Are you looking for more fun, joy, and ease in your work?
Do you feel like you’re working too hard, but never making any real progress?
Do you want more freedom? Less stress? Yet, more success?
If so, Fred Gratzon may hold the keys you are looking for.
“Almost everyone has been brainwashed to accept (and pay lip service to) the fallacious premise that hard work is necessary in order to be successful. If hard work is supposed to produce success, then it would stand to reason that everyone who works hard should be successful. But that is far from the case. Most people who work hard never come close to being successful. In fact, most hard workers have a much higher incidence of non-success than they have success. Financial strain, stress-related disease, and lack personal fulfillment are at epidemic proportions, while wealth, health, and happiness are rare in comparison. There is a better way. That better way is, of course, The Lazy Way.” – Fred Gratzon
What is The Lazy Way?
Fred defines “lazy” as “the ability to avoid work, yet still be able to get the job done and become wildly successful as a result.”Who is Fred Gratzon?
Fred is a very successful entrepreneur who admittedly hates hard work and refuses to do it.
Yet, his primary businesses have both made Inc. magazine’s “500 Fastest Growing Companies in
He started his first company, The Great Midwestern Ice Cream Company, in 1979 despite not having any money, experience, or even knowledge of how to make ice cream. Yet, Fred prevailed and in 1984, People magazine voted his ice cream the “best in
In 1989, Fred started a telecom company, Telegroup, in a spare room of his house. Once again, without money, knowledge, or experience, Fred’s company grew from a one-man operation to 1100 employees and $400 million in annual sales as an international long distance carrier.
The Key to Success for Fred Gratzon
So, how did he do it?
It certainly wasn’t his background or hard work ethic. Prior to starting his ice cream company, Fred never even held a job for more than two months, including being fired from a civil service job.
After reviewing the phenomenal growth and lessons of his first business (i.e., the ice cream company), including eventually being forced out of it, he wrote down his observations. He then decided to use his unconventional ideas, approach, and philosophy for all of his future ventures.
His very next company was the telecom company that grew in nine years to over $300 million in annual sales before he took the company public.
“I never did any work. No hard work. No soft work. Not even smart work. Work was never necessary.” - Fred Gratzon
After friends learned of Fred’s unusual methodology and remarkable success, they encouraged him to write a book to share his ideas with others. He started out by writing a memo to himself. This eventually grew into what is now "The Lazy Way to Success: How to Do Nothing and Accomplish Everything."
This book has been featured in both the Los Angeles Times and New York Times; and has been praised by many including Bob Doyle from "The Secret," film director David Lynch, and Gina Trapani from Lifehacker.com.
Benefits of The Lazy Way to Success
The benefits of “The
- Helps give you clarity and insight into what you can do in your life to achieve maximum success and then tells you how to do it.
- Shows you how to be driven by your passions instead of your bosses or financial need.
- Reveals how to use laziness constructively to remain free from needing to work long and hard.
The Formula for The Lazy Way to Success
The secret to living The Lazy Way to Success is to do what you are passionate about. Fred explains that we are each unique and have been given many gifts, talents, and natural abilities.
Here is his formula for identifying your passions and using your gifts, talents, and abilities to bring you the greatest success in the laziest way possible:
- List all of your gifts, talents, and natural abilities.
What gifts, talents, and natural abilities make you special or unique? Which ones do you have in great abundance? Be sure to include all of the positive areas where you are different or even a rebel.
- List all of the things you love to do or feel passionate about.
What do you love to do? What do you feel passionate about? What inspires you? What makes you laugh? What pleases you in a BIG way? Here, Fred says that the key is to also include the answers to the following questions: What do you give that when you are giving it you are filled with great joy? In other words, what activities feed your passion and contribute to a greater good?
- List all of the ways or activities where your gifts, talents, and passions intersect.
What ways or activities involve SEVERAL of your gifts, talents, natural abilities, passions, and unique characteristics all at the same time? At what point do they intersect? Look for the point(s) where the most gifts, talents, and passions come together.
Fred explains that the key with this step is:
“If, for some reason, that intersection of passions does not have a commercial component, modify it with more passions or talents until it does. At the intersection of many passions and talents, there should emerge a service, or a product, or an artwork, or a body of information that can be spun off commercially. This way you get to pursue your passions, grow your talents, give of yourself to others, contribute to a greater good, and, as a by-product of all this playing around, generate wealth.”
The Lazy Way to Success
If you follow this formula for The Lazy Way to Success, you should end up with a good idea of what you want to accomplish. Fred says that as this clarity increases for you, the more your creative juices will begin to flow. He says that these juices will continue to flow until they build up to a “critical mass,” where your next steps will be automatic because you will be naturally motivated and energized to start putting all of the pieces together of your vision.
“The formula is simple: When the goal is inspiring, the activity that is required to fulfill the goal becomes irresistible.” – Fred Gratzon
Fred has also found that a consistent by-product of this formula is that people with the skills to help you accomplish your goals will be attracted to your activities and efforts. Everything and everyone will naturally “fall into place.” Creative, gifted people will want to join in your fun. As this happens, the fun and attractiveness will be increased even more, which in turn attracts even more creative, gifted people to your vision in a continuous circle and effortless flow.
As a result, you will be free to continue to be lazy and dream bigger dreams, including more ways of living your passions easily.
