Grind

Yesterday on his Blog Maverick blog, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban re-posted a piece he had orginally written in 2008 titled 'How to Get Rich'. While there isn't much in the way of specific or tactical advice in the piece - and as Cuban states in the article  - "This is not a short-term project. We aren’t talking days. We aren’t talking months. We are talking years. Lots of years and maybe decades. I didn’t say this was a get rich quick scheme. This is a get rich path." - the post does offer some solid advice not so much in the way of actually getting rich, but rather in positioning yourself to take advantage of opportunities by virtue of hard work and preparation. You should definitely pop over to Blog Maverick and check out the post.Patrick burning it late on a Friday night

For me, the money line was Cuban's take on how the commitment to outwork the other guy, and to grind away at night and on the weekends if need be to gain that critical edge that comes from better preparation, more complete study, and from simply knowing more about the industry, market, players - whatever than the competition. Again from the Cuban piece:

"Before or after work and on weekends, every single day, read everything there is to read about the business. Go to trade shows, read the trade magazines, spend a lot of time talking to the people you do business with about their business and the people they buy from."

Look, no one needs this blog to remind them of the obvious, that hard work and a real commitment to digging in, to putting in the long hours needed to achieve the kind of deep, and differentiating knowledge about whatever subject or line of work you're interested in truly is a prerequisite for sustained success these days. I think we all know it. But I also think sometimes we forget what it looks like, what it feels like to read white papers at 11PM on a Friday, or to cycle through thousands of unread posts in Google Reader on Saturday morning before the kids wake up, or to participate in industry events and online forums with energy and enthusiasm.

It's a grind to do those things for sure.

The picture on the right of this piece is my son Patrick, age 10. In what can possibly be seen as a testament to shoddy parenting, it was taken at about 11PM on a recent Friday night, as he was diligently battling away to get a post written for his 'Patrick's Investigations' blog, (stop by and drop him a comment if you like). Eleven at night, in the dark, grinding over a post because he wants his blog to succeed, he wants to be a good writer, and he has figured out (on his own), that those things are not at all easy.  Achieving those goals will be lots of hard work. 

Cuban re-ran his 'How to Get Rich' piece in response to the recent economic news in the US as a reminder that no matter how bad conditions get, that buckling in and simply out-working the competition still gives anyone the chance to perhaps not get rich, but to at least get ahead. I ran this piece today to share a small image of what the grind looks like, played out late on a Friday night, by a little kid.

Have a Great Weekend!