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How to succeed? Work harder than everyone else.

8K views 73 replies 45 participants last post by  liveswithbirds 
#1 ·
Saw this article pop up on my Facebook feed:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/self-made-millionaires-agree-how-many-hours-you-should-grant-cardone

Interesting stuff that can be applied to the indie life, since we're all entrepreneurs at one level or another.

Self-made millionaire and "Shark Tank" star Daymond John has a similar perspective. Ultimately, the secret to success boils down to one thing, says John: "Work. Bust your butt. Get up before everybody, go to sleep after everybody, and bust your butt. That's it."
 
#2 ·
Self-made millionaire and "Shark Tank" star Daymond John has a similar perspective. Ultimately, the secret to success boils down to one thing, says John: "Work. Bust your butt. Get up before everybody, go to sleep after everybody, and bust your butt. That's it.
Yeah, but I've seen indies who've busted their butt to get 30+ books out in just a few years who are barely making $300/month. You have to work smart.
 
#3 ·
I don't really agree with this.

I listen to a lot of interviews and read books by entrepreneurs and self-development coaches. Some advocate waking up super early and working really hard. Some say they spend less time working on their own business (something they enjoy) than they did on their past grinding day job.

My bestfriends friend works on her laptop in Thailand and she is making six figures. She is the first person to tell people she has never had such a relaxing career in her life.

I have met a couple millionaires recently through my friend. One guy said he worked 12+ hours a day to get his business off the ground. The other one said he found an easier way to make money on the internet and he has never worked more than 4 hours a day.

Entrepreneur, author and publisher Marc Allen talks about not working hard and becoming very successful. Listen to this interview, it is so inspiring. He does talk about 'the law of attraction' and he has written books on the subject.

.

There are numerous success stories like Marc Allens. Some of these people are writers too.

Everyone has a different path to success. Some people work 80 hours a week and some work 25 hours a week. Some people give up time with family and friends to get their business going and some don't.
I can show you people who work really hard to try to make it in different fields and some haven't achieved the success they want.

I believe in working smart, not hard.
 
#5 ·
I have trouble taking things seriously that start with "self-made millionaire."

People love to be able to quantify their success and show how a) it was all their actions and b) anyone can do it.

I think the motivation is usually to be helpful, but sometimes to blow their own horn and they almost never credit the things outside of their control that fell into place that contributed to their success.

Sadly, there are so many of these sorts of articles and so many people looking for the magic secret to success, that these articles get devoured as roadmaps to success.

Sure, you have to work hard.  But that doesn't guarantee you'll be a "self-made millionaire."  (Interestingly enough, the authors I know who've made a million or more at writing never refer to themselves as self-made millionaires...)
 
#6 ·
C. Gockel said:
Yeah, but I've seen indies who've busted their butt to get 30+ books out in just a few years who are barely making $300/month. You have to work smart.
Yep. There are hundreds of stories on forums, blogs, social media etc... People who put in hours of work, who try their hardest to write the best book they can and still cannot make enough to cover their basic bills.

I can point out millionaires from all different backgrounds and people who are making money in such diverse ways.
 
#7 ·
Thanks of for posting Jim.

I think the point of the article is that if you want to be somewhere far beyond where you are now, you've got to hustle. It may work, it may not, but most of us have to put in the time.
 
#8 ·
The fact that many people work hard and still do not succeed has very little bearing on the basic premise.  To say it takes hard work to succeed is not the same thing as saying, if you work hard, you're guaranteed success.

People get lucky sometimes, and a few others are maybe that much smarter and more capable, and manage to succeed without putting in hellish hours.  But the vast majority of those who've achieved financial success, as writers and in every other field, have worked like dogs.

This is notwithstanding what self-appointed gurus will say.  Honestly, from their point of view, it's easier to sell people what they want to hear that to preach reality. 

Writers can pick out people who are functionally lottery winners to emulate, but without the requisite extraordinary luck, they are likely to be disappointed.  Hard work is no guarantee, but it increases your chances exponentially, and honestly, I think it isn't right to tell people anything else.

Just look at most very successful indies.  How many of them put out four, five, or even more books a year?  How many of them market themselves and stay abreast of what works?  I think you'll find that most of those who've reached high sales and earnings levels have done it by relentlessly working on release after release.

