Introduction
I am sure we have all heard stories in our social circles, about that lazy student back from our school days that is now making a killing in his adult life, having more success than the majority of the people that took studies as something very serious and important.
It even happens big time with people that because of their success they end up being famous, as is the case with Steve Jobs and Richard Branson for example, who were both bad students back in their days, and that didn’t stop them from becoming billionaires.
Bill Gates said he would always 'hire a lazy person to do a difficult job' at Microsoft 'because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it'. | Source
This is because students who obtain high academic grades are not necessarily the smartest, and there is the possibility that the "lazy students" that don’t obtain the best grades could be the ones that tend to be most successful during their adult lives simply because they understand what they need to do in order to find success, and maybe, learning absolutely everything that is taught in school is not necessary. Especially because when it comes to being street wise, schools are lacking badly.
Of course, this subject can be debated intensively, and it may be interesting to share thoughts and observations so that, at least in a psychological sense, reflect about some important aspects of education in general and the academic system in particular.
Diving into the subject
Everybody should have realized by now, that academic grades are not always the best prognosticator to have a successful adult life, nor to achieve happiness in the future. On many occasions, those less fortunate for studies tended to find low-paid jobs, or even had to be part of the unemployment statistic.
Nevertheless, there are numerous examples of lazy students who achieved high levels of wealth and fame. Thus, it seems that success is not only achieved by the people who stand out in their academic activities, but also, even if this can be against our intuition, lazy students can potentially possess a series of skills and abilities that are very useful for life.
As mentioned in the introduction, the classic example of a not so good student who had a resounding success in his adult life was Steve Jobs, the all famous creator of Apple. Another great example of this category is of course Mark Zuckerberg the creator of Facebook. We are talking about 2 individuals that whether if they like us or not, ended up changing the world of technology and therefore, making history, and it might be surprising for some that none of them was a good student.
Einstein for example, wasn’t either a great student, and for a more recent example, there is the astronaut Scott Kelly who confessed being a really bad student when he was young. He said:
As a kid, I was distracted and uninterested in science (and pretty much all other subjects as well). I earned terrible grades and barely graduated from high school. Only as a college student did I find the motivation to work hard to turn things around and earn an engineering degree, which led to a career as a test pilot and astronaut. | Source
What can be considered as “intelligence”?
Intelligence is defined as follows:
Human intelligence, mental quality that consists of the abilities to learn from experience, adapt to new situations, understand and handle abstract concepts, and use knowledge to manipulate one’s environment. | Source
… the global ability of an individual to think clearly and to function effectively in the environment. | Source
Defining intelligence has historically been a controversial issue. What we can say with confidence is that it is not a good idea to try to relate academic performance and intelligence, since the correlation is not too reliable and probably it never will be.
Success in life, on the other hand, can be defined in many different ways. Each of us have our own vision of what success is, and our priorities in life. In this case, it is useful to talk about professional or financial success (because it is more measurable), and the truth is that it does not seem a necessary condition to have obtained very good academic grades in the past, nor to be very intelligent in order for the person to be able to generate a brilliant idea that will lead him to incredibly good results.
In short, being successful goes far beyond the standards imposed by the traditional educational model in each country. To be successful, we may have been overestimating the influence of academic results.
Success requires perseverance, perseverance and creativity. But, also, to achieve high goals in our lives we must also fail sometimes to realize that everything we do helps us in increasing our knowledge and keep moving towards our goals.
Recognizing the value of our failures can be one of the factors that help us achieve success in the future. And, of course, the most experienced in this matter are the people who suffered to be able to earn good grades when studying. They are people who never received great compliments or remuneration, so they know firsthand the value of effort, the daily struggle and the required discipline in order to change for the better
Phones, lifts, cars, all these things were invented to avoid or minimize work. Lazy people automate as much as possible. | Source
Probably, the lazy students who got bad grades, learned how to properly manage their failures, something that the outstanding students could not do because they hardly failed at all. The entrepreneurs who manage to develop good products and services usually have very good alternative and creative ways to achieve whatever their goal is. They do not limit themselves to the established or typical paths, instead they innovate. Thus they create totally new products, with great quality and that suppose a revolution in their industry. For example, Steve Jobs did it with almost all the gadgets he brought to the market.
Since these type of students are used to face more obstacles and problems because they have done it throughout all their academic lives, they can also end up being natural leaders in their social circles. They can lead the others beyond the traditional codes and beyond the educational context.
It is these individuals who might end up presenting a greater ability to figure out real life problems, and often reject any kind of interest in the rigid and tedious academic classes. Therefore, these people can be more creative than the average, because they do not base their ideas on academic logic but on their own real experiences.
