Stumbling on Happiness

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The most fun I ever had interviewing someone was when I talked to Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard University. It was about a year ago, and I thought I would just ask him a fast question about how much money someone needs to be happy. (Answer, about $40,000 a year. That’s enough to be happy. Money you get after that doesn’t affect your happiness.)

But Gilbert went on and on about how we have no idea what is going to make us happy so we should stop trying so hard to figure it out. His book just came out. It’s called Stumbling on Happiness, and I recommend it. Gilbert has a lot to say about the flawed ways we look for happiness.

Here are things he told me:

1. You can’t predict what will make you happy. People are, in fact, hard-wired to do a poor job of imagining what will make them happy. (This is why we think more money will help, for example.)

2. The best way to figure out happiness is to look at other people. Find people who look happy to you and do what they are doing.

3. You are not special. We are all basically the same. So you don’t need to look for any special code for happiness. Just find people who look happy to you.

To get a sense of Gilbert’s research, here’s an excerpt from his recent op-ed in the New York Times that describes why we are biased when we examine the evidence:

“When our bathroom scale delivers bad news, we hop off and then on again, just to make sure we didn’t misread the display or put too much pressure on one foot. When our scale delivers good news, we smile and head for the shower. By uncritically accepting evidence when it pleases us, and insisting on more when it doesn’t, we subtly tip the scales in our favor. Research suggests that the way we weigh ourselves in the bathroom is the way we weigh evidence outside of it.”

When it comes to picking a career, Gilbert says you should personally try out a lot of different jobs. This is great news for young people today who generally have nine jobs before the age of thirty-two.

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Training is the new office currency

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The best jobs are the ones where you are learning; the work is not too easy and not too hard. (The Yerkes-Dodson law says that optimum difficulty leads to optimum performance.) So forget looking for a pay increase (what is three percent of your salary going to buy you, really?) and forget a new title (titles only matter if you are going to stick around for twenty years and climb the ladder). Keep your eye on training perks. That’s what really matters. Training can change you, challenge you, set you up for the next great project, and generally make your work more fulfilling.

In an article about office politics, in Fast Company, it becomes clear that office politics is really about jockeying for the good training and good projects. Career coach Marilyn Moats Kennedy says, “Workers today compete for schedules and projects, for money and training. But they rarely compete for power – especially when that means power over others. Instead of power, people want assignments that build skills valued by the market. Learning experiences are what’s really important.”

That said, don’t settle for cheap, poorly run training. Ninth House published a white paper on what types of training top-performing companies use. Here’s a list to give you some ideas of what to ask for from your own company:

1. Executive coaching. No surprise here. But a good reminder that this sort of training is expensive and you should try to get your company to foot the bill.

2. Rotational assignments. Companies that grow their own executive management usually have intensive training programs that include many departments and businesses within the company. Push hard to get yourself into one of these programs. They are treasure troves in terms of both learning and prestige.

3. Quantitative measurement. There are ways to objectively quantify your leadership effectiveness (for example, 360-degree performance reviews). And then you can quantify your improvement, too. Ask for this. It’s a great way to find out what other people think of you without sounding lame for asking.

4. Learning by doing. Role playing is the best teacher there is, even though we all hated to do it. It’s the new rage. I see it in ads for business school, everyone claiming that they teach this way the most. I see it in image management consulting firms. I even noticed on Passover that my Haggadah has role-playing sections for kids. So even if you think you are too cool for role-play-based training, go to it if you have the chance.

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Getting a promotion is so last century

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Can we all just stop talking about promotions like they matter? A promotion has meaning when someone is moving up the corporate ladder at such a slow pace that every small step is grounds for celebration.

But there are no more ladders because no one stays long enough at a company to get up the whole ladder. And even if someone did try to climb, they’d probably be laid-off outsourced or off-shored before they got to the top.

So what is the point of a promotion? Titles do not matter because they are accoutrements of hierarchy in a nonhierarchical workforce. And no one cares about getting MORE responsibly that implicitly comes with a promotion, they want the RIGHT kind of responsibility — which means interesting work and a chance to expand one’s skills set.

So all that’s left to justify continuing to talk about promotions is getting a raise, which is hardly a notable event. Here is a headline from Salary.com: “Raise Outlook Better than Employees Expected”. The article goes on to say that the average raise was something just above three percent. Let’s say four percent. This means if you were making $100,000 a year, you’ll get $4,000 a year more. SO WHAT? After cost of living and tax adjustments you are looking at a little over a thousand dollars. That will not change your life in any significant way, that’s for sure.

