"...we all responded outwardly to the news of Michael’s promotion the same way: we each ratcheted up the intensity trying to outwork each other and catch up to Michael. In my mind, I was in crisis mode and it was time to crank things up.
With the benefit of hindsight, I now see that my reaction was not only silly, it was simplistic. It was simplistic because even though working that much harder wasn’t by any means easy, working harder was an easy answer to my questions. It doesn’t take any creativity whatsoever to work more; just time and discipline. Even though I didn’t have a productivity problem (I was already working pretty long hours), I treated Michael’s promotion as a call to ramp up my productivity even more. Nothing against discipline, but it wasn’t what I needed. I should have taken a step back and looked for ways to contribute more meaningfully to the business. I wish I had stopped to consider what it really meant to excel at my job and how I could do that rather than blindly just trying to work more hours. My inability to see the bigger picture robbed me of a lot of experiences in my early twenties that would have been more fun than banging my head against the desk at work."
"...the biggest difference I eventually saw was that Michael spent a high percentage of his time on projects that were really important to the business at that time. As a result, he created significantly more value for the business, as well as visibility for himself, from each hour of his time than I did. If I wanted to emulate Michael’s rapid ascent, I needed a better yield from my time."
"...the biggest difference I eventually saw was that Michael spent a high percentage of his time on projects that were really important to the business at that time. As a result, he created significantly more value for the business, as well as visibility for himself, from each hour of his time than I did. If I wanted to emulate Michael’s rapid ascent, I needed a better yield from my time."
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