I have a lot of related but not entirely coherent thoughts so this is going to be a “list post”.
Being great at school is kind of like being good at fundraising for a startup. You really haven’t achieved anything yet and it’s not even a good indicator of future success.
In school we teach people obedience and check their ability to get the “correct” answer. In order to check for correctness we can only test them on things that are very clearly right or wrong. In the real world we usually don’t know if we made the right or best decision until much later, or often never. Because of this it’s impossible for school to accurately predict success in life.
Many people who struggle in school do extremely well in life because the things that get you in trouble in school, such as questioning authority and refusing to do things the way someone else wants it done, are exactly the things that allow for outsized success in life.
I don’t even look at my kids’ report cards. If they struggle on a test and don’t know an answer we work on it until they know it. Who cares if at a certain date they didn’t understand it if they understand it now?
The best way to win a game is to continue playing until you win. If you love a sport but aren’t the best in high school just stay in shape and keep practicing and eventually you’ll be better than most of the people that were better than you in high school because they are out of shape and out of practice. They don’t even know they are playing the game any longer, but now you are the winner.
Related to playing the long game in life is playing the long game in business. I spend a lot of money on software development that takes years to pay for itself. But what it does is allow me to not hate running the business because mundane tasks are either automated or take much less time. Our team is leaner because of it, and less people reporting to me means less work for me. And because I don’t hate the duty of running the business I can continue to play it. I can honestly, and without being boastful, say that most competitors that have competed at our level (not counting huge chains like Kohls and Hot Topic) are no longer in the game.
Sometimes early success hurts you in the long run. I remember playing my friend Scott at video games and when we first started I seemed to beat him more frequently than he beat me. But eventually he would get better and I stayed the same. I was relying on a few hacks to win and he was learning how to play the game. The same can be said of tennis. I was in a “ladder” league where you would win your level and advance to the next one. I was able to beat people on the lower level because I was younger or stronger and could tolerate heat better. My strategy at times was literally to wear them out. It was fine for winning games but when I got nearer to the top levels that no longer worked. I was a shitty tennis player who advanced the wrong way.