Working hard is an attitude, not just hours. The Gates example is more approachable as we’ve all heard of them.
I’ll use myself as an example both ways. You don’t know who I am, and you never will, I’m just a cog in the wheels of society. I was a shitty student, always interested in whatever wasn’t being taught. I became good at working the system instead of working.
When I started working in high school at farms and later in sales, it clicked that the people who worked harder and did a better job… did better. That didn’t always mean money, but it meant respect, better shifts, etc. It was more real to me than academics.
Later on in my professional life, working really hard and delivering more, whatever more was, paid off in innumerable ways. It turns out the way to know what you’re talking about is to do stuff. Now I’m a midcareer director level person and that hard work means when I pick up the phone, someone answers. When there’s a problem or a solution, people listen.
That said, there’s lines I won’t or can’t cross. I won’t sacrifice my family’s life, which is a career ceiling. My mediocre performance as a student effectively locked me out of high end schools and the jobs that follow.
I’ll use myself as an example both ways. You don’t know who I am, and you never will, I’m just a cog in the wheels of society. I was a shitty student, always interested in whatever wasn’t being taught. I became good at working the system instead of working.
When I started working in high school at farms and later in sales, it clicked that the people who worked harder and did a better job… did better. That didn’t always mean money, but it meant respect, better shifts, etc. It was more real to me than academics.
Later on in my professional life, working really hard and delivering more, whatever more was, paid off in innumerable ways. It turns out the way to know what you’re talking about is to do stuff. Now I’m a midcareer director level person and that hard work means when I pick up the phone, someone answers. When there’s a problem or a solution, people listen.
That said, there’s lines I won’t or can’t cross. I won’t sacrifice my family’s life, which is a career ceiling. My mediocre performance as a student effectively locked me out of high end schools and the jobs that follow.