Being over-ambitious: Necessary?

When I was in elementary school I collected top grades in everything, except for one subject. All the others where top notch (I know I can say this just to impress, but the fact is: I had top notch grades when leaving elementary school).

Those top grades paved a guaranteed road into the hardest program to get into in high school (the program where you studied physics, chemistry, math, biology etc. Subjects suitable for rocket scientists and other academical geniuses).

In order to get those top notch grades I worked day and night with impressing the teachers and my school comrades.

But from the time after I left high school to pursue business ventures and until this very day I have thought, to and from, about this subject of "ambition".

Is "over-ambition" really necessary to succeed at all? Is "over-motivation" really the way to succeed? Is it really necessary to be this over-crazed and sleep deprived person just to be a success? Is it, like many people seem to think, necessary to do more than what is really necessary to succeed (or what is really asked for)?

What I mean is: That year, when I was accepted to high school and to this "hard" program they had there, that year I could have attended the very same program with the lowest of grades. How so? Because that particular year there was a big program vacancy so even if I had had one of the lowest grades I would have been fully accepted to attend that very same program.

So that begs the question: Why do so many of us (worldwide) work harder than what is actually necessary when we could really be much more lazy and still accomplish the very same goals?

I will send my application to a couple of programs at the local university, February 23rd 2009. I will do this just to test the thing mentioned above. I want to see if I can get a G (the lowest acceptance grade you can recieve in the swedish school system) grade in all of the subjects so as to pass with minimal effort. The lower your grade aim, the less stuff you really need to accomplish. The thing is, I will get the same candidate diploma as those with higher grades. Though I guess I will be much happier in the end.

I remember, when I was in high school, that the only real requirements for getting a G grade in, say, the swedish language was for me to sit on my ass in the classroom and ace a G grade on every test. No need to be active at all in the discussions. No need to be over ambitious at all. If I just did those two things, then I was a G student and I was on to my next level of swedish (the next level had the same requirements). Isn't that amazing or what?

As soon as we notice what the fine print says (Tim Ferriss got me to think a lot about this and actually gave me some more meat to work with after all of those years of thinking and thinking about it) our lifes takes a rather sharp shift for the better. That is the moment when we start to control our lifes and when life transforms itself to being our personal "bitch".

I can attest to the good nature of knowing the fine print. I took myself out of a $20,000 debt once, because of a mere technicality in the fine print of an agreement. I am very happy because it was me who found the technicality so I never did have to bring in a lawyer to defend me.

So next time you start to "over-work" things, please just sit down and think: "what does the fine print say? What am I actually required to do?

I think that, if you just took a close look at your business life, your personal life etc and did a "fine print" search and then acted upon those "fine print" obligations, then you would sleep better tonight, be richer (because of false obligations being lifted from your shoulders) and I guess you would feel overall better because you now have a much better control over your life.

So true,

Sometimes you have to look at the ROI of your efforts. There is always diminishing returns. For example, my site is #6 on Google. It will be very hard to get it to #3. Is that amount of work worth it? I honestly don't know. I mean I try to do it just because its a cool goal and investment. But I don't know if the actually time investment is worth the ROI in dollars.

If my site makes $50/day on #6 and will make $75/day at #3. Is $25/day worth 500 hours of work or $5000 in SEO? While many of us strive to be #1 and the best, sometimes the best is not worth it, IMO.

Ill give you a quick example. Recently I spent a day making sure my site's tables were lined up perfectly, redid my product images, etc... This was all anal stuff. When I looked back, this work is just work for me, because a misaligned table annoyed me, or the fact that a few images were 4 pixels smaller. This work really has no ROI in terms of money and brings nothing to my bottom line. I could have spent this time doing SEO or something that was dollar productive.

BTW, I still take classes at community college and I fail every single one. I do no homework, never show up for tests or finals. But I will bet that I learn more in class than most of the students in there.

When I got to college, I had a choice of math class to take. I just needed a math credit, and could take anything from math 101 to calc.

