Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success by Shane Snow

If you're an avid reader, you've probably already heard of Shane Snow's groundbreaking book Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success. In this book, Snow takes us on a journey to answer the question the myriad of entrepreneurs, innovators, and icons have posed since the beginning of time: how can someone go from nothing to extraordinary in a relatively brief period of time?

In Smartcuts, Snow defines smartcuts as deviations from conventional wisdom that can help speed success. Drawing from in-depth profiles and interviews with dozens of people from a wide range of fields – from entertainment to technology – he outlines how recognizing patterns in success stories of the likes of Jay-Z, Yelp, etc. can help you shape your own journey to success.

Snow argues that most people tend to take the "tortoise route" to success, slowing chipping away at their goals day-by-day in hopes that eventually the slow and steady progress will amount to something big. Instead, he suggests that by reconsidering the traditional steps and embracing unconventional methods, individuals can accelerate the road to success – as exemplified by the likes of serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck, Martha Stewart's efforts to thrive despite her time in prison, Mark Zuckerberg's meteoric rise from Harvard student to startup legend, etc.

The first step in mastering the smartcut is to identify opportunities to reach critical mass that would otherwise take years to achieve. Case-in-point, as shared by Snow, when Instagram needed to get a foothold in the picture-based social media space, they "hacked the system" by forming strategic partnerships with Twitter, rather than wasting time competing.

Snow also offers advice on techniques like "lawnmower parenting," which involves focusing more on the main path that something has to take to success, rather than worrying so much about the dead ends and interfering. He also outlines the importance of finding mentors and investing in camaraderie with other successful individuals— both of which can help you learn, strategize, and make progress more quickly.

Smartcuts is an essential read for anyone seeking to accelerate their own journey to success. Through a combination of firsthand context and practical advice, Snow challenges readers to ignore common pitfalls and redefine their goals. By understanding the tendencies of successful individuals, readers can grasp how to carve out the "lazy man's path to success" and learn how to set themselves apart from the crowd. For anyone looking to accelarate the road to success, Smartcuts is a must read.