Ben at The Design Conspiracy pointed me at this article which confirmed something I'd always suspected - successful people get up earlier than the rest of us. It looks at the work habits of the usual corporate success suspects and reveals the time they're getting up:
Carlos Ghosn - Nissan/Renault - 6
Howard Schultz - Starbucks - 5
Bill Gross - Pimco - 4.30
A.G. Lafley - P&G - 5
Amy W. Schulman - DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary - 5
Hank Paulson - Goldman Sachs - 5.30
As an early bird myself, I can say that my best hours of the day are indeed the early ones, but it seems like only half of the picture. When exactly are these people arrive back home to see their loved ones? We have to remember that, in many cases successful people work 20 hours a day, they work weekends, and, put simply - they don't have a 'life' outside their work. and if this is a case, I'd rather not be such a successful person...
Posted by: Asi | May 08, 2006 at 08:39 AM
Thatcher always used to boast that she only needed about 3 or 4 hours sleep a night. And then I saw a programme where a sleep specialist said that if you did that for a few years you'd go mad.
Which explains Thatcher's later years in office very well. And maybe explains many corporate decisions.
Posted by: russell | May 08, 2006 at 10:08 AM
Isnt this a bit chicken and egg?(and doesnt this highlight the pitfalls of quant...?)
Perhaps people who are succesful have to get up early because they have so much to do as they've already become succesful, rather than because they're a 'succesful type' they gets up early.
Maybe when Hank Paulson was a graduate trainee at Goldman Sachs he got up at 8, but slowly as he had more and more important things to do and more meetings to fit in he was forced to get up early.
i.e. now i get up at 8, but if i was suddenly made MD i'd probably have to get up at 5 to fit everything in!
Or perhaps succesful people live in massive country mansions far from their place of work and have to get into their chauffer driven cars nice and early to beat the rush hour traffic.
Or maybe it's simply because they wake up early because of the stress and worry they have in their powerful positions and if they could they'd love to sleep in a bit longer instead of getting up at 5 and going to read a book until it's time to go to work!
Or maybe i'm just bitter because I hate getting up in the morning!
T
Posted by: Tony | May 09, 2006 at 11:30 AM