I asked a dean of business on what to take, and he said "taking harder classes never hurts". I took calc and got a C. Then I learned that the key was to take classes where you will get A's so your GPA looks good.


I'd say the point is to work hard in what does matter, but take the easier road if it gets to the same point and how you got there doesn't really matter.

There's a great story about a janitor who cleaned the blackboards at an Ivy League university (no, it wasn't Matt Damon ).

When he would get done, he'd write in the corner: "You gotta wanna" in the corner, in small letters.

Fanocks, you make great points about figuring out if something is important before you waste energy on it (something covered extensively in the book Your Money or Your Life, under the concept of Life Energy). Spending time on something that doesn't get you where you want to go is wasted effort-- and sometimes may even carry you farther away from where you really want to be.

But once you know what you want-- where you want to go-- you ain't gonna get there unless you are motivated and get your butt in gear.

You gotta wanna.

-Russ H.

Thank you for the post fanocks! Huge fan of your posts here (you already know that I assume )!
Back in high school, I worked my ass of, got A+ in everything, did exams again and again till I got a perfect A+. When I applied to my University, they had some sort of a way to determine whether you'll get accepted, it's score where the SAT's (our version of it) makes up for 80% and the other 20% is your high school GPA, I realized that even if I had a GPA of 10/100 (I got 98/100) I would've still gotten accepted with my SAT's, talk about being disappointed haha, 12 years of hard work accounts for %20 of the chance of you getting accepted.
Now I could care less about my grades, as long as I pass I'm happy, most of students here work their ass of for better grades because "employers prefer graduates with higher GPA", well you know what? I don't give a damn about those employers, you enjoy working for the more prestegious employer while I'll enjoy more free time to do better things now (like reading books, magazines, educating myself in business, finding my passions... and a little bit of partying doesn't hurt either ) and later on I'm sure no matter where I work after I graduate, I'll be on my own in no time and then grades and diplomas will mean absolutely nothing.
Thanks again for a great topic fanocks!

If you can accomplish the same goals by being lazy as you can by working hard, then you're setting your goals way too low.

And anyone who believes that they can accomplish just as much by being lazy as they can by working hard has some serious flaws in their thinking.

I've coasted through many things in life (I'm a good test-taker, I communicate well, I have some natural "book smarts," etc), and I've accomplished a lot despite my oftentimes being very lazy. But, I never, ever tried to convince myself that I couldn't accomplish more by working harder.

That's just the lazy person's attempt at wishful thinking...

hehe, I was reading your post JScott and thought you put: I have some natural "good looks"

which maybe entirely true, but not what you put, hehe

I do agree with this, but the point I was trying to make is that some things are not really worth working hard for, some things need to be accomplished but whether you worked hard or got lazy doesn't really show or doesn't really matter, t's true that I'm scarifying my grades for more time, but that time I'm not using to play video games or watch TV, I have read well over 50 business books in less than 3 months, I learned so much from forums I participate in, so for me, I do feel that the sacrifice in grades is really worth it considering the amount of knowledge I absorbed!
Thanks for your post, JScott, I learned a lot from you, as I mentioned in
What are some of your favorite blogs?
Your blog is one of the few I follow and I do I learn a lot from it.

I was more aiming at the idea that if test givers and others set low outcome criterias then there really is no incentive to do any over-ambitious work.

For example, as Tim Ferriss mentioned about the wrestling challenge he did with some friends. In the rules of that game it said he only had to push people out of the ring 3 times and he would win by default. It may not have been the best of solutions, but it did after all solve the practical side of winning the game and it was by following the rules.

Lazy? Good or bad? I would more see it like this: as a pragmatical person I see results as the measure of success. If my goal is to make $1 Million then obviously, for me that is, the shortest and easiest path there (without going to jail or being killed in the process) would be the most prefered.

The same goes with school grades. If I only have to get G grades (swedish grade system again) in all of the subjects in order to get that diploma, then that is obviously better than working harder in order to get the highest of grades. Especially if those higher grades changes nothing in particular to the bottom line. In order for those higher grades to be of value to me, the criterias need to be re-written so as to have any meaning. Or they have to raise the "G" level criterias at least so as to make it more complicated.

