Leverage The Achievements Of Others

“Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.” - Otto von Bismark

Everyone knows the name Nikola Tesla, but not many people understand the atrocities that he went through in life.

Tesla was one of the greatest inventors of our time.

He’s responsible for the discovery of alternating current, the radio, the induction motor, hydroelectric power and many other tools that we still use today to make our lives easier.

But Tesla never really got credit for most of his contributions to humanity.

In fact, Tesla died a poor man, and most of his efforts had been claimed by other inventors who piggy backed off of his endless labor.

Tesla despised the fact that science and politics were interrelated.

He was not a man who cared for fame or riches (so he convinced himself), but this ideology came to be his biggest roadblock.

Since he wasn’t credited with most of his work, he struggled to find funding for his new projects, while others stole the credit for his previous groundwork.

Men such as Edison, who was more of a businessman than an inventor, are portrayed in the history books as superheroes who single-handedly made profound discoveries that altered the course of human trajectory.

Where Edison lacked on the invention front, he compensated with his knowledge of the game.

Edison was very good at hiring experts to work for him.

He had no problems stealing other peoples’ work, and yet he has gone down in history as one of the greatest inventors of all time.

The key component to Edison’s career was that he understood the concept of leverage.

He became extremely proficient at using other peoples’ money to employ experts to do his work for him.

We tend to get caught up in the so called grind mentality, where we act like its heroic or noble to work 16 hour days.

Work hard, push through the obstacles, use brute force to overcome your challenges, blah blah blah…

While this sounds motivating on paper, its neither productive nor realistic in the long term.

Its much better to use different types of leverage to compound your efforts. Whether that’s capital, labor, tools, software, or research.

You’d be better off focusing on high priority activities that drive the needle, while outsourcing the rest of your challenges to other people or algorithms.

There are 2 main lessons here:

1. First, the credit is just as important as the contribution.

   You must secure credit for your efforts like it’s the crown jewel.

   You need to be gutless in keeping your projects close to you.

   Watch for the vultures who are always circling around waiting for you to turn your back on your prize.

   These vultures are the people waiting to steal your ideas or inventions the second you let off your defenses.

2. You must learn to capitalize on other peoples’ work to advance your own mission.

   If you begin at ground zero every time you start a new project, you will burn yourself out before you even get off the ground.

   Learn to use the efforts that others have already contributed. Make this work your own and then build on top of it.

   You will save years of your time, while simultaneously lapping your competitors.

As Thomas Edison once said “Everybody steals in commerce and industry. I’ve stolen a lot myself. But I know how to steal.”.

Learn to use the knowledge and wisdom of the brilliant people who came before you.

Isaac Newton referred to this as “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Build on the achievements of others.

Learn this skill and you will be portrayed as brilliant.

Even if you’re just a really good borrower.