Successful people will always tell you that hard work always pays off.
In reality, working longer hours and giving much more effort will most likely not get you to the top but should get you pretty near.
In fact, a lot of people nowadays tell you to work smart and not hard. But it’s not really this easy to work smart, even when you ask those who do, how they do it, you’ll pretty much get nothing, most of them just do it intuitively, it’s like a built-in function.
Practice Makes Perfect
Probably everyone born from the industrial revolution till the mid-nineties have been raised to the blue-collar code of ethics and hard work, believing that working for long hours will always lead to success. However, there are a lot of factors that could define smart work to reconsider that usually make things flow much easier, and would benefit you personally as well, like taking your time, reprioritizing, in turn leading to more productivity, and not lastly but most importantly, getting some “Me time”.
These factors, and others, are usually indicators of a smart worker, one who doesn’t dedicate all his time to work, or at the least bit doesn’t imply or believe that in order to be successful, one has to work more and more hours.
The facts are, if you work hard, you have less time for yourself but a higher probability of success, and if you work smart, you get your personal time, and a relatively less, but sometimes equal probability of success…..
Not to be a buzzkill, but the most successful ones don’t go for only one way of those.
Rising from the relics of the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, the work mentality started shifting towards smart work; where time management, creative thinking, and multitasking started replacing the tireless, self-denying work ethic, where the focus shifted to productivity and efficiency rather than quality or quantity.
“Those at the top of the mountain didn’t fall there.” – Unknown
Some research suggests that the average wake-up time of CEOs is 6:15 AM, with many waking up even before 5 AM, and most of them devote a couple of hours after dinner for work. Alexis Ohanian, Reddit founder, credits coffee for his success in his book “Without Their Permission”.
Daniel Schwarts, CEO of Restaurant Brands International, the parent company of Burger King, says in an interview that he only hires hard workers with humility, like his parents, his biggest influence. One has to work hard and be respectful to accomplish things.
Basically, the most influential figures would still advise you to work hard; Elon Musk, Co-founder of SpaceX and Tesla CEO, says that you have to work twice as hard as everyone else.
Carlos Ghosn, Nissan & Renault CEO, said that he works at least 65 hours/week, with 48 hours per month in the air, flying over 24,000 km a year.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO, starts emailing people from 4:30 AM, and it has been told that he’s the first to arrive at the office and last to leave. He even used to prepare for Mondays with Sunday night meetings!
“There are no magical fixes, it’s all up to you. So get up off your keister and get out of here, and go start doing the work.” – Dr. Bob Kelso from Scrubs
All those people have worked really hard to get the perfect blend of hard and smart work. That’s what you should do! Go make an effort, wake up early, give all you got in your work practice working smarter -let’s face it, there’s always smarter, harder, longer, and better.