Though the thing is: even if they did make the "G" grade level more complex then I would be certain that the most pragmatical of us would find a way of beating that criteria sheet as well. That goes with everything in life. As Russ said in another way: "Where there is a will, there is a way". If you have the will, you will beat every obstacle that are setup to beat you.

This really sound new age-ish, but water never travels up the hill. It travels down the hill. The same goes with the decline of the human body as we grow older. The body does not hold back. The muscles and the bones in our body will slowly die and the body itself does not work against it. The leafs on the tree does not stick to the tree in the Autumn it just let's go, because that is the easiest way to proceed. The laziest way.

Also, the animals in nature does not feel guilt when killing another animal to eat. Why? Because it is the absolute easiest and shortest path to the goal: surviving another day. If it is wrong or not? Well, it can be debated, but that poor animal will still be eaten by that lion. And that ill child of a bird still get pushed out of the nest because it is of no use and the easiest way is to get rid of that big burden quickly as possible. Right or wrong? Lazy or not? It can be debated.

Thank you for your post JScott. Appreciate your input.

I've tutored high school kids the last couple of years and found one of the biggest lies younger students tell themselves is "Ah don't worry, when I'm a senior I'll try harder and get good results - it doesn't matter what I get in junior years so I can relax for now."

In every situation I've come across, the prior performance of a student is a great predicator of the future results. Dramatic life changes in motivation and discipline are rare and in my opinion ultimately the best things you can learn from school are the ability to learn things quickly and good habits of self discipline. I don't believe these principles change at all after school.

Whether it be Dan Kennedy, Richard Branson, Ryan Allis or any number of others when asked why they were successful usually their answers can usually be paraphrased to "I'm diciplined, therefore I do more. I mightn't do it better, but I do more."

It's much easier to look back and see where you could've saved time, because usually only from hindsight can you distinguish which actions were critical and which were trivial.

As fanocks mentioned, Tim Ferriss is a great supporter of the 80/20 principle however even he acknowledges before you can trim the 80% of your ineffective advertising budget you have to "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks".

This forum, more so than other communities, I expect there are a lot more people who have worked extremely hard and now have the experience now to know what was unneccesary in the past.

Fanocks, several years ago could you have recognised, ahead of time, the minimal requirements you needed for school? If you spend several years in university achieving the minimal required grade do you think you can separate that mentality from creeping into your business ventures? When you get your first job (assuming you're on that path) trying to renew your previous habits to rise quickly in the company, in my experience, will be an extremely difficult challenge.

Hope this helped

A story:

Once upon a time, there were two lumberjacks from the same region. Each was considered the world's best lumberjack by their respective logging communities. Both were burly men, rugged and fierce when it came to chopping down trees. Both could clear more than twice the amount of trees than other seasoned lumberjacks in the same time. Soon the county was talking about who was the best, with half the town's folk siding with one guy, the other half with the other.

As with all such stories, they decided to have a Chop-Off to see who the best lumberjack really was. Both lumberjacks thought this was a great idea. For a week, the town's folk deliberated over the right area and the right trees so it would be a fair competition. Finally, 50 trees were chosen for their same width, same type of wood and equal-distance from the chosen starting point. Each was marked with a bright blue ribbon and judges were staged along the ridgeline to ensure it was a fair contest.

The two men were poised with their axes and bolted forward when the starting gun fired. Within minutes, the sounds of chopping could be heard for miles, as the two juggernauts felled trees at inhuman speed. After every few trees Lumberejack #1 chopped down, he would look back to see how he was doing compared to Lumberjack #2. Several times he noticed that #2 was sitting on the ground. Number 1 was invigorated even more by this sight. Here was his competition taking a break, apparently worn out after just a few trees. He continued; sweat dripping from his brow, to fell trees like a madman. And every so often he would look back to find lumberjack #2 sitting on the ground, resting.

