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From a young age, most of us are told that the harder we work, the more successful we’ll be.
We’re discouraged from being lazy and encouraged to be busy.
But according to a bestselling author, this is in fact false.
Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short , Moneyball and Flashboys says laziness is not only more helpful than most people think but is in fact the key to his success.
“My laziness serves as a filter,” Lewis said. “Something has to be really good before I'll decide to work on it.”
He made the remarks in an interview with Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith at the 2017 Insight Summit, where he was keynote speaker.
Lewis explained how laziness had helped him succeed and shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing.
10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successfulShow all 10 1 /1010 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful 10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Clare Balding Clare Balding OBE is one of the country’s most prolific broadcasters, turning out for BBC Sport and Channel 4 amongst others. She recalled her wayward youth for The Independent, where she was at one point suspended for shoplifting, and was initially spurned in her Oxbridge ambitions following mixed A-level results. After two years out, Balding retook exams and spruced up her interview technique to gain entrance to study English at Cambridge.
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Benedict Cumberbatch The Harrow educated actor admits he had a pretty good start in life, but claims “pot, girls and all sorts of other things” contributed to less-than-stellar GCSE and A-Level results, however. It was not until university that he pulled himself up by his brogue-straps and took his academics seriously.
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful J.K. Rowling The author was by no means a bad student — she was Head Girl and left school with two As and a B before going on to study at the University of Exeter. However, her rejection from Oxford University nevertheless goes to show how slim the margins of success can be in higher education.
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Jeremy Clarkson A figure of fun and derision he may now be for many, the defunct Top Gear presenter began his career in journalism and entertainment with very little formal education to his name. Expelled from Repton School for “drinking, smoking generally making a nuisance of himself”, he began writing for local publications such as the Rochdale Observer and Shropshire Star before eventually becoming one of most recognisable faces in UK show business.
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Simon Cowell The X-factor villain left school with only one O level to his name, before re-enrolling at Windsor Technical College where he gained another. This background did not naturally lead to the heights of the entertainment industry he would eventually reach and at EMI Music, where he began his career in music, Cowell started off with a job in the mail room.
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Alan Johnson MP The former Education, Health and Home Secretary and current Member of Parliament for Hull West and Hessle is living proof that those disenfranchised at a young age and denied the educational pedigree that usually accompanies a career in politics can succeed in this field nevertheless. In his memoirs, Johnson describes a bereft childhood, made an orphan at 12 before leaving school with scant qualifications, drifting between jobs as a Tesco shelf-stacker and postman. He went on to become a leading union figure before ascending the ranks of the Labour party.
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Sarah Millican Now one of the country’s most successful comedians, Sarah Millican admitted she got two Ds and an E at A-Level. "To A-level students getting their results today: much luck to you," she once tweeted, “but if you don’t get what you need, it isn’t the end of the world: You can always resit.”
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Bill Gates Probably the epitome of the college-dropouts-done-good crowd, Gates took his leave of Harvard College to pursue his aspirations in computer software. Admittedly his aptitude for computers had singled him out from a young age, and not every young entrepreneur is a software genius, Gates still shows the path to success need to be as rigid as it may seem.
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Steve Jobs Without a doubt one of the great innovators of our time, college became an expensive luxury for the adoptive son of a mechanic and he dropped out long before graduating. Instead he drew his inspiration from other places and aspired to do something that stood “at the intersection of humanities and sciences”, also crediting the 7-months spent in India after leaving Reed College as an important formative experience for him.
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10 people who prove you don't need good grades to be successful Mark Zuckerberg The Social Network made many of us familiar with both Zuckerberg’s innovative genius as well as his ruthless business dealings. Although Facebook at its inception was meant to be just a “Harvard thing”, it soon grew beyond this and Zuckerberg dropped out from college to continue expanding it.
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The idea is that if you allow yourself to be lazy, you’ll only put time and effort into the work that’s really great and you can’t possibly not do.
It’s a largely alien concept in today’s culture, where many of us struggle to relax and feel like we always need to be working.
But Lewis, who is also a contributing editor at Vanity Fair , revealed that he’s never had any difficulty doing nothing if his attention hasn’t been captured by something interesting enough and worthwhile, Inc. reports .
“People waste years of their lives not being willing to waste hours of their lives,” he said. “If you mistake busyness for importance - which we do a lot - you're not able to see what really is important.”
As a writer, Lewis asks himself this question: “If a story I've gotten to know didn't get told, would I be sad?” If the answer is a definite yes, he takes it on.
Being lazy might just allow us to make sure the work we do produce is our very best work.
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