"Successfull people have to work like crazy and give up the best things in life"

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

I will tell you a story that I heard at a productivity conference.

....

Then someone else walked over and laughed even more loudly. "At Toyota, we can assemble one car in 58 seconds."

Cute story, though I suspect a portion of this amazing productivity was predicated on the concept of getting low-level workers to work harder and harder for no greater reward except not losing their (sh*tty) job.

So someone is paying the price of this awesome productivity, and it ain't the guys at the top. Of course, if that sort of thing doesn't bother you, then all you need to do is work out how to be one of the guys at the top, earning massive amounts for a 40-hour week, than one of the guys at the bottom, earning a pittance for working exactly the same hours.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Indiana

Cute story, though I suspect a portion of this amazing productivity was predicated on the concept of getting low-level workers to work harder and harder for no greater reward except not losing their (sh*tty) job.

Nope. The gain in productivity is mostly driven by technological improvements. Workers are not actually required to assemble cars anymore.

[carenkh]

This was today's message on the Abraham-Hicks homepage:

If you believe that you must work hard in order to deserve the money that comes to you, then money cannot come to you unless you do work hard. Financial success, or any other kind of success, does not require hard work. It does require alignment of thought. You simply cannot offer negative thought about things that you desire and then make up for it with action or hard work. When you learn to direct your own thoughts, you will discover the true leverage of Energy alignment.

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the book "Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness"

[Talkofthatown919]

i believe that you should sit and talk with a successful person and see what they have to say about your beliefs on success. Not having time is more so not doing what is most important and enjoyable.

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Nope. The gain in productivity is mostly driven by technological improvements. Workers are not actually required to assemble cars anymore.

Ah, I see. So, they did lose their jobs.

[Acting Like Godot]

The lesson here may be that if you don't work smart, you could indeed end up losing your job.

As I have already pointed, working hard is no guarantee of success. Earlier I had given examples of construction workers, factory workers, farmers etc who work hard but remain poor.

[Kaybee]

Everyone has their own definition of what success means and this is definitely not mine. I believe that successful people work smart and incorporate balance in their lives.

I think we all have to dig deep and look within to determine what is important to us and then plan our lives from there.

Thanks for an interesting comment which has sparked plenty of interest.

Kim
What is Success

[caseyg]

I have to agree with the others - I believe your definition of success is limiting, so your view of successful people is as well. Personally, I define my success as happiness, challenge, and balance, so right now I'm successful, if only in my eyes. To others, it may not seem so - I have a "crappy", low-paying job, am in debt, have TONS of baggage, etc. - but I'm moving forward and am working on becoming a better, happier person every day, and so I'm successful. If, to you, success means having money and things, then, yes, lots of people sacrifice for that - but many don't. Just like many "unsuccessful" [by your definition] people sacrifice, and many don't. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Me, I ran the campus newspaper; played chess for the varsity chess team; took part in athletics; performed in musicals and drama performances; organised orientation programmes for freshmen; did a zillion other things (including lose my virginity ) ...

... AND still graduated on the Dean's List for academic excellence.

Man, that's working like crazy to me .

Were you always like this, or did you learn to do all of these things without feeling stressed out?

[Plays With Life]

About working long hours .. someone once told me the French don't believe in overtime. If a deadline approaches, they simply notch up their performance within the same amount of time. They wouldn't dream of staying for longer hours.

That book The Lazy Way To Success comes to mind.

[garentee]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

The lesson here may be that if you don't work smart, you could indeed end up losing your job.

As I have already pointed, working hard is no guarantee of success. Earlier I had given examples of construction workers, factory workers, farmers etc who work hard but remain poor.

Money is but a small part of why people farm though....None of us do it for the money... Many many intangilble aspects to farming... I lead an amazing life, work my arse off,eat very well, and see things that most people do not have the opportunity to see.. I certainly would not trade the past 15 years of farming for anything... especially not money. money does not = happiness,,,nor does it equal success.. success is something that sometimes you cannot see.. but is a feeling

[Brutha]

Take a look at this talk (2 minutes) by Jeff Hawking.

He's one of the few people in the world who are world class in multiple fields.

