March 6, 2025
Freedom Friday: Working Hard Will NOT Get You Where You Want to Be!
Hard work isn't enough to become a billionaire or reach your greatest potential - consistency and acquiring new knowledge are the true differentiators that create extraordinary success.
• Billionaires don't become billionaires just by working hard - two other factors make the difference
• Consistency requires discipline and making decisions based on principles rather than feelings
• Successful people are like waterfalls - what you see is the rush, but what powers it is the steady stream
• At some point, the work stops being about effort and starts working for you
• To reach a new level, you must become an apprentice again on a higher floor
• Many opportunities are missed not from lack of hard work but from lacking the right mindset
• Leaders must embrace both consistency and continuous learning to experience breakthrough success
Like, subscribe, and share if this content has value to you. We're excited to see our community grow and keep unlearning together so we can experience more freedom.
00:10 - Welcome to Freedom Friday
00:42 - Hard Work Isn't Enough
01:24 - Consistency and Discipline
03:35 - The Waterfall Metaphor
06:13 - Becoming an Apprentice Again
09:29 - Closing and Call to Action
WEBVTT
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Hello everybody and welcome once again to the unlearned podcast.
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I'm your host with Abigail aka Ra, and this is freedom friday, where we come and share something we've unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free.
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So this is something I've unlearned recently.
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It's something I've had to continue to unlearn and I'm so grateful for it, because at this point it's like I can see what the other side is beginning to look like and it's pretty cool.
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Billionaires don't become billionaires because they have just figured out hard work.
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Billionaires don't become billionaires just by working hard.
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I'm saying it billionaires don't become billionaires just by working hard.
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Two things happen that they do that we don't do.
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They're consistent and they get new knowledge.
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They're consistent and they get new knowledge.
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They're consistent and they gain new knowledge.
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They don't just work hard.
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Sometimes we make the mistake of believing if I could just put more effort in, I'll move to another level.
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The reality is your new level, the new level you're looking to be at.
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Right, if you're a teacher and you'd like to be a principal, the way to becoming a principal is not just to continue to work hard as a teacher.
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You will not be a successful principal by working hard as a teacher only.
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You have to also have a discipline that invites consistency into your life, and you have to gain new knowledge.
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There are things that a principal has to know how to do that a teacher does not.
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Okay, so there there is.
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There is there is consistency and knowledge that has to be gained.
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Elon Musk, jeff Bezos, oprah Jay-Z, the Waltons, michael Jordan, robert Smith, mark Zuckerberg all these billionaires, all these people are not billionaires because they put their blood, sweat and tears into what they do all the time.
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That's not all they've done.
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They have also remained consistent.
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What I mean by that?
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They don't stop.
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They didn't stop doing what they started doing.
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You keep doing what it is you were doing.
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In order to do that, you have to have a certain level of discipline.
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Some of you are not where you want to be because you lack a discipline.
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That's simply it, right.
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We just decide that we are not interested in being consistent in something.
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We're not interested in not always gratifying ourselves when we feel like something right.
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We refuse to be disciplined.
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And when you continue to say no to discipline, you say no to consistency.
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And if you say no to consistency, you will not see change.
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You will always have to keep putting in blood, sweat and tears and working hard in order to get from one step to another.
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If you understand the power of discipline and consistency, then your steps will begin to lead somewhere and they're going to lead to a point of leverage.
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They're going to lead to your tipping point, which we've talked about before in the podcast.
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Your tipping point right the more you inch to the edge.
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Think of it like a waterfall.
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We are a waterfall.
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When we see the waterfall, we see the rushing stream of water down to the bottom and it looks like this.
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It's just this incredible rush, right?
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Well, what we don't always see behind the rush is the steady stream of of water that comes to the edge.
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What we have to do is stop worrying so much about the waterfall and be consistent in your stream.
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Be consistent in your stream, be consistent in your stream, stop worrying about the waterfall, be consistent in your stream, and if you do that, you will start to come to the edge.
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And when you get to the edge, it's almost uncontrollable.
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What happens after that it's not about your hard work.
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At that point, your hard work does not matter.
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At some point, you stop working hard and the work starts working for you.
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Say it again At some point.
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You stop working hard and the work starts working for you.
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Say it again At some point you stop doing all the work and the work starts working for you when the stream comes to the edge of a waterfall and it comes down the edge and you see the waterfall.
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That stream is not working.
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That stream is no longer doing anything.
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Now all it's doing is falling.
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And we see the result.
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We see the result of the fall.
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It's a beautiful, magnificent body of water that we get to see coming down from a cliff.
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It's amazing.
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We love it.
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But it is no longer the.
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It's not steady anymore, right, it's just, it's a whoosh and it's just there, right, and it just, it falls down and it and, and it drops and it's magnificent and it's powerful and it's uncontrollable.
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You can't control the waterfall.
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I could get a hold of the stream, a and if I am caught in a waterfall, if I'm caught in that rush, I'm likely not going to be able to get back up.
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I will probably drown in it, right?
