IMAGE: SUPPLIED
SECRET OF
SUCCESS
I
f you’re already as successful
as you want to be, both
personally and professionally,
congratulations! Here’s the not-sogood news: All you are likely to get
from this article is a semi entertaining
tale about a guy who failed his
way to success. But you might also
notice some familiar patterns in my
story that will give you confirmation
(or confirmation bias) that your own
success wasn’t entirely luck.
If you’re just starting your journey
toward success—however you define
it—or you’re wondering what you’ve
done wrong until now, you might find
some novel ideas here. Maybe the
combination of what you know plus
what I think I know will be enough to
keep you out of the wood chipper.
Let me start with some tips on what
not to do. Beware of advice about
successful people and their methods.
For starters, no two situations are
alike. Your dreams of creating a
dry-cleaning empire won’t be helped
by knowing that Thomas Edison liked
to take naps. Secondly, biographers
never have access to the internal
thoughts of successful people. If a
biographer says Henry Ford invented
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the assembly line to impress women,
that’s probably a guess.
But the most dangerous case of all
is when successful people directly
give advice. For example, you often
hear them say that you should “follow
your passion.” That sounds perfectly
reasonable the first time you hear
“BUT THE MOST
DANGEROUS
CASE OF
ALL IS WHEN
SUCCESSFUL
PEOPLE
DIRECTLY GIVE
ADVICE”
it. Passion will presumably give
you high energy, high resistance to
rejection and high determination.
Passionate people are more
persuasive, too. Those are all good
things, right?
Here’s the counter argument: When
I was a commercial loan officer for
a large bank, my boss taught us
that you should never make a loan
to someone who is following his
passion. For example, you don’t
want to give money to a sports
enthusiast who is starting a sports
store to pursue his passion for all
things sporty. That guy is a bad bet,
passion and all. He’s in business for
the wrong reason.
My boss, who had been a
commercial lender for over 30 years,
said that the best loan customer
is someone who has no passion
whatsoever, just a desire to work
hard at something that looks good
on a spread sheet. Maybe the
loan customer wants to start a drycleaning store or invest in a fast-food
franchise—boring stuff. That’s the
person you bet on. You want the
grinder, not the guy who loves his
job.
For most people, it’s easy to be
passionate about things that are
working out, and that distorts our
impression of the importance of
passion. I’ve been involved in several
dozen business ventures over the
course of my life, and each one
made me excited at the start. You
EASTER ISSUE 2015 / NORTHERN HILLS / PAGE 43