There’s always the temptation to pick the easy choice.

Scrolling on social media instead of reading a book.

Binging on Netflix instead of building your business.

Eating ice cream instead of healthy foods and working out.

Sleeping in instead of waking up early.

This puts us on the easy path in life.

The easy path is short-term thinking. The hard path is long-term thinking.

In the short term, easy choices give us instant gratification. Hard choices are, well, hard.

But in the long term, easy choices lead to a hard life (laziness, disease, unhappiness), whereas hard choices lead to an easy life (health, wealth, wisdom).

Choice compounds over time.

Before making your next one, ask, where will this path lead in 10,20,30 years? Is there something I could do instead which would lead to a better outcome?

The same concept applies in business; easy execution is easy to replicate. Try and solve hard problems. This will give you an edge and make it less likely that someone will copy you.

They’ll have to work that much harder for that.

Whenever in doubt, choose the hard way.