At the one hand he was founding Palm to make a bit of money.
But his real passion is neuroscience and he wrote a influential book named On intelligence and is now developing articfical intelligence based on those ideas about how the human brain works.

Ah, I see. So, they did lose their jobs.

No, the workers in Detroid lost their jobs, while the workers at Toyota kept theirs.

And Detroid had much more of a work hard philosophy than Toyota.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by garentee

Money is but a small part of why people farm though....None of us do it for the money... Many many intangilble aspects to farming... I lead an amazing life, work my arse off,eat very well, and see things that most people do not have the opportunity to see.. I certainly would not trade the past 15 years of farming for anything... especially not money. money does not = happiness,,,nor does it equal success.. success is something that sometimes you cannot see.. but is a feeling

I know .... None of my examples were perfect, because there must be (I'm sure) very successful farmers, construction workers etc. But I was just trying to make the point that working hard doesn't equate success, because there are lots of hardworking people in the world who are unsuccessful.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by seeker5

Man, that's working like crazy to me .

Were you always like this, or did you learn to do all of these things without feeling stressed out?

Well, looking back, I would say that my varsity life was .... intense. Meaning that while I spent less time on studies than the average law student, the time I did spend was more focused, more intense and more strategic as well.

I cannot say that I was not stressed out during varsity life. But I do not think I was more stressed out than the average law student.

Of course, those were all my pre-LOA days. Nowadays, I still do a lot, but I can honestly say that the majority of the time it's relatively effortless, thanks to the LOA. Just habitually keeping a relaxed yet focused mind works wonders, but on top of all that, with the LOA, many details just fall into place by themselves.

[Acting Like Godot]

THANK YOU for that link ....

Originally Posted by Brutha

Take a look at this talk (2 minutes) by Jeff Hawking.

.... It is directly on point, and discusses the exact topic we have in this thread.

Now, people who still think that hard work is the key to success should REALLY click on the link and listen for two minutes.

[Orecle]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

THANK YOU for that link ....



.... It is directly on point, and discusses the exact topic we have in this thread.

Now, people who still think that hard work is the key to success should REALLY click on the link and listen for two minutes.

As he also said

his engineers put in the hours that he was not

now the question is

WHAT IF THE ENGINEERS ONLY PUT IN THE HOURS THAT HE DID?

For the record, yes hard work is not only putting in long hours.

An under 10 sec/100 meters sprint is very hard and impossible, as is an under 4 min mile as a 26 mile jog at world class level. it is all about the maximum effort

An olympic athlete could do more at 50% than most can do at 100%

some tasks require intense sprints, some require long duration intense runs. im sure the google boys put in more time developin google than maintaining it.

but the question remains when working at the harvard level where talent is neck and neck and they work by the 5% elimination rule, do you put in the hours to get the grade?

At the end of the day, not everyone is talented enough to put in average time and still get a good grade. few of us could do a 4 wk assignment in one night and still get a top mark. But for me, I paid for it big time in Uni

To me hard work
1. Effective, challenging work (running fast)
2. Repetitive time consuming activity (running far)


so jogging might not be hard the first 10 miles, but after a while the same speed starts to wear on you. Now sprinting is hard, which is why it cannot be sustained as long as.

I guess the same can be applied to business, when You are working on high quality projects, you put in long hours for a couple mths, then when the product is released you pull back on the hours.

But the nature of crank widget, hourly compensation jobs is the more hours you do, the more you get.

to act like godot

what is your personal definition of hard work

[Acting Like Godot]

Hard work? To me, it could mean 3 things:

(1) intense work
(2) long hours of working
(3) a combination of (1) and (2).

Anyway, even your sporting examples don't work for me. As mentioned, at varsity I used to compete in athletics. And here once again you see that hard work can be detrimental.

It's not that difficult to find young, serious athletes who are committed to their sport and willing to train hard. It's much more difficult to find young, serious athletes who understand that they can't push themselves all the time.

In sports training, you need your rest days. During actual training, you also need to have some sense of when not to push yourself. Otherwise you get the torn ligament, the bad knee, the tennis elbow, the swimmer's shoulder etc.

