Boy, that was a wake-up call. He says: "I was very disappointed. I started working on my game the day after I was cut." And he soon became the hardest working player in basketball, who made fun of the other players who weren't working hard. And that hard work is what made him the greatest basketball player of all time. So I'd say the real gift isn't talent, it is the ability to work hard. And we tend to underestimate work and overestimate smarts, but in the end work wins over smarts.
In fact many successful people aren't the smartest. They just work the hardest.
Francois Parenteau, who Bussiness Week called the top independent analyst on Wall Street, said to me: "I'm certainly not that smart. I can't even remember my own zip code". But he also says: "Work is a bid part of my life. I think about investments pretty much 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Nez Hallet III is CEO of Smart Wireless. And I thought, that's ironic because he told me he's not that smart. He says: "I graduated from high school with a C average and college with a C minus average. But now, the smart PhDs are reporting to him. How did he do it? He said: "If you're going to be successful at anything, the key thing is to work hard."
I'm not smart. As proof, here is my actual 12th grade report card. It was the only one my parents ever kept. Don't ask me why they kept it, it's nothing to brag about. As you can see, I was a C student, not an A student. I don't think I'd even make it into the college these days. So how did I achieve some success and wealth? I just worked hard, many 60- to 80 hour weeks. And now, I know I'm not alone.
Thomas J. Stanley studied hundreds of millionares and he discovered most millionares weren't A students, didn't score high on tests and teachers didn't think they'd ever succeed. But they did succeed, because they worked hard. So the good news is if you are not the smartest, if you are a C student, not an A student, the really good news is you can still succeed. Because the word "success" has two C's and no A's. You can still succeed as long as you work hard. And what if you are smart? Well, I'm sorry, there's absolutely no hope for you! Because many smart people don't achieve as much success as they could, unfortunately, because they rest on their smarts and never learn to work hard.
Jeong Kim president of Lucent Tezchnologies says: "People who are the smartest sometimes don't realize their full potential because things get too easy, so they don't push themselves hard.
After a talk I gave at one of the world's top-10 bussiness schools, a man came up to me and said: "You know, when I got my MBA here a few years ago, I was one of the smartest people in the class. I thought I had it made. So after I graduated I sat back and I didn't work hard, and I went downhill. And now, at this point in my life, I've gone nowhere. I haven't achieved any success at all". He said: "Thanks for the wake-up call. Now I know what I need to do. I need to work"
So the bottom line is whether you're smart or not, whether you're talented or not, just keep working.
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