Finally, the time ended, and the gun sounded again. Exhausted, both came back to camp. However, Lumberjack #1 was still energized from seeing #2 sitting on the ground, lazy, and knew without a doubt he'd won the contest. The judges went out to count the number of trees each contestant had hewn. They consulted with one another, and finally, with the head judge. Then they made the announcement: Lumberjack #1 had chopped down 19 trees during the time allotted. Lumberjack #2 had cut down 26.

Lumberjack #1 was stunned. How could this be? He confronted the second Lumberjack: "You lazy SOB-- I should have won! I saw you taking a break on several occasions while I was hard at work hacking down tree after tree!"

Lumberjack #2 first smiled, then began to laugh, long and hard. "Is that what you thought I was doing? Being lazy? Sure, I did get a small breather. But there was another reason I was sitting on the ground.

"I was sharpening my axe."

********

Sometimes, those who appear lazy to us are really just working smarter.

-Russ H.

Another story:

There once was a fearsome lumberjack, who could fell trees in half the time it took anyone else.

He was known far and wide as the best woodcutter in the kingdom.

One day, a salesman came up to him and said, "I have a revolutionary new device that will allow you to cut 5 trees in the time it takes you to cut just one." And he showed the lumberjack a shiny new chainsaw.

The lumberjack was not convinced the chainsaw would do a better job, but the salesman offered to loan it to him, no charge, for a week. The lumberjack agreed.

For the next week, the lumberjack worked harder and harder, trying to break his records for cutting trees down with his trusty axe. The first day, he only cut half as many trees. The next, about 60% as many. By the end of the week, he was working harder, and had learned some tricks to getting the most out of the new chainsaw-- but he was only able to cut down about the same amount of trees as with his axe. And, truth be told-- he was working harder at it.

After a week, the salesman returned.

The lumberjack recounted his story, and the salesman looked astonished. "I can't believe this-- let me see the chainsaw!"

When the lumberjack handed it to him, the scrawny salesman pulled the starter, went over to a medium sized tree, and cut it down in less than a minute.

The lumberjack looked at him, his mouth open in astonishment. He took the chainsaw, turning it over and over in his hands, finally looking up at the salesman and saying:

"How did you get it to make that noise?"

***********

Some people can accomplish a LOT with the right tools.

But having the right tools is not enough.

You have to know how to use them.

-Russ H.

Russ -

Not sure why the story was included after my comments, but I have to assume you disagree with my comments...

Essentially all I said was that lazy will accomplish less than not-lazy.. I never said not to work smarter; I never said not to prioritize things; I never said to waste time on stuff that you shouldn't waste your time on.

All I said was that lazy will accomplish less than not lazy.

I'm not sure your story is relevant to my comments, but if it is, can you explain a bit more?

Absolutely!

I think there is a tendency for some people (not you, perhaps) to characterize others as lazy.

One look at Tim Ferris (4HHW), and many folks I grew up with would call the guy *extremely* lazy-- once they see how much free time he has.

Where I grew up (Detroit), you worked. Hard.

If you didn't work hard, most folks considered you a slacker.

Thing is, from an early age, I saw some folks work their whole lives-- hard-- and they'd have little to show for it. Yes, a great family life, and a new car every few years. And perhaps a small cottage on one of the nearby lakes.

But these folks retired with next to no money-- and had to rely on company pensions (and social security) to stay alive.

I too had this mindset, mostly because I'd never seen anything different.

Then I moved out to Marin County (northern CA). Lived there for a few years-- and what I saw pretty much *blew* my mind.

Lots of Marinites (in the early 1980s) were hot tub lovin' ex-hippies. They had small businesses where they made a tidy living, but their main goal was to enjoy life. To the fullest.

One might even call them hedonists.

I sure did.

Until I became one.

And at that point, I didn't consider myself lazy, or lacking ambition (OK, maybe when I was stoned)--nor did I consider myself a hedonist.

I was just enjoying life, to the max.

A bunch of years slipped by-- and I had nothing to show for it (I'd made no plans for retirement/financial freedom). So I figured I had to "buckle down" and get to work.

Which I did.

