Business gurus are fond of saying, “Work smarter – not harder.”
But I don’t know … I think there is something to be said for hard work.
Assuming you and I work equally smart, I’d think whichever one of us worked the hardest would come out ahead. Hard work is good for what ails you.
When your business or job isn’t going the way you want it to, buckle down and redouble your efforts. You’ll be more productive, and at least some of your extra efforts will be rewarded – and hard work will have saved the day.
Goethe wrote, “Whoever strenuously endeavors, him we can rescue”. Combine hard work with persistence – never giving up – and the odds of you getting the result you want increase geometrically.
Ironically, a lot of people who work hard like to pretend that they don’t. A famous Internet marketer, in promoting his programs, boasts about how you can make a six figure income in Internet marketing with hardly any work. But I happen to know that this guy works at least 12 hours a day, 6 days a week – and often late into the night.
A famous copywriter is pictured lounging in his pool in a magazine profile of him. Yet he seems to be continually at his PC banging out successful ad after successful ad for his clients.
Most things that are worth having or achieving require hard work. If they were easy, everyone would have them.
Hard work alone does not guarantee success. You also have to work smart, of course. But if you are not willing to put your nose to the grindstone, your chances of failure are large indeed.
Business or career floundering? Not where you want it to be? Work twice as hard. You may get twice the results.
In praise of hard work – and bursting a few falsely inflated balloons. Quoted from Bob Bly, whose words I have now been reading since the ’70s.
About the Author
In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.
He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.
Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.
He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.
Good advice. It also depends on what counts as work–surely studying “Scientific Advertising” (a joy) is not equivalent to roofing (a horror)– even though the former is more profitable in the long run.
Excellent advice. Perhaps I'll take it… after I'm done lounging around my pool… [grin]
One of two things regarding hard work:
1. Essentially you hate the work you’re doing and you must make a virtue of this necessity. This is part of the inevitable hypocrisy of society that has made of word their religion, since they’ve no choice in the matter.
2. You love your work, so that “hard work” here is not the same as is the case in no. 1, hence it is superfluous and a bit suffocating to moralize about it.
Did you ever hear a great violinist moralize about how much hard work it was to practice 8 hours a day? Of course not.
Moreover: “que rico es hacer nada y después descansar!”