Work hard.

[Colonel]

don't spend it all working

There's the catch. At the risk of sounding like some @sshole philosopher,
I must ask, "what is work?"

For example, you could spend 4 hours every evening after work on the
guitar. Is that work? Well, your fingers are bleeding at the end, so ...

You put 0.2 on the tach, surface acro to max G limits. You land panting
and sweating with blown blood vessels. Is that work?

I will refrain from referring to the film industry activities of Get More Butts'
older brother Seymour.

Many successful entrepreneurs work 120 hours a week ... or do they? It's
hard to tell when they're working, and when they're not, because their activity
never stops when they are awake. Do they enjoy it? You betcha - they wouldn't
do anything else. Is it work? Well ....

Three simple things to be successful

1) work like a dog
2) keep your mouth shut
3) win at the politics

Yeah, yeah. I'm not practicing what I preach, am I?

[Squaretail]

Three simple things to be successful

1) work like a dog
2) keep your mouth shut

Worst advice ever. I mean, its the stuff you tell people if you want to keep them under your thumb, but if you want to get anywhere in this world you have to work efficiently, and you got to speak up when its necessary. There's something to the work smarter, not harder. I've known a lot of people who have spent their lives just working like dogs not getting anywhere. Some of them don't seem to mind it, but usually those people's only goals are to have their kids reach modest goals, and/or have enough beer money for the weekend. I remember another guy I used to instruct with, who worked two other jobs outside of instructing desperately trying to make ends meet. But he was underwater and sinking. I figured out it was actually costing him more to hold down those jobs than he was earning at them. Silliness.

It never is as simple as "work harder" at anything. Maybe think harder about it, but if you're at a roadblock on something just smashing yourself against the wall more never works. You have limited time and energy in this life, don't waste more of it than you have to not getting forward.

And for shits sake, when you need to open your mouth, do it. Telling people to fuck off can lots of times get you ahead. Be careful with that though, and be prepared to put your money where your mouth is. Sometimes you got to speak up or ask when the opportunity arises. You have to be the one who says , yeah I'll do that. If anything, that's the thing that I would most say will get you ahead in aviation. All the interesting things I have gotten to do is because I asked if I could, or said I would. If you're the one with your head down sweeping the floor hoping someone will notice that you're doing a great job and give you an opportunity, the only opportunity its going to get you is to sweep more floors.

[Colonel]

This is an interesting discussion, and I suspect we are coming at it from different angles.

I would contend that it is necessary - but certainly not sufficient - to work like a dog. To be
successful, you need to work harder at whatever you choose, than anyone else.

I don't know anyone who is successful at something worthwhile, that didn't work very very
hard for a very very long time at it.

I will admit that winners never quit, and quitters never win, but if you never win, and you never
quit, you're an idiot. Choose carefully what you work on.

As examples, look at Tommy Emmanuel and Rob Holland. Both superb masters at their
chosen craft, and both of them worked harder at it for many decades, than you would believe
possible. I remember Mike Potter, a self-made Canadian tech billionaire, said it took him 20
years of hard work to become an "overnight success" as he was described in the press

As far as keeping your mouth shut, while I emotionally adore your advice:

Telling people to fuck off can lots of times get you ahead

Keep in mind that I have so alienated the Canadian government, that I can no longer live
in Canada any more, and am not permitted to own property in Canada. Think about that.

We are all playing politics, all the time, regardless if we want to or not. Thanks Arlo!

[David MacRay]

You guys don’t like to look at airplane ads?

In construction I have seen many guys that work like a dog but sometimes a dog might do a much better job.

The first “Journeyman “ I was ever paired with was last guy to get to the trailer for breaks and first one back at work after. He was hated by the rest of the crew.

Later on he was transferred, a few days later there was a meeting with the general foreman, to tell everyone not to do something he was doing wrong for a couple of weeks. It may have taken several guys twice as long to fix what he had done.

On the other hand. The hardest productive worker I ever knew was my grandmother’s second husband. He maintained tracks for the CPR and then went home to tend crops and feed his cows. He loved desserts made with sugar and fresh baked white bread. Not what city folk consider wealthy but.. He was content and lived vibrantly into his 90s.

[Colonel]

You guys don’t like to look at airplane ads?

