This is the 4th in series of articles about alternative paths to success; ones that go beyond the traditional approach of goal-setting and years of hard work.
Back in 1987, I was working for Accenture (then Arthur Andersen’s management consulting division). I was working on a large project with over 200 people. I had been out of college for a little more than a year, but was given a leadership role on the project.
I shared a desk with a guy by the name of Chuck. He too had one of the few leadership roles. One day, Chuck turned to me and said, “I hate you.”
I was a bit taken aback, but I understood.
Chuck and I knew each other in college. We had similar majors and took many of the same classes. But there was one big difference. Chuck busted his butt for 4 years and got a 4.0 GPA. I, on the other hand, became social chairman for my fraternity, focused more on developing my leadership skills, skipped many of my classes, and had a less than stellar GPA. Although I am not proud of my academic performance in college, I did learn a lot of valuable skills that were not taught in the classroom. These ultimately proved to be more useful than memorization and test taking.
Although Chuck and I took very different paths, we ended up, at least back in 1987, in the same place.
One of the things I have learned over the years is that the amount of effort you put in rarely equals the result you get.
Some people can work 80 hours a week and only make incremental improvements in their careers. Others can work only a few hours a week yet achieve incredible results.
How hard you work is not correlated with how successful you are. I will continue to explore this in the next blog entry (coming in 2 days)…