According to a recent survey conducted by OnePoll, on behalf of LG Electronics, the average person in the UK watches 1,248 hours of TV a year.
If you do the math, that means the average individual living in the UK watches approximately 60,000 hours of TV from the age of 23 through age 70, what most would consider your productive years.
A typical college education takes about 3,000 hours to complete and a PhD takes slightly more than 3,000 hours. So, you could graduate college and get a PhD by devoting just 10% of that 60,000 hours of TV-watching to formal study.
In my Rich Habits Study, 67% of the wealthy watched less than an hour of TV a day, or about 365 hours of TV a year. That’s 883 fewer TV-watching hours than the average person.
What makes this relevant to building wealth is what the self-made millionaires in my study did with those 883 hours each year:
- 183 Hours Per Year – Reading to Improve/Learn or Deliberate/Analytical Practice to Perfect/Improve Your Skills
- 104 Hours Per Year – Exercising
- 60 Hours Per Year – Helping to Run a Local Non-Profit
- 92 Hours Per Year – Building Power Relationships
- 364 Hours Per Year – Pursuing Dreams/Goals/Formal Schooling
- 80 Hours Per Year – Other (Hobbies, Sports, Coaching, Speaking, Writing, Work)
I like survey’s like this because they validate my Rich Habits research.
As I’ve written about often, there are four paths to wealth:
- Saver/Investor Path
- Big Company Climber Path
- Virtuoso Path and
- Dreamer/Entrepreneur Path
If you pursue the Saver/Investor Path, the only requirement is that you live off of 80% of your net income, diligently save the remaining 20% and prudently invest that 20% savings, year after year. When you pursue this Effort-Less Path towards wealth, you can watch as much TV as you want and still build wealth.
If you are pursuing any of the other paths towards wealth, watching too much TV is a time-wasting habit that wealthy, successful Climbers, Virtuosos and Dreamers don’t engage in. They are too busy focusing on growing and improving.
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About Thomas C. Corley
I’ve always been told that watching to much TV is a waste of valuable time. We only have a short period of time to live on this earth, why not make the most of it. Why not engage in things that are going to contribute to your living your dream instead of watching other people live theirs.