“Work harder because there will always be somebody smarter….”

 

Work smart, not hard. Study smart, not hard. We’ve heard the many derivatives of this simple idea that we ought to be working smarter not harder.

While this may seem like a good idea it has a fatal flaw; there will always be somebody smarter that comes up. Intelligence is part nature and part nurture, meaning part of this equation isn’t in your control.

There is something that is in control however, how hard you work and how long you work. It’s not your fault that somebody smarter will come up, but there’s no reason you should be out-worked. Grit is a question of will not genetics.

So my current thesis on the subject is work harder and longer because there will always be somebody smarter.

In his memoir, Michael Orvitz, put it best when detailing his intial years in Hollywood saying…

“I had to work long, hard and smart.”

Nobody put it better than the late Jim Rohn…

“It’s hard to beat a man that won’t sleep.”

The same 24 hours debate

There is the common saying that we all have the same 24 hours. Recently many young professionals have come out against such a claim and truth be told their arguments are valid. If you have an easier road ahead compared to another in the same race, then indeed the race is not the same. Put another way, if your parents could afford to buy you a car and an apartment close to school then you and the student spending an hour each way to get to school do not have the same 24 hour day. This raises an even bigger problem for me personally…

The difference between excuses and reasons is that reasons are valid. It is true that if you have less the odds are stacked up against you. It is true that if you are the first in your family to attempt that very thing the odds are stacked up against you. If you are female, that adds to those odds. All these reasons are one hundred percent valid. But! They do not serve you. Inherent in the reason is justification for not being where you want to be. The reasons may be true and valid, but they do not bring you any closer to where you want to be. They are not serving your greater objective and here’s why…

 

The human brain hates two things; change and being wrong. Meaning it will work very hard to ensure it never experiences any of these things. That is why getting into shape is so difficult or kicking a bad habit. The energy required for the brain the rewire itself must be justifiable or the brain will work hard not to do it. Meaning if you say to yourself, I do not have the same 24 hours as them so I should not expect the same results, you give the brain justification not to find solutions to your current problem. The human brain will rewire if it is given no other choice. That is why our greatest triumphs often came after saying “Come hell or high waters I will finish this degree!” Suddenly, a solution just popped up. The solution was always there but the brain had to find justification to expand all that energy to find it.

 

The only thing the brain hates more than change and being wrong is perceived death. It doesn’t have to be real death, it simply has to seem like a death of some sort. A drug overdose that causes a near-death experience that causes a person to kick their bad habit. The brain would rather change or be wrong than die.

The purpose of beliefs is inducing certain wiring in the brain that cause a particular result. Saying I do not have the same 24 hours but I will still be a Rock star in my field, is very different to simply saying I do not have the same 24 hours as them.

The one serves you and the other doesn’t. I don’t keep belief systems that do not serve me. No matter how true they may be.

“Uhm…. where’s your plow?”

 

Everything goes through phases and seasons, organizations too. The demands of a startup are different to the demands of a company in its growth phase and it’s important for you as its leader to understand that.

Equally, if not more, important is for your team to understand the phase your company’s in. You don’t want to hire people expecting harvest in your seed time.

Worst question to ask on their first day is “where’s your plow?” They didn’t bring one because they thought it’s harvest time. They came expecting a field full of fruit ready to be picked, not a bare field needing to be worked on.

“Victory cloaked in defeat”

The Trojan horse is arguably one of the greatest mythologies on strategy. It carries on fundamental truth, victory cloaked in defeat.

 

We are at our most vulnerable at the moment where we believe victory is ours because it causes us to let our guard down.

 

To win a war easily, let your enemy believe they have already won. To lose a battle easily, believe you’ve already won.

The battle chooses the weapon

The enemy you are facing often determines the type of weapon you will bring into the engagement. The weaponry to fight off house burglar is very different to the weaponry needed to fight off a terrorist attack. The situation makes one weapon totally unsuited for the battle. There is inherently nothing wrong with the weapon. It is the battle that forces upon us a weapon.

 
Circumstance are often like these battles. Situations inherently demand a particular type of individual whilst making another totally unsuited for the occasion. A growing company will have a different team dynamic to a company that is already ‘grown.’ It doesn’t make team lessor than the other, the situation has chosen its weapon.

It’s nothing personal

 

Our brains are wired to keep you alive so it prioritizes you. This is great until it spills over to social life; ” why is this happening to me??” The question we ask because we feel personally targeted by circumstances.

Truth is, for the most part, it really isn’t anything personal. In a random roadblock somebody must be stopped. It is just unfortunate that on that day you were stopped you had forgotten your license. Truth is when a company is going through a tough time, somebody needs to be fired. It’s just unfortunate that you were the one to be fired.

It’s nothing personal. But because of the way our brains are wired, we personalize the random events of life.

“The occasional insight…”

As human beings we see ourselves as extremely intelligent with the occasional bout of stupidity. When we have this lapse in intelligence, then either we say “I don’t know what came over me” meaning that was unlike us; or we ask the question “how could I have made such a stupid mistake??”

This has lead us to trust virtually every thought we have without verifying its validity.

The researcher on the other hand knows that the opposite is generally true. We’re actually quite stupid, with occasional bouts of intelligence. That is why we have methods in place in which to test our ideas.

Most of them fail by the way… But every failure is a step towards the next bout of intelligence.

“Mirror mirror….”

 

 

World renowned doctor Dr. Drew Pinsky talks about the moment addicts change. That moment is when they see themselves through the eyes of another. That deep realization envokes a feeling of disgust and they utterly change from that moment.

There are things about ourselves we aren’t willing to see and accept. So we go about our lives feeling rather satisfied. But every now and then we meet someone who changes the way we see things. Through this new lens we are forced to see something about ourselves and that moment is when we change.

This simple concept is where the notion of you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with comes from. That is because it shapes the mirror through which we see ourselves.

You aren’t just the way you are. You are the mirror image of yourself that you have believed.

“It’s obvious”

 

 

Whenever a football player makes a mistake that should be routine it’s often because he took that step for granted. The player was already thinking about what they would do with the ball before actually controlling it. They were already celebrating before the ball was even in the net.

What often causes our plans to fail isn’t the difficult aspects. It’s the aspects we take for granted. It’s the parts we assume are simple or routine enough and so don’t require too much effort and thought. It’s obvious.

But we soon find out that it isn’t obvious. We miss the goal assuming the obvious.

Find your Mr. Miyagi

I’m a huge lover of action movies. And for the most of them the sequence is the same; for Neo in the Matrix, there is Morpheus. For the karate kid, there was Mr. Miyagi.

Many of the football stars we admire entered the football academies as early as 7. For Steves, Wozniak and Jobs, there was Mike Markkula.

Virtually all great stories are summarized by this simple quote:

“A man of talent is not to be left to himself, but to devote himself to art and good masters who will make something of him.” – Goethe