A follow-up on Will Smith’s philosophy.
Much to my surprise, a few short posts about Will Smith that I wrote a while back continue to be among the most popular items on this blog, month in and month out. Here are the ones I mean:
- 5 December 2007: The work ethic of Will Smith: “deliberate practice” in action.
- 29 October 2008: The Talented Mr. Smith and His Money-Making Ways.
- 18 November 2008: The Basic Basics: Go the last mile(s).
I was thinking of these as I watched this montage video about Smith’s working philosophy at Trey Pennington’s site:
(If the video doesn’t work, try this link.)
Maybe some of what Smith says about the “flow of the universe” sounds hokey, but it’s well worth heeding his core messages about (a) obsessive focus on what’s important to you, (b) making the world better for others, and (c) an “unrealistic,” unrelenting work ethic.
Pennington suggests that we take Smith’s philosphy — along with that of the witty video blogger Jay Smooth — and apply it to our social media practice. It probably won’t surprise you that I want to take it one step further, into a broader consideration of how we work, why we work, and what holds us back.
Check out the video, then please tell me what you think: How can we in the corporate world emulate Smith’s approach to success?
~
Other related posts:
~
Category: Productivity, The working lifeIf you liked this post, please consider subscribing to the RSS feed so you can receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.
4 Comments so far
Leave A Comment
Great insight from Will Smith, considering he has become everything he hated about Hollywood – successful, rich A-lister (keeping the man down, quote from him_! when he was a young rapper from Normal USA.
How to emulate Will Smith in the corporate world? It’s simple. Work, work, work. Focus, focus, focus. Getting an entire organization to do that is the real trick, however.
You’ve put a sharper point on my question, Dan — how DO we get entire organizations to act this way?
That’s a tough one that usually results in trotting out the pablum that clots the business shelves at Barnes & Noble.
Do you Re-Engineer the Corporation? Do you follow the leadership secrets of Jesus as CEO? Or Sun-Tzu? Do you unleash the inner Drive of employees by having Fierce Conversations? Or just accelerate to the speed of Trust?
I’m pretty sure there’s no one answer. (Or at least, that book hasn’t yet been written.) I think it’s idiosyncratic to each organization, and the secret is getting everyone to agree that when they sign up to join the company, they’re agreeing to continuous work and continuous focus. (Sort of like a EULA that people would actually read.)