Being Useful

What it takes to be successful

Three years ago, I was invited by my favorite professor to speak to the University of Arizona's chapter of Beta Alpha Psi, an international honor society for accounting and finance students.

Truthfully, I think I was offered the opportunity because I was available. The originally scheduled presenter had dropped-out last minute, and they needed someone to fill in. I struggled with what I would present. I hadn't accomplished anything particularly notable, and I was less than a decade out of college myself - too young to be wise, too old to be relatable. What could I possibly tell them that they hadn't already heard?

I realized this was a common challenge. With every opportunity, I want to make a difference. Prove that I earned it. And yet, as I reflected on that mindset, I realized the more I tried to make a splash, the less effective I was. Realizing this, I had my presentation topic. As Beta Alpha Psi members, I figured they would share the same struggle and I had just stumbled on a solution.

To make an impact, you have to focus on being useful.

I realize it sounds like semantics, but hear me out. You have to recognize the paradox that an impactful mindset reduces our effectiveness.

When you're striving to make an impact, you're outwardly focused. An impact mindset is centered around delivering an outsized, visible outcome. Such a goal, regardless of intention, triggers your ego such that the outcome and your identity become interlinked. If successful, the reward will be twice as sweet as the accomplishment is compounded by the ego boost. The problem is outsized outcomes are rarely dependent on the efforts of one person - other people, processes, and luck all play a role. Still, your ego has been engaged and you've mapped out a plan, one so detailed that the path becomes indistinguishable from the destination. Much like the titular character in The Mandalorian, all doubts and questions (internal or external) are met with some form of "This is the way." Failure to deliver becomes a reflection of you, even if you did everything right.

Being useful, on the other hand, is inwardly focused. Outcomes matter, but it's less about what you achieve than it is around how you enable those around you. This isn't to say that a useful mind is selfless, or worse, sycophantic. Rather, it's a recognition that what you can accomplish pales in comparison to what you can accomplish as part of a team. There's as much opportunity in removing obstacles for others as there is in doing more yourself. The size of the accomplishments is less important than the effect they have when combined.

The key to all of this is to understand that what you do isn't as important as how you do it. Don't get me wrong, being smart and skilled is obviously critical to success, but as Cassandra of Troy shows us, it doesn't matter what you know if no one listens to you.