How to Improve Your Odds of Success in Life
2 stories that illustrate the power of skill acquisition & preparation
Qi Lu grew up in extreme poverty in a remote village outside of Shanghai, China. Roaming the streets as a child, he became used to seeing people suffering from severe deformities due to malnutrition. There were three hundred schoolchildren for every teacher in his school. The most ambitious of his childhood friends hoped to get jobs as shipbuilders, earning the princely sum of seven dollars a month.
By his early 20’s, the hardworking Qi was earning decent money compared to his peers. However, he had bigger dreams in life. He wanted to pursue a postgraduate degree in the United States and make a better life for himself and his family.
The first step would be to get his graduate degree at his local university. The challenge would be how to keep earning enough to survive and help his family while pursuing his dream of further education. There simply didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to do both.
So Qi decided to hack his sleep.
He went to the library and studied the sleep hacking techniques of Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and other famously productive, successful people. And he began experimenting on himself.
