November 17, 2007: check out Jon’s podcast update to this provocative chapter.

You can’t go a day without hearing someone get teary-eyed about the virtues of hard work. As someone who has worked as hard as anyone with a questionable life to show for it, I am here to testify that hard work is overrated. The “work smarter, not harder” crowd has the upper hand. Most of us were huddled over hard work while our greatest opportunities passed us by. We were too busy paying our dues to notice.

Take an extreme example from the dotcom economy: in the mid-90s, I was working hard to establish myself as a technical recruiter. I knew all about the Internet and how it was changing the job economy. So I went about the business of making as many job placements as possible. Since placements averaged $20,000 and I had a fifty percent commission percentage, I wasn’t complaining. But I was thinking small; you don’t settle for a handful of nuggets in the midst of a gold rush. Each day I worked until the wee hours. I had so many voice mails I wrote them down on little paper squares and taped them to my windowshade until it made wallpaper. I did my best to return them all.

Meanwhile, while I was being such a productive guy, a couple of nose-picking computer geeks slept in, put on their bunny slippers, and bought up some URL addresses, such as business.com. They held onto them for a year or two, and sold them for millions. I worked harder, they worked less, and they got a lot more back. That’s because the economy is structured to reward ownership, not sweat.

People have a hard time letting go of the ideal of hard work because they want to believe in some kind of meritocracy where those that bust their butt get their day in the sun. That’s a wrong-headed, naive way to look at life. Here’s a better analogy: think of hard work as the accelerator and business strategy as the steering wheel. If you’re heading in the wrong direction, working harder just smacks you into the wall sooner.

In the early ’90s, there was a club called the Bay State where the local music legends had their day. There was a bartender down there who was a double-shifter to the core. He worked days at a grocery and nights closing the bar. I’d never met someone so bitter and worn down. He was a relentless work zombie, and I was in awe of his work ethic.

Contrast this to another fellow I knew back then who he had a sizable ownership interest in a computer company. This guy hated to work. He was the kind of insufferable owner who comes in once a week, criticizes some people, messes up some good ideas, and heads out again. He lived in the woods and drew a nice salary while dragging his company like a car boot. The company became very successful in spite of him. Eventually they needed to get rid of him in order to have the authority to make decisions on being acquired. This guy ended up getting paid a hefty sum to go away. Nobody in the company worked less than him, but he got paid for being a jerk. The contrast between this fellow and the double-shift bartender taught me everything I needed to know about hard work.

I’ll be the first to stand up for the importance of discipline and consistency when it comes to reaching goals. But strategy comes first. I’ve been dismayed to see that my determination to go the extra mile has actually backfired, leading me to states of physical exhaustion that are, frankly, terrifying. It’s better to accept that we have human limitations. Don’t be like me and try to find out what those limitations are.

So what’s this rant got to do with anything? The goal of this chapter is two-fold: first, to scare corporate workaholics into realizing that accumulating massive timesheets is not a wise approach to wealth creation. Second, to encourage those who are considering developing assets of your own to give it a shot. Pull back from your day job a bit if you have to. Make sure to get time in on your own ventures.

I measure my side projects by two criteria: profitability and the extent of my own involvement. The second distinction is important: if I have a venture that is profitable, but costs a great deal of my time and energy, then I mark it as a project I will need to re-evaluate when finances are better. On the other hand, if I develop an asset that generates income with little or no involvement from me, then I should follow that model and develop more of the same.

Right now, my most efficient asset is my SAP consulting book. I am not making a whole lot of money on it, probably about a thousand dollars a month in profit, but the fact is I haven’t worked hard on book promotion in years. I *do* make a point of keeping myself visible on SAP web sites, but it is not a big time commitment. When you type in the keyword “SAP” into Amazon, my book is likely to come out near the top of the listings. In business terms, that is a so-called “virtuous circle.” It took me several years to get it to that point, but now, without my continued efforts, the Amazon search rankings are continuously generating new sales.

Obviously, the efficiency of this small scale success has my attention. I am writing a follow up SAP book, and of course I am also writing this one. I am pursuing a business strategy that rewards the least effort possible. I am not looking for reasons to slack off – I’m looking to make enough money to buy the time to pursue bigger dreams. I have a long way to go, but I have a lot better strategy than I used to. I am less likely to drive right off the road when I hit a curve.

I can see the rebuttal: when you develop assets on the side, aren’t you actually working *harder* than before? To a degree, that is undeniably true. There are certainly times when I would rather do something besides crank away at this book. And no, my business clients aren’t exactly cutting me a break because I have a nifty writing project underway. But here’s what’s interesting: by making time for this book, I also do a better job of protecting my time in general, and making better decisions on how I spend it. Yes, there are still times where I space out for a few hours watching bad movies and ask myself, “Now why did you do that?” But for the most part, my books give me a focus I wouldn’t otherwise have.

Most of us give way too much time to our employers. It comes from the best of intentions. We have high standards for our work; we hope our dues-paying adds up to some kind of karmic reward, or heck, at least a promotion. But folks who pay crazy dues box up their desks like everyone else when the pink slips come. Perhaps that all-nighter at the office won’t add up to much after all. Shaving an hour here or there might be all we need to get our own projects off the ground.

True, there will be points where the time crunch of developing an asset while working full time gets tight. But remind yourself: which time commitment has the greater upside? This book is time-consuming, but the upside of publishing it is so much greater than the three hours a week I spend on it.

It’s a bitter pill to realize that our grandfather’s lunchpail-to-work mentality is self-defeating. But especially in corporate circles, we must be wary of giving too much of our passion to things we do not own and control. I could pack an entire book with the bitter disappointments of friends and colleagues who gave their all to companies that are long gone. In some cases, those companies went bankrupt. In tougher-to-swallow situations, the owners cashed out and left employees with nothing – unless you count a warm “thanks for all you’ve done” handshake.

But a handshake doesn’t pay the bills. Hard work for bad people is usually a bad idea. And for those of you who can’t conceive of getting up in the morning without some arduous leaf-raking, don’t worry, any asset we develop is going to involve good old-fashioned hard work before it’s done. But if we choose the right undertaking, not only will we have a better chance of making out financially, we’ll experience the most joyful work of all: the joy of working on projects we truly care about, alongside people we respect and enjoy. Now that’s a paycheck!

Want to buy Free From Corporate America or see reviews of the final published version from readers like yourself? The printed book is now available on Amazon.com with product reviews.

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