Bill Gates Says These Two Insane Habits Are Mandatory for Success
The point here is that you must be willing to pay the price for the success you aspire to.
Bill Gates leaves no one indifferent. If you ask 10 people in the street what they think of Bill Gates, you will get as many people who will say they adore him for all he has accomplished and still wants to accomplish, as you will get people who will say they hate him because he symbolizes the rise of capitalism in the 90s. I'm not even talking about the conspiracy theorists who believe that Bill Gates has malicious intentions.
It's the characteristic of great men to leave no one indifferent in my opinion.
For all that Bill Gates has accomplished in the tech world first, and then as a philanthropist, I think we can say that he is someone who knows a lot about success. So when Bill Gates tells you what two habits are necessary to achieve success, you owe it to yourself to listen.
I'm not saying you should blindly believe what Bill Gates tells you, but at least listen to him. Then you can make up your mind.
You must be ready to work without ever counting your hours
The first habit that Bill Gates emphasizes is one that he admits most people will not like. When he was working in the tech world, Bill Gates did not consider time in the same way as the average person with a 9 to 5 job.
Most people consider their workweek, weekends, and then vacations. Not Bill Gates who explains his way of looking at things in the early years of Microsoft:
“I didn't believe in weekends; I didn't believe in vacations; I mean, I knew everybody's license plate so I could tell you over the last month when their card had come and gone from the parking lot. But yes, I have a fairly hardcore view that there should be a very large sacrifice made during those, those early years, particularly if you're trying to do some engineering things that you have to get the feasibility.”
When you embark on an entrepreneurial journey like Bill Gates did with Microsoft, you must be willing to sacrifice everything to succeed. It's not easy, but it's your best chance to achieve success.
Although Elon Musk and Bill Gates don't like each other very much, the Tesla CEO shares the same view that you shouldn't count your hours when it matters.
However, Bill Gates is well aware that this approach is not very healthy for your health in the long run. Bill Gates explains that many people just don't like to follow this habit:
“You could over worship and mythologize the idea of working extremely hard. But, I don't think most people would enjoy it.”
Like Elon Musk, Bill Gates was equally demanding of those who worked around him, not understanding their need to recharge their batteries. Here's what Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen once explained about Bill Gates:
“Microsoft was a high-stress environment because Bill drove others as hard as he drove himself.
Bob Greenberg, a Harvard classmate of Bill's whom we'd hired, once put in 81 hours in four days, Monday through Thursday. ... When Bill touched base toward the end of Bob's marathon, he asked him, ‘What are you working on tomorrow?’
Bob said, ‘I was planning to take the day off.’
And Bill said, "‘Why would you want to do that?’ He genuinely couldn't understand it; he never seemed to need to recharge.”
So this first crazy habit is not something that everyone will be able to reproduce. It does have the merit of showing you the mentality of those who succeed in achieving their greatest goals in life.
Working hard won't help if you don't have the willpower to keep going after rejection
However, this one habit of working harder and harder will not be enough to make you successful every time if you do not combine it with the second habit that can be found in Bill Gates, but also in all the great successful entrepreneurs of our time.
In 1986, Microsoft went public and Bill Gates became a billionaire at the age of 31. A journalist asked him a seemingly simple question: “What is the secret to this success?”
Bill Gates answered in the most natural way possible, which led to the second crazy habit you should adopt in your life:
“There’s no secret. I worked really hard on my idea to get it as good as I could, and then knocked on door after door. I ended up showing my idea to 1200 people. 900 said no. 300 people showed some interest. Only 85 people actually did anything. 30 took a serious look. And 11 made me a multi-millionaire.”
Bill Gates presented Microsoft to 1200 investors. 900 of them told him no directly. This did not stop him from continuing to fight and move forward. 300 showed some interest. Of those 300, 85 people wanted to go a little further, but only 30 looked at his project seriously. In the end, it was the last 11 who believed in Bill Gates that made him a multi-millionaire.
These 11 investors were also greatly rewarded for believing in Microsoft before anyone else.
Bill Gates' attitude is one that successful people have all the time: they don't get discouraged after one no. On the contrary, they keep on redoubling their efforts. On the contrary, they keep on working hard because they are convinced that their project will succeed. And this is always the case with hard work, perseverance, and patience.
Final Thoughts
The point of Bill Gates' story is that you must be willing to pay the price for the success you aspire to. This means working hard for as long as it takes. Several years in most cases, because overnight success is an illusion.
Finally, when you present your project, be prepared to receive no's. No's by the dozens, or even by the hundreds, as was the case with Bill Gates. This should not discourage you, but rather encourage you to persevere by adapting to do even better.
If you manage to combine these two foolish habits over a long period, success will be at the end of your path.
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