To be successful here are 7 reasons why sleeping less might help.

Just for fun I Googled articles on sleep and wasn’t surprised to find countless contributions dedicated to helping people overcome apnea, improve mental health, memory and a host of other benefits resulting from “better sleep”.

Most every article I read advocated sleeping between 7 to 10 hours a night, and every article pointed out the dangers of inadequate sleep.?Obesity, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and shortened life expectancy.

On a recent LinkedIn poll, I asked a simple question.?How much sleep do you require to function at your best??Well over one million people viewed that poll and 68,000 people voted.?64% said they need 6-8 hours of sleep a night, 14% said 4-6 hours and 22% get 8-10 hours of rest each night.?

Cats spend half their life sleeping, brown bats sleep 19 hours a day, while most humans spend over one third of their life sleeping.?The average Giraffe sleeps 2 hours each day.

Sleep in the wild is a luxury when you’re a seven-course meal lying flat on the ground and vulnerable to predators.?Standing up and using their powerful legs is a Giraffes only defense against lion attacks, and its often deadly.?Those legs have been known to decapitate the king of beast.

We can debate the vicissitudes of “inadequate sleep” until we are blue in face, or we could learn something from Giraffes.?Doing what’s required is sometimes more important than doing what “feels good”.

One article featured “19 successful entrepreneurs who know the importance of better sleep”.?Ironically, not one modeled physical excellence, at least according to my definition.

Would you rather get 9 hours of sleep, be overweight and make great money, or be filthy rich and feel like a prize fighter?

Anyone that’s honest knows the answer, the rest live in denial and justify their choices.?

As someone that's made health top priority and building my entrepreneurial dream an obsession, I can promise you that being in the top 1% physically and financially is possible.

That’s why most rich people aren’t incredibly fit and most fit people aren’t incredibly rich.?However, feeling amazing and having the resources to live an extraordinary life builds confidence, energy, endurance, and elevates happiness.?It’s also very difficult to achieve by getting 8 hours of sleep or more each night.

For over 3 decades I slept 4 to 5 hours a day, broken sleep.?This isn’t bragging; I did what was required to build a successful business and still make exercise top priority.?Keep in mind, my business operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In the beginning, I was the business!

Ironically, my fanatical workouts built the mental toughness required to sleep less, embrace pain, set firm boundaries, and push my dream forward.

I am happy to say I now get around 6 to 7 hours of sleep each night. In addition, I am not advocating getting less sleep, I am suggesting embracing the fact that some dreams are too big to be limited by “daily sleep requirements”.

“Most people go through life half asleep and miss all the opportunities that people living with urgency never overlook”.?Steve Wohlenhaus

To be successful here are 7 reasons why sleeping less might work best:

Discipline

Building supreme discipline is a necessity for entrepreneurs.?One way to acquire discipline is by conquering fatigue and learning to press forward. When we learn to adapt and flourish despite difficult circumstances, we grow. The discipline we inherit from doing what’s required reflects favorably in every aspect of our life.?When we want something bad enough, we give up everything to obtain it.?That may require losing some sleep at times.??

Uncomfortable

Talk about getting outside our comfort zone, jumping out of bed a 2am every day for decades will do the trick.?Once you adjust to getting up in the middle of the night, you do it like I did without an alarm.?You also jump from bed because you are eager to embrace the day and realize champions always answer the bell.?Losing sleep to pursue a dream might be uncomfortable, but the sacrifice is worth it and avoiding regret is the biggest benefit.?

No

When we sacrifice sleep to make a dream a reality, we learn to say no to just about everything.?We don’t have time to enjoy happy hour, 3 rounds of golf each week, idle chit chat with superficial pals and weekend social encounters.?Sorry, the sacrifices to succeed are huge and saying no is the difference between squeezing in workouts and getting valuable rest.

“Learn to say no to anything that competes with your dream and become comfortable offending most people that don’t understand the sacrifices required for success”.?Steve Wohlenhaus

Small talk

When we are getting limited sleep, we refuse to engage in small talk that takes time and requires valuable energy.?Wasting time fraternizing with superficial connections that thrive on third party information and innuendo is exhausting.?We learn to pick our friends wisely when we have limited time each day and avoid everyone else that loves wasting time on insignificant nonsense that detracts from our dreams.?Harsh, but true.

Boundaries

Living with less sleep requires concrete boundaries that are nonnegotiable.?You will lose plenty of friends, eliminate casual acquaintances, forfeit social events most people can’t resist, make sacrifices most people find impossible.?However, by setting firm boundaries you will make health, family, close friends, and your professional ambitions top priority.?These are my four tenets of equanimity and I guard them fervently.??

Pain

Running at 2am with 60 below zero wind chills and not a single soul in sight is haunting and invigorating.?It also builds mental fortitude, toughness, and endurance.?Learning to manage pain emotionally and physically is critical for success, because most people cave in and allow the temptations of compromise to germinate.?Once the seeds of indecision impact our choices, we easily acquiesce with tough decisions like “losing sleep” in favor of 10 hours of sleep that may result in doing what's required to pursue our goals.???

Regret

It’s ironic that many people evangelizing the virtues of more sleep have unhealthy habits that conflict with their message of “optimum wellbeing”.?Smoking pot, cigarettes, drinking alcohol, eating poorly, seldom exercising, living in fear, shouting at strangers on social media as they wrestle with being bold enough to make the sacrifices necessary for success. I would rather get less sleep than live with regret.?I would also advise avoiding all the unhealthy choices many people make that compel them to sleep more and challenge themselves less. ??

“Failing to set firm boundaries and embrace the discomfort of limited sleep will ensure our dreams our relegated by the same lack of discipline limiting most people’s potential”.?Steve Wohlenhaus

Sum it up.

How much sleep do you require each night??Share your thoughts in the comments section and please like and share this article. I love learning from you as well.

About Steve:

Steve Wohlenhaus is CEO of Weatherology, the leading company in the world at disseminating audio weather information.??Steve began his career as a major market television weather anchor in Minneapolis, where he received several Emmy Awards for science programming.?Steve is an author and host of the podcast program Anatomy of Success.?Reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn.?Learn more about my work and grab the free Weatherology mobile app by clicking any picture in this article!