The world has many examples of highly talented sportspeople who ruined themselves by working too hard. Liu Xiang, Jennifer Capriati ... all ruined by injury, when still quite young.

Not sure if you're into athletics etc. If you're not, you can google around and check out some recommended training routines for runners. Among other things, you'll see that these routines actually incorporate mandatory "rest days" and also what they call "easy runs" .... Training sessions where you are NOT supposed to work hard.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Orecle

the nature of crank widget, hourly compensation jobs is the more hours you do, the more you get.

You see, to be successful, you don't want to be the guy who works 80 hours a week to produce 80 widgets, and then falls ill with stomach ulcers and high blood pressure.

You want to be the guy who finds a way to work 40 hours a week and produce 120 widgets. And then goes home to play with his children, write a book, take tennis lessons and relax by the beach.

Do you think that it's not possible? Once upon a time, don't forget, Toyota would have taken 2 weeks to assemble one car. Now it's down to 58 seconds.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Orecle

I guess the same can be applied to business, when You are working on high quality projects, you put in long hours for a couple mths, then when the product is released you pull back on the hours.

I also recommend that you read Edward de Bono's book "Simplicity". You might learn a few useful tricks there.

Very often, people who work hard are people who have lost control of their project / work / game / task. They are working hard because they have lost control, and all kinds of complications are arising, and they need to deal with those complications.

People who have the brains and skill to keep good control need not work so hard.

You can see so many instances of this, in everyday life. Eg some corporate meetings stretch on and on for hours, because the chairman of the meeting doesn't know how to get people to focus on the key issues. So the meeting spins on and on, people aren't sure what they are supposed to do or say; and they keep talking and talking, and a lot of it is irrelevant, and time is wasted on idle chatter, random meanderings, interpersonal bickering etc etc and it takes three hours to conclude the meeting.

In the hands of a more capable chairman, the agenda is clear; the issues are identified; the feedback is effectively gathered; the next steps are clearly identified; the communication is in simple, direct language; people understand what needs to be done. Within 30 minutes, the meeting accomplishes a lot.

You may say that the people who sat through the 3-hour meeting had "worked hard". The truth is that the people who did the 30-minute meeting accomplished more.

[Orecle]

Acting like Godot

we are both saying the same thing, but you keep leaning towards the "long hours" part of hard work.

The sports injury example you gave is not fair. you have no proof that they were injured because of hard work. do you have proof that they put in more hours than the champions. or that they pushed themselves harder than anyone else?

Michael Jordan, Kobe bryant and Tiger woods are known for putting in far more hours than their counterparts and yet they didnt have career ending injuries. There are many players who dont put in more than the avarage hrs and they have career ending injuries. peoples tolerance of pain and injury is different.

ie in boxing, some terrific boxers have weak chins that get them knocked/floored with a punch and some mediocre boxers chins cant be stopped with a sledgehammer

overworking yourself is not hard work, thats just naivity. yes i do play sports and recognise the DEFINITE need for a work/rest cycles. the results should always justify the effort put in, whether the results are immediate or in the future. so the reward of digging a ditch doesnt justify the effort in my eyes. but if i was in a recession and needed to feed a family of 8 then i would do it.

lets look at the term OVER WORK. Doing more work than necessary. some people can excell on far less work than others. you are obviously one. but not everyone is like that. there is not a set amount of work, that can universally be classed as hard work. I can run for an hr and half at 10km per hr, easily daily. this is not hard work for me. i meet many people who tell me i am overdoing it

but...... by whose standards ? by whose definition of long and/or intense hours?


remember we both agreed that there are 2 aspects 2 hard work
1. hours
2. intense work

the 1st seem to be favoured by the masses since very few people can get themselves to do intense work. the lucky few can do both intense work for long stretches of time

now we were talking about the production of world class work.

lets take medical students. they put in very long hours doing intense work. my cousin is a barrister in a top london firm where she is one of the few minorities. when she started 8 yrs ago she had to put in the hours to build her reputation. now she depending on the severity of the case she can take it easy some weeks and have weekends off, or she can throw herself into it where she cuts everybody off to really focus

i dont disagree fundamentallly with what you say. i do not see the purpose in putting in 80 hrs to get in what you could have done in 20. but in my opinion when you max out in intensity, you have to make up in hours.

