Why does society indoctrinate us with the idea 'Hard Work is the key to success'?

[Parththakkar12]

This isn't true. The reality is, good professional/financial relationships is the key to success.

[Leo Gura]

Hard work is very important to success. But so is smart work. You gotta work in the right ways, not picking strawberries.

Lots of people work hard but not smart, so they stay poor.

[Parththakkar12]

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Hard work is very important to success. But so is smart work. You gotta work in the right ways, not picking strawberries.

Lots of people work hard but not smart, so they stay poor.

Empirically, maybe what you're saying is true. Technically though, I'd argue with this.

My claim here is that it doesn't technically matter how hard you work. Technically speaking, Success=making the sale. You make one big sale/deal, you could be all set! Making that sale though would require you to take ownership of the professional relationship and really understand what the other party needs from you, and have a good professional relationship.

What do you think? Where would hard work fit into this model?

 

[Preety_India]

Most jobs and successful careers and positions need a ton of hard work. 

The only think I can think of where a one time sale will make you super rich is something like stocks, a large house or a piece of art, a music album or drugs. 

These things are either illegal or they need family inheritance which means a jackpot or unbelievable talent like a specially unique talent that nobody has like a unique voice. 

But even then to continue building wealth, you'll need to work hard in the chosen career. 

Most people who get rich quick are usually into something illegal. Impossible otherwise or they have some influence which is again illegitimate or illegal. 

You could get rich overnight but to maintain your legacy you'd still need to work hard. 

If not hard work, then you'll need an exceptional skill, ability or talent to compensate for the lack of hard work. 

Even tapping the market and making a sale is a skill and not everyone has it. 

 

Relationships do help a lot. But most people don't have such connections. They just can't be in high places meeting those people. Plus there's no guarantee that your career will kick off just because of great relationships. Most people want to be associated with lawyers, bankers, movie stars, producers but despite their good relations they don't achieve much success and sometimes nothing at all. 

To me success is defined more by what you become rather than what you collect or achieve. 

But in the real world success is measured by stuff you get or positions you climb, but there is no set rule for it, so many people are considered rich and successful just because they have rich famous parents. 

It means nothing to me. Personal growth is more important to me than achieving something. 

Success is just another trap if it's devoid of personal growth. 

 

[Leo Gura]

Serious success requires lots of failure, which usually requires lots of work.

You're going to fail a lot before your get that sale.

The secret is to fail more, fail faster.

[electroBeam]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Serious success requires lots of failure, which usually requires lots of work.

You're going to fail a lot before your get that sale.

can attest to that. My startup has been running for 3 years now and 10 000 or more cold calls + hard iteration work and we still haven't got that sale yet.

[Parththakkar12]

Ah okay. I found a semantic gap. When I asked the original question, my definition of hard work was : grind-work you don't want to do but do anyways cuz you 'have to'. When you say hard work you mean long hours of work. This I'd be on the same page with.

[The observer]

causality is an illusion there is no key to success its all a matter of luck even if u try to be smart and come up with a list of things that can be done to get u closer to success or money ur still bullshitting urself 

some ppl are born rich and theres no changing that and some ppl are born poor and theres no changing that and theres rich and poor ppl and ppl in between that change with time but that does not mean any thing irl

of course thats not to say u should stop working u can do what ever u want and still be poor or u can do what ever u want and become rich but the bottom line is that its not up to u not 1% nor 99% its 100% out of ur control or choice 

Edited April 17, 2020 by The observer

[Hello from Russia]

20 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

can attest to that. My startup has been running for 3 years now and 10 000 or more cold calls + hard iteration work and we still haven't got that sale yet.

Wait what? You had 10 000 cold calls and still haven't sold a thing within 3 years span? Isn[t it a clear sign your business model\offer is not working at all?

[electroBeam]

@Hello from Russia we've iterated through dozens of business models and product iterations.

People understimate how challenging startups are

[sholomar]

Part of it is how you define success. Everyone has a different definition. For most people where I work success is raising their family which typically requires working 60 hours a week. For me I live minimalist because I like to spend more time learning my electric guitar, or going out in nature being mindful, or admittedly wasting more time in front of a screen than I should be, but I'm working on that. haha.