None of this is to say that someone with other obligations is a bad person or a bad writer.  But it is simply a fact that without the long hours, your chances of hitting high sales levels are vastly reduced.

I just read an old article about Nora Roberts.  She wrote 23 books her first three years.  So, this is nothing new (and, yes, someone is going to point out some other big author who struck it rich on a first book and proceeded to write subsequent volumes every year or two...but that's a lottery winner again).
 
#12 ·
The harder you work, the luckier you get.  Not sure who said that originally, but it sure seems to be true.

The people in Indie publishing that I know who are making serious money, like 500k-3 million plus....are also the hardest working people I know. Not necessarily in terms of hours spent. You don't have to put in 60+ hours. It's all about working really smart and being disciplined about how you work, being consistent, taking advantage of opportunities that come your way. Taking calculated risks.
 
#13 ·
David Wisehart said:
Working hard is necessary, but not sufficient.
I've known over a dozen millionaires and a couple billionaires (ie. knew them well enough to see how they think and behave). And in the time I spent around them the things that mattered most to them were:

1) Timing (especially the billionaires, they considered this the ultimate determinant of success. They were utterly obsessed with entering a market at just the right time. Get the timing wrong and it doesn't matter how hard you work, you'll likely lose to someone else who got their timing right. Bad timing either too early or too late = massive cash burn)
2) Access to capital (this was more important to the millionaires, for obvious reasons. But even the billionaires were always looking for others to dump their money into their venture...why risk just your own when you can risk others also.)
3) Once you commit, it's all or nothing. They don't waiver and the notion of failure never crosses their minds.

The notion of working hard is, as you say, something they all recognize as necessary. No one talks about it as a key to success because it's common to all who succeed.

What's funny about this thread though is PLENTY of people succeed only to fail and lose everything later. If it were as simple as working hard that would not happen. If it were as simple as "smarts" then if they were smart enough to make millions once, repeating it would be easy.

For those who succeed and later fail, it's always these other variables that kill them. They get their timing wrong. Or they lose access to liquidity pools (or the competition gets access to bigger liquidity pools). Or (as I think is happening in the SP industry) their offering commodifies and the balance sheet simply blows up (but really, this is a subset of the timing variable or misjudging the fluctuations in the market... pushing hard when you should be reverting to lean and mean to survive, or vice versa).

All to say, success at anything is DAMN hard and depends on so many variables that it's a bit silly to simpy boil it down to hard work.
 
#14 ·
Jay Allan said:
Writers can pick out people who are functionally lottery winners to emulate, but without the requisite extraordinary luck, they are likely to be disappointed. Hard work is no guarantee, but it increases your chances exponentially, and honestly, I think it isn't right to tell people anything else.
There you go talking sense again, Jay. There's obviously a certain level of luck that's involved in all of this, but most people find that the harder they work, the luckier they get. You never know when you're moment is going to come, but you have to be ready when it does, and that starts with hard work.
 
#17 ·
MyraScott said:
I have trouble taking things seriously that start with "self-made millionaire."

People love to be able to quantify their success and show how a) it was all their actions and b) anyone can do it.

I think the motivation is usually to be helpful, but sometimes to blow their own horn and they almost never credit the things outside of their control that fell into place that contributed to their success.

Sadly, there are so many of these sorts of articles and so many people looking for the magic secret to success, that these articles get devoured as roadmaps to success.

Sure, you have to work hard. But that doesn't guarantee you'll be a "self-made millionaire." (Interestingly enough, the authors I know who've made a million or more at writing never refer to themselves as self-made millionaires...)
The countdown is at T-21.2 weeks, approximately. Some time around my birthday in November, I should hit seven figures in writing income. But, no way will I be a "self-made millionaire." If it was all on my own, I'd still be driving a truck. I have great covers, but I didn't make them. I'm not a scholar and don't really know much about writing, but my editors and proofreaders do. Early on, the only way I knew to get proper chapter breaks was to upload, check the online previewer, count and insert needed lines, to push the chapter to a new page. Page breaks? Never heard of 'em. I now have a fantastic formatter, who makes my books look legit.