ie

2 cars

prius and an Bmw m5

prius is 75 bhp, m5 is 500bhp

the max output of a prius is 110 miles per hour, the bmw is about 190 mph with the limiter taken off (which any dealer can do at discretion, voiding of warranty and a fee)

since the prius hardest work (110mph) is no where near the bmw, it would have to put in nearly twice the hours to keep up with the BMWs productivity (distance).

in business and in education, the natural ability between the top and the average is immense.

take steve

what he acheived academically is not possible for all r even most (even though i firmly encourage people to try to see their real edge) the ones that might be able to match his output probably could not do it in the same time frame. they could have matched him hour for hour and still come up short.

you mentioned that you put in average hours in your studies at uni and still got good grades. well do you realise how many people put in exactly the same hrs and fell on their faces? do you realise how many people put in the same hours and got much better grades than you?

what i am trying to say in my long drivvle is not everyone can produce high quality productive work. if you cant, until then you will have to put in the hours till you can produce like the big boys (or girls)

or do you really beleive that someone who is already producing mediocre work or even average work and belleives they are at capacity and wants to be world class, should still put in the same 40 hrs a week and hope to get a different result?

so when brian tracy says develop a workaholic mentallity in 21 secrets of millionaires, he was talking guff.

so let me ask you a question

if you wanted to become the best (what ever you do..............in the legal profession) in North America in the next 5 yrs, could you still do it on your current hrs. i am talking so good that there is a waiting list for your services. so good i can google you and i will see your name in business magazines as a top corporate lawyer or something, so good that you are begged to be partner on the most promenent law firms and regular asked to lecture at harvard law school?

[Orecle]

ps. i do beleive as individuals we should all strive for econmic thinking.

ie get more done, more produced in less time. I do beleive in striving for more efficient ways of being effective. i do not beleive in long hrs just for the sake of it. i also beleive if one is putting 70 hrs wkly in a low paying, low satisfaction job, they should go back to education or training to be qualified for a higher value job.

i think nothing will kill an individual faster than long hrs in a tedious job with mediocre pay

as acting like godot says i will rather be the guy who produces 120 widgets in 40hrs, but next yr 120 widgets in 30 hrs or even better I would like to manage the guys who crank widgets or evn own the company and still put in 40. however if i have to notch it up to 60 - 70 to fight off the other widget crankers fighting for manager position then i do what needs doing.

i would rather slog in my 30s and and chill late 40s upwards

you know what breaks my heart? its seeing OAPs in their 70s and 80s working 40 hrs wkly in the supermarket because they cant afford to retire. it happens alot here in England. Alot of oldies cant rretire on their pensions. i have had a few drum in to me work hard in your youth and party abit, so you can really relax in your golden yrs.

[Acting Like Godot]

My point is very simple. Suppose someone asked me, "How can I be more successful in my career?". And suppose I could either tell him:

(1) Work harder; or
(2) Work smarter.

In my opinion, (2) is the much better advice. Everyone can gain benefits by working smarter. The same cannot be said for working harder.

[Orecle]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

My point is very simple. Suppose someone asked me, "How can I be more successful in my career?". And suppose I could either tell him:

(1) Work harder; or
(2) Work smarter.

In my opinion, (2) is the much better advice. Everyone can gain benefits by working smarter. The same cannot be said for working harder.

can you not simulteanously work hard and smart and what is the difference

are you saying people who work hard dont work smart cos that what it looks like you are implying? so what is your opinion on steve article on hard work in the 5 pillars of self discipline

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Orecle

can you not simulteanously work hard and smart and what is the difference

Look at the forum title. "Successful people have to work like crazy and give up the best things in life". I disagree.

Successful people don't necessarily have to work like crazy and don't necessarily have to give up the best things in life.

That is what I'm saying.

are you saying people who work hard dont work smart cos that what it looks like you are implying?

I wouldn't say that all hardworking people don't work smart.

I would say that some of them are like that.

And if a person is constantly overwhelmed with his heavy workload, my advice would not be for him to work harder. My advice would be for him to look for good ideas to get his work done more effectively and easily.

so what is your opinion on steve article on hard work in the 5 pillars of self discipline

I haven't read that.