When someone tries to give you a promotion or insult you with a $1000 a year raise, tell them you want someone that really matters. Here are some suggestions:

1. Growth opportunities

Learning new skills is worth a lot more to you than some ridiculous 4% raise. Ask to get on a team that will teach you how to do something you think is important. Ask to work with the clients who are doing the most innovative projects. Request a training budget and send yourself to a bunch of seminars. The best way to learn is to role-play, which everyone hates to do, so go to a seminar where someone is forces you to do it.

2. Mentor opportunities

Ask to be matched with a mentor in the company. This is not a revolutionary request. Human resource executives have been studying this process for more than a decade and they know how to pick someone good for you. They just need to spend a little time doing it.

3. Flex-time opportunities

If you are so great at your job that you have earned a promotion, suggest that you keep your current job but do it from home or do it four days a week. After all, you’ve already shown you perform well. Heck, ask to work from Tahiti; you should be able to do the job however you want as long as you maintain that stellar level of performance.

4. Entrepreneurial opportunities

Just say no. To the promotion, that is. Now that you have a sense of how much time and energy your current job requires, now that you’ve mastered the scope, you can try something on the side. The safest way to experiment with running your own business is to do it while you still have a regular paycheck. Who cares if it doesn’t include that 4% raise? Think of that paycheck as a research grant for your ideas for a side business.

Instead of letting last century’s carrots dictate your workplace rewards, think about what is right for you, right now. What do you really need? You don’t need a promotion. It’s something else. Think about what would really make a difference in your life and then make it happen. While the rest of your organization is focusing on titles and money you can slip under the radar and get something truly meaningful.

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A job does not give life meaning

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People would be a lot happier with the job they had if they were happier with themselves outside of their job. We have seen steady decline in job satisfaction, no matter if the employment rate is very high or very low, and even when most people have control over their time and their workload, they still report that they are unhappy in their jobs, according to the Harvard Business Review.

People do not like work because they don’t like their personal life. And the key to being happy at work is not so much finding the perfect career as it is finding yourself. The more self-knowledge you have the happier you will be. So stop looking at your job to solve your problems and instead look inside yourself. Make friends with yourself and with other people, and your job, whatever it is, might start looking better because you’re not asking so much from it.

If you are looking to your job for the meaning of life, forget it. Even people who feed starving children with the Peace Corps have crisis of meaning. (For example, What is the point of feeding one child when six will die?) The meaning of life is elusive and you must put in a lot of time and energy to find meaning in your life.

The job hunt is separate. The job is something you have to do to support yourself. Since you’re going to be doing it for a good portion of your life, you should look for some basics: People who respect you and your personal life. A company that is honest. A job that uses your skills and experience. A job that challenges your abilities without overwhelming you.

Work does not need to give your life a grand purpose in order to be a good experience. The most pleasurable work provides a perfect balance between too much and too little — in terms of both amount and difficulty, according to Diane Fassel, the chief executive of workplace survey firm Newmeasures and author of the book Working Ourselves to Death.

A career is like a mate. The relationship is limited by what you bring to the table. If you are not happy with yourself, you won’t be happy with the match-up. Here’s an analogy a friend once told me: You have to have the cake, and then the relationship is the icing. It doesn’t matter how good the icing is if there’s no cake to put it on. Who eats icing by itself? Gross.

The part about you is the most important. What do you do when you’re alone? How do you feel about yourself? What are your core values and do you lead your life according to them each day? Do you numb yourself with food or TV or alcohol? It’s very hard to be honest about this stuff. Yet amazingly, people spend lots of time on locating a job and a mate and very little time locating themselves.

“Employees should not demand that companies imbue their lives with meaning,” writes E.L. Kersten in the Harvard Business Review. “Employers and employees have something the other needs. One of the keys to a mutually beneficial relationship is a realistic understanding of what that something is.” A job is not a life.

In fact, online dating is not a bad model for evaluating a job. For one thing, you should never write that you want a mate to make you feel fulfilled — that’s asking much too much from a single person. Yet we complain all the time that our jobs are not fulfilling.

