Taking on a Sacred Cow

In today's blog post, I'm not only going to take on a sacred cow. I'm going to bludgeon it, butcher it up and serve it for dinner. I hope you like red meat.

We like to think of career success as a product of hard work and determination. Today I'm going to argue that there's more to it than that. Not only do you need to work hard, but you need to make the right choices at the right times, and be in the right places with the right people. No problem right? To further explore this point, consider the following:

1) A large majority of professional Canadian Hockey players were born in January, February, or March. In many European countries, the same pattern holds true for soccer players.

2) A large majority of highly successful New York City lawyers are Jewish children of depression era garment district workers.

3) A hugely disproportionate number of marathon champions are descendants of a small tribe (The Massai) in Kenya, despite people from all over the world following similar training regimens.

4) A hugely disproportionate number of Nobel prizes in mathematical sciences are awarded to Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Eastern European descent).

What's going on here? These aren't just simple statistical anomalies. These are off the charts results, but they actually all show a similar pattern. Major success is often not just about hard work and dedication. It also requires intangible factors that are usually out of our control. If you were a healthy, athletic young man who was an active long distance runner, and you went to train with the best Kenyan trainers, you'd still probably fall far short of the achievements of your Massai competitors. If you were born and raised in Canada, but your birthday was December 30th, you'd have a far lower chance of hockey success than your best friend would if he was born on January 5th, just a week after you, even if the two of you were essentially evenly skilled.

A simple blog post would not be enough to explain these anomalies, but you can read the explanations if you pick up Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers." Being in the right place at the right time has a LOT to do with how our life moves forward. Typically, you cannot control that. You can only seize the opportunities that arise, and make the most of them. This concept can seem distasteful to many people who relish hard work and take pride in clawing their way to where they are today. Don't misunderstand. Hard work is CRITICAL, but there's a difference between being a good superintendent at a local 9 hole golf course and being the Director of Grounds at Pebble Beach. To hit that ultimate level of success, you need to work brutally hard, but you also need to be in the right place at the right time.

In the golf course business, the top level guys were pushing mowers and fertilizing greens before most of us knew there was a career to be made in golf course management. They were there when the business was evolving. They were there when it boomed, and they were the go-to guys when top level courses needed a battle hardened grounds manager to take the reigns of the course. Did they work hard for it? Hell yes. Were they in the right place at the right time? You'd better believe it.

Nowadays, top level golf course jobs have hundreds of applicants before the previous job holder has left the parking lot. Is there really only 1 good applicant for this position? Must the Greens Committee plod through hundreds of applications in a furious chase to find that 1 magical person who can suitably run the course? OR, are there really many hard working, qualified people, all but 1 of whom will be passed over once again?

People might say that I'm giving excuses to people for failure. I would argue that I'm simply looking at things as they are. To truly succeed in life, you usually need to carve out your own niche, and fill a void that nobody else is filling. To do that, you need to take risks and you need to move in a direction that most people do not. When that area of business then evolves, who do you think will be the top guy standing? Don't be afraid to go your own way. Combine that with diligent, hard work and I'll see you in 20 years in Hawaii.