It is a Sunday and I had intended
to slow down take it easy for a day. I decided to watch UFC. But as I switched
channels, I came across this movie playing on cable television, ‘Catch Me If
You Can’.
The film’s lead role is a guy named Frank Abagnale, Jr. who, as a young teen was learning from his entrepreneur father. At one point, his dad was giving a speech after being lauded as a captain of industry:
“Two mice fell into a bucket of cream. The first mouse drowned and died. The second mouse struggled so hard, churning the cream into butter, and promptly got out of the bucket. I am the second mouse.”
His words on how he got so successful jerked my mind into asking, what was the lesson here?
I have a collection of many quotables, a lot of practical advice and philosophies that I gather into what I call “Perry’s Apothegms”. One thing I discovered is that all of this sage wisdom won’t work if you won’t.
So is success really about the ‘old school’ formula of really, really ‘working hard’? Or is it more of the gen-x adaptation of ‘working smart’?
I like working hard. But I will go for working smart any day. This to me means applying all the advantages to make your work easy so you can accomplish more given the same time. A good example would be to apply gadgets, devices and all of today’s technological marvels to your work or office. Much like the physics of life, it doesn’t make sense to lift an object with ten pounds of force if you can lift it with one pound using a fulcrum.
Well, in the movie ‘Catch Me If You Can’, Frank rose to become a topnotch bank checks forger. He was so good at his craft that eventually the FBI got him as consultant for its Anti-fraud department. It touches the heart that although Frank’s father lost his fortune, Frank loved him dearly, both as his dad and great mentor.
So is success about working hard or working smart?
I guess if you have the smarts for it, go work smart. But if there’s ever a reason you can’t work smart (say, you’re an entry-level employee down the food-chain, with powers one step above the office dork) then go kill yourself working your darnest, hardest best.
There is no equality in nature. But Life has a way of leveling things down the finish line. Take that from me! Cheers to more successes ahead.