And don't even get me started on just being d@mned lucky. Good fortune is a huge part of what makes a lot of people successful. But as Pasteur once said, "Chance favors the prepared mind." Having the infrastructure of a solid business model in place when Lady Luck does smile at you, is a huge part of the equation. Knowing what she looks like is another. That brass ring could come around a dozen times, but unless you recognize her, and are prepared for what she brings, few will ever meet her.

Hard work? Yeah, absolutely. But, meth manufacturers work pretty hard, too. Our prisons are full of hard working career criminals and they have lots of time to plan their next job. So, hard work alone isn't all that's required to be successful.
 
#18 ·
Wayne Stinnett said:
The countdown is at T-21.2 weeks, approximately. Some time around my birthday in November, I should hit seven figures in writing income. But, no way will I be a "self-made millionaire." If it was all on my own, I'd still be driving a truck. I have great covers, but I didn't make them. I'm not a scholar and don't really know much about writing, but my editors and proofreaders do. Early on, the only way I knew to get proper chapter breaks was to upload, check the online previewer, count and insert needed lines, to push the chapter to a new page. Page breaks? Never heard of 'em. I now have a fantastic formatter, who makes my books look legit.
You're selling yourself short. You're the very model of a self-made millionaire, Wayne. I don't think self-made millionaire means "do everything by myself." I think it means being smart about time and money and hiring subcontractors to do the work you can't do yourself to support your goals. You created the product yourself, and hired cover artists and editors and so forth to make it a more complete product.

Jeff Bezos didn't program the Amazon storefront. He hired people to do that for him. :)
 
#19 ·
Joseph Bradshire said:
Lol, Wayne. You're my favorite kind of millionaire. Did the work, hit the homeruns.

As for fun 'hardwork' examples I like to use the strawberry pickers example. It's such hard work, I've never seen an American born person last past lunch the 2nd day. Not in at least a decade. Immigrant labor is the all we can get. Doesn't matter how much we pay. The more we pay, the more likely we are to get immigrants coming from the watermelon and onion fields over to our strawberry fields. When the borders get tight (they did under Obama, but that's not widely reported) there is a worker shortage, despite high unemployment rates in the country and wages at double minimum wage. We have to appeal to the prisons for labor, but even those guys can't pick for more than half a day or so. We use them for planting only.

My point is, it's not hard work as much as it's focused work on something you are good at that can or does make you good money. That's a lot different than 'hard work'. I've mentioned it before, but Jordan Peterson the social scientist has lectures on it. He calls it 'conscientiousness'. It's as much about focus as it is about effort. It's the number 1 factor we can actually control that can make a real difference.
I don't think anything I've done could be considered a home run, Joe. A few doubles and a triple, maybe. But, all except the first book were good solid base hits.

I never picked strawberries, but when I was a younger man, I picked oranges. Not back breakinf, but climbing up a 20' ladder with a 3' canvas orange bag over your shoulder, that unfolds to 6' can be a rough day. Coming down the ladder, with a 150 pound bag over your shoulder really makes the ladder shake. I also baled hay for a summer. Late in the day, when the hay is stacked six bales high in the barn, the bales you're unloading seem to weigh twice what they did in the morning. I once told Judge Platt (the landowner) that he should put shelves in the barn, so the heavier bales could go on the bottom.
 
#21 ·
SteveHarrison said:
If working hard was the key to success, the world would have far more rich people than poor people.
QFT. x1000

Joseph Bradshire said:
Sorry to spam the thread, but this topic is something that hits me because I have a grandparent worth hundreds of millions. He never did anything of note with his life. Never built anything, invented anything or did anything truly difficult or noteworthy.

What he did do was inherit the family farm right outside the city limits, selling it for millions as the city exploded, then bought tech stocks on his broker's advice before the huge bubble in the 90's. 5 years later he's got more money than god.

Good for him, except a few times a year I get to hear 'hardwork' lectures from him. I have a doctorate, I've passed the bar, I've started and run my own law office, I know how to focus and achieve big [crap]. Still, the whole family looks to him for advice like he's some oracle. He especially likes to lecture teenagers who ask him if he'll help with or maybe start a college fund. Nope. Take out loans or skip education altogether. It builds character. Plus, he'll often say, "Just look at me, I never even graduated from high school and I'm very successful."

