The Most Important Thing Goldman Sachs Taught Me

How do you get what you want?

If you had asked me that question twenty years ago, I would have told you a simple answer:

Work harder.

Growing up working poor, my parents taught me that if I wanted better than the Kmart clothes and bowl haircuts from my mum’s friend Heather, then I’d have to get a job and make some of my own money.

I took that lesson to heart, and worked my way up the childhood part-time job ladder. From paper routes, to restocking shelves, to collecting shopping carts, to cooking chicken at KFC, my mindset was simple–

Work harder, sell your time for more money, and move forward in the world.

University followed the same pattern for me. Instead of having a “coming of age” experience, I spent every night studying, dedicated to crushing a singular goal.

Fast forward to my early twenties, and my ability to put my head down and grind it out landed me in a world where that mindset is most encouraged and rewarded.

Goldman Sachs taught me how to work even harder

In university, nobody studied like me.

It wasn’t some badge of honor. I just wanted to get the best grades I could, so I could get the best job I could. It was simple for me. Everything in my life was secondary.

I thought I couldn’t work harder than I did in school, but Goldman Sachs taught me a new definition of “working harder.”

Since I was a kid I had worked 7 days a week, but all-nighters were a new thing. I was good at working to deadlines, but Goldman forced me to hit multiple deadlines at the same time, all of the time.

With my obsessive approach to work, and willingness to give up just about everything else in my life, my career at Goldman flourished in the early years. But then something changed.

I changed.

How all the “hard workers” lost their jobs

When the Internet bubble burst in 2000, I was based in Goldman’s office in Menlo Park. Half the office was laid-off. Associates, MDs, VPs, it didn’t matter. The business got slashed, and many of my colleagues got cut.

Looking around at the many empty offices and cubes, I wondered, Is this what I want?

Drawing up a pie-chart of my life, looking at the small sliver labeled, “not work,” I asked, is this the life I once dreamed as a kid?

I didn’t know. But I did know one thing.

Having seen a number of senior heads roll, I was no longer willing to just put my head down and work hard, with the illusion of one day earning the brass ring.

I needed a new answer, and over the next 10 years, reading thousands of books and writing thousands of pages, I built it.

Don’t work harder–work to win

In the old days, I only knew how to win by working hard, and harder… and then harder again.

But over many years of stepping back and figuring out what it really takes to create the career and life you truly want, I saw a new solution.

Instead of putting your head down and grinding it out, you want to pick your head up, get clear on where you’re headed and build the processes and skills you need to get there. No longer did I see your career as a game that you win by out-working the guy next to you, but by getting more focused and better skilled.

Going far beyond the millions of me-too ideas that I had poured through in thousands of books on success and personal development, I built a 5-step system, The System for Doing What You Want:

1. Define it: Get clear on what you want. Even if you don’t know what that is, simply start with a big vision, and get maniacally focused on that goal right in front of you.

2. Getting it: People love saying “So and so person just gets it.” But what does that mean? “Getting it” is knowing, with absolute certainty, what it takes to win in your career.

3. Plan it: You don’t build a house, nor a career with a vague description of what it might be. Plan as little as you need to keep taking action, but be clear on the steps you’re taking to win.

4. Execute it: For any long-term goal, you’re planning and executing iteratively. You plan what you need to keep moving, you execute, test results, and rinse and repeat.

5. Develop skills: Now, this is where most people fail in their careers and lives. They simply lack the skills they need to win. Know what skills drive success and make learning part of your job. In the same way that speed reading and memory techniques would have saved me countless hours in the library, top skills enable you to easily out-compete your rivals and win.

Put a system in place, and instead of everyday putting your head down and working hard, ask yourself, How you can work your system better and better to get what you want?