of leading a fulfilling life — isn’t the pursuit of your hidden genius a worthwhile undertaking?

Which brings about the second question: How do you go about such a pursuit?

I happen to be a big believer in Occam’s Razor Principle (also known as the Principle of Parsimony), which states that one should never make an explanation more complicated than necessary. And the simplest explanation for what you need to do to discover your hidden genius is to get out, do things, try things, make calls, network with people — take action.

To be sure, the odds against a person’s finding his hidden genius are overwhelming so long as he chooses to lead a mentally and physically sedentary life.

Tip: Remember that when it comes to finding a meaningful purpose in life, the first two questions you should ask yourself are: (1) What do I enjoy? and (2) What am I good at? And the answers to these two questions are also likely to lead you to your hidden genius.

Why? Because if you can find something you both enjoy and are good at, it would appear self-evident that you could accomplish great things by focusing intensely on whatever that one “thing” is.

To summarize: Take lots of action, discover what you enjoy and what you are good at, then focus on perfecting that talent with consistency and intensity. I recognize that this is much easier to talk about than actually do. However, the effort is worth it, because it could very well result in your hidden genius coming to the surface … and bringing you all you want in life.

Robert Ringer is the author of eight books, including three No. 1 best sellers, two of which have been listed by the New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.

To subscribe to his free e-letter, “A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World,” and receive a free e-copy of his classic No. 1 best seller, “To Be or Not to Be Intimidated?” visit www.robertringer.com.

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