Dating services ask that you be as specific as possible in your desires. So try that for a job. Here’s what I would ask for in a job, and it’s the same thing I looked for in a spouse:

Fair

Fun

Mind-expanding

Interesting

Consistent with my values

Leaves space for the other parts of my life

And here’s another thing about those lists: You are probably going to have to be your list to get your list. That’s why interesting people are at interesting companies. So be who you want to be instead of looking for a mate or a company to make you who you wish you were.

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If you’re stuck, take an adventure

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If you're out of work, or your job is so annoying that you wish you were out of work, then it's time to take an adventure. Some might say that an adventures is an expensive, childish way to avoid reality. This is partly true. But who cares?

The reality of adulthood is hard. There are no teachers stroking your ego with A's, there are no parents making sure you're doing fun and challenging activities every afternoon. So it is no surprise that putting off adulthood looks appealing. In fact, taking an adventure to see how other people do their lives is a good first step into adulthood because there is no better way to choose your life than to see how other people live.

There are some great things you can accomplish while you're adventuring:

You can use an adventure as a way out of a bad job. It's very hard to quit a job when you have nothing else lined up. But it's very hard to line up a new job while you're working at your current job. So a good way to ease yourself out of your job is to go on an adventure. You can tell yourself that you must quit now — now is the time for adventure.

You can sort out personal problems. A lot of career issues are actually personal issues. Do I want to be a doctor or do I want to please my parents? Do I want to settle down or do I feel pressure from my boyfriend? These are issues that dictate your career choices, but cannot be solved by changing jobs or rewriting your resume. Putting yourself in a new situation, away from the outside influencers you are used to — is will help you get a more clear perspective.

You can learn what you don't want. When I worked on a family chicken farm in rural France, one day, when we spent three hours looking for mushrooms in the forest, I said, “Why do we have to keep looking? It's taking so long and it's only mushrooms. Let's go home.” And the father said, “But how will we have wild mushrooms for salad?” I couldn't believe it. I wanted to have my mom buy some at the grocery store and send them via airmail. This is when I knew that although living close to the land looks appealing from the outside, but to me it felt monotonous and intellectually dissatisfying.

There are a few ways to get the money to travel. The most obvious is that you should alter your lifestyle And prolific travel blogger Ali Watters has a few suggestions: Don't get a car or a mortgage unless you absolutely need one Give up smoking or expensive trips to coffee shops — it wastes money each day. Stay away from material possessions. Before each purchase ask yourself what you'll do with it while you're traveling.

Ali also recommends that you go somewhere cheap; a month in Europe will cost you three times as much as a month in South East Asia.

If Ali's advice is too hard to swallow, you might try lining up a job that's an adventure. If you are under thirty years old you might be able to benefit from reciprocal work agreements with the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

Adventure is a good choice for a lot of people. It will give you perspective on a career that's stuck, and if you don't even have a career, there's little difference between a good entry level job and an adventure. Both are about learning, trying new things, and making sure you don't starve. So when you are looking at your job choices, put travel right up there on top with everything else. It's good for your resume and good for your life.

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Career adjustments: Tips from Liz Phair

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Liz Phair has just released a new CD, titled Somebody’s Miracle. I’m not saying you should go out and buy it, but you have to respect Liz Phair’s ability to manage her career.

For those of you who did not spend 1991 listening to her widely touted CD “Exile in Guyville,” go buy that CD now. It is about mainstream, upper-middle class women who wish they were beautiful and fun and loved by people much cooler than they are. For men who worry that the album is like a chick-flick, no worries: You can skip to track 14 where she sings about being a sex goddess.

The latest CD is an expression of the fact that Phair never did make it to the mainstream, but she really wants to. And, in a rare moment of reality from a musician, she has confessed to needing to make enough money to support her son. That’s when I started thinking about her CD releases like a career path instead of a pop-rock event.

Her last CD, released in 2003 and ominously titled Liz Phair, was a disaster, trashed by music reviewers across the country. Not trashed like, “track two is insufferable” but trashed like “this CD will kill her career.” Diehard fans were upset that she was giving up her edgy self to make as much money as Britney Spears.

And now, here’s another CD, in the same genre that people hated. I give her a lot of credit for doing it again. The difference between people who have huge success and people who do not is ability to cope with failure. People with huge success are more able to take risks because they have less fear of failure. And then, when this type of person does fail, like Liz Phair, she tries again.

