if you want to be a success...

...learn to not do anything.

Before I say anything, I know there are some people who think reality TV has no redeeming value. Part of the reason I am posting on a reality show today is to display some of the redeeming value. :)

I was watching The Apprentice last night and the person who got kicked off (let's call her Angie because that is her name) was the only person on her team who did anything. The other people on her team did not contribute much more than ideas to the project (the goal of which was creating clothing lines that integrated technology in some way and to present the creations to some American Eagle executives). The reasoning for getting rid of her seemed to be that since she was the person who screwed up on the presentation she had to go. My take is that if you are doing 80% of the work, you are 80% more likely than anyone else to screw up.

This relates to what I have observed in the business world as well, though. The people who "succeed" are often hard workers, but more often they are talkers who can motivate other hard workers. Point to any business success and I will point you to the "little people" who made that person a success.

This is something that I wish I had picked up earlier, actually. The people who apply themselves and do well become tradesmen or consultants. The people who can motivate become the people who make money from the tradesmen or consultants' work.

Ironically, what I am learning from The Apprentice is that people like Donald Trump are smart and can be hard workers, but they are only "successes" because they know how to make money from other people's work.

Finally, I do think Capitalism is superior to any other system when human nature is added to the equation, so I am not advocating the downfall of the overpaid talkers. This is just a cynical observation.