It is very possible that certain methods in formal education might play against the students being able to develop their critical spirit and their creativity, since they are usually taught how things are, but they do not give receive the possibility to question said things, or at least, not every time. Besides, the possibility of figuring out problems in alternative ways is something that might still be lacking in certain academic systems.
This can clearly be seen because the people who managed to found innovative companies, for the most part, worked with different thought patterns. They thought beyond the obvious, they started projects that were not governed by the existing rules or codes. They are individuals who learn quickly, are proactive and do things their own way, and not as others require them to do.
Conclusion
One thing need to be clarified: although we can say all sort of great things about the Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and others, the truth is obviously that getting bad grades is no guarantee of personal success at all. Neither is the opposite of course.
In summary, success is determined by a lot of variables, like for example the character, perseverance, experience, skills among others. The academic grades in this regard are, in a certain sense, secondary.
We may be living in an age that is obsessed with numbers, but that doesn't mean we have to teach our children to measure their self-worth by grades or test scores alone. | Source
Knowing all of this can be encouraging for those people who failed to excel in their school or university. Life always offers us new ways to get ahead, opportunities and moments that we must take advantage of. Achieving success or not regarding grades is never absolute because the real experience is gained when leaving the classroom.
What about you? Were you a lazy student back in the day?
References
washingtonpost – einstein student
psychologytoday - fallacy of good grades
Images sources
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Grades in school and university do not correlate with success in life. Nothing new. But there is a major difference between "a lazy" student and a student who is not interested in the trivial subjects studied in institutions like school and university, who is rather busy with his own ideas and projects.
The people you have mentioned, and we all know about, are famous examples but in no way should they be considered as lazy students/ people.
Allow me to disagree on your thesis that lazy students tend to be more successful in life than the hardworking ones. The famous examples you pointed out are nothing but a mere dot in the biggest picture where, as we speak hundreds thousands lazy people are failing in life.
The truth is that hard work and study pays off, when it is intentionally put in action.
There is a lot to debate on this topic. Overall you did a great article. Again :)
I understand your point and those famous examples are clearly not lazy people, but when it comes to studies they probably were not the teacher's favorites. And yes, they probably had more important things in their minds than investing time to comply with academic requirements.
If a person is lazy in life in general, then that person would have problem finding success. Of course hard work pays off, the subject in question is that there are people who weren't the best students, and still managed to find huge success later in life.
Thanks for sharing your opinion!
'But there is a major difference between "a lazy" student and a student who is not interested in the trivial subjects studied in institutions like school and university, who is rather busy with his own ideas and projects.'
Well said. I haven't read any research on this, but I suspect the people who get the highest marks in school, while being intelligent, also have a desire to follow rules and please others.
I am not sure about that either...
Just an idea based of a few people I know. I'm not too sure myself
Often, subjective observations fail in experiments. But I bet that this idea has already been studied.
:)
I usually remember to keep my faith in my subjective observations nice and low
Also a valid point. Not sure if you see the other reply I made on this post for dedicatedguy . I'm still in minnow mode but learning quickly.
Would love to get your feedback on a few of my articles.
Alright. I will. Thanks for commenting :)
I am a terrible student. Those who know me ask me why. They see I have a potential of being the best student of class. Why the fuck I should want to be? This educational model is outdated and memorizing ten species of each family is of no use. I save time instead of preparing for a test, after which all useless knowledge is forgotten. I usually say our education model tests the memory, not the skills.
I am angry about the fact, that having 8 tests weekly just empowers learning for tests a day ahead and forgetting all things afterwards. There is no room for proper learning and saving information into permanent or at least long-term memory. Our educ model doesn't support it (my last article is about learning, by the way).
This is what I deal with on almost daily basis. It is not about people considering me to be stupid. None who knows me does that. But people with academic degrees think of themselves as if they were intelligent. The degree clearly increases their confidence, even though everyone knows they have no talent. The bigges issue on that is that they are arrogant and hard to deal with, clearly because of the degree.
Have a nice day!
The same thing happened for me, I was frustrated when forced to learn things I knew I wouldn't need, and I like to learn things! just not useless ones.
We need to also take into account that probable the things that are forgotten were things the person don't use and therefore, it is information not needed.
I am sure there must be people like that, but obviously not everyone.
Thanks for the great comment!
They probably were physically lazy, but definitely not mentally or emotionally lazy. I think physical laziness doesn't do much harm. As you said, there are many other factors that contributes to one's success.
I think the same actually. Still it might be a bit unhealthy.
Yeah
A lot of emphasizes is been placed on academic excellence as the major measure of intelligence. But there are also other forms like emotional intelligence. And it is a great deal in how successful someone will become.
It is not only how much you know but how much you apply whatever you know which entails your character, guts, confidence, relentlessness, relationships with others and stuffs like that.