Don’t misunderstand. I don’t like the new Liz Phair music. But I like watching her perform what was basically a career change — or at least a shift. And there’s a bit we can learn from her about career shifts for non-rock stars.

1. Don’t let other people steer your career
No one wants to see Liz Phair selling out. But she ignores that. She has the maturity to decide that she knows what’s best for her life, and she has faith in herself to execute a vision, even if people around her don’t like it.

At some point or another you are going to want to change what you’re doing in your work. You’ll have to put up with people around you saying you shouldn’t change. (“Why go into marketing? You’re a great programmer.”) And then you’ll have to put up with people denying that you’ve changed. (“Even though you got promoted out of your horrid assistant job, can you get me some coffee?”) These will be good times to remember how strong Liz Phair is about sticking to her new vision of herself and forcing us to see it.

2. Be true to yourself
Liz is not, in fact, an indie queen, but rather, an accidental tourist on the indie road. Even on her indie CDs she sings about wanting to be rich and famous. So she had to ditch the indie crowd and become her rendition of girl-pop-star because that’s really what she’s about.

It’s much more important for you to figure out what’s right for you than for you to act out a rendition of what someone else thinks you should be — your mom, your friends, your mentors. They can’t know what’s best for you. Be honest with yourself and have the strength to disappoint your fans.

3. Find a new mentor to help you change
Phair is known for her spare recordings that have a tiny-recording-studio feel. (Quote from my mass-market brother: “Couldn’t she afford some recording equipment?”) For her recent CDs, Phair enlisted people who could get her a more polished, mass-market feel.

Part of taking yourself seriously in a new position is getting people to give you coaching on how to look like the new part you’re taking on. Maybe this means bringing your friend’s girlfriend to go shopping with you for new work clothes. Or maybe it means getting coaching on how to speak with more authority. The more you start looking and sounding like the new you, the more people will believe you have changed.

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Starting a business is less risky than it seems

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Entrepreneurship used to be an inclination that festered until a midlife crisis. But the entrepreneurship bug isn’t something that hits in middle age, so why wait that long? Today, the people who start most new businesses are under 34 — and if they’re doing it, so can you. Don't be stifled by your age or lack of experience. And don’t be put off by the bad advice people spew when you mention entrepreneurship.

Bad advice #1: You won’t make enough money.
Insane. Who is making enough money at the anything new? No one. The few who pull down six figures at the beginning probably spent six figures on grad school and are paying it back, with interest. So the fatalists who say you won’t make enough money are really telling you to never switch careers, never risk being a beginner, never bet on yourself. This way of thinking will put your career in a coma.

What many people mean when they say you won’t make enough money is that you won’t *raise* enough money. After all, if you raised a ton of money to start your business, you could pay yourself a great salary. Most of you have ideas that do not require amazing fundraising efforts. And, let’s face it, if you are coming up with ideas that require a six-million-dollar investment, that’s not really a good idea.

Bad advice #2: You can be entrepreneurial in a large company.
Large corporations suck up fast-paced, fun, innovative small business and make them boring, and then tell you, in an interview, that the position you are considering is very entrepreneurial. It’s not. If it were entrepreneurial then it would be too big a wild card to fit into a corporate hierarchy. What the corporate maven really means is that the position you’re interviewing for could be entrepreneurial if it were not in a large company.

Bad advice #3: Starting your own business is too risky.
At this point in loyalty-free corporate life, it may be higher risk to work for someone else. You probably know someone who got laid off in the 90s. And you probably know someone who got off-shored in the 00s. It was risky of them to bet that a large company would keep them around.

And when you’re sifting through those ubiquitous statistics that say most new business fail, think about the perspective of those numbers: Seventy-six percent of new businesses make it off the ground. Sure, most do not last as long as say, General Motors. But are you looking to run a multinational company, or are you looking to get control over your time so you don’t get laid off or tapped to travel from home six weeks in a row?

Don’t listen to those people who tell you small businesses are risky. Listen to Matt Rivers, owner of Pump House surf shop in Massachusetts, who went into business when he was 17. To him, the biggest risk was that he’d have to grow up and get a job that wouldn’t allow him to surf. Matt redefined the meaning of risk, and you should, too. What is most important in your life? Can starting your own business get that for you better than a corporate job? Then entrepreneurship is pretty low-risk for you.

