Here's Whats Really Holding You Back From Success and How You Can Instantly Change Your Fortune

Larry was a savage. A vagrant pauper living in a mud hut in the outskirts of town in a village in eastern Europe. The year was 1468 an King Augustus was his fair and generous leader. Larry was a loyal citizen, but didn't have much to offer his country and king. In fact, Larry was so used to hunting and fishing for food that he didn't understand or appreciate the value of precious stones, gold, and even currency. He lived a simple life. He wasn't happy, but was somewhat content and more importantly was getting by day by day. One day, Larry was walking down the dirt road when he overheard two of the Kings soldiers plotting to kill the king. Their plan was to sneak poison berries into the Kings breakfast the next day. Larry shuffled away quietly and immediately rushed to the Kings palace to inform him of the evil plot. Lo and Behold, the Kings men searched the plotters quarters and found the poison berries, which were promptly fed to the treasonous soldiers.

King Augustus was profoundly grateful to Larry, and offered him a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Larry was given several empty burlap sacks, and given "shopping-spree" access to the royal treasury. For the next several hours he can fill the sacks will all the jewels, precious stones, gold, and money he could possibly stuff in these sacks, and bring them home. He would be a rich man for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately, Larry misunderstood what was going on, and since he didn't understand or appreciate the value of precious jewels, he mistook his good fortune for a punishment of slave labor. He didn't understand why the king was punishing him with forced labor of filling empty burlap sacks with heavy stones and rocks, and being arbitrarily forced to schlepp it to his mud hut on the outskirts of town.

Luckily for Larry, the kings guards left him alone and unattended in the king's treasury, after all he was entitled to take all his heart desired. So, Larry took the opportunity to take a nap on the job. He thought, "I can totally get away with doing almost none of this work they sentenced me to. I can probably slack off all day and go home with just a few stones in the bags and no one would be the wiser."

Sure enough, Larry left the once in a lifetime, life changing opportunity on the table in exchange for a comfortable nap. Crazy as it sounds, he felt like he pulled the wool over the Kings eyes.

On his way home to his hut, escorted by a royal party, they pointed out palace after palace, all belonging to People whom the King felt indebted to, and who took advantage of his signature, "Raid-My-Treasury" rewards system. Larry felt sick to his stomach. He could have had all he wanted... But he blew his shot. He slept through his opportunity and tomorrow morning must wake early to try to catch some fish in order not to go hungry.

To you and me, this Larry guy sounds like a nutcase. Who in their right mind would give up on near unlimited treasures in exchange for a nap? Who in their right mind would view loading empty sacks with precious stones and jewels as forced labor? Who in their right mind would consider it hard work to schlepp bags of gold money home to your house?

It reminds me of David Cross in Run Ronnie Run.

David complains, "It's hard being rich and famous. Everyone is always asking you what they can do for you, and you have to stop and think of things for them to do for you. It is really hard to think of things for everybody to do for you!"

Here's my real question for you..."If you had the opportunity Larry had to basically having a shopping spree in the kings treasure house, and walk away with millions and millions of dollars worth of precious stones, jewelry, and cash. would you work your tail off every single available free second filling those sacks with precious jewels, or would you make sure your boss isn't looking and check Reddit to see if any new cats learned how to stand on their hindlegs, or if an monkeys decided to pet a duck, for the 50th time today?!" Sure, it might be work, but I would welcome that work every day of the week. In fact I do. I wish someone would have shared this story with me 15 years ago so I could take advantage of all the opportunities I slept through. I know it's cliche, but Time is really the only thing that you can never get back. There are so many reasons and excuses for not succeeding, but if you ask me there is really only ONE! It's called being short sighted. Sacrificing your future for short term, short sighted gain. It's Called, Undervaluing Your Time! Dave Ramsey, one my biggest heros, always says, "Live like no one else, so one day you CAN LIVE LIKE NO ONE ELSE!" What he means is that you have to make sacrifices in the near term to reap the benefits for the long haul. Mark Cuban talks about how he used to drive around wealthy neighborhoods and daydream about living in one of those mansions. What did he do? He didn't take a vacation for SEVEN YEARS as he built his first company and later sold it for several million. A brief note about hard work: Robert Ringer, in his landmark book,"Winning Through Intimidation" explains that needing hard work to get to the top is a myth. Why do so many successful people attribute their success to hard work? Well, Robert explains that either they can't see the forest from the trees or they are too embarrassed to admit how easy it was for them to succeed. There is this terrible stigma to making easy money. This is unfortunate, because making money is actually really easy. It takes time and effort sure, but that time and effort doesn't have to feel like forced labor. It could be enjoyable or at least you can keep your eye on the prize and pass the time thinking about what you'll get for making this short term sacrifice. The reality is you don't need to work hard. You are already reading Shoemoney. Just last week I wrote a post about a super easy way to make money. There are literally thousands of posts on this blog alone that can show you exactly how to make money. However, wasting time is a whole different animal. It is very hard for me to imagine anyone succeeding without putting in the time it takes to get there. By the time Bill Gates was starting Microsoft, he already had over 10,000 hours of programming experience. He started in middle school. The Beatles played for years and years and years before they ever became famous. Malcolm Gladwell has entire book called, "Outliers" where he proves that you need about 10,000 hours of experience to really be an expert. He also postulates that being in the right time and place are more important, but truth be told, being in the right time and place is more about being positioned to get to 10,000 hours at the right age. (To be clear, this is to become a Bill Gates, or a Steve Jobs...) To be a more successful YOU, that just takes one simple strategy. Learning to value your time!

Time is really the only asset you have. You don't have to work hard, but unless you want to sleep through your once in a lifetime opportunity, be sure not to waste it. Bottom line, if you keep your eye on the prize and think about the benefits tomorrow of making a sacrifice today, you will find it much easier to do what you need to do to succeed, and much harder to slack off and waste away your days. It might not seem like rocket science, but small shifts in your perspective can be a simple solution to a crippling problem. A little perspective is the real secret to success. All Larry needed to do was shift his perspective and realize the work of loading stones into a bag was actually the very thing that would make him wealthy, and he would have changed his fortune.