The Secret of Success

Editor’s note: The Pope Center publishes an occasional series called “If I Knew Then What I Know Now,” with advice for college students. Here’s the latest.

Until now, I never had good advice to offer students in college. All I could give was cant—“Work hard and appreciate your opportunities because you may never again have such leisure to learn.” It’s true, but not persuasive. At least, it didn’t persuade me nearly half a century ago.

Fortunately, I have come across a wonderful piece of advice that does tell you what to do whether you are in college or out of it—even long out of it.

The source is Scott Adams, creator of the cartoon “Dilbert.” Writing in the Wall Street Journal on April 9, 2011, Adams said that most students are not cut out to be nuclear physicists or nanotechnologists, but they can succeed by learning to do “several different things fairly well.”

He wrote modestly about himself:

I succeeded as a cartoonist with negligible art talent, some basic writing skills, an ordinary sense of humor and a bit of experience in the business world. The “Dilbert” comic is a combination of all four skills.

The world has plenty of better artists, smarter writers, funnier humorists and more experienced business people. The rare part is that each of those modest skills is collected in one person. That’s how value is created.

That’s the secret! To succeed, you must combine your talents. You must be entrepreneurial about yourself, discovering the raw materials that God gave you and putting them together in your own distinctive way.  

Even I learned that—eventually.

Growing up in a St. Louis suburb in the 1960s, I was what was fashionably known as an “under-achiever.” I was pretty smart (my mother had said I should aim for Oxford), but I wasn’t sure how smart. Worse, I had the idea that I was only smart; that is, I didn’t have much else going for me.

That mentality can be destructive. You fear that you might not be as good as you think. Taken to an extreme, it makes you avoid the exertion and competition that are required for genuine learning. You can end up as a “person with promise”—but no fulfillment. That was me.

The word “under-achiever” has largely disappeared from our vocabulary, but I see around me many young people who fit that description. Kids, Scott Adams’ advice is for you.

What does it mean to combine your skills? Think, for example, about Thomas Edison. He didn’t actually “invent” the light bulb, which had been patented by John Wellington Starr in 1845, nearly forty years before Edison tried to patent his.

But Edison had a variety of talents—many of them “people skills.’’ He made the light bulb a household product by replacing the gas lighting system of the time with one based on electricity. To achieve his objective, he worked with potential competitors (the gas companies) and government regulators and even tempered his innovation. Although he knew how to make a 40-watt light bulb, he initially offered a 13-watt bulb, because it shed just the amount of light provided by gaslight. (This information, and much more, comes from the writing of innovator Andrew Hargadon.)

Or consider Louis L’Amour, one of the most published authors of the twentieth century. He may not have written classics, but he published 112 novels, which sold 200 million copies before he died—and his popularity continues. L’Amour used to say that he had received 200 rejection letters before he sold his first short story. As I have heard the tale, it finally occurred to him to study the methods used by famous short-story writers such as O. Henry. By learning from them, he launched his own career.

The late Tony Snow moved to Washington, D.C., in 1987 to become the editorial page editor of the Washington Times, while also writing a column for his previous employer, the Detroit News. He soon decided that to have impact in Washington he needed to expand beyond the printed word. Even though he had a raspy voice, he began speaking on the radio. With his conservative ideas and ability to express himself, he began substituting for Rush Limbaugh and then moved on to his own radio and television shows. He eventually became the highly popular press secretary of George W. Bush—using his self-effacing sense of humor, another talent that served him well. Sadly, his career was cut short by cancer.

Each of these people combined talents and skills into a unique combination. Were they the best at any one thing? Probably not.

Even I learned to combine my shallow collection of skills. When graduation day arrived at Wellesley, I needed a job.

As an underachiever, I was no Phi Beta Kappa, nor did I have any professor/mentors pushing me forward. But motivated by the fact that my father wasn’t going to send any more money, I took action.

I had worked on the Wellesley News, which gave me some practical experience as a writer and reporter. I consulted the Boston Yellow Pages and found a job for $70 a week at the Jamaica Plain Citizen, a newspaper that was tossed onto people’s lawns for free (called a “shopper” at the time).

It turned out to be a terrific job. Residents of Jamaica Plain had begged the publisher to hire a reporter, any reporter (there had been just one reporter for the entire Boston-area chain). They wanted the paper to provide a sense of community. So I became part writer, part reporter, and part community organizer.

I discovered that I loved working. A job was a much more social environment than my lonely interaction with Paradise Lost and The Wreck of the Deutschland had been—and I was paid, too! The people I worked with fascinated me, and I quickly discovered that journalism makes great cocktail party conversation. I began to experience what Scott Adams put into words for me this April, that we are all different combinations of qualities and we can find niches in whatever environment we face.

In conclusion, let me return to Thomas Edison. He is famous for saying that invention is “one percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration,” a phrase that adds one more element to the mix: hard work. Working hard can make up for a lot of deficiencies in skill.

Scott Adams put it differently. He said, “To succeed, first you must do something. And if that doesn’t work, which can be 90 percent of the time, do something else.” Yes, keep trying; be entrepreneurial about your talents; and you will succeed.