[twelvechairs]

Samuel Goldwyn obviously never worked in a sweatshop.

More seriously. Lots of people work very 'hard' for (what we would consider) very little compensation. Its more important to work smarter than 'harder' or with more 'effort'. (eg. Sometimes you also need to acknowledge when your efforts are leading nowhere and drop something - this might not be considered 'working hard' - though perhaps it should be)

[kamaal]

>>Samuel Goldwyn obviously never worked in a sweatshop.

And you obviously don't have to be in a sweatshop to work hard. You can work hard as a Janitor, driver, programmer, stock trader, president or whatever.

To be 'lucky' through hard work you've got to be clever enough to pick up the area where you want to work hard.If by any means you can't start where you would have liked, you need to keep moving gradually to the place you would like to go.

My advice: If your hard work doesn't look rewarding in both the long and short term. Iterate quickly, take a quick feedback and play a different game. But whatever game you play work hard while playing it.

EDIT: To all those people who are downvoting. Hard work in the wrong direction doesn't give the results you expect. Is this such a difficult and surprising thing to understand?

[pfarrell]

The best band that came from my college was probably one of the best regional acts as well. For 10 years, they were effectively on a non-stop, nation-wide tour. They were a ska act at a time when ska hit. So, they were right place, right time, and put forth incredible effort.

In the end, they did not get the big record deal, the band fell apart, and they all went on to different things. I've had a hindsight talk with the leader of the band and he's basically said, we thought all our hard work touring would pay off, but we probably should have been working on other things (like marketing and woo-ing labels, I presume).

Kind of OT, but the big change in my career came when I realized that promotions are not rewards for "hard work", moving up comes from demonstrating you'll be more effective at the new job. As a worker, you think that you get promoted as a reward for what you've done, but as a manager, you promote because of what the worker can do in the future.

[sambeau]

Samuel Goldwyn should have gone with:

  "The luckier I got, the luckier I get"

[timwiseman]

It seems there are 3 main factors in success (or lack thereof):

Luck, working smarter, working harder.

Luck is a major factor for everyone, but you can't control it. You can certainly influence working smarter, but it is often a matter of juding in hindsight what was smart rather than determining it before hand. Working harder is much more under our control than the others.

It is important to acknowledge luck. This helps use be humble in our successes, not be too devestated in our failuers, and be compassionate to those less fortunate. It is also just plain true.

It is also important to try to work smart - creating a startup, writing a novel, etc at least has a chance of creating huge rewards and even changing the world...the odds of changing the world from inside the sweatshop you mention are close to nil.

But it is how hard we work that we can mostly control, and there is some truth to Goldwyn's quote...it just isn't all of the truth.

[intellegacy]

I liked your analysis and agree for the most part. But you can't leave out the talent factor, nor the resources/position one starts with. It is possible to be born into success.

[kamaal]

>>It is possible to be born into success.

It definitely is, but it only takes you there. You have carry it from there on.

Most of rich kids feel its their 'right' to be rich, regardless of whether they 'deserve' it or not. I have a lot of friends who inherited crazy fortune from their parents. According to them poor people getting rich due to whatever reason is 'unfair' to them.

Most rich kids just like the status quo to remain unchanged. Their idea of getting rich, is they staying where they are, without much effort and others remaining poor.

[shurane]

Can you expound about "poor people getting rich" being unfair? Where does this sense of entitlement come in for the rich kids?

[kamaal]

When you are born in luxury, you have to do nothing else in life. All you need to do is to ensure you continue to stand where you are, and others stand where they are(To keep your advantage). When that thing gets disturbed, people feel uncomfortable.

From a poor guy's perspective he has to 'rise' no matter how. From a rich guy's perspective he is supposed to stay where he is no matter how. Most rich people think, the poor are poor because they don't deserve to be rich. And they are rich because of a special gift, like a unique blessing which only they are supposed to have as it was given to them at birth.

This is not just restricted to money. This sort of a thing also happens in many other things like for example born-with talents Vs Gathered skills. Naturally talented people don't like others gaining their skill through practice. Because they feel their born-with skill was a special gift they have, some kind of a unique blessing. And you are supposed to get only through that special gift.

Lets say you are a kid with the costliest video game in the neighborhood. You got it because your rich Uncle Joe gave it to you. You pride around telling you are the only guy who has it. You also know nobody else can have it because no one near has a rich uncle Joe. An year later you find another guy having the same video game, which he bought after selling lemonade on the footpath.

Now not only does he have the video game, but he has it without the rich uncle joe. In other words your rich Uncle joe isn't a special distinction you have anymore.

[timwiseman]

Talent is a fair point. So is the resources/position one starts with, but I had considered that one part of luck.