Lol. /rant
Unfortunately, for every self-made wealthy person (millionaire, or whatever), there's at least one--if not more--like your progenitor, who have had things more or less handed to them on a platter. (Or, as the saying goes, "born on third base and thought he hit a triple.") And unfortunately, as you say, they're the ones who are looked to for advice and guidance. ::)
 
#22 ·
This topic is near and dear to my heart, and I've argued it back and forth across the internet. One side believes that hard work is a necessary ingredient in success. The other counters that hard work doesn't guarantee success.

That's absolutely true. Not everyone who 'made it' consider the work they did to get there hard. It's also true that people can bust their ass for years, and never find the success they're after.

Hard work is a necessary ingredient in success. Every last person who had a novel take off...wrote a freaking novel. I realize this place gives us a skewed perspective, but very, very few authors ever finish a manuscript, much less edit it into something they can sell.

Carolynn pointed out that you also need to work smart, and I completely agree. Endless optimization of your process, and sitting eternal vigil over your craft are both examples of working smart. The more we improve at this, the faster and better we write stories.

Some people have less time to write and market than others. As long as they're always working to improve their craft and marketing, then they're working smart. If they keep writing like that, the day will come when they don't need that day job any more.
 
#23 ·
Chris Fox said:
Some people have less time to write and market than others. As long as they're always working to improve their craft and marketing, then they're working smart. If they keep writing like that, the day will come when they don't need that day job any more.
Great comments as always, Chris. This one made me think of an aside--it seems that a lot of the successful authors quit their day job to focus on their writing career, but don't call their writing business their new 'day job'. Maybe it's just semantics? How do you refer to your full-time writing job?
 
#24 ·
Joseph Bradshire said:
Yeah I think a lot of the time the differing opinions are semantic. A confusion of terms.

I prefer the term 'focus' or direction. It just seems to fit better than 'hardwork' or 'smart work'. Finishing books, for me, isn't as hard as a season in the berry fields. But focusing on farm work wouldn't get me very far no matter how hard I worked at it, focusing on my writing has and will get me further.
Good point. I'm reminded of something Dean Wesley Smith said in one of his lectures--"writing isn't 'hard work'. If you want hard work, dig ditches for a living." Sitting in a room and making stuff up and getting it down on paper isn't hard work. It's harder to make a living at it, but the writing itself isn't exactly manual labor. Having done both, I'd rather click keys than turn wrenches.
 
#25 ·
I was raised in a restaurant family, so that means I started working 25 hours a week in the restaurant when I was 14. I was expected to keep up my grades and work, sometimes picking up extra shifts when someone called in sick. It was never something I complained about. It was simply something that was expected. When my great-uncle was killed in a train accident, my cousin and I were taken out of school and expected to run the restaurant ourselves (we were sixteen at the time) for a week. It wasn't something they debated. It was just something that happened.
I've always had a good work ethic. For me, hard work is something that can be controlled. I'm a control freak. My last year as a reporter I worked forty hours a week there and another forty hours on my books when I got home to build something that I could live on. Was it hard? Yes. Would I recommend it to someone else? No. I've come to find, though, that other people don't measure "hard work" the same way I do. I'm something of a freak when it comes to gauging hard work. I'm not simply talking about authors either. I'm talking about people I used to work with at my old job. There were people there who thought they should only have to write one story a week and that was hard work. I lapped them when it came to production and I often got complaints from them because they accused me of trying to make them look bad. They honestly thought they were working hard, though, while I found their work ethics dumbfounding.
Before anyone jumps on me, I'm not saying that anyone who doesn't produce as much as me is lazy. I don't believe that. I simply think that people have different goals and different levels of work they're willing to expend. I am hyper-efficient. It's just how I was built.
I'm old school. I like the work and I'm fine doing it. I can control the work, which I like. Thats just me, though. I understand everyone doesn't want to work the same way and that's why this is such a great field. There are all different types of processes and approaches. Things work differently for different people.
 
#26 ·
I don't know. It works both ways. I had a job once that had this task everyone hated and they'd do it and just be sweating. I developed my own way and I'd never break a sweat, but I'd do it just as well as anyone else. I work smarter, not harder anytime I can. I apply that to my writing, too. It's not that I wouldn't like to write faster than I do, but I have reasons I can't, so instead of killing myself I found a way to earn a living writing and releasing every 60-90 days instead of churning. I'd make more if I churned, sure, but I make enough to be satisfied. It works for me.
 
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