Oh yeah. The problem is, when I see an airplane ad, I see something entirely
different from you. I see a neglected money pit which is going to take months
if not years of brutal effort, cutting my hands and forearms up, to get back into
shape, after it's been neglected by it's previous owner (whom admittedly might
be dead) for so many years.

You buy an airplane for US$20k, expect to spend US$100k on it over the next 2
years and all of your spare time. At which time you might have an airplane that
you can sell for US$30k.

hahahahahahahahaahhahaahahaha

I have rescued many neglected dogs, airplanes and motorcycles. Each one of
them is a financial disaster that takes a piece of your life away, that you aren't
going to ever get back.

And, I get the negative attitude towards hard work. You guys live in an extremely
high tax country which is the farthest thing from a meritocracy I can think of,
except perhaps Soviet Russia or Cuba or Venezuela.

I get it. I really do. I am from there. Took me years to shake off the cult perspective.

If you want to learn more about this, watch an interview with someone that left
Scientology. When you're in the cult, all sorts of really ridiculous things are accepted.
We call that "normalization of deviance". When you leave the cult, and over years
get your perspective back, you realize how warped things were in the cult.

[Squaretail]

As far as keeping your mouth shut, while I emotionally adore your advice:

Telling people to fuck off can lots of times get you ahead

Keep in mind that I have so alienated the Canadian government, that I can no longer live
in Canada any more, and am not permitted to own property in Canada. Think about that.

Keep in mind you're not the only one who's tangled with the government. But also, if part of being successful is being happy, would you be happier today to have kept your trap shut and took whatever they were going to give you? If so, then you'd be a different person. You'd probably not be arguing with me on these forums all these years. I'm not saying that if you speak up its always going to go your way, after all to paraphrase CDR Tom Jardian, your body better be prepared to cash the cheques your ego writes. But if you keep your trap shut and just keep taking it, you're just going to be more bitter and unhappy. OR you might get hurt because you didn't say no, because you're the guy who just does as he's told. Trust me, I spent a lot of time in this life, working under the advice, work like a dog and shut up.

I mean realistically, if you never get the balls to tell someone to take their job and shove it, maybe more politely, you'll be digging holes the rest of your life. Now there's nothing wrong if you like digging holes and are happy with that, but if you're not satisfied with that, don't just work harder at it hoping you're going to get promoted to chief hole digger or something. There's also no reward for you just keeping at it when they take your shovel away to save money. You're not going to profit from that savings, you're just going to wear out your hands.

I'll admit I had my own recent frustration with the "work harder" mantra. While it sounds good, its frequently not helpful. I'm learning something new, playing guitar, and I'd made several attempts in the past, but this time I decided I'm going to throw myself at it. I've been practicing at it every day for the last two months, at least an hour or two a day. I've been against a road block for a while, and not seeing progress at something is incredibly frustrating. The only advice you get, from every guitar teacher you see? Work harder at it. Practice more, work harder. But you can't compensate for lack of knowledge by redoubling your efforts, you'll only find there's no end to what you can't do. But I finally had a break though by taking a different approach to the problem, and the solution isn't one I have found suggested anywhere, but stupidly simple. Work smarter, not harder.

As an aside, I find most guys who are music instructors, are as bad or worse than many flight instructors I know, knowing what I know now about how instruction should be, I'm at least equipped to spot when the teacher is not good.

But the advice about not working all the time should also be taken that its ok to go have fun. In fact when the opportunity arises to go do something fun instead of work more, take it. You're only young once, and you might not be able to do it when you're older. In fact, if that fun thing is a new skill to learn, don't wait until you're 100% comfortable - you never will be - do it now. You only get worse at learning stuff the older you get. And slower. Deafer and blinder.

[Colonel]

I guess that what I am trying to say is that hard work is necessary but admittedly not sufficient
to achieve glorious, legendary success.

You need to work hard, and smart if you want to be successful. And you'd better be in the right
place at the right time. See Bill Gates, for example, before he went woke. He was a very bright
guy that worked very hard at the exact right moment in human history when there was an enormous
demand for his product. If he was born in the 19th century he would have been just another skinny,
near-sighted loser. Timing is important.

I understand your guitar frustration. I see the same thing in aerobatics - someone practices their
mistakes, over and over again, until some grumpy old guy with a handheld on the ground shouts at
them to do something differently.

