Is Hard Work Enough To Achieve Success In Life?

There are a lot of self help gurus out there professing that you just need to work hard and grind to achieve success. But is that really true? In our latest group coaching call, we asked that question and got some interesting responses:

50% of society thinks success comes from some big moment where everything changes.. One giant lucky magical miracle where you suddenly become rich and happy. The other 50% believe that success only comes from slaving away and breaking theirs backs working and nothing else. Both are wrong.

Success comes when you aren't chasing it. Success is simply finding something you love and have an obsessive passion for. Success is then a side effect of doing what you love and doing it the best. You have to make yourself valuable to someone else. That's how you get money... When you have or can do or sell what people want. And the only way you can cultivate something to its highest potential is when you live and breathe that thing

A lot of people in the comments section here seem to be confusing merely putting in a 40-hour work week at their job with working hard, generally, in all aspects of your life, all day, every day. The kind of "hard work" that Joe is talking about here isn't just working a difficult job for 8 hours, 5 days per week; it is pursuing clear goals and dedicating yourself to self-improvement and success day after day.

If you're done working hard for the day when you clock out of your formal job, you are setting yourself up for a life of failure or mediocrity. If you're not pushing yourself to use as much of your extra-occupational time as wisely and productively as you can, directing your action towards clear goals that you have, then I don't think you're in any position to be telling others about how hard you work simply because you put in a standard, unexceptional 40-hour work week.

I think a good barometer of how dedicated and driven a person is is how they spend their time when they're NOT at work: are you reading and educating yourself, working on projects of yours, exercising, and otherwise working towards self-improvement and accomplishing goals? Or are you wasting your time playing video games, watching TV, scrolling through your social media feeds, hanging out with friends and not really doing anything remarkable, etc?

Wasting time in the wrong career is the truth.  I didn’t waste time being a dental assistant because it enabled me to Australia. I didn’t waste time at my current work place b cause I started looking outside and found gems waiting for me. These are all enablers. In the “wasting time and grey area” are some things you needed in the unfolding of who you are.

I love this. No, money is not everything, but it’s the key to total freedom. Money gives you power over your life to do all those things you think of in your head that would be fun and exciting but then you go, “but I can’t afford that”. You have to have funds to do literally anything. No matter what, having money puts you in a better situation than being poor does. Every time.

Everything in life is a result of luck. We live in a causal, mechanistic universe. Even your ability and willingness to "work hard" is predicated on antecedent causes that we are powerless to control. Some people work very hard, but it's fruitless, depressing work in impoverished areas with low opportunity or incentive. Some people work hard and are paid millions for it.

I don't want Joe (or anyone else) to not enjoy his life with his toys and cars, I just want him to recognize that it's a product of luck and to take that fact into consideration when evaluating himself and others.

Luck and chance are real. Just in this podcast there is a sterling examples. The dude's dad being able to do things no else could because he had the genetics. Genetics is 100% luck and chance, we don't choose that. Neither do we choose whether we are born in a third world country hiding from a rebel group or born in a first world country hiding our allowance from our siblings. We don't choose our talents, family, appearance, etc. But one thing we do choose is our character and mindset, granted you don't have any cognitive problems, but you just need to have a average or even below average cognitive level.

To those saying luck and chance isn't real or hard work beats talent, you gotta be more realistic come on now. But to those who whine and complain all day, wtf is that gonna help with? Sure you can't be the next Lebron James but your layup game can improve. Life is all about doing the best with what we have and not judging others for their circumstances or luck. All that matters in this life is character and mentality because thats the only thing we can truly control. That's the one thing we look back on, how did we handle life. The memories made and challenges we rose up against. The person we were in this world. So don't be a complainer or someone who believes luck and talent aren't factors