How To Be Successful
According to a recent article, the most successful people are not the smartest—instead, they’re both ambitious and lazy. This insight comes from a career coach to the Fortune 500.
The article suggests that we forget grinding 24/7 or having the highest IQ in the room. The most powerful billionaires and CEOs know exactly when to cut corners—and how to use their time better than anyone else, the career coach to the Fortune 500, Bill Hoogterp, reveals.
We’re told Bill Hoogterp has spent decades advising celebrities, CEOs, and rising stars inside some of America’s most powerful boardrooms. It’s reported that through his coaching firm he’s helped more than 700,000 professionals level up their communication and leadership skills—and personally worked one-on-one with “thousands” of executives, many of whom appear on Fortune’s most powerful lists.
Tried and tested shortcuts for success: No big meetings, acronyms or one-to-ones
The article notes that plenty of high-profile founders embody Hooterp’s paradoxical formula. They’re not cutting corners to coast—but to outsmart the competition, innovate faster and remain agile in a fast-moving market.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is pointed out as perhaps the most famous example of this. Zuckerberg, we’re reminded, famously coined move fast and break things when scaling Facebook into the $1.8 trillion social media giant it is today.
Likewise, the article continues, Jeff Bezos’ top career advice for his once right-hand man, Greg Hart, was literally to do less himself and delegate more to his employees. “The fewer decisions that have to go to the CEO, the faster the organization will move,” the billionaire Amazon founder told him.
Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang doesn’t have one-to-one meetings with his 60 direct reports—and it’s a deliberate shortcut to innovation. Not only does it save time in their schedules, but more importantly, it ensures ideas and problems aren’t siloed in private conversations. “In that way, our company was designed for agility—for information to flow as quickly as possible,” he said.
Then there’s Elon Musk, who has a whole list of time-saving and corner-cutting rules for staff, including a ban on big and frequent meetings, no chain of command or acronyms, and an encouragement to walk out of unnecessary conversations. “Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value,” the Tesla boss outlined. “It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”
Brains alone won’t get you to the top—or even hired
Hooterp’s claim that the most successful aren’t the smartest doesn’t just apply to CEOs. It’s a theme echoed when it comes to hiring too. Countless CEOs and founders have said that they value attitude over aptitude.
Amazon’s AI boss exclusively told Fortune that stumbling our way through an interview question won’t cost us the job. But being fake will. Andy Jassy, the company’s CEO (and his boss), has similarly shared that attitude is the make-or-break trait that will determine our success—especially, he says, in our 20s.
Likewise, Cisco’s U.K. chief focuses on whether a potential new hire has a positive energy and can-do attitude because, she says, that can’t be taught. “It’s more about the person first and foremost than it is about skills or experience,” Sarah Walker told Fortune.
And they’re far from alone the article states: About 80% of the Fortune 500 use personality tests in hiring, as well as tech giants like Amazon, Meta and Microsoft.
A positive attitude is so important that some chiefs would rather remain understaffed than risk having a bad apple spoil the bunch. As Duolingo’s CEO told Fortune, “it’s better to have a hole than an a**hole.”
I think for us “regular” folks, who are CEOs of our own personal, individual careers, it’s sort of comforting to consider we have the same potential and ability to adjust as Fortune 500 types. Maybe we just haven’t been quite as lucky or haven’t yet fulfilled all our innate possibilities.
Story by Orianna Rosa Royle
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