Why I Kissed Time Management Goodbye

By Bryan Ward, Founder of Third Way Man

If you're like most ambitious men, you believe that hard work and discipline are essential to success.

But what if everything we've been taught about hard work and discipline is wrong?

Here's a short story about how "work harder" failed me, and the startling results I saw by charting a completely different path.

Most men hit a crisis point in their careers where the old way of doing things simply stops working.

My own crisis point came several years ago.

At that point, I owned two businesses, was an aspiring novelist and musician, had just bought a small hobby farm, and had a wife and three kids.

I was stretched to the breaking point.

So, I did what most men do when the going gets tough: I tried to manage my time better. I tried to work "smarter." I slept less and sacrificed more.

But things didn't get better. My businesses stalled, my income plateaued.

And the quality of my life was horrible.

I would stay up to ridiculous hours at night watching crap TV or playing my kids' video games because I dreaded going to bed, waking up the next morning, and doing the same mind-numbing routine all over again.

Each work day left me absolutely drained and depleted. I had NOTHING left in the tank for my family when I got home.

I couldn't figure out what my problem was and it was driving me crazy.

Then, during some time off, it hit me:

They say "success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

They say "inspiration is great when you can get it, but not something you can count on."

They say "focus on effort, discipline, and willpower. Manage your time and your energy. THAT is the path to success."

But my soul was rebelling.

I was sick and tired of discipline and willpower. I wanted to be INSPIRED. I wanted to love what I did… to feel "lit up" by my work.

So I asked myself what turned out to be a life-changing question:

Was it possible to reverse-engineer inspiration? To live your life in such a way that you could experience inspiration "on demand"?

I thought of the cave men, who, for thousands of years, viewed fire as a random, serendipitous gift from the gods… something that could not be created or controlled but only stumbled upon in rare, perfect storm scenarios, such as forest fires or lighting strikes.

I thought of that critical moment in history where man finally learned to create fire "on demand," whenever he wanted to, with his own two hands.

That day marked a radical upgrade in man's evolution.

In the same way, was it possible that we as a species had simply not yet discovered a mechanism for reliably capturing and harvesting inspiration… for reliably lighting our own internal fires?

…And if so, what was to stop us from learning how?

I decided that day to "optimize" my life for inspiration.

I focused on three key life changes.

My gut told me these changes would open the flood gates… IF I had the courage to take the first step.

Click below to see what happened next:

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