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That's how powerful and how vast it is, and that's the kind of success and that's the kind of thing that consistency will do.
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That's the kind of level that when you get to it, that's when the work hard on your end stops.
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But what does it take to do that?
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You got to be consistent.
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I think this idea of discipline is just not interesting to us in a world that tells us that we should be happy, that we should have the things that we should be constantly catered to in some way.
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Right, that I need to constantly be understood.
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All those things are not bad.
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I want to be clear.
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They're not bad.
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Yes, being happy, being understood, all those things, those are great.
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I want those things too.
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But that entitlement that we have to say that that should be the way my life is all the time is truly what's stopping you from being disciplined because discipline creates guardrails and boundaries in your life.
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That at some point I make decisions to say yes and to say no according to some guardrails or boundaries, not according to my feelings.
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I'm saying yes, I'm saying no to things that are in place, not that are fluid and can fluctuate according to the day, to my mood, right?
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So that's not how I choose to live my life.
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If I choose to live my life that way, then consistency is out the window.
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I can't be consistent because I never know how I'm gonna show up.
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I don't know what kind of day the day is going to bring, tomorrow's Monday, I don't know how I'm going to feel when I wake up in the morning.
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But I have to decide today that I'm going to be consistent, no matter how I feel.
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That's discipline.
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It's making a decision to remain true to what you want, true to the path, true to the process, regardless of the circumstance.
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If I can learn how to do that, then I can get in my steady flow and I'm going towards my waterfall.
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The other thing is I have to understand that I have to begin to learn new things.
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Again.
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Going back to the teacher thing, right, we all know teachers like if you are a teacher, it's a very different world than if you're a principal.
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A lot of my friends and even my sister, they have made the transition right.
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They were in the classroom and now they're administrators.
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Totally different ballgame they did.
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They have made the transition right.
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They were in the classroom and now they're administrators Totally different ballgame.
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They could not.
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Their working hard in the classroom was not enough for them to be successful as a principal.
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They had to learn new stuff.
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What does it take to learn?
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You have to slow down, you have to humble yourself, you have to listen to the right people and you have to become a apprentice again.
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You have to go from being an expert to an apprentice on another level and that can be really hard sometimes, because you're in this steady flow, you really feel like, okay, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going and now I want to get to this new level.
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But what it takes to do that, to be successful there, you have to slow yourself down, listen, learn, humble yourself and you're going to start over.
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You're going to start over at square one, on a different floor, and that's the only way you have to gain new knowledge.
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Billionaires are learners all the time.
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They're always gaining new knowledge, new perspectives, because it's gonna shape how they use their time, use their energy where they put their mind right.
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I can't give myself to everything anymore, so I have to be judicious about that.
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So how do I do that?
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I gotta learn, I gotta figure.
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I have to be judicious about that.
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So how do I do that?
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I got to learn, I got to figure, I got to.
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I have to sit down and be taught some things and then make decisions based on an educated mindset.
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A lot of us stop learning, really, after we get out of school.
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A lot of the learning that we have to do has to happen on our own, and A lot of times we wonder why I can't?
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Why am I not being asked to do more things?
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Why am I continuing to stay at the same pay grade, right, why?
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Why?
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Why did I?
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Why am I not getting this promotion?
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X, y, z we ask these things.
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Okay, a big reason could be that there are some things you have not learned.
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There are some minds.
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There's a mindset that you have not.
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You don't have that you need in order to be successful.
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And the people who are, who are trying to find those people to fill those positions, uh, in order to take it, fill those positions, those next level positions that that are out there, uh, they know what it takes and for whatever reason, the mindset isn't there.
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It's not just about I'm a hard worker, I'm a hard worker.
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I hear that a lot.
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I'm a hard worker, I'm a hard worker Irrelevant At some point.
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Working hard by itself is irrelevant.
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If you have not figured out another mindset, if you have not figured out that I need to, I need to be thinking differently about something.
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I need to be thinking in a different way, then those opportunities won't be available to you until you do that.
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Billionaires don't become billionaires just because they understand hard work.
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They may have started off that way, but at some point they got consistent, they didn't stop and they took on new knowledge.
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They were willing to become an apprentice again on the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth floor.
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All right, that's it.
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Let's do that.
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I know we have a lot of people who wanna go to the next level.
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If you're an unlearner, you're probably a leader in some way.
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You're interested in leadership, you want to grow, you want to get to the next thing, you want to get to the next level.
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I'm telling you from experience and just from observation it won't happen if you lack consistency and if you lack a certain mindset and a lot of the times, if we can really work on those two things, you'll find yourself in a very different place.
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So I just hope that's encouraging um to you.
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We are hard workers, but that's not going to be enough to get you where you want to go.
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You have to be willing to do those other things.
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All right, that's it.
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Y'all Um, make sure to like, subscribe, uh, share, share if this content has any value to you.
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We absolutely love you being a part of our community and we're excited to see it grow.
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Let's keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom, peace.
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Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast.
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We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode.
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Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think.
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We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom.
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See you then.
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