More than ever, value creation is something that is driven by insight more than sustained effort.
With a flash of insight and intense work over a short period of time, you can create a large amount of value in a short amount of time.
In the past, building a company that generated $1 Million a year in revenue was something that took a long time, lot’s of employees, and lots of other capital costs. Now it is possible for a handful of people with laptops to do it over a few years (sometimes even quicker). It is by no means easy (or else everyone would be doing it), but the impact of entrepreneurial insight more powerful than ever before.
To build something that consistently satisfies customer needs and sustain it over time requires lots of hard work. But the thing that separates companies worth $1 million and companies worth $30 million is no longer the size of the workforce, capital, or equipment; it is insight.
The same is true of your value as an individual creator or employee. Working on the right things is much more important today than simply working. In the past, there were legions of mindless laborers and even today there are many people who don’t think but instead coast on the insight of others. In the future, their roles will disappear. Software and robots will eat their jobs.
Individual employees who can come up with solutions to the right problems will be more valuable than large teams that work hard on the wrong ones.
The path forward for individuals that want to prosper is to prioritize insight over labor. To invest in your ability to draw conclusions from the world around you and think up novel solutions to problems.
The future belongs to blue-collar philosophers that don’t simply know how to work hard, but more importantly know how to work hard on the right problems. Individuals that know how to put their nose to the grindstone, but first, know how to look to the horizon and find the grindstone that will produce the greatest results.
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