For success in the world, I would agree that people skills and social connections are the single most important skill to have. It also helps to have some level of self mastery, meaning the ability to delay gratification and pick long term sources of pleasure over short term sources of pleasure. I like to use Leo's video on the "happiness spectrum" as a good guide here. Self mastery itself is hard... cultivating new habits takes work. The body naturally wants to take the path of least resistance.

Edited April 17, 2020 by sholomar

[DivineSoda]

Leo's right, hard work is important. But that's not why they raise you that way. It's not so you can become the best version of yourself. It's to make you into an obedient worker/consumer. It goes something like this: 

 

[Parththakkar12]

At Stage Blue, I understand that hard work is considered virtuous and it's important just to survive. At Stage Orange, I understand that in a competitive world, you have to defend your ass against competitors trying to take away your lunch. So it takes a lot of hard work to be the best in the field.

Enter Stage Green, does this change? Is it possible to have a life purpose in which you aren't working hard cuz you're paranoid about survival?

I'll give you an example. I'll tell you how I buy consumer goods. If I see something I really really like, subconsciously my decision to buy it has already been made. If it's really expensive, I'll hem and haw a little about whether I want to spend the money, but buy it I will! For example, say a watch. I'll be really drawn to a specific watch, even though there's similar watches 'competing' with it alongside. If you ask me to compare the watches, I'll say 'All of them are good watches.' But I'll spend my money on only a specific watch.

The point I'm making here is that I connected with the taste of the specific designer of the watch I bought, but it didn't happen with the other watches. It's the relationship between me (the consumer) and the watch company (the seller) that really drove home the sale! There was no competition there on an energetic level, even though there may have been physically speaking. You can say that the other watch companies failed, and the company of the watch I bought succeeded in the competition. But maybe if you look at it energetically more closely, you'll see that I didn't fit their bill when it comes to their target consumer whereas I fit the bill of the company whose watch I bought.

When it comes to picturing your ideal consumer and trying to connect with their need you're trying to meet, that's not necessarily hard work. That involves intuition, genuinely caring about meeting their need and putting in the work to do so. In fact, if you work too hard, maybe you'll miss important details like this!

This discussion has gone into territory that doesn't necessarily belong in this sub-forum. Feel free to move it to the right one.

[tenta]

Looking at the lives of successful people can contradict advice like this, you can point to hard work but that would be ignoring many other factors that made someone succeed, so it would be wrong assuming that the reason others don't succeed is because of not working hard enough.

Do successful people fail? Not really, successful people can fail at a task but aren't failing and haven't failed in the sense that they're losers or struggled as failures for a longer amount of time, have bad genetics etc.

[Moreira]

-work hard dude!

-go to college or you'll me a mr nobody!

-be very nice with women and give them compliments!

-work a lot and youll get raised in yor job!

Boomer social conditioning... thats it

[GodDesireOnlyLove]

@DivineSoda

got this on repeat since months dude.

100% sure of this vibe I got from you was real.

click on this movie on repeat, that's as powerful and beautiful as a psychedelic trip.
 

[DivineSoda]

@GodDesireOnlyLove Yea I think the entire planet would benefit to program themselves with content like that. 

[GodDesireOnlyLove]

@DivineSoda i m doing myself Electronic music since 5 years. Vidéo as a teenager. and drawing hard everyday since 2 years. 

I wish one day actualise it all in such a beautiful work.  Something so inspiring all you can do is crying with tears of joy.

Makes me vibrate'.. the dead shit we are mostly now.. orange shit.. this is just fast food to my mind. 

So anyway if I do it or not. My art has to be inspiring. Love is the only work we strive for.

Dont't hard work people just love fucking more.

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by GodDesireOnlyLove

[Parththakkar12]

Another point to this : This is linked with the societal definition of a 'real man'. This definition is 'A man is defined by what he does, not who he is. If you work hard, you're a hard-working, good, honest man. If you don't work hard and lazily sit around, you're an incompetent man-child!' The reason for having this definition is that traditional society values hard-working, productive, morally honest men, but doesn't really have the money to pay them. So, they link it to approval/moral standing. Now of course, our society has been built by men for men, that's why the norm.

Also, money is linked to greed, like 'The most moral thing to do is to humbly work according to what your authority says and not ask for raises, not be greedy for money. Chasing money is a corruption of the mind!'