And actually I don't think Steve works hard. Try asking him. I bet the time he spends blogging per week is way lower than the average time an office worker in his city spends at the office per week.

Yet Steve earns much more than the average worker. And adds more value to the world, I daresay.

[Acting Like Godot]

And actually there is no need for theoretical examples, because everyone can test what I say, in their own daily lives and routines.

Just look at your own work, projects. Pick a specific example from your own life. First, ask yourself: "How long did I take to complete this piece of work?". Say - the answer is "5 hours".

Then ask yourself: "Could I have done it in 4 hours? Three? What would it take, for me to complete it in two hours? One hour? 30 minutes?"

If you simply keep asking yourself that kind of question, you will stumble on lots of great solutions and ideas that you would otherwise not have thought of.

[Brutha]

As he also said

his engineers put in the hours that he was not

now the question is

WHAT IF THE ENGINEERS ONLY PUT IN THE HOURS THAT HE DID?

Who was the person who afterwards got world famous? He or his engineers?

but the question remains when working at the harvard level where talent is neck and neck and they work by the 5% elimination rule, do you put in the hours to get the grade?

At the end of the day, not everyone is talented enough to put in average time and still get a good grade. few of us could do a 4 wk assignment in one night and still get a top mark. But for me, I paid for it big time in Uni

You assume that the amount of work is the only variable that can be changed.

Cal Newport did a lot of surveying of successful students and found that good work habits are a lot more important than the amount of work.

Focus is more important than the amount.

In addition grades at as an undergraduate in universities like the University of Chicago are uncorrelated with later success in life.

are you saying people who work hard dont work smart cos that what it looks like you are implying? so what is your opinion on steve article on hard work in the 5 pillars of self discipline

If you work 80 hours per week you probably don't have the mental capacity to be creative anymore and come up with good new ideas.

Other people like Tim Ferris and Nassim Taleb that I intellectually respect also don't like the concept of working long hours.
Both rather talk about focusing on that work that really matters.

now we were talking about the production of world class work.

lets take medical students. they put in very long hours doing intense work.

By the very definition of world class, most medical students aren't world class.

And actually I don't think Steve works hard. Try asking him. I bet the time he spends blogging per week is way lower than the average time an office worker in his city spends at the office per week.

I think Steve spends less than 20 hours/week blogging but it's not the only thing Steve is doing.

[Orecle]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Who was the person who afterwards got world famous? He or his engineers?

this statement is pointless as he owned the company anyway, so regardless he would have the glory. the real question is if the engineers put in 40hrs like he did would they have the result

Originally Posted by Brutha

You assume that the amount of work is the only variable that can be changed.

no, you assume that i assume that. as i said earlier if you bothered to read my posts. there is doing effective work irrespective of the hours and there is putting in the hours.

you can put in plenty hrs on ineffective work
little hour on ineffective work
plenty hours on effective work
little hours on effective work

Originally Posted by Brutha

Cal Newport did a lot of surveying of successful students and found that good work habits are a lot more important than the amount of work.

So what?
are you saying you cant have good work habits and long hours? pls where is your evidence. So all the athletes and students who put in long hrs and excel all dont have good study habits, no?

Originally Posted by Brutha

Focus is more important than the amount.

heres what you conveniently neglect, NOT ALL ACTIVITIES REQUIRE LASER LIKE FOCUS. What do you think habits are? alot of jobs are repetitive. alot of Jobs require repeating the same procedure day in , day out. Sales for i nstance is a numbers game. as brian tracy who i respect and is respected in business says if you want to double your sales, then double the time you spend in front of prospects

Originally Posted by Brutha

In addition grades at as an undergraduate in universities like the University of Chicago are uncorrelated with later success in life.
.

Not every study pans out in real life. I find your use of this study surprising in light of the fact that you see higher education as unneccesary. even though I can point you to evidence that says graduates on average earn more than non-graduates - at least in north amearica and the uk

Originally Posted by Brutha

If you work 80 hours per week you probably don't have the mental capacity to be creative anymore and come up with good new ideas

This is your opinion. you simply do not know enough of the worlds population to confidently claim this. Love the way you use the word probably

Originally Posted by Brutha

Other people like Tim Ferris and Nassim Taleb that I intellectually respect also don't like the concept of working long hours.
Both rather talk about focusing on that work that really matters.

