Prince's Diamonds & Pearls #166

3 Steps to Success

Probably like you, I was taught that the number one key to success is hard work. Just outwork, outstudy, out train everybody around you. This is a principle that is persistently preached to us growing up.

While hard work is important, I’ve learned that it’s overrated. Hard work is not even in the Top 3 important factors to success. If hard work was #1, the cooks who work in the heat of greasy restaurant kitchens, the janitors who clean up hotels and commercial buildings, the nurses who pull 12-hour backbreaking shifts, the landscapers who tend to subdivisions and highways in the hot sun, and numerous other roles would be driving ultra luxury vehicles and living in mansions. Yet they’re not. Why you ask? It’s because hard work is not the #1 path to success.

Imagine that you’re pushing on a door to open it, but it won’t open. You’re standing there pushing, Pushing, and PUSHING but it won’t open. Then some social media guru comes up behind you to tell you that the key to opening the door is to push harder, get up and grind, and persist. You do exactly what you’re told. You persevere and push harder, but the door still doesn’t open. Now you feel like a failure. The things that you read online or watch on social media shorts tell you to get up and grind and that you must desire to open the door more than you want oxygen itself. What do you end up doing? You push even harder.

Finally, after several minutes, years, or even decades of pushing the door as hard as you can, someone walks up and pulls the door open with ease and motions you to walk into the building.

1.) WHAT you work on

The #1 key to success is not how hard you work, it’s WHAT you choose to work on. Picking the right work that matters the most:

When I was younger, my first job was being a bag boy at Winn Dixie grocery store. My job was to bag the groceries and take them to the customer’s vehicle. Whether it was blazing hot outside or pouring down raining, I was expected to fulfill my role. As long as I was on the clock, I was on the go. All this work was to earn $5/hr. Years later I figured that I was smarter, so I added multiple jobs to my daily responsibilities. During the summer, I would work at a daycare for 4 hours, go home for an hour nap and then do an 8-hour shift at The Sports Authority sporting goods store. With all my weekly hours and hard work, I had to be raking in the money now, right? I was making a whopping $7/hr at The Sports Authority.

It wasn’t until my first summer internship at Kennedy Space Center, that I experienced firsthand the “Work Smarter, Not Harder” principle. At Kennedy Space Center, I was easily making over 4 times more than my first job, working way less hours, was housed in a beach condo, supporting the space shuttle program, and witnessed a launch from NASA’s Launch Control Center!

What you choose to work on has way more to do with your success than how hard you work. It provides you with the ultimate leverage to producing success results.

2.) WHO you work for

Who you work for is far more important than how hard you work. Who you work for will be your pathway to future opportunity. It will be what you are exposed to, what skills you learn, what insights you gain, what relationships and associations you gain:

In 2017, I became the youngest engineer to enter the Turnaround group. It was unheard of at the time as there was a huge gap in years of experience between me and the next Turnaround engineer in our department. I wholeheartedly know that my application, let alone an interview, would not have been entertained had I not previously worked under a specific Turnaround Manager, a high-level Turnaround Lead, and a prominent Turnaround engineer from the Bayport Complex. Working for and supporting those 3 individuals not only boosted my competencies but granted me to ability to get my foot in the door.

This is why many of those who become known as great masters of their trade and industries started out as apprentices. Those apprenticeships were the incubation of their greatness.

3.) WHO you work WITH will influence your future opportunities and successes.

Who you are around, who you collaborate with, and who you get to know, study, and learn from will influence you in a far greater direction. It will also provide you with more opportunities in the future than you realize. This is why great talent desires to join a team where other great talent is already known to be. “Rockstars know Rockstars and Allstars know Allstars”. They know who they work with will be incredibly affecting to their future:

Another wonderful opportunity I experienced was because I was in the circle of a well-known Construction Lead. While planning outages together, I was able to gain his trust in my capabilities. During a casual conversation, he saw that I expressed interest in learning the construction side of Turnaround Execution. Because of this, he came to my office and asked if I would be interested in a Special Assignment. He would take me on as an apprentice at an offsite turnaround, where I would serve as his Field Coordinator. WHAT?! An engineer operating as a Field Coordinator? I jumped at the opportunity. He worked the mess out of me. He didn’t hold my hand and even worked me harder than the other field coordinators on his team. A 13-hour day was the minimum expectation. Yet I must say that it was one of my most enjoyable and memorable roles in my entire career!!!

After all that has been shared with you, it’s WHAT you work on, WHO you work for, and WHO you work WITH. Then maybe #4 is how hard you work. So, yes hard work matters. But only after the first 3 principles are fulfilled.

To be clear, this doesn’t necessarily mean changing what you do professionally. However, it probably means making better choices about what you work on within your existing role and team. It’s working smarter, not harder. It’s finding your points of leverage. It’s embracing and investing in the Pareto, 80-20, principle. People are often focused on being efficient when they really should be focused on being effective. 20% of the procurement contracts that you hold produce 80% of the work. Also 20% of the department that you manage creates 80% of the headaches you experience. Who you work with not only determines the level of success as an organization. It also dramatically determines your day-to-day sanity. So, choose wisely and keep upgrading along the way.

Realizing that hard work, though valuable, isn’t the primary driver of success. It’s time to recalibrate your approach and focus on the more strategic factors. It’s time to embrace the variables that will radically accelerate your success propulsion.

Where in your life have you seen these principles work for you? Where have you seen going against these principles result in your detriment? What examples from coworkers or managers have you seen these principles properly leveraged to catapult their success? Share in the comments below.

References: The Lazy Person’s Guide to Success by Darren Hardy