The Lazy Worker's Way to Success: 6 Tips

On a recent flight I sat next to a businessman who told me that, even at that young age, his children were exhibiting very different personalities. He saw signs of his wife's overachieving tendencies in their son. In his daughter, he saw himself. In the first grade she was getting lectured for not applying herself enough. She, too, was a slacker.

He was frustrated by her slacking ways, but he also sympathized because she showed traits of his business mindset.

"She does her own little cost-benefit analysis," he said. "She realizes that she can do just enough to get by and use the rest of that time for playing and having fun."