You're only young once, and you might not be able to do it when you're older

I tell people to start flight training at age 10 if they want to be any good as a pilot. Look at all
the F1 drivers, the motoGP riders - they started at ridiculously young ages.

Ideally, you want to be 18 years old with 10 years experience, to get your foot in the door.

It is a fact that anyone that starts flying at age 40, will never be as good as if they had started
30 years ago. When they are 45, they only have 5 years experience, instead of over a third of
a century.

It's important to realize that when you first start doing something - anything - technique intensive,
it will take 95% of your brain to do it. This is ok playing a guitar, but not on a motorcycle or airplane,
where you don't have any brains left over for situational awareness.

But over time, the percentage of your brain required to perform a technique-intensive task drops,
and if you're good, it probably only takes 5% of your brain to skillfully ride a motorcycle or fly an
airplane. You can spend the other 95% of your brain on SA, staying alive.

This is why you want to start young, at anything reasonably challenging. NASA did a study a
while back on aircraft accidents, and the single conclusion that they reached was that the earlier
a pilot started flight training, the less likely he was to have an accident, because in a challenging
situation, he had more time left over to think about the problem, because he could fly an airplane
without hardly any thought, the way you shift gears on a manual transmission after a million miles.

This is interesting to those of us that are interested in not crashing and dying.

[Squaretail]

I guess that what I am trying to say is that hard work is necessary but admittedly not sufficient
to achieve glorious, legendary success.

You need to work hard, and smart if you want to be successful. And you'd better be in the right
place at the right time.

Well there we're closer to agreement.

I understand your guitar frustration. I see the same thing in aerobatics - someone practices their
mistakes, over and over again, until some grumpy old guy with a handheld on the ground shouts at
them to do something differently.

In most circumstances the old guy just yells "work harder" and is of no help. That's my point. At best, its because he has no clue on what he really did to get over the hurdle you're facing - the old story that just because people are good at something, doesn't mean they're good at instructing it. At worst, it because they want to hold the special conceit that they somehow are gifted with a superior ability to work harder than you, and/or wish to maintain their position in that ranking. I recall running into another instructor who told me he liked instructing since it was like being a big fish in a small pond. What a turd. Unfortunately he wasn't unique.

[Colonel]

People who need external validation are indeed tiresome. And I know
what you mean about all the "experts". Well, for decades I had heard
war stores about the Beech 18. Then, one appeared at my airport, and
all the old blowhards scattered like cockroaches when the light comes on.

So, I had to check myself out in the Beech 18. Wrote an article about it:

www.pittspecials.com/articles/Beech18.htm

Anyways. If you can get someone to watch you, and tell you WHAT you
are doing wrong, you are 'way ahead. Even if they can't tell you HOW to
do it better, at least you're one step further along.

For example, at the top of a hammerhead, you're torquing off. You don't
even notice it until after the pivot, and you have an angle on looking forward
in the vertical downline. Weird.

You need someone on the ground to tell you WHAT: you are torquing off
before the pivot.

Then, on your own, you can figure out HOW to fix it (right aileron as you
slow down).

Start with WHAT then work your way to HOW.

And watch lots of youtube videos. And video what you do, and look at
it after. Rob Holland does that, that that's why he's the best. Hard work
and closed loop control.

PS I keep repeating the names of pilots. These are guys that I have
seen fly, and you know they are something special:

1) Bob Hoover
2) Steve Hinton
3) Rob Holland
4) Bobby Younkin

There is a very short list of these guys, who fly any airplane immediately
and precisely and smoothly, as if it is a physical extension of their bodies.

You can spot these guys. They are something special, and have something
to teach you, about how they got that good. It might not necessarily work
for you, but it's sure interesting.

[Squaretail]

And video what you do, and look at
it after.

I did this for a bit when I was trying to sharpen my tailwheel skills. The strangest thing I always found was the video never looked as bad as it seemed from the seat. I always expected to watch the video and be "My God I'm terrible!" The same from when I was trying to get a handle on four point rolls (which I'm not sure why, but that was the hardest thing I found to do in my pedestrian aerobatic skill set, the part of the roll where you go from inverted to 3/4 of a roll). Not to say it wasn't helpful, but I expected it to be way more obvious in the video than it was.