And here’s a piece of good advice: Don’t think of failure as black and white. Rivers was so successful with his first shop that he opened a second. But running between the two shops took too much time away from surfing, and the extra money wasn’t worth it. So he closed the second shop. Is that failure? To some, maybe. But to those of us who are enlightened, closing down a business is not so much failure as it is gaining self-knowledge to lead a more fulfilling life going forward.

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How to choose college courses

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The September ritual of selecting classes usually takes place in a fog of bad criteria: uninformed friends, overly invested parents, and the never-ending quest for no early morning classes. I have some advice to add to the mix: If you plan on going into business, take courses that typically aren't listed among the traditional requirements like accounting and marketing. Even if you don't want a business career, give my suggestions some thought, because you'll have to work at some point, so you might as well make a little money at it. And besides, these courses will help not only your career, but your life.

Acting
This class will be a terrible ordeal for non-theatrical types, because they'll feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. But acting class is one of the fastest ways to learn how to convey what you mean. Successful people can do this by using verbal and non-verbal cues.

We each feel many emotions simultaneously. Leaders manage their emotions so they convey the appropriate one at the appropriate time. Acting class will help you to understand if you're doing this well, and if not, how to improve. I'm not implying that all business people are actors. In fact, I mean the opposite: business requires honesty, and a good actor must tap into his or her true emotions to act honestly. Most incompetent leaders try to lead with emotion that isn't genuine. You will avoid this by taking an acting class.

Intro to Psychology
Somewhere among the textbook pages of theories and statistics you'll find invaluable nuggets of information on how people perceive each other in the workplace. The most interesting lessons are about how people make judgments about others and try to control the judgments that others make about them.

You will learn that visual perception is everything and first impressions are hard to overcome. Once you understand why, you'll be able to make a better first impression. You'll also learn why people remember negative traits more than positive traits; if you divulge weaknesses during job interviews, hiring managers will remember them more clearly than your strengths.

Literature
Emotional intelligence is an ability to understand other people, and many pundits believe that emotional intelligence is more important than business skills when it comes to success in the corporate world. A literature course teaches you to empathize with characters and understand other peoples' values. So your best business text might be a novel.

Gym
People who work out regularly are more likely to impress interviewers and get promoted than people who don't. Knowing how to work out correctly is a big factor in whether you'll keep it up once you're working. However, it's a learned skill that takes time and a good teacher. At college you've got tons of time (compared to when you have a job, a mortgage, kids and a dog) plus use of the gym is free.

Take a bunch of classes — swimming, pilates, karate. Something is bound to stick. And it's easier to learn them now than when you're 35 and bored with the your gym routine.

What you love
Having a balanced life and making time to do what you enjoy becomes harder after college. Use this time to figure out what excites you, not what excites your parents or grad schools. Growing up doesn't mean getting drunk on a school night. It means ceasing to worry about or rebelling against what others want you to do and starting to figure out what makes you tick. This isn't easy. But if you continue taking classes that you think you SHOULD take, you'll be unprepared for work.

Review the course catalogue honestly for what really interests you. Ask yourself what you'd take if you could choose anything. Then take it. You'll learn about yourself. The class may be boring or it might be a great topic that you love learning. This is the same process you'll use to find a career. You will probably do it two or three times in your life. So get good at it now, while someone else is paying your rent.

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Is grad school right for you?

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Whether you're thinking of a top-tier MBA or a PhD in anthropology, there is a right way and a wrong way to approach graduate school. You need to understand your dreams, and what is required to achieve them. Also, you need to understand the marketplace, and what it values.

If you dream of climbing ladders in the Fortune 500, get an MBA. The degree a VIP ticket to corporate life and a prerequisite for the top ranks. And if you have the luck of being in your 20s, don't wait, get the degree now, when it can get you a better starting job after you graduate. If you've already made headway in your career, you'll still need that MBA, but when you're older it's more like a career lubricant than a jump start: The degree has little impact on where you are now, but prevents you from getting stuck later.

Think twice before cashing in your chips for less respected school. The top five or ten business schools have a much, much higher value in the business world than all the other business schools. If you attend the third tier school, do it at night because the cost to your checkbook and your career growth while you're in school do not outweigh the benefits of the degree you'll earn.

