I know you guys (and girls – we’re all for equal rights here) have gotten a ton of advice. You’ve been told what industries have the best growth potential, how to plan for your future, and for you high school grads, what colleges and majors have the best chance to give you that solid income everyone wants (hint – we have enough communication majors, kids.)
I’ll offer a different take.
First, most of what you were told is BS. Because there is no magic bullet, no perfect industry that’s going to make everything ok. I know doctors and lawyers (and writers!) who would like to make more money.
But I will tell you one way to make sure you get ahead, whether you sit behind a desk or clean them after hours.
Work.
Now, when I say “work”, I don’t mean it like you think I do. Heck, everyone thinks they work, and work hard. You know Debbie in accounting? The one with the bad hair and the permanent scowl who somehow conned a guy into marrying her? You know, the one who does nothing? Well get this: SHE THINKS SHE WORKS HARD. And not only that, she thinks she works so hard that she deserves a raise.
This is most people. Most people think they work hard.
But they don’t. Trust me when I tell you, they don’t work hard at all. Here’s an example:
The other day, I had two dudes from the oil company here to clean my furnace. Dudes is an appropriate word, by the way. Now, why there were two of them, I cannot figure – they were both company veterans, and nobody was training anyone. From what I could see, this was a one-person job.
Just listening to them, here’s what I learned in the two hours they were here:
- The company sucks
- The truck sucks because the company is cheap (and sucks)
- The hoses they use suck
- One of the dude’s wife is a @#$%
- The other one’s wife is leaving him (and is a bitch, although from what I gather, she’s not a @#$%)
- The kid’s teacher sucks (probably as bad as the company does)
- They both like the Jets (good choice)
- I know both of their ringtones because their phones rang a minimum of 6 times (one was The Boomtown Rats’ I don’t like Mondays… Really? That’s your ringtone? That’s about as clever as a school kid liking Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” because it says “we don’t need no education.”)
- The both spent a ton of time making “who’s picking up who later?” arrangements
- It took both of them two hours to do a one-person, one-hour job. And they even said before they left “man, we worked HARD today” (Dudes like the word “man”.)
Kids… THIS is the norm. THIS is who you are up against. A couple of dudes. Trust me – it’s NOT that hard to outwork them.
But here’s what happens – most people say “yea, I can outwork those dudes” and then they spend the next few years becoming those dudes (or dudettes).
They do this because… well, because they can usually get by like that. It’s easier to be “just good enough” than “really good”. It’s easier to shoot the breeze for two hours than just do the job in an hour and move to the next one.
So here’s what I propose to you: Be the guy (or girl… we already went over this) who GETS_IT_DONE.
Whatever it is, just GET IT DONE. No BS, no excuses, no “I was waiting for Debbie in Accounting” (we already went over that too… you’ll be waiting a loooong time, my friend).
Just freaken’ GET IT DONE. Consistently. In fact, become known as the person who GETS IT DONE.
And you will go far in life. I promise you that.