Many people with jobs have a fantasy about all the amazing things they would do if they didn’t need to work. In reality, if they had the drive and commitment to do actually do those things, they wouldn’t let a job get in the way.
—
Paul Buchheit of Gmail fame on What to do with your millions.
Paul Buchheit of Gmail fame on What to do with your millions.
anon
on 30 May 10What an unbelievably condescending thing to say. People like this have obviously over attributed their success to their own hard work and ingenuity. I suggest you read the growing list of books discussing the role of luck in your life.
Christopher Harley
on 30 May 10I think luck does play a part in all our lives but what Paul is saying is that life is about the process and not about the goal. Too often we envision ourselves occupying another reality without ever considering the steps that can make that reality come about.
Scott Miller
on 30 May 10re/ the comment “role of luck in your life”, its exactly this type of thinking that tranquilizes people into a state of non-action. If luck is a major determiner, why act? Why not take all of your assets and purchase lottery tickets (more luck).
As an entrepreneur you make your own luck. To the casual observer, what looks like luck, is most frequently the result of putting yourself in a position to succeed and have good things happen.
Sitting around, waiting, and having a weak ambition, is pretty much a guarantee that you will be “unlucky”.
Rudiger
on 30 May 10If I had the drive to convince my pregnant girlfriend to get an abortion, maybe I’d be doing more amazing things instead of working…
Or maybe I don’t have the drive or commitment to actually do those things, so I choose to let a job get in the way.
:(
John
on 30 May 10As soon as you believe you have no control, it is so. Luck is more about opportunity and hard work coming together than it is about winning a lottery or being struck by lightning.
If you believe it is all about luck then give up. It’s easy.
MC
on 30 May 10“to do actually do…” barf.
qwerty
on 30 May 10Re: luck. If you bought MSFT (or CSCO or AAPL) shares in the eighties and held on to them chances are you don’t need to work any more. Does this make you look like a smart investor? Sure. But you would be fooling yourself if you would discount luck. There are many investors and venture capitalists out there that still need to work and it is probably not because for a lack of trying getting rich. I do contend, however, that the greatest risk you can take is taking no risks at all.
Jay
on 30 May 10Chance favors the prepared… You may be lucky or be in the right place at the right time, but you are more likely to be in those places through hard work and dedication.
Stephen Jenkins
on 30 May 10There is a quote to the effect of:
“Luck is the meeting of preparation and opportunity.”
Alex M
on 31 May 10I call bullshit. Paul Buchheit was paid to work on gmail.
The quote has wisdom, but it is condescending. After working 60 hours a week, eating, bathing, and grocery shopping, I doubt I could fit more than an hour a day working on the side without losing sleep.
I wonder if the author actually did what he is suggesting. When I put myself through school I would constantly hear, “You can work and put yourself through school full-time if you just apply yourself.” Yet, this was never spoken from someone who… you know… actually did it!
It’s like people who drop the “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” motto. Almost always, they never had to.
Frank L
on 31 May 10Alex M:
You don’t HAVE TO work 60 hours a week. That’s a choice you make. You could set boundaries with your employer to not go above 40 (being aware of the possibility of losing your job) or you could look for another job that doesn’t require strenuous hours. With that extra time that you’re not working, you could do something else.
I have have positioned myself so I have a part time job which supports me well and gives me plenty of time to do the things that I find really important, just like Buchheit talks about. So now you’re hearing about it from someone who has done it.
Gretchen
on 31 May 10“What an unbelievably condescending thing to say. People like this have obviously over attributed their success to their own hard work and ingenuity. I suggest you read the growing list of books discussing the role of luck in your life.”
Spoken like a true loser! No offense, but this attitude stinks.
Luck helps, yes – but guess what – you don’t have to be born rich. I grew up in a trailer park, my family always had one old junky car, we lived in the middle of nowhere, and I ended up in the hospital with over $30k in medical debt by the time I turned 20. Today, I’m self-employed and making a healthy 6-figure salary, having graduated from a university that’s consistently ranked in the top 10-15 in the nation. It would have been very easy to watch TV all the time and complain about luck…but I’m certainly glad I didn’t.
AnnMaria
on 31 May 10Yes, you can work and put yourself through school full time. I actually did it all the way to a Ph.D. It was HARD. Sometimes I was really broke and it really sucked. It was not impossible.
I was also the first American to win a world championships in judo, while working full time as an engineer. It was HARD but not impossible.
Personally, I have found that things I was “going to do” and never got around to doing were really those things I did not want to do badly enough. I retired for a while and guess what, I still didn’t do those things. Now I am back working because I really am interested in the work I am doing and I WANT to do it.
Anonymous Coward
on 31 May 10This is condescending dreck. Get over yourselves people.
Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars. Warren Buffett
Justin B
on 31 May 10This relates ever so well to an interview I read over at Wired today.
Cognitive Surplus: The Great Spare-Time Revolution
It’s really on one side of the fence with relation to this argument. But it makes a good point about the way people spend their free time on open-source software.
David Andersen
on 01 Jun 10Oversimplification alert.
Jeff
on 01 Jun 10This quote is perfectly applicable when you don’t create blocks for yourself. I live this way for myself, and I do not consider myself neither lucky, nor rich.
There is such a thing as doing the things you would like to do in life. For myself, I’ve worked part-time, 20 hours a week, for the last 6 years, freelance on the side for a few more hours, and have time and resources to travel, motorcycle, take flying lessons, get scuba diving certification, play an instrument, volunteer, and the list goes on.
Life is truly what you make it. If you work 60-80 hours and week and feel stuck in a job you don’t like, that’s just the way you think life “has” to be. Your thinking determines your reality. If you think that your life sucks and people who do what they want are “lucky”...then that’s what you will see.
This discussion is closed.