Brilliant Men

It was 1993 or so and I was a junior in College. I needed some money (which student doesn't?) and I thought going away to sell books door-to-door in Indiana for a summer would be the way to make a ton of money—at least, that's what the brochure promised. I “thought” about it for a few days, and seeing myself awash in all that ready cash, Indiana here I come!

So I packed up and left for a quick week of sales tutorials in Nashville and then it was on to Fort Wayne first then Marion for the remainder of the summer. It was one of the worst, best and hardest things I've ever done.

The process of walking up to a house at 8am when we were supposed to start and engaging the housewife in conversation, then convincing her to let you, some guy, in for a proper sales pitch after which she would place an order was fraught with nerves. But I did it. I sold about $3000 worth of books. For a while afterwards, I could—and did—comfortably speak to anyone about anything. I had lost all shyness and fear although those would return later.

The really difficult part was getting up every morning and doing it. Halfway through the summer I was done, mentally. I couldn't bear it any longer and it got to the point where I was thinking of working at the local Ice Cream factory for minimum wage rather than peddling my goods. That never happened, but I came close several times.

Four of us guys doing the same thing had rented an apartment, really just one room with an attached shower. When the time came to pay the weekly rent, I'd get on my bike, pedal a few miles north to the richest neighborhood in Marion and sell exactly one or two orders worth about $200 and bingo, food and rent for the week. The rest of the time I spent in the library and at the local movie theater which showed the latest movies for very, very cheap ($4).

I knew I could do the job, at least well enough to pay the rent and feed myself, but something had soured me on the whole deal. What had kept me going for as long as I did was this quote which the sales company had inserted prominently in their sales tutorial:

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

This quote by Calvin Coolidge single-handedly kept the wind blowing beneath my tired wings. I didn't want to “fail,” I didn't want to “lose,” I would persist, with a capital P. I was afraid that if I didn't finish this work, I'd never finish anything else worthwhile again. So for three-quarters of the way through that summer, I got up and worked. It is both exhilarating and depressing at once to know that whether you “lived or died” depended on your next sale; which was in turn dependent on convincing some stranger to buy from you.

In the end, I returned my bike to Wal-Mart and used the $99 to buy a plane ticket back home—I had failed. I was returning home without my shield, the battle was lost.

It taught me a great lesson: finish what you start or face the psychic consequences. Even more important than this though is another lesson I think bears mentioning: before you start something you will have to finish, research it, understand the ramifications of picking up that gauntlet; make sure it is worthwhile. All the greatest quest stories of mythology have reluctant heroes, make them your role model.

But once you start, do not stop, finish. Ha! Easier said than done.

Today, as I read this incredible article titled “Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men,” the feelings I struggled with as a twenty-two-year-old came rushing back, reinforcing that often forgotten lesson. It is one of the best things I've ever read and it is significant that it was written more than 80 years ago.

A more recent variation on the theme is found here in a blog posting by Cal Newport: The Art of the Finish: How to go from Busy to Accomplished in which he postulates that the act of becoming accomplished is almost entire unrelated to being productive. In essence, he says to accept only work that is worthwhile and then finish it using all those productivity hacks like GTD (look it up).