But after a little while, I could see that most of the Marinites around me *did* have financial freedom, and had prepared-- beautifully-- for their retirements.

I just never noticed it-- I just saw the enjoyment, the loving life.

Not sure if that makes sense.

Anyways, I started to become a student of the 80/20 rule, and working smarter/not harder.

It was the late 1980s, and I was using a new fangled computer called a Macintosh.

I structured a new business around doing high-tech electronic installation for people's homes, and I used the Mac to my advantage-- what I did in my 3D CAD program in 45 minutes took *days* in AutoCAD, back then. Literally.

So here I was, living the high life, jetting around the world, churning out amazing designs, and-- truth be told-- working a LOT LESS than my colleagues. Getting more done.

So when you said

it reminded me of they guy I once was-- looking at all of the "lazy" Marinites, and not seeing that they were accomplishing LOADS more than their competitors (who were working much, much harder).

Learning about work smarter/not harder was a big epiphany for me. It is to this day.

Whenever I am in a new situation, I ask myself, "How can this be done easier/faster/more efficiently?" And I try to come up w/out of the box solutions.

****

So I'm not disagreeing w/your comments, JScott--

they just brought to mind a time in my life when I saw hard work as good, and those who worked less as "lazy"-- and the stories I related are those that I think illustrate well how working *less* hard can often be more productive.

Hope that makes sense.

-Russ H.

Absolutely Russ...

But if you really want to accomplish a lot, I suggest "Work smarter...AND harder..."

Personally, I don't generally follow that rule, as I'm pretty lazy myself...

As Rk states: "A" students work for "C" students and "B" students work for the government.

Thinking is work and surely not lazy! And with a larger world view you are thinking at warp speed all the time. Again the goal is a larger vision.

Finishing what you start and doing the best you can at a particular project at specific timing, allows you to prioritize larger visions because you gained experience.

Organization is the only concept that conquers time, therefore if you were 100% organized time would stop. I use the example if you knew all the contacts in the world, their strengths and limitations, you could make one phone call with specific instructions and have an armored car drive up and drop off a billion dollars and you wouldn't even have to help them unload it as you started a domino effect throughout the world leading to that end result.

Few people have this power - so get more organized!

If you want to get out of a traffic ticket enlarge the issue, take on the whole system, the goals of the system, the constitution, the world, this is what lawyers do all the time taking a black and white issue and make it gray, but there is always an answer. Why? Because of time, just as a balance sheet is a photograph in time. Time is either abused or not (frequently abused in the legal system), it is the greatest asset that allows you to increase your vision pragmatically.

Now, if you want to really enlarge your vision spritually you do the work of love which is paradoxically void of time and space. The true end.'

We go full circle because we are tested on earth (celestial boot camp) with heavy doses of reality, the more you can take the more you grow.

The Recovery concept or efficiency concept of OUTPUT / INPUT is measurable on earth and in dollars, etc. but love cannot be measured by that equation but by your increased vision - knowing where the chips will fall!!!

When thinking of the big picture to prioritize we must use the tool of "Lists." Therefore the choice of a detail on the list to shore up the total identity of the list is where you make a decision to focus at particular timing. It may take years just to get the proper order of the list correct.

Parameters come before details, context before content, the proper order is critical. Therefore the answers are in the process of list making itself (computer is only a box full of lists). The tool is so simple and pragmatic it is paradoxically where all the power, communication, and relative importance lies.

In this context ambition is small but nevertheless pragmatic within individual objectives. The danger is in not subordinating to higher power where ambition may produce short term gain but long term pain if it becomes your identity or your god. In other words what is missing (?) is the question. Ambition may be good for the battle but not the war.

RK says in today's world financial education is essential for survival, but today there is too much information (information overload). Information + Education = Knowledge

Vision increases capacity to build on knowledge using the simplest tools possible. Simplicity and Clarity are more of the Global focus than ambition, it is also more pragmatic.

Anyone can communicate with a list! How come our politicians cannot communicate priorities in a precise order? Maybe it is a problem with commitment?