gear and designed the first effective anti- submarine missile. He was also a successful businessman whose company, Airspeed Limited, produced the standard multi-engine trainer for the U.K.’s Royal Air Force. But Nevil Shute chose to write novels. The abiding theme of his fiction is the dignity of hard work. His books were very popular in the 1940s and 1950s. They are almost forgotten today. This is no coincidence, considering how popular hard work once was and the way people feel about it now. Don’t get the Grump started on trying to make the teenager mow the lawn until the Grump gave up and blacktopped the house lot. Shute works hard at turning hard work into a good story. He succeeds by creating engaging plots and empathetic characters so that readers care as much about the hard work and
We all know that the fundamental component of success is hard work. It won’t kill you. But there are very few business-advice books on the actual subject of hard work. This is because writing about hard work is... hard work. Some business-advice writers would have us “pull a sneak”... “Work smarter, not harder.” Try this with yard chores. “Honey, I paved the lawn.” Other business-advice writers think a poster slogan will suffice... “1% Inspiration, 99% Perspiration.” But hard work is not a hot yoga accumulation of knowledge and skills, a diligent pursuit of wisdom about using what’s been learned, and a steady application of savvy and sagacity to meaningful goals. This is as exciting as watching the asphalt class. The kind of hard work that brings success is a slow
The kind of hard work that brings success is a slow accumulation of knowledge and skills...
settle and crack where the grass used to be. And no writer alive can make a good story out of it.
But there’s a dead writer who could –
Nevil Shute (1899-1960). Shute did not write business-
advice books, although he could have. He was a successful aeronautical engineer who helped develop hydraulic retractable aircraft landing
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July 2019
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