All these are likely to be taken for granted by the brilliant students, they know how intelligent they are and are more likely to overly dependent on their intelligence and neglect others things that matter.
Exactly! There are several types of intelligence and not all of them are measured in the academic classrooms.
Learning for failure is so important to be successful. I know it feels like a talking point that people say all the time, but it's really important.
Did you read Why 'A' Students Work for 'C' Students by Robert Kiyosaki? You share a lot of thoughts with the main premise of the book. Just wondering; seems like you may have been influenced.
You are right on that. Kiyosaki is one of my favorites authors, especially after reading his Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, I read that when I was very young and it changed my perspective on a lot of things.
Cheers mate!
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TrufflePigGreat topic
As @dysfunctional pointed out and you mentioned these really successful people had a different approach to learning and doing things.
I also like how you talked about how they had to work harder at things and thus through their failures learned more about how life works. Failures build more experience than success.
It is a safe bet that their teachers looked at them and thought they were unmotivated and lazy.
I wrote an article on why schools do not teach financial understanding that highlights how schools are geared at creating employees and not creative or critical thinkers.
I would love to get your opinion and thoughts on it.
Pardon my newbieness if I mess up the link to the article I haven't learned how to do those short link things. yet.
https://steemit.com/education/@davidwardlow/why-don-t-schools-teach-financial-understanding-assets-liabilities-cash-flow-and-multiple-income-sources
upvoted and following
Totally right, that is why the wisest people have a lot of failures in their past.
This is another subject that deserves proper debate, people need to understand how money and finances work, they are an important part of our lives and a lot of people make mistakes simply because they don't have enough knowledge about this.
No problem mate, I will check your article tonight. To put the short link just do like this:
[put the word or words here] (put the link here)
and delete the space between ] and (
Cheers!
Thanks for the tip on the link I will try it in my next post.
enjoyed your feedback and thoughts.
I don't think that grades in school have something with success, plus it can be late awakening ( lol) or more luck than other people. Life is surprising.
Exactly, there are many factors to take into account.
I quite agree that sometimes the laziest person in the room is the one that will find the shortest way to get things done. Because they are lazier, they would often observe what others are doing, and look for hacks. Sure, in the game of speed of completion, they may fail, because they have to rely on the trials of others before coming up with their own. However, when it's a measurement of effectiveness and efficiency, there's a chance the lazy one would emerge a victor. As a matter of fact, some would say there have a bigger, broader helicopter view, and are able to see things from a better perspective.
Good piece! Very enlightening and comforting. Though I had not much success to shout for, but I was one of the lazy ones...
This is true and there have been studies about this.
Thanks for your kind words mate!
Well i wouldn't say those guys were lazy, they were passionate about something else and not school.
As for me if that is what you call lazy then i am lazy.
Just like our president called all young ones in Nigeria lazy at the commonwealth conference.
Correct, being lazy in general is surely a bad thing.
In order to find success we have to work one way or another, this article is only when it comes to classrooms and academic studies.
Cheers!
Yeah.. You are right.
The first thing I wanted to write was the Bill Gates quote :) Yea I was a lazy student studying only for exams but still not seccesful :)
That is a famous quote, and a very honest one.
Thank you @dedicatedguy for great sharing. Education system may not suitable for everyone but most important is about individual attitude towards learning and get ready himself or herself. I don't have good results during my school time (SPM aka O level) but at least I managed to learn and self study (I wish got YouTube during my old days) most of the programming languages that even university graduated may not beat me. Lazy student with bad school results doesn't mean lazy to learn.
This is important, I remember reading that the majority of the best programmers were the ones who learned by themselves, which something I didn't expected.
“Success is determined by a lot of variables”, this is a very good point. Thank you for sharing.
Happy you agree with that!
This made me smile. I was a serial exam cheater in high school and college (undergrad) and definitely a very lazy person when it came to studying. I simply didn't see the importance of it back then (holly shit, this is now written forever on the blockchain!). When I did my masters later on, "me saqué el dedo" like we say here in Panama, and wasn't lazy anymore. I had to actually do some work to succeed there =).
It comes to a point in which people cannot afford to keep being lazy otherwise any goals there is will never be accomplished :P
I was one of those lazy students! lol.
I did just nought to get my grades to get to go higher education .(in my naive days, I thought law was a moral calling!)
Six months into higher education, I'd made my mind up that a corporate path of any sort just wasn't for me, so I quit and made my own way in the world.
...And done pretty ok with it.
That's good mate! Following our intuition is sometimes the best thing we can do.
Most lazy students make it in life, from my experience people look down on them and are considered as outcasts in the society. I believe for these reasons, they work harder to change their stories and make a positive impact in their environment. Thanks for the information, I love it.
If they are able to make that change, they can very well end up with good results in what they do.