News flash: Outworking doesn’t work

If you’re an entrepreneur, reading articles on successful founders are unavoidable. I have likely read a hundred over the last years.

What’s interesting to me is that they’re all the same. It’s an echo chamber. When the journalist asks how they became successful they all answer the same. Move faster and outwork the competition.

I don’t believe that. I think they’re wrong. The truth is they most likely haven’t thought about why their startup became successful. So they copy what everybody else is saying.

Which is fine, if it wasn’t for the fact that readers believe their story. Founders sacrifice friendship, family, and things dare to them. And as the story goes, are often left with a failed startup and the loss of everything they cared for.

Don’t do this. Don’t play that game.

Instead, realize that it’s not about outworking but working smarter.

If you’re competing on solving math equations against Einstein, it wouldn’t matter if you spent 18 hours a day and he spent 4. You’d still lose.

Because outworking doesn’t work.

The founders that tell you to outwork are naive. They believe everything is equal, and that time is the unit of measurement.

In their mind, if you’re competing against Usain Bolt on covering the longest distance, and he ran for 1 hour and you ran for 2 you’d win. That’s not how life works.

You win by working smarter.

The goal was to cover the longest distance. Because he’s a runner people assume you too have to run. Take a car instead.