Good for them. i prefer to focus on effectiveness as well. but if i need to throw hours at something like steve said in 5 pillars of self discipline, i will do it

Originally Posted by Brutha

By the very definition of world class, most medical students aren't world class.
I think Steve spends less than 20 hours/week blogging but it's not the only thing Steve is doing.

well that could be said for any field. but the world class medical and business people all threw hours at their work when they were coming up. according to business expert brian tracy most self made millionaires do 59 hours weekly

by the way, even if steve works those hours now, if you have followed steve over the years you know he is not afraid to put in the hours when a deadline is looming.

ps malcolm gladwell in his book outliers says there is strong evidence that asian kids do better than american because they do 80 more days a year in school.

but the most profound bit of the book was that many of the world class successes have logged at least 10000 hours in their field. he even beleieves the hours logged on the job is a significant contributer for their success

[Acting Like Godot]

Excuse me, Orecle. You aren't the only guy who reads Brian Tracy, you know. I like the man's books too.

Try reading his book "Focal Point". Maybe then you will understand what Brutha and I are saying.

[Brutha]

Not every study pans out in real life. I find your use of this study surprising in light of the fact that you see higher education as unneccesary. even though I can point you to evidence that says graduates on average earn more than non-graduates - at least in north amearica and the uk

Cause and effect isn't very clear in that area.
Rich people finance their children a college education and also provide all sorts of other support to them.

but the most profound bit of the book was that many of the world class successes have logged at least 10000 hours in their field. he even beleieves the hours logged on the job is a significant contributer for their success

The key term is deliberate practice.
Not every hour counts. I would heavily doubt that you will find many people who put in 80 hours of deliberate practice per week.

On the other hand you can get your 10000 hours theoretically in 5 years a 50 weaks a 40 hours.

In general you however think that people take rougly ten years to ammess their 10000 hours of deliberate practice with equals rougly 20 hours per week.

When you work completely out of habit you aren't putting in deliberate practice.
80 hours per week on autopilot might boil down to one hour of real deliberate practice per week.

Not every study pans out in real life. I find your use of this study surprising in light of the fact that you see higher education as unneccesary.

I haven't said that I find higher education unnecessary.
I'm actually a student, but I'm not primarily focused on grades.

So what?
are you saying you cant have good work habits and long hours? pls where is your evidence. So all the athletes and students who put in long hrs and excel all dont have good study habits, no?

I don't doubt that there are people who work long hours that are successful.

Sales for i nstance is a numbers game. as brian tracy who i respect and is respected in business says if you want to double your sales, then double the time you spend in front of prospects

Oh, he didn't say "double the time you work per week" but instead "double the time doing the thing that creates the most leverage, which is being in front of prospects"?
But then I don't know much about sales.

you simply do not know enough of the worlds population to confidently claim this. Love the way you use the word probably

Do you prefer black & white judgement over using scientific language?

There are multiple factors involved in success and no single factor will determine whether you are successful or aren't.
If you optimise a single factor you will increase the probablity of becoming successful.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Orecle

are you saying you cant have good work habits and long hours?

You really can't. Long hours ARE a bad work habit.

Among other things, if you keep working long hours, basically you ruin your health. Long hours at work lead to migraines, ulcers, high blood pressure, intestinal bowel syndrome, nervous breakdown, cardiac infarctions etc etc. Unfortunately there's not much you can accomplish from a hospital bed.

When you work long hours, the quality of your work also suffers. Don't ask me for proof - you can test it for yourself. Why don't you try working so hard that you get only 5 hours of sleep per night for two weeks? See whether you can even think straight thereafter.

Look at Richard Branson. When does he get his best business ideas? Read his biography. It's when he runs away to live by himself on his desert island. He relaxes, gets away from his daily routine, goes trekking on the island, swimming in the sea, relaxing on the beach. And that's when he gets his best ideas.