We levered the pipe a second time. It lifted the safe high enough for me to replaced the papers with a magazine. We then adjusted the lever and fulcrum angle again and jacked the safe up enough to add a second magazine. The pile of magazines grew until we were finally able to slide a pipe underneath. We repeated the process at the other end. Then, like two grandmothers leisurely pushing a baby carriage through the park, we effortlessly rolled the safe on those pipes out of the room.

We were elated. We felt invincible. We were convinced that we could build another Egyptian pyramid. Just the two of us.

Two people using their brains accomplished effortlessly what seven people busting their behinds could not. We did not avoid the job; we just avoided the work. We found the effortless solution.

That incident was a turning point for me because from then on I knew there was nothing in life that could not be accomplished. It is simply a matter of finding the right angle – and the angle for greater accomplishment, I have found, is always in the direction of greater ease and effortlessness. Success is inversely proportional to hard work. This is true not just in moving heavy objects but in everything –– dealing with people, products, money, situations, thought, emotions, whatever.

The basis of success is not hard work. The basis of success is doing less.