Take a "Smartcut" to Success

Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs have become synonymous with entrepreneurial success, and the retellings of how their innovations changed the world as we know it are the stuff of legend. But they are not alone. All around us are individuals and companies that are propelling themselves to amazing success. So what is their secret?

One thing that is common among them is that most of them do not climb the ordinary ladders to succes; they crafted their own way. But that is not the only thing they share, as this series will show.

Skip the career ladder climb from the bottom - hack into it

People often assume that climbing the corporate ladder step by step is the best path to success. That is rarely the case, however, because success is not just about working hard - it is about working smart.

That is where lateral thinking comes in. Lateral thinking is the searching for smart solutions outside of the box by making unseen connections between ideas. This allows you to discover the possibilities that you might not otherwise notice.

Lateral thinking helps you find the "smartcuts", the most efficient and repeatable means to success. Do not be turned off by the similarity of the term to the word "shortcut", which oftentimes have a negative connotation that implies that quality might have been compromised. Smartcuts get you to you from where you are to where you want to be in the smartest way possible. Remember: there is nothing wrong with taking the quickest path to success. In fact, that is the wisest way to use your time and resources.

A lot of successful people have made great use of smartcuts, even several US Presidents.

About a third of US presidents did not follow the traditional route of first serving in Congress for a significant amount of time before running for the presidence, instead spending only an average of 7 years in an elected office. They have gained relevant experience in other fields, then managed to "hack" into the presidential ladder at the correct time.

Take into consideration that Woodrow Wilson was the head of a university and Dwight Eisenhower, who went on to defeat Hitler, had never held an elected office before he became president. These men did not climb their way straight up the political ranks - they moved across it diagonally. This should be your aim as an entrepreneur.

Work with Expert mentors to help you realize your fullest potential.

Have you ever heard of a famous athlete wo did not train with the guidance of a coach? No, and you probably never will. Coaches, or mentors, are absolutely critical to achieving success.

You are able to gain an edge over others in your field when you are working with a world-class expert. Business research has shown that entrepreneurs who work with a mentor raise 70 percent more capital on average more than entrepreneurs who don't.

Let's look at Jimmy Falon, he would not have become the host of the Tonight Show without the help of Randi Siegel, his talent manager. Siegel had faith in him and continued to encourage Fallon after his first round of unsuccessful auditions for Saturday Night Live.

This kind of successful, and long-term mentoring is based on an organic relationship between the mentor and the mentee. In fact, pyschologist Christina Underhill has done research on mentorship and found that organic informal mentoring brought about much more success in terms of salary, promotions, and self-esteem than formal mentoring did. Structured mentorship programs still helped of course, but they were not as powerful or effective as mentoring relationships that came about naturally.

This is because personal relationships are more effective when it comes to guiding the mentees through various challenges. Mentors are more invested in their mentee's journey when they are close to them.

This happened when a team of brain surgeons from Great Ormond Hospital in London asked the Ferrari Formula One pit crew for help. The pit crew oversees track changeovers during a race. The surgeons wanted their guidance in improving patient transfers from the operating team to another team in the ward.

The surgeons made this unorthodox request because of the Ferrari team's reputation for having remarkably high skill. The two groups worked together for such a long time that they developed close relationships and became deeply dedicated to producing an effective and long-term solution.

As a result of this mentorship, errors in the hospital has decreased by about 66 percent and Ferrari became the hospital's official sponsor.

Do not take failure or negative feedback personally. Use it to improve yourself instead.

Nobody likes failing but it is just not possible to succeed 100 percent of the time. Failure is always an option. So when you do fail, don't just accept it and move on. Learn from it too - this is an important form of feedback.

Unfortunately, not all feedback is equally useful. Angelo DeNisi and Avraham Kluger did a 1996 study on feedback in whith they have found that some kinds of feedback have actually made people perform worse. Feedback that focused on the individual person, such as "Hit it harder!" or "Stretch your legs!" just makes people self-concious and stops them.

Interestingly, the most useful feedback is ones that are negative. Research suggests that negative feedback is actually more effective than feedback that is positive, as long as the person receiving it does not take it personally. That is why experts prefer negative feedback. Unlike positive feedback, it gives them something to work on because it directs them toward lapses in their work. That is usually not the case with compliments.

The more you are exposed to constructive, negative feedback, the better you will be at using it as a tool for learning. The Second City improv school in Chicago, which has trained dozens of famous comedians, even incorporates this frame of mind into their school curriculum.

At Second City. students perform infront of live audiences every week, so they get used to hearing the negative feedback. They are taught to deactivate the part of their brain that associates negative feedback witth failure, and view it instead as critical information they can use to improve their craft.

When the students are repeatedly exposed to negative feedback in a context that is safe, the learn to not take it personally. This enables them to benefit from it and builds their self-confidence too.

Take advantage of existing platforms that are relevant to your field

Fact: you still need help from other people even when you are making use of smartcuts. Most of the time this means utilizing good platforms, building on things that other people have already made.

Search for already established platforms so you can focus on your own development instead. It is important to know how to access the platforms in your specific industry. Search for the infrastructure, technology, strategies, and environments that will help you make your goals reality.

Good platforms do not just allow you to do more in less time. You will also learn new skills when you use them.

Personal Computers, for example, are the product of decades worth of work by top engineers. Every time you use one, you leverage that work. So use any advanced resources that are available to you.

Sometimes it is also a good idea to modify existing platforms to your specific needs. The Finnish public education system has done this in the 1990s when they remade the existing system into a super-education platform.

In this new education system, salaries were increased across the board and only teachers possessing at least a master's degree were hired. Teachers then changed their focus toward creating long-term mentorships with the individal students, revolving around topics the students were passionate about.

The end-result of the smartcut spoke for itself. The Finnish educational system has gone from a mediocre standing to being one of the best in the world. Today, Finnish students learn much more quickly than the global average and 82% earn at least a high-school equivalent certification.

When you leverage things that already exist, you can see the flaws in those and make them much better. Utilizing and improving existing platforms saves you from the struggle of trying to reinvent the wheel.