For some people, though, graduate school is not so much a way to fulfill a dream as a way to put off finding one. Thomas Benton, a pseudonym for an assistant professor who writes a column for the Chronicle of Higher Education, blames much of the flight to graduate school on grade inflation and fragile egos: “Humanities majors are used praised from professors. Many recent grads return to school when they discover that not everyone thinks they are as great as their humanities teachers did. Humanities don't have the objective standards of business. Going back to grad school allows people to reestablish their ego. But it is short lived because they have to face the same market when they get out.”

So be honest with yourself. If you're going back to school because you're nostalgic for the days when you could get a good grade and a pat on the back. If you're looking for grad school to give you breathing room from the realities of adult life, you probably need a social worker more than you need another degree.

Besides, breathing time in grad school only delays future feelings of suffocation. For example, MFA programs do not make you more creative, they make you more qualified to teach. And the academic job market is a nightmare. One out of five people who enter English literature PhD programs will get a job in that field. The rest will find themselves back at square one, waiting tables, albeit with improved literary banter, and looking for a career.

Lost humanities students with an eye for cash and stability often enter law school because other professional schools require too much math or science. Yet the land of lost lawyers is full, too, which confirms that if you don't have a passion for what you are going to learn in graduate school, you shouldn't go.

If you still think you might be best off at grad school, then here's a checklist of things you should do before you apply:

1. Try other jobs first. The people who do best in graduate school are those who don't use it to escape their terrible job life. So find decent alternatives to going back to school, and if you still want to go back to school then you should.

2. Determine if an advanced degree is necessary. Talk to people who are where you want to be in five years to ten years. If those people got there without a degree, then you probably can, too.

3. Take the passion test. Are you reading about your proposed graduate topic now, before you are in school? If you're not passionate enough about the subject matter to read about it on your own, then you should find something to pursue that excites you more.

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The organization man of the new millennium

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Recently I read about a company which has three full-timers whose only job is to make employee life fun. They plan outings, parties, raffles, all reportedly in an effort to “stave off headhunters” and to keep engineers working “12- 15 hours days.” Here is a little note to the hundreds of employees at this company:

HELLO OUT THERE? Are you people morons? Why are you at a company that consumes all your free time with work and then, as a bonus, sucks up the only hours you have left to sleep and shower? This is not an office with perks. This is serfdom. This is paternalism. This is the organization man of the new millennium.

If you're at a company like this one, you need to get a life. The only people who are willing to work at this kind of place have no life outside of work. If you have friends who are not at the company, they are probably no longer your friends. If you have a family and you work at a company like this, you will get what you deserve: Kids who have no relationship with you.

And do not, I repeat, do not tell me that you have to work at a place like this because of the incredible projects you get to work on. People who are truly talented do not have to suffer draconian hours and insulting “perks” in order to get on good projects. In fact, you can bet that the people who are amazing at their job, are smart enough to live a life outside of their job.

So check this out: You are surrounded by sub-par workers when you work at a place that does not respect employees' personal lives because only sub-par workers put up with that.

Here's another thing some of you will tell me: You have to “pay dues” in your profession. But you know what? That's an excuse you use for having someone else take care of your career path. Sure, you can play the law firm or consulting firm game, and put in huge number of hours just because the rule is that you put in huge number of hours to get to the next level. But you don't need to do that.

You can make your own path, which is not so far fetched if you are good at what you do. You can freelance, you can work at a small firm, you can intern for someone who will mentor you, or you can become an entrepreneur. The demographic starting businesses at the fastest rate is 18-34. Now you know why.

My brother, Erik, is at an investment banking firm at the grunt level. He has been working twenty-hour days without anyone batting an eye. When he looks above himself in the ranks, it doesn't seem to get better. People don't have a lot of control over their workloads, or the timing of their work, and people don't seem particularly happy. So he's leaving the bank for a smaller firm where people have lives.

And this is why: Because the smartest people in the world are in a position where they have control over their work and room to grow a personal life. It's a fact. You might say, “But they paid their dues.” To this I say, Who cares? It's a new world out there, and there's no reason for you to have to pay dues just because the generations before you were not creative or independent enough when they thought about their careers.

And wait. Everyone who is about to send mail to me about how “young people need to learn to work hard” think about this: There are many ways to work hard. Thinking rigorously, and putting one's heart into a job are different than working long hours. In fact, I'd say of those three ways to work hard, long hours is the biggest cop-out.

So work with your heart and your mind, and make sure you have time to use both of those in your personal life, too.

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