[jp57]

I hate the phrase "hard work". It's so misleading.

When most successful people say that "hard work" is an ingredient in success, they really a combination of traits such as diligence, conscientiousness, and perseverance. "Hard work" is often, but not always, an outcome of being diligent and persevering, but it isn't, by itself, causal of success.

One of the most important things a mentor ever said to me was when my doctoral advisor told me, "no one cares how hard you worked." At the time this was advice about how to compose scientific papers and talks: they should be structured about results and why they're important, and not as a report on your effort. But as advice, it goes way beyond just communications. Really, nobody cares how hard you worked. Now the fact is that sometimes you do have to work really hard to get the things that you want. Other times you don't. But hard work isn't an end in itself.