July 13, 2021

Here’s the shortcut to success.

There isn’t one.

Quick is a cheat.

The trick to being a better manager is to identify ways to steadily improve, get feedback, and make incremental changes.

The trick to getting super-productive is to understand how best to use your time, steadily improve, get coaching, and make incremental changes.

The trick to becoming fitter and healthier is to understand how your body works and how your motivation works, make incremental improvements, change your habits, and reinforce what is working.

And finally, the trick to getting rich is to invest for the long term.

Shortcuts don’t work

Everyone telling you how to get rich quickly, lose weight quickly, or be awesome quickly is a huckster. The secret is that there is no secret.

Some people get lucky. They succeed in a hurry. Then they tell you how they did it. You cannot do what they did, unless you are also really lucky. And you can’t teach or learn luck.

On the other hand, a lot of the real successes — the ones who climbed their way up like actual humans do — can teach you something. Along the way, they learned hundreds of ways to do better and hundreds of mistakes to avoid. Whatever you need to know, they’ve probably seen it. Look for the people with the grey hair and the experience who have had growth steps and failures to build upon. They can teach you a lot.

If there really were a trick to these things, don’t you think everyone would do it? Then it wouldn’t be a trick any more.

Beware the overnight successes. Following them will leave you broken-hearted and back at the bottom.