It is something that you might have learned in nursery school.
You know about the marshmallow test, right?
Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel, back in 1968, tested the self-control of children at a nearby nursery school. He told the kids they could have one marshmallow immediately, and he put it on a table in front of them, but if they waited 20 minutes, not only could they have that marshmallow he would give them a second one.
Over the next 40 years Mischel followed the kids who were part of the experiment, and he found that the preschoolers who were able to delay gratification were more focused, confident and self-controlled, and they scored on average 210 points higher on their SATs than those who couldn’t wait.
Subsequent work by the University of Pennsylvania’s Angela Duckworth found that self-control was clearly vital to success. People who exhibited it, she found, have greater lifetime earnings, savings, and reported high levels of self-satisfaction.
Now, I am not a psychologist or an academic, but I have seen the findings of these two professors confirmed in reverse, and I bet you have too.
It usually goes something like this.
A potential entrepreneur spots an existing need in the marketplace and is determined to fill it. He scrimps, saves and maybe borrows to get enough to get underway and plows just about every single dollar generated by the business back into the company to get it to grow. He never thinks about cashing out or even drawing more than a minimal paycheck. Even though a metaphorical marshmallow is right in front of him, he ignores it.
Until one day he doesn’t.
Maybe on that day he decides to take a bunch of money out of the business. (“After all, I’ve earned it.”) The leaves a lot less to reinvest.
Or he thinks working 12 to 14 hour days are something he doesn’t want to do any more, and so he cuts back, perhaps using that suddenly free time to engage in a hobby (like collecting cars or buying a big boat) that tells the world he’s made it.
You know what happens next. The business starts to slip.
It is a common story and one that I think also explains in part the truth of the cliché “from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” Generations two and three often don’t think they have the need to postpone eating marshmallows. They think the success of the first generation assures them there always will be more. They are always shocked to (eventually) find out that is not the case.
A variation on this involves world-class performers — actors, athletes, singers and such. They can earn remarkable fortunes without traditional forms of self-discipline (although they usually have a strict preparation and health routines.) As long as they have ability to give the public what they want, the money flows in.
The problem, of course, is typically their careers are short. Tom Brady talks about playing football until he is 45 (he is 40) but just about every other athlete is retired before then. (Golfers are an exception.)
How many entertainers and athletes earn tens of millions before they are 40 and end up flat broke? The Mick Jaggers and Madonnas who combine God-given talents with financial self descipline end up remarkably rich. Unfortunately, they are rare.
What isn’t rare is the surprisingly high number of extremely successful entrepreneurs who maintain their self-control, even after they have sold their businesses for untold wealth. Long after they need to consider the price of anything before they make a purchase, they continue to live simply and well below their means.
What does all this mean for us?
As I read about the original marshmallow test and the subsequent work of professor Duckworth, I came to three conclusions:
- Most successful people either are born with the capacity to delay gratification for critical periods in their lives, or learn how to impose that discipline on themselves. And it is clear that the discipline can be learned.
- Intriguingly, success seems to correlate more with an individual’s ability to delay gratification than their intelligence. (Intelligence is harder to build than self-discipline.) Another reason to work on delaying gratification if it does not come naturally to you.
- Whether you were born with the discipline, or have the good sense to develop it, you need to maintain it forever.
Remaining successful requires vigilance.
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