The Smartest People I’ve Ever Met In Business Do These 5 Things
Plus a simple formula to double your odds of success
The Smartest People I’ve Ever Met In Business Do These 5 Things
Outside her office door hangs a sign that reads, “company psychologist.”
Not a practicing psychologist. Even better. She was the company’s executive director who, through osmosis, became the soundboard for stressed-out brokers.
She is the smartest person I ever met in business.
I remember one story when an investment broker was dealing with a crisis of confidence. Ambitious but burned out, he was working himself to death and recently became a father. “Am I doing the right thing by being here?” He asked the company psychologist. “I’m I supposed to be a broker?”
“What you’re not getting.” She replied. “Is that business is never just about you.”
With those words, the broker found purpose. He’s now one of the top producers at the firm.
The smartest people I’ve ever met in business double as leaders. They don’t overthink things. They don’t drum up nonsense. They do their homework and they’re committed to the process. They’re fearless.
The smartest people I’ve ever met in business do these things.
1.) They focus on their system, not the goal.
I have a friend in New York with a career light years ahead of most people her age.
She started with a low-level advertising job after college, bounced to a marketing agency, then leapfrogged to director of marketing at a popular company — all within 4 years. Each move building a higher salary. Each move adding more power.
How did she do it?
Whenever I see her, I always ask about her current job. She offers the rundown but quickly turns to conversation to new opportunities on the horizon: What the job market looks like. How she will leverage her current role for more money at a better role.
For her, job seeking isn’t something you do when desperate. It’s her system.
When most people talk about their career it goes something like this: “I want to make $1million by 30.” Or, “I want my boss’s job.” “I want to start a company.” The sad part is, how many people do you know accomplish those goals? You have to admit, you limit your options when you set a goal to become a manager at your current company in the same city.
My New York City friend doesn’t talk about goals. She talks about her system. The system to always be looking for a better job because she knows jobs don’t open up according to her schedule.
Hey, she didn’t make the rules of capitalism. But she’s smart enough to recognize the pattern.
Smart business people focus on the system. Not the goal.
2.) They do their homework before investing their money.
I lost $600 betting on Dogecoin.
I got caught up in the stonk frenzy last year and listened to all the terrible advice posted on Redditt and Twitter.
I lost big but learned a valuable lesson: That there’s so much exciting investment opportunity out there, but it’s all gambling unless you do your homework.
What do I mean by that?
Take my friend Anthony, for example. He’s big into NFTs, but not because Gary V proclaims it’s the “future”. Anthony did his homework. If they made PH. D’s for NFT Studies, he would be Dr. Anthony. He’s the head of marketing for a company called Neustreet — a magazine that talks about online collectibles. He writes for a technology and entertainment newsletter called Venn Diagrams. In 2018, he wrote a book about how blockchain will revolutionize the music industry called “Music on The Chain.”
I’m not saying you must become an expert like Anthony before investing your time and money in something, but we can all learn from his example.
The alternative? Follow the crowd and make bets on stonk stocks that we know nothing about.
3.) They focus on acquiring more skills.
The writer and entrepreneur, Scott Adams, invented a simple formula to success: Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.
Skill development is the meat of my system. I don’t have the business savvy or the entrepreneurial bones like my smart friends. I do well because I focus my time on becoming pretty good at many things that matter. It’s my superpower.
I noticed a pattern early in my corporate career: There are only a handful of hard-to-find/difficult-to-replace skills. Master these skills and you will always find a high-paying job.
Sales
Public speaking
Psychology
Writing
Golf, or some type of social sport
Social media content
Business is simple, but not an easy practice.
It’s the ability to influence and conduct a transaction that’s mutually beneficial for everyone involved. Mastering any of these skills will make you effective toward that aim, but the smartest are pretty good at 3 or 4 and leverage each for maximum efficiency.
For example, I was already a decent salesperson after college, but what’s the use of sales if you’re not meeting your audience where they’re gathered? That’s where writing and learning how to make quality social media content came in handy. For an entire summer, I devoured books about social media and took online courses about writing.
I started posting great business content and by the end of the year I was Broker of The Year at my firm.
Coincidence? Maybe. But smart people understand that it’s basic math.
4.) They network with everyone, not just CEOs.
My friend Manny is the most networked person I’ve ever met.
He’s always at the bleeding-edge of the new new thing. Whether that’s a hot, but unnoticed real estate market, an app, or a start-up, he’s always in the know and puts his money where his mouth is.
How does he give himself so many opportunities?
He runs a networking community called Collaborate and Elevate. There’s no entry fee for the group, and anyone is welcome to join the discussions. There’s only one implied rule — be interested in everything. Over the years, C&E has cast a wide net of curious and diverse people that many networking groups simply miss. If you want to get on the ground floor with the latest start-up or invest in NFTs, don’t join a country club, network like Manny.
It’s a cliché that who you know is helpful to success in business. You don’t need to know CEOs and billionaires.
To get access to more opportunities, you just need to know people who know different things.
5.) They sacrifice and work. A lot.
Here’s a hard truth: building anything important whether that’s in business, art, or relationships requires sacrifice. There are no shortcuts. If you want the credit, the brunt of the work falls solely on your shoulders.
As Ryan Holiday once wrote: “To be great, one must make great work, and making great work is incredibly hard.”
The writer and entrepreneur Tom Kuegler quit his job and backpacked around the country for his first blog.
The cartoonist Scott Adams woke up at 4:30 am each morning to sketch Dilbert before heading to work at a bank.
My friend Liv often works weekends for her side company while maintaining a full-time day job.
Most business people hope for success, but the smartest people I know understand that hope has nothing to do with it.