Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2013, when Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York; his last term ended in December 2013.
New York mayor and billionaire Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg gave his short, personal advice for people who want to succeed in business or in their careers. We have already published 6 tough tips for success from him.
What Michael Bloomberg says about success
Everyone, he said, has different opportunities in front of them. Everyone brings a different set of skills, and of course luck also plays a big part in success. But you make your own luck: the harder you work, the luckier you get.
He explained that he always tried to be the first one through the company door in the morning and the last one to leave at night. He took fewer holidays than everyone else and spent much less time than everyone else in the bathroom or on lunch breaks. You have to be there.
When he says this, he admitted, everyone replies “Ohhh, that’s crazy”. But if you want to succeed, you cannot control how lucky you are, and you cannot control how smart you are; the one thing you can control is how hard you work. So that comes first: hard work. Because when he looks back, the people who worked hard have, as a rule, been more successful than those who spent a lot of time resting and going to the bathroom.
What’s more, while you are in the bathroom, plenty of competitors are getting ahead of you.
Besides this advice, he has also stressed the importance of taking risks and of staying persistent in pursuing your goals and meeting your objectives. And above all, never stop learning.
Source: Politicker, based on Michael Bloomberg’s own words on his radio show.
Further reading
- The importance of taking more risks (Billy Joel’s pianist)
- How to create your own destiny
- The key to success with the Seinfeld strategy
- The one thing successful people never do
Featured image: Metropolitan Transportation Authority, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
