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It's not totally clear to me that hard work involves quantity (the OP, seemingly) over quality (others who have started fewer, more successful businesses). In

It's not totally clear to me that hard work involves quantity (the OP, seemingly) over quality (others who have started fewer, more successful businesses). In general, there are lots of activities which give the appearance of hard work but are actually fairly superficial and detrimental to your long-term goals. Not at all saying that's the case here, more just musing on the idea of grinding for the sake of grinding.

WilliamEdward 8y ago
It's almost as if there's a stark difference between working hard and working smart. No one wants to acknowledge that.
- wgerard 8y ago
  I don't know if it's that necessarily. I think most people understand (in theory, anyway), the benefit of working smart. I think there's an assumption that the most successful people both work smart AND hard, which is likely true to some degree - e.g. successful pro athletes have staff that likely conduct well-targeted and thoughtful practices, but the hours and effort involved are still quite intense. I more-so think the problem is that "working smart" requires a lot of careful planning and forethought, and is quite ambiguous in most cases what it actually means - and in many cases just happens serendipitously. Because of that, the process isn't as obvious. It's much easier (intellectually, at least) to emulate the "working hard" part and to a large degree it's the one we reward the most societally (even in more intellectual circles), so it's not surprising that it's the one that people assume is the most necessary component of being successful - and that the "working smart" part will either come naturally, or after success is had.
- jondubois 8y ago
  It depends on what level you're playing at. If you have access to capital and social connections then yes you need to play smart in order to succeed. If you're some random person with no access to capital or social connections then your focus should be luck. As a random person who started with no social connections and no capital, I think about luck all the time and it helps me to make decisions. Mostly, it helps me to weigh up future opportunities against current opportunities - I think about things that happened to me and I ask myself how unlikely they were to occur; if they were very unlikely, I try to stay on that unlikely path. Never waste your luck; you have to keep moving forward wherever it takes you. Sometimes it leads you to places you don't want to be, but beggars can't be choosers.
jondubois 8y ago
The keys to success are your social connections to capital and your acting skills; that's it, nothing else matters. Find a rich person, get them to like you (the difficult part), then get them to invest in your startup. Then you'll succeed. The richer your friends are, the more likely you are to succeed. However, it should be noted that the richer your friends are, the better your acting skills need to be (competition is tough).
- wgerard 8y ago
  I think that's a very simplistic view. While there are of course people who have been extremely successful relying on those two things alone (and they dominate the headlines, of course), there are countless successful people who succeeded without either of those two things. It's pretty disingenuous, for example, to argue that Katherine Johnson's (admittedly delayed in recognition) success is the result of social connections or acting skills. An even more trivial example is that many pro athletes (in the US, at least) didn't achieve success because of their social connections to capital; most of them certainly aren't great actors either.

WilliamEdward 8y ago

It's almost as if there's a stark difference between working hard and working smart. No one wants to acknowledge that.

wgerard 8y ago
I don't know if it's that necessarily. I think most people understand (in theory, anyway), the benefit of working smart. I think there's an assumption that the most successful people both work smart AND hard, which is likely true to some degree - e.g. successful pro athletes have staff that likely conduct well-targeted and thoughtful practices, but the hours and effort involved are still quite intense. I more-so think the problem is that "working smart" requires a lot of careful planning and forethought, and is quite ambiguous in most cases what it actually means - and in many cases just happens serendipitously. Because of that, the process isn't as obvious. It's much easier (intellectually, at least) to emulate the "working hard" part and to a large degree it's the one we reward the most societally (even in more intellectual circles), so it's not surprising that it's the one that people assume is the most necessary component of being successful - and that the "working smart" part will either come naturally, or after success is had.
jondubois 8y ago
It depends on what level you're playing at. If you have access to capital and social connections then yes you need to play smart in order to succeed. If you're some random person with no access to capital or social connections then your focus should be luck. As a random person who started with no social connections and no capital, I think about luck all the time and it helps me to make decisions. Mostly, it helps me to weigh up future opportunities against current opportunities - I think about things that happened to me and I ask myself how unlikely they were to occur; if they were very unlikely, I try to stay on that unlikely path. Never waste your luck; you have to keep moving forward wherever it takes you. Sometimes it leads you to places you don't want to be, but beggars can't be choosers.

jondubois 8y ago

The keys to success are your social connections to capital and your acting skills; that's it, nothing else matters. Find a rich person, get them to like you (the difficult part), then get them to invest in your startup. Then you'll succeed. The richer your friends are, the more likely you are to succeed. However, it should be noted that the richer your friends are, the better your acting skills need to be (competition is tough).

wgerard 8y ago
I think that's a very simplistic view. While there are of course people who have been extremely successful relying on those two things alone (and they dominate the headlines, of course), there are countless successful people who succeeded without either of those two things. It's pretty disingenuous, for example, to argue that Katherine Johnson's (admittedly delayed in recognition) success is the result of social connections or acting skills. An even more trivial example is that many pro athletes (in the US, at least) didn't achieve success because of their social connections to capital; most of them certainly aren't great actors either.